The Suddenness of Sorrow

If anybody noticed that I haven't blogged much in the past 4 days, it's because my brother's oldest son, 28, was killed in a snowmobile accident. Pain like that tends to make the larger issues of the world seem less urgent. We went to the funeral and give what aid and comfort we could. It never feels like you can do anything, except provide a surrounding in which grief can be expressed without apprehension.

This young man was on the cusp of his adult life, just finished with college, planning marriage and then plucked away suddenly without warning. This is the kind of thing you fear and worry about when young men go to war, or take up dangerous sports, but one doesn't usually think of snowmobiling as risky behavior. When one considers the vast amount of sorrow and searing pain in the world, it's a wonder any of us can smile and laugh. That ability to find joy despite such events may be God's greatest gift to us.

We've had four funerals and a wedding in the past 18 months, and seen sorrow and joy in a variety of settings. It's at times like this that I find solace in the promise, "For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." It's one of the reasons I believe in a personal Father in Heaven--I can't imagine a deity without body, parts or passions hearing prayers, sharing sorrows or having sympathy for our troubles. Anything else would feel like I was praying to the weather. I don't think that everything that happens has been decreed from the start, but I do take comfort in knowing that God has not allowed anything that we can't deal with through faith and hope.

Get ready for a new form factor

Here's an interesting development. I wonder how they'll deal with cooling all these chips.

Why Republicans will continue to win

The Democrats haven't figured out that they sound like their own stereotypes of the right.

Why I don't watch the Oscars

Lashawn Barber comments on Chris Rock's performance. He's certainly no Billy Crystal, who understands the difference between a rib and an insult.

Another reason is the endless and political acceptance speechs. How anybody could watch that show and still think Hollywood is full of smart people, I'll never know.

Testify, Sistah!

Cinnamon Stillwell, a Bay-area writer, has an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, telling her conversion story, how 9/11 made her examine her assumptions. Liberals don't come off too well:

It's not enough to simply disagree with my views; I have to be twisted into a conservative caricature that apparently makes opponents feel superior. They seem not to have considered that it's possible to put forward different approaches to various societal problems and not be the devil incarnate.. . .

The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work, still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own country.

Read the whole thing.

It's the strategy, stupid!

The Captain on the sudden interest in democracy throughout the Middle East and western Asia:

Make no mistake. This transformation didn't just happen to coincide with the terms of Bush, Blair, and Howard. Expect the mainstream media to sell that meme in the next few weeks -- how George Bush, especially, got lucky to just happen to be President when all of this happened. Don't buy it for a second. He saw how to change the world and eliminate terrorism over the long haul and more importantly had the political courage to act in that regard.

Somewhere, Ronald Reagan is smiling.

Update: Here's some evidence that people are noticing it in Europe, too.

He moved there for the waters.

Vladimir Putin seems to think that President Bush runs our media. He is misinformed.

All the hypocrisy that's fit . . .

James Taranto has a devastating round-up of the hypocrisy of the NYTimes and its columnists on the Valerie Plame affair. The Times pushed for a special prosecutor and got one.

Since then, the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has subpoenaed several reporters, two of whom, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time, have refused to testify before a grand jury and are now threatened with jail.

And the Times suddenly notices what lawyer-bloggers have been saying from the beginning, that original leak wasn't even illegal.

There seem to be a lot of naked emperors in the press these days, screaming about the damage this will do to press freedom.

Taranto makes an excellent point: " Such an outcome might have been avoided if journalists--notably including the Times' editorialists and columnists--had treated Wilson's accusations with responsibility and skepticism in the first place."

Maybe this will help them understand Israel

A car bomber exploded himself after driving into a line of 400 police recruits waiting for physicals at a medical center in Hillal, Iraq. 125 dead. 200 injured. These heroes of the new republic deserve to be remembered forever by all Iraqis, while the suicide bomber will be known only to Satan.