Musings of an Expagan

Today the Eastern Catholic Church and the Western Catholic Church share the same gospel reading:

Matthew 14:19-21 – Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Father Loya, gave a great homily about the lavishness of God.  How God gives so much that it is always too much, and through sin we only look at what we don’t have.

Then an Eastern Catholic Redemptorist Priest spoke at the end of Liturgy.  He talked about vocation, and he then talked about the “Miracle of Sharing.”  That Christ’s miracle wasn’t the multiplication of the loves and fishes, but the miracle of Christ getting everyone to share.

:::sigh:::

I have a small taste of what it would feel like to have adopted a child and then had to give them up.  While I am giving up Sam, it never the less hurts.

He needs a house where he doesn’t have to be force fed drugs to be happy.  Pilling him twice a day has become a fight.  He doesn’t need this.

I truly wish it could have worked out.

Read the full story here:

iPhone as Experience

This most certainly comes from Steve Jobs, but every single element of an Apple product is designed, from the ground up, to create an experience. For instance, whenever Apple releases a new product, unboxing strip-tease videos are taken by geeks everywhere and posted online for thousands to gush over. If you’re an Apple product fan, you know what I’m talking about. Heck, there’s a decent chance all the major porn see a lull in traffic hit whenever Apple unveils a cool new product. It’s that bad.

Hyperbole aside, Apple takes packaging seriously. In fact, the company was awarded a patent for its iPhone packaging. Think about this. Not only did Apple create a great package, it patented it, too. Why? Because the company believes packaging has value.

CultofMac.com has a great post on the package patent.

“The iPhone’s box certainly is elegant. Pull off the top, and the iPhone is presented to its new owner sitting on a slab of glossy plastic, like an expensive watch. Hidden underneath are its accessories and instructions,” explained Leander Kahney, senior editor of Cult of Mac.

“Jobs has always been fascinated by packaging, believing the unboxing routine to be a crucial part of the customer experience. All of Jobs’s products have been carefully packaged going back to the original Mac in 1984. Jobs believes unpacking a product is a great way to introduce unfamiliar technology to the consumer — they explore the components as they unbox them,” he added.

And get this — Apple’s patent listed 17 designers named on the patent. Do other companies even have 17 package designers?

Sam is still spaying urine all over the house. He is a sweet guy but I have to give him up

http://karls.blogspot.com/

Just spent several days in upper Michigan. It was wonderful, but it is nice to be back.

Today I had to put my cat down today.  She was 17.

all I have to say is thanks for the update… my visual editor works now…

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.

So we have a liberal justice saying that Roe was really to reduce the populations that we don’t want to have too many of…  Ok… So what is that population?

This sounds down right racist to me.

“We don’t want to many of THEM people around….”

What really troubles me is the eugenic mindset that is inherently ingrained in those who enthusiastically support abortion.  But there is a larger eugenic mindset in the American Culture today that says “All Children must be perfect.”

I remember when my wife and I were expecting our first child.  We were told there was a chance of down’s syndrome.  WE struggled with that, but at no time did we consider abortion to be a option, what we struggled with was the possibility of having to raise a child who was developmentally disabled.

I truly pray that one day we embrace the idea that children are a gift, rather than a by product of sex.

With the publication of a new motu proprio entitled Ecclesiae Unitatem, Pope Benedict XVI has folded the Ecclesia Dei commission into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, making Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of that Congregation, the new head of the Ecclesia Dei commission.

The Ecclesia Dei commission, the Pope notes in this motu proprio, was set up by Pope John Paul II to supervise efforts to achieve reconciliation with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). By allowing broader use of the traditional Latin liturgy (with his earlier motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum), and by lifting the excommunication of the SSPX bishops, Pope Benedict has advanced that cause of reconciliation.

 

"However," the Pope notes in Ecclesiae Unitatem, "it is clear that the doctrinal questions remain, and until they are clarified the Society [SSPX] has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church." To facilitate the discussion of those doctrinal issues, therefore, he has make the Ecclesia Dei commission a part of the Vatican’s doctrinal office.

 

The Pope’s move, which had been anticipated for weeks, was interpreted by some reporters (most notably a Reuters correspondent) as a rebuke to the officials of the Ecclesia Dei commission, who had come under heavy criticism when the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops, apparently without having been alerted to the fact that one of those bishops had made public statements questioning the severity of the Holocaust.

 

Although it is true that the top officials of the Ecclesia Dei commission have been replaced, the president of the commission, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, had marked his 80th birthday on July 4 and was long overdue for retirement. More significant is the fact that the commission’s longtime secretary, Msgr. Camille Perl, is replaced by Msgr. Guido Pozzo, a current staff member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.