A LOOK INSIDE THE WUGGLY-UMP: What goes on, in my mind?

1) Scariness: I just made up yet another reading list, meaning that I’m covered through June 1, 2004. No kidding. Obsess much? Funniest juxtapositions: in Fall ’02 reading list, the Euthyphro followed by Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter; Spring ’04: Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, followed by Portnoy’s Complaint.

Will I actually read all these books? Uh, probably not. But hey, list-making is an end in itself.

Number of books on the reading lists that are there because I read about them on blogs: 4.

2) If you are getting some weird blog in oh, say, Portuguese, when you try to reach my site, worry not. I’m still here. Apparently every now and then Blogspot has one over the eight, or something, and muddles up its pages. Click “refresh” until you find me–I’m in there. I’ve had to cycle through three or four random blogs before hitting the one whose URL I typed in.

3) If for some reason you read my site and not InstaPundit: There are thought-provoking posts re Central Park Jogger here and here and here. (Re the last link: I think videotaping confessions is terrific , but I thought the alleged “wilding” teens’ confessions had been videotaped…? EDITED TO ADD: Oh, apparently only part of the confessions were videotaped–sorry.)

4) The Old Oligarch has a worthwhile rant about the “I prefer to think of it as…” school of touchy-feely. Good stuff about 9/11 and liberal education. I wonder how much of this mentality is behind the infuriating euphemisms that haunt, for example, the homilies at my church. “The events of a year ago”–no, hello, the terrorist attacks of a year ago. “The tragedies of a year ago” is better, but again, “attacks” is more specific and tells us why these particular tragedies have carried so much national emotional weight. I heard one homily that kept telling us to love “even our evil neighbors,” clearly, in context, a reference to Al Qaeda–so why not leave the realm of pablum and fuzziness and actually challenge us to love those who attack us? Why not actually say the words, “Al Qaeda,” or “terrorists,” since we know that’s what you’re talking about? It makes the euphemizer seem like he’s trying to pull a fast one on us, or as if he’s scared of what would happen if he was up-front about what he really thought we, as Christians, need to do right now. Similarly, “the events taking place in our church” or some such circumlocution, when what you mean is “sexually abusive priests and higher-up clergy who covered up for them.” Say what you really mean, people–we can take it.

5) “The Infinite Matrix, a journal for those who love science fiction as a literature of ideas.” Link via Amygdala.