Ich bin ein Liebster!

I would like to thank Mike Shaw over at his blog My Life and Such for nominating/granting me this award.This is really nice, especially for a blog that I do not update as much as I could or should. Again, I will try and do my best to update more. Thank you Mike! [N.B. I also stole borrowed this intro from your post on the subject].

What is the Liebster Award and how do you get one? The Liebster Award was started some time ago by a German blogger who wanted to assist others in finding great but, under-subscribed to blogs. The “award” nomination is granted from one blogger to another and is considered as “awarded” when the nominated blog completes a certain set of requirements.

The current requirements have evolved over time and are as follows:

• Post the Liebster award graphic on your site. (Google to find it if needed)
• Thank the blogger who nominated the blog for a Liebster Award and link back to their blog.
• The blogger then writes 11 facts about themselves so people who discover their blog through the Liebster post will learn more about them.
• In addition to posting 11 fun facts about themselves, nominated bloggers should also answer the 11 questions from the post of the person who nominated them.
• The nominated blogger will in turn, nominate 9 other blogs with 200 or less followers (We’re guessing for our nominees) for a Liebster award by posting a comment on their blog and linking back to the Liebster post.
• The nominated blogger will create 11 questions for their nominated blogs to answer in their Liebster post.

That’s It! Essentially, The Liebster Award is a way to connect smaller blogs to one another. It promotes the discovery of new blogs and also helps to increase traffic through link exchanges. While not an “award” in the traditional sense of the word, it is a great way to build up communities and to help other small bloggers to get discovered.

11 Unique Things about me and my family:

1. My whole family swims like fishes except me, who paddles along.
2. I make telescopes for fun.
3. I brew my own beer.
4. I like photography and I have a theory that people who make telescopes also brew beer and like photography - at least all the ones I know do.
5. I am a good baker.
6. This whole blog, and some key points of my faith journey, were inspired by atheists. Thanks guys!
7. I have only sons because, as a friend put it: "men make men."
8. I will never be bored. There are so many things I wish I had time to do (blogging is one of them).
9. A priest once said a requiem mass for my mother by mistake.
10. My kids will eat almost anything (yes, even veggies).
11. My oldest son is currently living in Italy.

11 8 questions for Mike's blog (apparently Mike Shaw can't count):

1. What one thing that makes you most proud with your children (you can list one thing collectively or individually. If you do not have children, then what makes your parents proud about you?)
Well, since I can list individually I get three things, and since I can list collectively I can apply the three to all three sons. I am most proud of their intelligence, compassion, and faith.


2. What are your two most favorite books?
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle has to be the best SF book I've ever read. Just read it. The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh was a book I picked somewhat arbitrarily for a school assignment. Turned out to be a great pick. I read each of these books over a weekend once I started - I literally didn't want to stop. Cheaper by the Dozen is a very, very close third.


3. What is your favorite movie? Why? 
Silverado. Written and directed by the Kasdans, who did movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The cast is awesome (Kevin Klein, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Linda Hunt, Jeff Goldblum and more), the cinematography is awesome, and, well, it's awesome. Go see it! [N.B. The Princess Bride is #2 - sorry guys]


4. What is your most favorite place you have visited?
This one's hard. I'd have to say The Grand Canyon. I've been there several times, and with my whole family, so it gets props for most memories.


5. Do you have pets? If so, what are their names and what are they?
We had fish, but they went to that great tank in the sky.


6. What is your favorite? Movie, book, stage, TV. Please explain.
Books. They have all the advantages of the other media, but you can read them almost anywhere and when ever you want, and they cost less.


7. Favorite adult beverage? If you do not drink, then what is your favorite beverage? 
Beer, duh!


8. Jock, nerd or something else in high school?
I guess nerd, although I didn't really think in those terms in high school.

Hard to pick just 9. My nominees are (in no particular order):

Sober Catholic
The Refracted Light
Reverend Know-it-all
Laudet Dominum
That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill
Redneck Reflections
Aussie Coffee Shop
Now is the Time
Teaching the Civil War with technology

11 Questions for my nominees:

1. Hardcover, paperback or eBook?
2. You're going on a picnic and you're going to bring ___?
3. What's your favorite prayer and why?
4. What was your worst subject in school?
5. What historical figure would you like to meet (other than Jesus)?
6. What's your favorite food?
7. You started blogging because...
8. Favorite quote?
9. How much wood would a wood chuck chuck?
10. Paper or plastic?
11. Why do you suppose there are 9 nominees and 11 questions instead of, say, 10 and 10?

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It's Catholic Media Promotion Day!

As you may recall on my post for Catholic Media Promotion Day today is the day we are supposed to:

On March 15, 2011, everyone with a blog, podcast, or Facebook page should list their favorite 3 blogs, 3 podcasts, 3 other media, 3 random Catholic things online, and their own projects.

This presents a problem for me, as it is very hard to narrow the list down to three of each, but here goes. One of my goals here is to list things that I really like but that perhaps are not so mainstream as to have everybody list them.

Blogs

1. Redneck Reflections - This guy is the smartest redneck I've ever met. "It's not what you expect. It's what you fear."
2. Darwin Catholic - Is a great blog about science (and Catholicism). I like the tag line "...because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive."
3. Satan's blog - Yes, know thy enemy, by following his blog.

Podcasts

1. Catholic Answers Live - I started listening to this when I had no other podcasts to listen to. I've yet to find an episode where I didn't learn something new and interesting.
2. The Catholic Laboratory - Over 1000 years of Catholic science.
3. The Saintcast - A podcast about Catholic Saints.

Other Media

1. Catholic TV - A new Catholic broadband streamed TV network.
2. Pope2you - Did you know the Vatican has a Youtube Channel?
3. Ignatius Press - Old style printed media. Ignatius press is the official publisher of Pope Benedict, and carries his latest book Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week

Other random Catholic things online

1. The Cukierski Family Apostolate - Purveyors of natural health products and all sorts of unusual Catholic sacramentals.
2. Drawn to Catholicism - Owen Swain is an online friend of mine who has this (almost) daily drawn blog.
3. Catholic Preachy - The brain child of two other online friends of mine - Jerry Kohlbrand and Paul Sofranko.

My projects

1. This blog.

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Catholic Media Promotion Day-March 15, 2011

On March 15, 2011, everyone with a blog, podcast, or Facebook page should list their favorite 3 blogs, 3 podcasts, 3 other media, 3 random Catholic things online, and their own projects.

Then, post the link to your list here on March 15th.

Additionally, to help get the word out, press are asked to write articles and press releases for this day.

Lastly, on March 15th, go to iTunes and leave at least 3 positive written reviews for various Catholic podcasts and 3 positive written reviews for Catholic mobile applications.

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Would I lie to you honey?

I am constantly irritated by the poor quality of journalism. Not being a journalism history buff, I can't say whether this is a new trend, or journalism has always been bad. I suspect the latter. Perhaps the internet has made it worse, since anyone can blog (yeah, I know).

"There are two sides to every argument" says the old saw. Yet, there is such a thing as Truth, and so one side must be wrong. Of course sometimes the Truth is very complex and it may be that neither side captures all the aspects of that Truth, but it should be possible to weed away that which is clearly not true. As the years go by I find myself becoming more critical of what I read. Perhaps that's why journalism seems to me to be getting worse.


Some of the bad journalism is patently obvious. Spelling errors, poor grammar, nonsensical sentences or contradictory statements, vital information left out or not given until far into the article, vague descriptions, all speak of bad journalism. But sometimes it's more subtle than that. Often the author takes a position which is presented as fact and perhaps backed up with statistics and observations that all seem compelling, but are in reality false.

Because I believe the object of reading "news" stories is to gain knowledge, and because I like my knowledge to actually be true, I have decided to write a post or two on critical reading skills. I'll pick an article or two, and then pick it apart. This post is merely an introduction to what may become a "series". I hope you enjoy it.

Roger Bacon, 13th century Franciscan Friar, who was the progenitor of the scientific method in the western world, writes to Pope Clement IV in Opus Majus that the causes of errors can be divided into four categories:

1. following a weak or unreliable authority
2. appealing to custom
3. appealing to the ignorance of others
4. concealing one's own ignorance by pretend knowledge
   

Clearly he wold have a field day on the internet today. Let's take a quick look at examples of each:

Following an unreliable authority
Many "pro choice" people quote to me the numbers given by NARAL of "thousands" of women dying each year from abortion before Roe v. Wade made it legal everywhere. This number was a lie concocted by NARAL's co-founder, Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Nathanson admited the organization lied about the number of women who died from illegal abortions when testifying before the Supreme Court in 1972.

"We spoke of 5,000 - 10,000 deaths a year.... I confess that I knew the figures were totally false ... it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?" he said.

The actual number of women who died from abortion in 1972 (before Roe v. Wade) was 39. That same year 24 women died from legal abortions.

Appealing to custom
The National Abortion Federation in the page History of Abortion says: "Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived."

The implication is obviously that it was legal in every society, which is not true. And even if it were it doesn't make a case for it being legal today. After all, torture has been performed for thousands of years and in every society. It was also legal in te United States from the time for earliest settlers arrived.

Appealing to the ignorance of others
Most of the lies reported today rely on the fact that most readers don't know how to check facts, reason scientifically or have knowledge about numbers or statistics. This is not to say all readers are stupid or even uneducated, but most of us have learned over the years to accept the written word as fact, and not to question statements made that have supposedly undergone review.

This article was the proverbial straw that prompted me to write this post. In "For Cave Women, Farmers had Extra Sex Appeal" the author uses the fact that genetic studies show more males from regions of agricultural development entered the gene pool than from regions where hunting was the primary food source. First off, there is very little in the article to suggest how the study was conducted, but ignoring that, there are other flaws. In an attempt to appear to be objective the author even includes a quote:

"That would be one way to interpret it," says Peter Underhill at Stanford University. But it's not necessarily just sex appeal at work, it "might be in terms of terms of not just physical appearance, but also in terms of ability to provide for offspring."

then continues to assert his interpretation of the "fact" that farming made cavemen sexy. Of course, neither the author nor Mr. Underhill consider alternative theories for more male farmers surviving than male hunters, such as farming being a safer profession than hunting.

Concealing one's own ignorance by pretend knowledge

This is another frequently used tactic to promote falsehood. make up numbers or facts to suit your point of view. An obvious case is the NARAL statistics used earlier in this post (under "unreliable authority") but there are plenty of other examples.

In TIME Magazine, February 26, 1990, the article "A Bitter Pill to Swallow" claims "The proof: about six million unwanted pregnancies occur in the U.S. each year." So let's look at the real statistics for 1990:

The CDC reports in 1990, there were 6.78 million pregnancies in the US. I am unable to find numbers for unwanted pregnancy rates for 1990, but according to this Guttmacher institute report the unintended (not unwanted) pregnancy rate in 1994 was 49%. One must assume that at least some of the women who weren't trying to get pregnant still wanted children, and so the pregnancy, though unintended, was still wanted. So TIME magazine's claim that the 1990 rate for unwanted pregnancies was almost 90% is implausible to the point of absurdity. Numbers made up to support a position.

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Joe McClane Rocks!

Matt Warner at Fallible Blogma is running “Support a Catholic Speaker month". The idea is to get Catholic bloggers to each pick a Catholic speaker and blog about him or her as a way to help us all get to know about the various Catholic resources out there. Well, this blog isn't a “Catholic” blog per se, but it is my blog and I am Catholic which I guess makes me a Catholic blogger, so I decided to throw my hat in. The speaker I am supporting is Joe McClane.

Why did I pick Joe? One of the “rules” was to pick a speaker you weren't familiar with (another way for us all to get to know each other). While I had heard Joe once or twice before on his podcast The Catholic Hack, I was not really familiar with him at all. So I spent the last couple of days listening to The Catholic Hack, and also his other podcast Behold the Man. I also dropped him several emails, to which he promptly sent me very nice replies.

Joe is a very modest guy, which is a trait I'd like to have someday. His self-deprecating manner of speech is a little off-putting at first until one realizes it's not an affectation, he is a genuinely humble person. I find this awesome and mysterious, since I tend to agree with Benjamin Franklin

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly [sic] overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. - Ben Franklin

In fact, when I exchanged emails with him about this project he told me he doesn't really consider himself a Catholic speaker. His bio describes him simply as a “lay evangelist”. The very title of his podcast, “The Catholic Hack” exemplifies his humility. I asked him about this, and he replied:

When I felt the call to begin my audio outreach I wanted to convey a message of passion with out leading people to believe I was an "expert" in scripture or theology. I ultimately decided up on "Hack" because that how I see myself. I'm a real hack... not professionally trained no fancy degrees... just your average Catholic laymen who is passionate and wants to be "the donkey Jesus rides today". I want the listener to think... there is NO reason why they can not be as passionate as I am or as knowledgeable as I am. In the end... there's nothing special going on.

Joe, I have to tell ya, in the end...there's everything special going on. There may be no reason why everyone can't be as passionate and knowledgeable as you are, but they're not, and that's the special part. The “donkey” Joe mentions refers in part to Numbers 22:28 where God causes Balaam's donkey to speak to him. If God can make a donkey speak, He can make each of us speak His word also.

Joe's newest podcast series is “Behold the Man”. I asked him why he started another podcast. In his words:

This past year I was asked to adapt my Catholic Hack! show for a radio (both traditional and internet) show. As I pondered it further I decided that I didn't want to do that. The podcast is NOT a radio show, and vise versa, as the style, and feel are different from one another. So I set out to create a new show... one more like a radio show. The two verses I pondered on were John 19:5 "Behold the Man", and Rev. 19:20 "Behold I stand at the door and knock"! I love the BOLDNESS of the language and the images conveyed. We live in a world that WANTS desperately to know that tomorrow is going to be ok... they will win the lottery and "everything" is going just fine at that point. We refuse to embrace our suffering and consider it as nothing! This is completely opposite of the Gospel of Christ... like him we must embrace our cross. Our lord beaten and bruised was offered up for us and stands there knocking at the door of our hearts.... if we open it... he will come into us and give us supernatural food! His body and blood! That's powerful stuff!

I have so far only listened to one episode of “Behold the Man”, and I have to say it completely changed my understanding of Genesis in 30 minutes! I have always understood the story of Adam end Eve to be a story that conveyed religious truth but was not scientifically literal. But there were some things that always bothered me. For instance, God tells Adam that he will die is he eats of the fruit of the tree. Satan tells him he won't die, but will become like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.

Well, as we all know, Adam and Eve eat, and don't die, and do get the knowledge of good and evil. So what's up with that? God is lying and Satan, the father of lies, is telling the truth? Well, this one episode (#13) explained all that and more. This is bible study that even a neophyte like me can get into! Curious? Go ahead and listen.

One of the things that's evident about Joe is that Dr. Scott Hahn is his hero. Having seen Dr. Hahn on EWTN a few times I admit he's really smart and can really explain really complicated stuff, but why a hero? Joe explains:

You can hear more about this in episode 1 of TCH or episode 1 of Behold the Man but... Scott is my hero because he saved me from walking out on the one true Church! I was going to leave when the Holy Spirit lead me to the early Church Fathers and then a good friend lent me a tape set from Scott Hahn called "Calling all Bible Christians to be Catholic and vice versa"... it was amazing as for the first time I heard a Catholic response to the reformation. I then began to devour everything Scott Hahn... could never get enough. We give a lot of credit to folks who can save our physical lives but not enough credit for those who save our spiritual lives. That's why Scott is one of my heroes.

So there are two more podcasts I have to add to my list, The Catholic Hack and Behold the Man. If you have an iTunes you can find them at  TheCatholic Hack and Behold the Man. If not, you can visit the web sites The Catholic Hack and Behold the Man and listen to them on your computer or download them to your MP3 player. Either way I strongly encourage you to give them a try.

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