When There is No Village

How both mothers and children are often isolated. As an older parent, this has been my experience. From Beth Berry:

Though the expression “It takes a village to raise a child” has become cliché, the impact of our village-less realities is anything but insignificant. It’s wreaking havoc on our quality of life in countless ways.

In the absence of the village…

• Enormous pressure is put on parents as we try to make up for what entire communities used to provide.
• Our priorities become distorted and unclear as we attempt to meet so many conflicting needs at once.
• We feel less safe and more anxious without the known boundaries, expectations and support of a well-known group of people with whom to grow.
• We’re forced to create our tribes during seasons of our life when we have the least time and energy to do so.
• We tend to hold tight to our ideals and parenting paradigms, even when doing so divides us, in an attempt to feel safer and less overwhelmed by so many ways and options.
• Our children’s natural way of being is compromised, as most neighborhoods and communities no longer contain packs of roaming children with whom to explore, create, and nurture their curiosity.
• We run around like crazy trying to make up for the interaction, stimulation and learning opportunities that were once within walking distance. 
• We forget what “normal” looks and feels like, which leaves us feeling as if we’re not doing enough, or enough of the “right” things.
• Depression and anxiety skyrocket, particularly during seasons of our lives when we instinctively know we need more support than ever but don’t have the energy to find it.
• We feel disempowered by the many responsibilities and pressures we’re trying so hard to keep up with.
• We spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need in an attempt to fill the voids we feel.  
• We rely heavily on social media for a sense of connection, which often leads us to feel even more isolated and inadequate.
• We feel lonely and unseen, even when we’re surrounded by people.
• Our partnerships are heavily burdened by the needs that used to be spread among communities, and our expectations of loved ones increase to unrealistic levels.
• We feel frequently judged and misunderstood.
• We feel guilty for just about everything: not wanting or having time to be our children’s primary playmates, not working enough, working too much, allowing too much screen time in order to keep up with our million perceived responsibilities, etc.  
• Joy, lightness and fun feel hard to access.
• We think we’re supposed to be independent, and feel ashamed of our need for others.
• We make decisions that don’t reflect our values but our deeply unmet needs.

(Read more.)

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Father Pavone Speaks

When it comes to abortion, we Catholics are obligated to vote against the candidate who favors the annihilation of the unborn. That is the issue which takes precedence over all others. Hillary Clinton wants to expand abortion and make all of us pay for it. Catholics who help her get elected by voting for her are placing their souls in danger. Catholics who help her get elected because they do not want to "soil" themselves by voting for Trump must answer to the Almighty God if Hillary is elected. From Life News:

A vote is not a character endorsement or the passing of some kind of virtue test. A vote means that of the current viable options, this is the person most likely to advance the common good. I hope my doctor is virtuous, but when it comes to treating me, whether he has made lewd comments doesn’t enter into the equation. And if an emergency medical technician is saving my life or that of a loved one, I really couldn’t care less, in the midst of that emergency, whether he has made lewd comments or committed any  sexual sin. This is an emergency moment for our nation, and there are only two options right now for who will take the helm. Beggars can’t be choosers.(Read more.)

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Online Etiquette

I really dislike being added to Facebook groups without my permission. From Books and Such:

While the convenience is alluring, sending private message requests to other authors, with whom you have no personal connection, asking them to “Like” your author page is poor online etiquette. Authors need to protect their author brand and respect that of other authors. When an author within a group automatically adds the other members to another group, he or she tampers with the fellow members’ brands. This practice puts them in the awkward position of having to delete themselves if the other group doesn’t mesh with their brand. Show respect for each other by obtaining permission from fellow group members first. (Read More.)

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The Youngest Habsburgs

The four youngest children of Emperor Francis Stephen and Empress Maria Theresa: Archduchess Antonia, Archduchess Charlotte, Archduke Maximilian, and Archduke Ferdinand. Share

Trump and the Beauty Queens

What the mainstream media does not report. From LifeZette:

Melissa Young, Miss Wisconsin 2005, who competed in the Miss USA pageant in 2005: 'Trump Gave Me the Best Gift You Can Give a Mother'

Young, who has an eight-year-old son, is dying. She is battling autonomic failure, which leads to the shutdown of the nervous system. Doctors have said her heart resembles that of a 90-year-old. She is fighting for every last day of life; just two days ago, she had a blood clot removed from her chest.

She endorsed Trump for president in April. "He saved me in so many ways and changed my world ... When I leave this world, I won't be here to watch my son grow, but I'll know that he will grow up in a country that is safe," she said back then.

She became ill years after her pageant experience and said Trump frequently came to her aid. On Friday night, she said on "Hannity" on Fox News: "I am fighting for each and every day ... [After] a priest had come and read me my last rites [in the hospital], that day an envelope was delivered to my room. It was a handwritten note from Mr. Trump, that said, 'To the bravest woman I know.' He wanted me to keep fighting. And in that moment ... it sparked something in me. He really sparked such a wonderful [fighting attitude]." (Read more.)

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On the Bible

From Reid's Reader:

About nine years ago, the books-page editor of a Wellington newspaper asked me to do one of those dreadful “round-ups” of a new series of books that were being published. The series was called “Books That Shook the World” [also published as “Books That Changed the World”] and each was intended to be a simple, non-technical account of major books in world history, which had exerted a huge influence on people. Each was written either by a well-known controversialist or (in the case of slightly more unfamiliar titles) by a respected academic. Some of the authors combined both roles.

I was sent the first five titles in the series.

Given that - as is the way with silly “round-ups” - I was allocated all of about 50 words to cover each book, I was sorely tempted to cheat (as most writers of “round-ups” habitually do), read the blurbs, briefly squizz the text, and file my verdict.  Instead, I became absorbed in each book and read them all conscientiously from beginning to end. I noticed that most came in at somewhere between 150 and 200 pages of text, and the tone was pitched at the non-specialist average intelligent layperson.
 

They were a mixed bag. Simon Blackburn’s introduction to Plato’s Republic was highly uncritical and rather soft on Plato’s more exclusivist ideas, but it did the business in setting the book’s cultural and historical context. Bruce Lawrence’s take on The Qur’an inevitably had to explain much arcane material that would be unfamiliar to any non-Muslim. The late weary loudmouth Christopher Hitchens turned his account of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man into a polemic on his favourite themes of secularism and free speech. The worst of the bunch was the journalist Francis Wheen’s glib introduction to Marx’s Das Kapital. Not only was it very brief (about 120 pages) but it fudged much of what could have been said about Marx’s economic theories and (as was the case with Wheen’s earlier biography of Marx) was rather too anxious to separate Marx from the Marxist-Leninism that later develop. (Read more.)

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On the Star Wars Trail in Ireland

From Lonely Planet:

Donegal’s Inishowen Peninsula, home to the most northerly point on the Irish mainland, was thrown into a frenzy when scenes featuring Luke Skywalker, Rey and the Millennium Falcon were shot here in early 2016. Filming centred around a deep chasm known as Hell’s Hole, which has been carved into the rock over millions of years by the fierce Atlantic, which roars below.

Hell’s Hole can be reached along a well-marked path that skirts the headland from Banba’s Crown, at the the tip of Malin Head. It was from Banba’s Crown (named after a mythical Irish queen) in a British Admiralty tower built during the Napoleonic Wars that the Marconi Company sent the first commercial message by wireless. From this windy perch you can look out towards Inishtrahull Island and, on a good day, Scotland.

Afterwards, warm yourself in the confines of Farren’s Bar, Ireland’s most northerly pub, just 2km from Banba’s Crown in Slievebawn. It’s hard to miss — there’s not much else around here, plus it has a giant mural of Yoda painted outside. Inside, you’ll receive a warm welcome and no shortage of anecdotes about the time Mark Hamill came in.

Ireland’s penchant for storytelling can be experienced at Malin Well, a natural spring said to cure many diseases, a short walk from Farren’s. The nearby Wee House of Malin is a little cave, supposedly once inhabited by a hermit, where legend states that no matter how many people enter there is always room for one more.

A 15-minute drive from Malin Well will bring you to Five Fingers Strand, one of Donegal’s world-class sandy beaches, which is seldom (if ever) busy and a popular stop-off point for visitors on their way to and from the top of Malin Head. (Read more.)

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"Hillary Clinton Took Me Through Hell"

What shocks me is how many Catholics continue to support evil, crooked Hillary, either by working against Trump or worse, actively working for the witch herself. From The Daily Beast:

Hillary Clinton is known as a champion of women and girls, but one woman who says she was raped as a 12-year-old in Arkansas doesn’t think Hillary deserves that honor. This woman says Hillary smeared her and used dishonest tactics to successfully get her attacker off with a light sentence—even though, she claims, Clinton knew he was guilty.

The victim in the 1975 sexual abuse case that became Clinton’s first criminal defense case as a 27-year-old lawyer has only spoken to the media once since her attack, a contested, short interaction with a reporter in 2008, during Clinton’s last presidential campaign run. Now 52, she wants to speak out after hearing Clinton talk about her case on newly discovered audio recordings from the 1980s, unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon and made public this week.

In a long, emotional interview with The Daily Beast, she accused Clinton of intentionally lying about her in court documents, going to extraordinary lengths to discredit evidence of the rape, and later callously acknowledging and laughing about her attackers’ guilt on the recordings.

“Hillary Clinton took me through Hell,” the victim said. The Daily Beast agreed to withhold her name out of concern for her privacy as a victim of sexual assault. The victim said if she saw Clinton today, she would call her out for what she sees as the hypocrisy of Clinton’s current campaign to fight for women’s rights compared to her actions regarding this rape case so long ago.

“I would say [to Clinton], ‘You took a case of mine in ’75, you lied on me… I realize the truth now, the heart of what you’ve done to me. And you are supposed to be for women? You call that [being] for women, what you done to me? And I hear you on tape laughing.”

The victim’s allegation that Clinton smeared her following her rape is based on a May 1975 court affidavit written by Clinton on behalf of Thomas Alfred Taylor, one of the two alleged attackers, whom Clinton agreed to defend after being asked by the prosecutor. Taylor had specifically requested a female attorney.

“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Clinton, then named Hillary D. Rodham, wrote in the affidavit. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”

Clinton also wrote that a child psychologist told her that children in early adolescence “tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences,” especially when they come from “disorganized families, such as the complainant.” (Read more.)

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Organizational Tips for Homeschoolers

From Seton Magazine:

Our family has worked hard de-cluttering and organizing during the summer, but we have learned that simplifying is a constant work in progress, and can never be really accomplished in one fell swoop. Although the task of simplifying can be a life-time project, there are little things we can do in our homes so things don’t pile up during the year and distract us from our homeschooling journey. So I’ve created a list of organizational hacks that have worked in our Little Home in the Hills and would love to share them with all our homeschooling families:

1. School Boxes For Each Child

School boxes are a hit in our home. It is the perfect place to put each child’s school books, papers, supplies or any supplemental books they want to read during the school year. (Read more.)

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