One More Reason to Stay in Iraq

An opinion piece in The New York Times (of all places) called A War We Just Might Win. From the article:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.

And

...there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008

While one might site any number of sources to attempt to bolster their own argument, what is particularly interesting about this is it was written by two left-leaning columnists: Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. If nothing else, I appreciate their honesty in reporting what they saw, despite their political leanings

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The Chosen

The second book I chose in my continuing effort to provide my children with A Thomas Jefferson Education was The Chosen by Chaim Potok, which I read with great enthusiasm. This is a wonderful story about two boys who befriend each other despite their clash of cultures.

While I enjoyed the story and the excellent way Potok uses a common baseball game and slight tragedy to quickly engage the reader, what I found most delightful was the relationships that were developed between the Boys and their fathers and the respect - even without a relationship - between the fathers themselves. Also even without the story and relationships, the backdrop of Jewish New York city during and immediately after WWII was a great time to see these young men grow up in and I found that I enjoyed seeing that period of history from a Jewish - actually two completely different Jewish - perspectives. The origin of the Jewish State in Israel was not something I spent a lot of time thinking about, and it made a great backdrop to the climax of The Chosen.

I was introduced to the Jewish sect of Hasidim, and to the importance of the Talmud to Orthodox Jews, and to that I am grateful. As a christian I consider myself a spiritual Jew as God Chose the Jewish people to make His original covenants with. I would like to study Jewish culture and different and opposing sects some more.

If you are considering this book but are not interested in Judaism, please do not let that scare you away. While it is pervasive it is certainly not overpowering nor does it assume any previous religious instruction in either Judaism or otherwise.

Finally this book once again carries a prominent theme of Education. The two main characters Reuven and Danny become great scholars through hard work and dedication. They each know what they want and where their talent lies even though it may be difficult and have some difficult moral questions that appear as roadblocks at times. All the great characters in this book are well educated. And I suppose it would be difficult to have a great character without a similarly great education.

My only complaint, if it can be one, is that the book is too short. I would have welcomed reading even more detail about Reuven and his relationships with Danny and his father. I would have loved to get a better understanding of the motivations for the conflicts developing in Israel at the time. And the end was a little abrupt.

In the end it was a great story that gave the reader much to think about. I recommend that you Get the Book Now.

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Global warming and Hurricanes

As anyone who has not been living in a cave knows there has been much made about global warming and climate change. I tend to be a skeptic at least in regards to the idea that global warming if it indeed exists, is caused by humans. However I remain open to the idea that it is possible that humanity can cause global climate change (what that means exactly and if it is actually a bad thing considering we as humans generally are more prosperous during historical periods of warmer temperatures, is still another debate entirely). What I generally resent is when those who promote the idea that Global warming is happening due to human influences -and that it will be catastrophic beyond all measure- is that they often do so without allowing any room to debate their conclusions and declare the debate 'over' with the same irrational religious fervor that is often unjustly attributed to Christians. Yes for many, Climate Change is their religion.

In order to propagate this new 'religion' Global Warming alarmists will use anything they can get their hands on reinforce their scare tactics. Case in point: When Katrina hit landfall in 2005 there was much talk about how Global Warming causes an increase in violent weather. Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" opens with footage of Katrina. His defence was(emphasis added):

The average hurricane has become significantly stronger because of global warming. What was unusual about Katrina was how strong it was. And after all, the same year Katrina hit, it was far from the only strong hurricane...The sharp increase in Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, according to the scientists, is strongly affected by global warming

Now I am not a climatologist and I don't play one on TV. But what I do know is that truth is not determined my a majority vote, not even a majority vote by climatologists, nor is truth determined by putting it in the title of a movie. And wisdom is not discovered by looking at climate models especially if they are counting on government grants given to them because of a fear (rational or irrational) of climate change. There are people a lot smarter than me who remain skeptical as well, and along with their credentials it is sometimes easy to see the wisdom in their writing and logic in their conclusions.

The Wall Street Journal has this excellent article by William Gray a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University regarding Hurricanes and Global Warming.

Here are some particularly damming points to the assumption that Hurricanes are caused or strengthened by Global Warming:

The hypothesis that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the number of hurricanes fails... ...when we compare two other multi-decade periods: 1925-1965 and 1966-2006. In the 41 years from 1925-1965, there were 39 U.S. land-falling major hurricanes. In the 1966-2006 period there were 22 such storms -- only 56% as many. Even though global mean temperatures have risen by an estimated 0.4 Celsius and CO2 by 20%, the number of major hurricanes hitting the U.S. declined.

My Colorado State University colleagues and I attribute the increase in hurricane activity to the speed-up of water circulating in the Atlantic Ocean. This circulation began to strengthen in 1995 -- at exactly the same time that Atlantic hurricane activity showed a large upswing

Gray goes on to state that this circulation whose strength is unique to the Atlantic Ocean is called thermohaline circulation (THC).

Since 1995, the Atlantic's THC has been significantly stronger than average. It was also stronger than average during the 1940s to early 1960s -- another period with a spike in major hurricane activity. It was distinctly weaker than average in the two quarter-century periods of 1970-1994 and 1900-1925, when there was less hurricane activity.

And here's the money quote (emphasis added)

One reason may be that the advocates of warming tend to be climate modelers with little observational experience. Many of the modelers are not fully aware of how the real atmosphere and ocean function. They rely more on theory than on observation

While this certainly does not prove global warming is a hoax, it goes along way to show the irrationality of many Global Warming advocates. Certainly more needs to be discussed and researched, but it must be done in a reasonable, not fanatical fashion. We must look at this problem (if it is indeed a problem) and understand the cost benefit of the actions we take. In short we need to stop listing to the Al Gores and start looking at it with an open mind so as to discover the truth rather than pretending that you can make truth by declaring it so -- regardless of it's convenience or lack there of.

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Gophers

I woke this morning around 6AM and the power was out. I only knew it was 6 because I keep my watch near my bed. No sense getting up and running if I can't take a shower, so I slept in assuming power would be restored by time I needed to wake up for work around 7AM. No such luck. After I awoke, I figured I'd give the power company a call to see if they had an estimate on when the power might be restored. I informed them of my power outage and to my surprise they were unaware of the problem.

'This is not good' I thought to myself, but they assured me that a crew would be over shortly. They arrived about 30 minutes later (I was impressed with their speed). There was power at the transformer near the street, but none at my house. So they started digging.

I took a shower at my neighbors (which is my fathers house, yes it was convenient - at least as convenient as it could be without power at my own). Having a personal well rather than getting water from the city municipality means that without power you don't have any water either, or at least not very much. Then my 5 year old Drew, figured that that was the perfect time to get sick, and proceeded to get sick on our staircase and foyer floor. No electricity, no water and a mess to clean up does not make my fetching wife happy (or me for that matter). After another trip to my neighbors to acquire some water which witch to clean, the whole matter was under control as long as we could keep the refrigerator door closed until the power was restored. And it was restored around 9AM.

The electric guys said that the power loss was a result of an inquisitive and persistent gopher who had chewed threw 4" of gopher resistant covering.

I knew I hated those things, at least I will never be bothered again by that particular gopher. Also it may be time to think about getting a generator. At least one that can run the well and water heater.

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Are Protestants Damned?

Recently the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) released a document entitled "Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church". And even more recently it has come to my great surprise that there is actually some controversy surrounding it. I read with amazement this post on the Insight Scoop Blog outlining some of the misconceptions about it. Apparently there are people out there who believe that the document says that only Catholics can go to heaven. This is a tired misconception, however I feel I must respond lest there be a stone left unturned.

First off, the idea that Benedict would approve of such a statement damning all non-Catholics is simply preposterous. I was speaking to my wife about this idea and she was right to point out that Catholics recognize any baptism that uses the tridentine Trinitarian formula ("In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit") as valid - even if it is performed by a non-christian! Since baptism is the initiation into the Kingdom the idea that the church is damning the baptized is again preposterous. Now lets look at what the document actually does say regarding salvation of non-Catholics (emphasis added):

[quoting from Unitatis Redintegratio] It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church

See now, the document actually says the exact opposite of the hysteria regarding the salvation of non-catholics.

Secondly, when in doubt always look to the Catechism. Without even reading the document one should know that the CDF would not contradict what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states regarding the catholic Dogma: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus ("Outside the Church there is no salvation") CCC 846-847:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation

Thirdly, oddly enough there is nothing new in the document to speak of. I concur with Edward Peters' confusion about why it was released in the first place. Mostly the document attempts to clarify things written about in the other documents such as Lumen Gentium. (which was one of the two Dogmatic Constitutions released during Vatican II.) But does not advance any theology beyond what has already been understood.

Lastly, The document references Dominus Iesus in explaining why protestant christian communities are not properly called 'Churches'. Beyond what the document already says regarding that issue I would like to point out that the Catholic church distinguishes itself as the One True Church from other 'ecclesial communities' -as they are called (and have been called for some time, again there is nothing new here). There being only one Church, despite other communities possessing elements of truth, there cannot logically be another Church. Some of this is semantics because it comes out of a difference of what Protestantism and catholics mean when they say 'Church.' Although most protestants would agree that there is only one Church, it has generally been explained to me that their understanding is that that Church is a 'Church of spirit' if you will, and does not consist of any organized or visible unity. Therefore they are comfortable in saying that any ecclesial community is a Church (or more properly part of The Church), while Catholicism teaches (in brief) that the oneness of the Church must be more than a vague notion, it must be a "visible and spiritual community" that necessarily has these features: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Only the Catholic Church can claim all these qualities and therefore rightly lays claim to the title of The Church.

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Pimp my Ride

When I started taking up this triathlon thing earlier this year I was smart enough to know that I would actually need a bike. 'What's a bike cost?' I thought $200? $300? I'll just go down to the local bike shop and see what I need to do. Now you may laugh (as I'm sure the proprietor of the store was, at least to himself) but I found that 'Road' bikes start around $700 and go up to, well they'll go as high as you want to pay for one. I'm sure that there are a number of racers out there who have bikes that cost more than your typical Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. In any case, being new to the sport and not knowing if I was going to pursue it very long (and knowing that neither my wife or I had a bike that was worth its weight in scrap metal), I went the practical (and more cost efficient) route. The result is the bike pictured here made by Giant. It is what they call a Hybrid, sort of a cross between a road bike and a Mountain bike. It is a bike that both my Wife and I can ride and if in the future (that would be the very distant future) I decide to get a 'real' road bike, this one will still be put to good use.

After riding this bike for a while (I've got about 250 miles on it now) it became apparent that sitting in the standard position while cruising along at 16-25+mph for any length of time was very uncomfortable not to mention un-aerodynamic. So, I decided I needed to get a set of Aerobars. Aerobars, I discovered as I brought my bike into the local bike shop again, also could be very expensive (you could spend as much as I did for my bike for a pair). So I said in my frugalness, "I'll take the cheapest pair you got"

The aerobars were installed (pictured here) and after making some adjustments to the handle bars and the seat, so that I could use the aerobars easily, I went out for my first ride with them. I was quite amazed how much better the ride went. It was a little 8 mile jaunt, but I cruised through it and even though it was quite windy out (which would have normally slowed me down to a crawl) I was still able to maintain a decent speed and easily made my best time on that route.

And while I am on it, my knee felt good during the ride as well. I could tell that I need to do a little more rehab work on it as the knee cap clicked a little (something that happened after the surgery and went away as I strengthen it), but I am making good progress on my mystery injury and hope to start running again this weekend.

One more picture just because Belle and Zach didn't want to be left out:

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Listen to the Generals

The Democrats in Congress are currently doing everything possible in their power to undermine our war effort in Iraq while claiming to have the moral high ground because they are doing - as Majority Leader Harry Ried is fond of saying - "the will of the people". While I cannot and would not try to mitigate the large body of evidence indicating that there is a massive and growing portion of the country who now favor ending the current War in Iraq (nor would I generally want to suppress the will of the people), it is incumbent upon our political leaders to not only listen to their electorate -and indeed to all who are effected by their policy decisions- but at times to also stand up and actually be the statesmen that they pretend to be. This is especially true at such times when either the people have a misunderstanding or are just plain wrong. It is in those cases that a good leader will, rather than be blown with the political winds, make an argument and attempt convince the people of what the right course of action is despite any perceived political consequences. This incidentally is exactly what Joe Lieberman has done and despite the fact that I disagree with the man on almost every issue, I have the utmost respect for the true Statesman that he is.

The fact is that the people of this country do want the war to be over because they are weary and because they see no signs of improvement nor any hope for success. They have not thought (at least not in any great detail) about the consequences of leaving nor do they see any prospect for any of this changing except in the number of the troop body count reported each evening on the news.

I am therefore ashamed of our Democrat leaders in the US Congress who despite a recent course change in Iraq, continue bullheadedly to try to arrange an immediate troop withdrawal - that is to say surrender - without either understanding the consequences of said withdrawal or listening to what General Petraeus (who took over command of our forces in Iraq in February) has to say about what our prospects are of actually winning the war. They do this because either it is the easier thing to do (as it is easier to agree with someone than it is to convince them of something) or because it is the most politically advantageous thing to do(although I suspect the latter). Neither of which are marks of Statesmanship. And while I generally refrain from assuming that someone is not acting on the best of intentions, in this case I must present the following evidence that our Democrat leaders are acing on one of the two aforementioned reasons in these words of General Petraeus himself during an Interview with Hugh Hewitt:

The Surge has not been given time to achieve it's goals:

[The Troop Surge has been going] about a month now , Hugh. We received the final Army brigade, the Marine expeditionary unit, and the combat aviation brigade in June, and they all went into operation about the mid part of last month. So it’s about a month that they’ve all been on the ground, and all of our forces have been engaged in what is a pretty comprehensive offensive operation in just about all of the belts and Baghdad, as they’re called, and then in also several neighborhoods in Baghdad that are of particular concern because of the activities in those neighborhoods of al Qaeda, or in some cases, of militia extremist elements.

General Petraeus will be giving a report to congress in at which time it may then be appropriate to draw conclusions about our current strategy:

I have always said that we will have a sense by that time [September] of basically, of how things are going, have we been able to achieve progress on the ground, where have their been shortfalls, and so forth. And I think that is a reasonable amount of time to have had all the forces on the ground, again, for about three months, to have that kind of sense.

Even if neither of the above were true we have a responsibility to the people of Iraq:

I think just first of all, we have an enormous responsibility, because of course, we did liberate this country. And so right off the bat, a lot of us feel, certainly, that degree of responsibility.

If you want to know what is going on in Iraq and what responsibilities we have there so that you can have some semblance of what we actually should be doing, you absolutely must do more than simply read the opinion polls and listen to the evening news. You have to listen to our Generals about what is being done, how it's going, and candidly contemplate the consequences of failure. It is not enough to simply shroud yourself in "The Will of the People".

So Read the whole Interview if you really want an understanding of the war other than the main stream news headlines

Read more commentary by Hugh Hewitt

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Amazon.com links

Just an FYI (and in case you were wondering). I have signed up with Amazon.com's affiliate program. What that means is if you click on any of the links to Amazon from my blog, I get a (small) percentage of your purchase. So if you are inclined to get one of the books I am reviewing here, I would appreciate it you used my links to get there.

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At Least There's Cross Training

As I posted earlier, I did something nasty to my left knee over the weekend. It has been swollen and stiff most of the all week. (In case you were wondering this is the same knee I had ACL reconstructive surgery on in 2003, but I have had no issues with it since) My evenings have seen me propped on the couch with an ice bag over it trying to reduce the swelling. Biking in this condition would be problematic and running is right out, however I managed to make it to the YMCA last night and I put in a good 1800 yards without issue. That's one great thing about moving from strictly running to triathlons, in the past I would have simply stopped all training, now I should have a sport I can do even if I have an injury or otherwise need to put one sport on hold.

This morning I can tell that the knee is improving and I may be able to bike this weekend, but I will not run until I have confident that my knee will be able to withstand the pounding. I will need my knee not only for the Detroit Lakes Tri, but my sisters and I are in the Lottery for the Twin Cities 10 Mile run on Oct 7th. We will find out tomorrow if we were selected.

Update: It looks like my sisters and I are in the TC10! 11 weeks left to train.

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The God Blogs

Are you looking for a good God blog? The Evangelical Outpost has put together a list of the Top 100 God Blogs

Jimmy Akin is not in the top 20 so you know the list has issues, but there is a lot of good stuff there if you are bored.

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The Lonesome Gods

The Lonesome Godsby Louis L'Amour was my first foray into a Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) of which I blogged about earlier. First of all I must confess, I almost never read fiction any more. I have found that what little reading I do, I would rather learn something then be told a good story (especially when good stories are hard to come by). However after reading a TJEd I am starting to see the value fiction can have if it is done well. I only state this because I like to give anyone who happens upon this full disclosure of where I am coming from before they read my review. Also, I will not put any spoilers into my reviews.

Let me state for the record that I very much enjoyed reading this book. There is a lot of majesty that the author has regarding the desert and the old west and it comes ringing through the pages of the book. I also became very attached to the main character Johannes Verne who's life we get to follow from age six to about 18 or 20. There were several wonderful characters in the book all of which I thought were beautifully portrayed although they did seem a bit 'larger than life' at times.

I was encouraged with several wonderful life lessons scattered throughout the book like this one:

"Is something wrong?"
"It is never easy to realize you have been a fool," I said.
"If you have done something foolish and realize it, then you are not quite the fool you were" (P 317)

and this:

"You are a hero!"Miss Nesselrode said positively.
Papa smiled at her."It is an empty word out here, ma'am. It is a word for writers and sitters by the fire. Out here a man does what the situation demands. Out on the frontier we do not have heroes, only people doing what is necessary at the time. " (P 30)

Johannes is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating his position and life, how many of us do the same? We see how he becomes a man and an excellent one through his self-education using the classics (although that point was more implicit than explicit) and his constant self-evaluation and his refusal to be mastered by fear.

Now all of that I enjoyed however I must critique the book as well. I found that although the climax buildup was riveting (and there were several hours of reading where I could not put the book down), the ending was somewhat disappointing as the author felt the need to tie absolutely every aspect of the book into a neat little bow. He brought virtually every character we ever met (or heard of) back into the ending of the book. I found that highly improbable and a little annoying. It seemed to me to be too much like the ending of a Seinfeld episode where all the story lines tend to converge at the end. (Not that I'm comparing the story to a Seinfeld story) Others may think it's clever, I find it improbable.

I also struggled early in the book as the six year old Johannes acted much closer to 17 than any child I had ever met, but I took that with a grain of salt as maybe six-year-olds of the time (and this one more than even those) were apt to be more mature then the ones I have taught on the soccer field. Still I found that difficult to believe

The characters all tended to be black or white. The Bad guys were too bad and the Good guys were too good. There were very few moral struggles and what few ones there were were over with quickly.

Lastly the book kept switching between 1st and 3rd person. Now I know I am being picky, but that started bugging me too. I'm no author but I always thought that was taboo.

All in all this was a good book, I'm happy to have read it, and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good moral and uplifting story with characters they can get into. You will not be disappointed until you read the last words and realize that you cannot read any more about your new friend Johannes Verne.

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Scaling the Secular City

What a breath of fresh air Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianityby J.P. Moreland was to read while living in our 'God is Dead' culture. I generally feel comfortable while defending Catholicism to my protestant brothers and sisters, but always felt just a little inadequate when discussing God with agnostics or atheists. This book is a good foray into defending Christianity as a logical conclusion in our hyper-scienced culture.

As someone with a Math background I especially liked his appeal to the Kalam argument for the existence of god and the use of a mathematical understanding of infinity to argue the the universe must have a beginning. (Please don't shy away from this book if you don't have an aptitude in math, this is the only area in the book that deals with it and he explains it well enough, it just may seem odd to think that it is possible to have one infinite list larger or smaller than another infinite list. I assure you it is true or much of mathematics is wrong)

Moreland covers a lot of distance in this relatively short book including (but not limited to) Evolution, Physicalism (only mater exists), The Historicity of the Gospels, The Resurrection of Jesus and Morality. His logic throughout the book is impeccable and you may often be amazed of how the logic of most atheistic arguments lead one in a direction you (and most times the atheist themselves) do not want to go. The depth which each topic is covered is sufficient and well footnoted, some of which I will plan to read to dive into some topics with more depth than was covered here.

I only took one issue with Moreland when he used Jesus' brothers and sisters to make an argument. I understand that Moreland is not Catholic, but He must know that this would not sit well with us (as Mary's Perpetual virginity is Catholic Dogma) and he really didn't need to have it in there to make his argument, so I was saddened he felt it necessary to include it.

That small point aside this was a great book that would leave any skeptic questioning their beliefs (or lack there of). His chapter 'Science and Christianity' in which he explores the tension between the two, their proper balance, the limits of both and why we should actually put less faith in science than we do (again using inescapable logic), was a particularly good one. A point I will be sure to take with me: Consider this statement, "only what can be known by science or quantified and empirically tested is rational and true" (p.197) While I believe that much of our culture currently believes this statement as an unquestionable fact upon which their entire lives are based (whether consciously or unconsciously), Moreland exposes this as a logical fallacy by explaining that the statement itself cannot be known by science or empirically tested. Therefore the statement is not true by it's own standards. That is the type of clear reasoning you can expect from this well written book.

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Outch

I did something to my left knee Saturday and Sunday it was swollen all day. I am not exactly sure what it was but I spend a good deal of Sunday evening icing it and today (Monday) it is still quite swollen and stiff. Although Saturday was a busy day, the only workout I did was a 6 mile run and I don't recall any pain during the run.

So for now I will lay off the knee, and am probably relegated to swimming until it feels up to par again. I wish that I at least knew what I did to it. It's one thing to know what you did to cause an injury so you can realize what foolish thing you did and avoid it in the future. Not knowing just leaves you frustrated, but I'm sure I will be better in a day or so.

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Motu Proprio!

Brush up on your Latin! Pope Benedict XVI (B16) recently released a Motu Proprio (which means by the popes "own initiative") called 'Summorum Pontificum'

What it essentially does is allow older Tridentine mass to be said without a Bishops approval or upon the request of the faithful. The replacement of the Tridentine mass after Vatican II caused a bit of a stir because it was much beloved by many of the faithful and has caused a split within the church; some of whom have created schisms such as as the Setavacanists and the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)

Now B16, wished to close this schism (esp with SSPX) as his predecessor Pope John Paul the Great did and I hope that this new loosening on the Tridentine mass helps accomplish that. However, as I look to the past I find that most schisms are not mended under any circumstances. This leads me to believe that those people who lead schisms tend to care less about the reasons for the schism in the first place and care more about their leadership position in the new movement. If they would reunite with the church their power would be lessened and therefore will always find a new excuse to maintain their schismatic attitude rather than to reunite with the Church. (NOTE: Just after writing this I found a press release regarding the Summorum Pontificum by SSPX here. It appears that my hunch was right after all)

While Society of St. Pius the X may never officially rejoin the church, I do believe this will help many of its members to come back home and eventually the groups leaders will either die off or become irrelevant. (That may sound flippant, but the movement is starting to be aged and everyone will die at some point, that's just the facts ma'am.)

In any case we are left with the gift of having more opportunities to celebrate the mass under it's more traditional Tridentine form, and although I have not had the opportunity to do so yet, I hope to attend a Tridentine mass in the near future as I hear they are quite lovely. I enjoy discovering how diverse our church is. I will never forget the first time I attended a Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy. It was amazing.

One thing to take note: I already said you should brush up on your Latin, but the Motu Proprio also allows the Tridentine mass to be said in the vernacular I have been mistaken on this point. Upon a more careful reading of the document, It is only the Readings that may be said in the Vernacular (That's whatever language is spoken by the people) as long as the translation has been approved by the Apostolic see (i.e. The Vatican).

If you want a full analysis of the text you must read the Commentary on Summorum Pontificum by Jimmy Akin. he does a great job and in fact you should probably be reading his blog JimmyAkin.Org on a regular basis. I already do.

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Andover 5k Race Report

There is nothing that will suck the energy out of you during a run more than the blazing heat of the unimpeded sun beating down upon you. It would have been better if I had been out all night drinking than to have this race done on the hottest day of the year. Even at the race start at 8:30am it must have been well over 80F. Beyond that I wasn't feeling 100% and it turns out I was coming down with some stomach bug thingy (that I am only now a few days later mostly over)

OK those are the things I couldn't control, now on to the things that I can (but didn't do a very good job of in any case). We were on our way to the race and Ally and Andrew were about to run in the 'kids run' that starts 1/2 and hour earlier and I was giving them some advice, "Don't start too fast" I explained, make sure you start easy and then you will be passing people in the end. Ally did a great job and was passing kids as she bounded across the 1/2 mile finish line . Andrew just chugged the 1/4 mile of his race (they had two age groups and distances) and I think he finished in the top 3-4. They both did great.

So did I take my own advice, even knowing that it was blazing hot out? Of course not. I started with my sister Beth and I 'thought' I would take it easy and run with her, but by the 1/2 mile mark I had already left her in the dust and as I approached the 1st mile marker, my watch read 7:27 and I knew I had failed miserably to follow my own advice. My problem is that I just don't respect the 5k distance. It really isn't far and I figure I can just push through any pain I might have (and to some respect I generally can), but with the stomach and heat the way they were, that wasn't happening today.

I knew I was in trouble so I needed to slow it way down. My next mile came in at 8:02. Yep, way slower, now if I can just bring it on home and live for another day. I still didn't have much left and as people started passing me. In the end my only thought was, 'I hope I had put enough distance between me and my sister so she doesn't pass me in the last step' (which she has done to me in a different race), but I was only really demoralized when I was passed by a guy pushing a stroller and his (I assume) wife. DOH! Last 1.1 miles pace: 8:15. Yep slower still...

Final official time: 24:34 Slower than I ran the 3 miles my my last Triathlon. Not exactly my day. My sister came in at 26:28 and I think we were both just glad it was over with. Maybe next year I'll try harder to get into the top 3 in my division (30-39) in this race. I like doing it because it is small and if I really applied myself I know I could do it again.

On a positive note the kids took a turn climbing the wall there for Andover days, Here's Ally, she managed to do it twice:

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The Dells Vacation

Our Wisconsin Dells vacation was a resounding success! My wife's side of the family had a presidential suite at a resort called The Wilderness that bids itself as 'Americas largest waterpark resort' and I would not doubt the claim! Our condo consisted of 4 bedrooms 2 king size bed's and 4 full size beds in which we slept 8 adults and 7 kids very comfortably. It also had a large living room with a huge flat screen TV kitchen and dining area as well as washer and driers in the room. The large deck was great for a late night cigar or pipe tobacco and a beer.

We had little need to leave the resort area as there were 7 different waterparks to keep us occupied. On the second day there we discovered The Hurricane (pictured above) which we could not get enough of. Zach and Ally loved this ride however Andrew was not quite tall enough for this monster, but there were plenty of other slides (both indoors and out) that he could scream about! We discovered that if we put more weight on a tube (up to 4 people) we could get quite a bit higher and further challenged ourselves to touch the piping half way up the tubing. While we were unsuccessful in the endeavour, there was a whole lot of humor in trying and no one even fell off the tube (amazingly enough)

Beyond the water, water and more water there were arcade rooms and an indoor playground. One of the few trips off the resort was to visit Pirates Cove for some mini-golf. The kids enjoyed golf (even little belle who always over shot the hole -- the one on the far left in the picture) although it was a hot day to be out in the sun.

It looks like our pirate was glad we were there too.

We happened to be there on the 4th and our Resort's fireworks were set off right out our 4th floor balcony. You could almost reach out and touch them. Now watching fireworks from your balcony is the epitome of convenience, espically when you have 5 kids that are exausted from running around waterparks in the sun all day long! We never had a problem putting them to bed an night. And we never even made it to see the actual 'Dells'. Those Duck tours were quite expensive and our 4 night stay just did not give us enough time to do everything. I do want to at least take one tour of what made the area so popular to begin with at some time.

Four of us adults (not my fetching wife however) decided to take an evening away from the kids and take a leap at bungee Jumping! This was absolutely the most thrilling (for lack of a better term) and insane thing I have ever done. it is completely indescribable. It seems (or has always seemed to me) a bit innocuous, but I am here to tell you it is not. There is nothing like standing 130' up staring down knowing you are about to fall off this perfectly good 'cage'. To the left is a picture from the actual cage which I jumped out of (but that is obviously not me and I did not go 'backwards' -- one thing at a time!)

There is a video of my jump and I'll post it if I can get it into the right format. You may be able to see the fear in my eyes as the cage reaches its zenith and I realize what I am about to do.

Here's a picture I took of the 'bungiee tower' just after the jump (yes it really is that high):

A special thanks to the Landrys who's time share paid for just about everying on the trip. The kids and all of us had a great time!

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