Happy St. Valentine's Day

Today while grocery shopping, I ran into my Bishop, and was reminded that love takes many forms. He was slightly surprised but pleased when I wished him a happy St. Valentine's Day, for the love of a priest for his Church is certainly something that should be commended. It also reminded me that romantic love, while it can be wonderful, is a penultimate love. A love for God is the ultimate one.

I also got St. Valentine's Day messages from my family. Today, whether single, in a relationship, or married, I encourage you to remember the different sorts of love in your life, not just the romance of pair bonding.

And now a cartoon via Orthogals

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Super Bowl and Other Things

Hello everyone,

I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog, but I'm back and writing this blog in between Super Bowl commercials. (Hey, I'm in flyover country... I have no dog in this game. Alabama's loss to Ohio State was enough heartbreak for this football season.)

First, my cat can be a jerk. Oh, he looks super beautiful when he poses, and has innocent blue eyes, but don't be fooled. Here's a pic of what he did with the anchovy filet he BEGGED from me.

Dragged from the plate to the carpet, then LEFT.

There's a group of people that are putting others in danger of more than stepping in anchovy, and that is the anti-vaxxer movement. The misinformation and outright lies are a serious public health issue. Rational Catholic has done a wonderful job of taking down the arguments, as well as illustrating the proper role skepticism should play in our lives. From the blog:

Catholics should be particularly receptive to the fact that even if an idea were popular, that does not make it right. Smoking tobacco was popular, even among physicians, in the past. Yet, an increasing body of scientific evidence revealed its associations with health maladies prior to the 1930s. Still, it took decades to shift popular perceptions about the risks of cigarette smoking, and, to this day, you will find smokers downplaying the seriousness of the risks. As for measles, Dr. J. Mayer notes this very point in his address to the State Society of California:

It is hard to combat the old notion that measles is something akin to a common cold with a rash…. The truth is that we, ourselves, too often encourage indifference by some such remarks as “It is only measles.”…
In conclusion, perhaps I can do no better than quote, with due acknowledgment to ‘Twentieith Century Practice of Medicine,’ some extracts from a pamphlet which, during an epidemic of measles in Glasgow, was distributed to the people by the health authorities:
‘Measles is a dangerous disease—one of the most dangerous with which a child under five years of age can be attacked….It is therefore a great mistake to look upon measles as a trifling disease.’

Mayer said this in 1904. Even at the beginning of the last century—decades prior to a vaccine— the medical community was trying to combat a nonchalant approach to measles. Those who made light of measles back in the “good old days” were wrong, even according to their contemporaries.

Read the whole article, it is well worth it.