Tragic Christian (www.tragic-christian.org)

Break time

We're taking a long-weekend family vacation and will be out of pocket until Tuesday.  See you then!

Bachelor weekend

Mrs. Tragic is off to Seattle to participate in our new niece & nephew's baptism which leaves me alone with the two little kids all weekend.  These can be pretty exhausting: Henry prefers to be sendentary, and Dot just runs all over the place.

We're planning to go to a local community fair later this morning, and I've had to hire a babysitter to come with.  One of us will sit with Henry in the crafts booth, and one of us will chase Dot wherever she feels the need to go -- the girl needs to move!

And they're both in a defiant "No" answers-every-request phase.  Dot does not want to do anything she needs to (like go to the car, go potty, etc.) which means I always need to pull her there, and she pulls back.  All my joints ache.   Ech!

Zebrafish?

This Australian article talks about using zebrafish to uncover facts about Duchenne muscular dystrophy.  This is of interest to us, only because we used to keep an aquarium!

Why we'll never understand New Yorkers

Or maybe just the New Yorker.  Henrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker blog just won't let Palin Derangement Syndrome go.  In a recent post, he writes that the Palins deserve no praise at all for giving birth to Trig, even tho' 90 percent of his cohort never make it out alive:

But if Palin ... were truly “pro-life”—if they truly believed that abortion, especially elective abortion in the first trimester, is murder or at least unjustifiable homicide—then having Trig was not a choice. It was a simple matter of obedience to God’s law, which is infinitely more sacrosanct than man’s law. Palin no more deserves praise for it than I deserve praise for not having lately gunned down any friends, colleagues, or strangers.

Duh.  Yes, Henrik, but you will be punished for gunning down people at random -- having an abortion, in certain quarters, in praise-worthy.  The Palins demonstrated their bona-fides by living out their faith, despite its inconvenience and the constant niggling from people like you.  Acknowledging that there is God's law and obeying it are two different things (even Hertzberg seems to acknowledge that certain things -- like gunning down your colleagues -- are wrong).  The Palins did right in the face of many people who are doing wrong, and did so in a public way.  It's an incoherent piece, but it'll have the Manhattanite nodding their heads, and that's the point of it, after all ...

Adopted DS daughter is a blessing

Sweet without being mushy, just the way we like it.  There are more parents out there willing to adopt DS children than there are DS children to adopt -- why?  Oh, that's right -- don't want to be punished with a baby, now. 

Nature, red in tooth and claw

We're dealing with some extra trauma this week:  Miranda's pet guinea pig died -- was murdered, really -- by one of the dogs in her house.  She lives with her mom and four dogs; when her mom dropped her off for school yesterday, one of the dogs (a one-eye, deaf, baby pitbull) pushed aside the stair gate to get to a stuffed toy.  This meant the decrepit beagle could force his way up the stairs, get into Miranda's room, tip over the guinea pig cage, and break the poor thing's neck.  We're all very sad about it -- I'm a big fan of guinea pigs, being a former owner myself, but all the anecdotal knowledge I have says that pigs and dogs don't mix, to the detriment of the pig.  RIP Sunnie.

Things perfect and imperfect

First Things (the Catholic journal) features this meditation by Amy Julia Becker on Down Syndrome, perfection, and God.  Becker's daughter, Penny, was born two and a half years ago with DS, and here for me is the money quote:

Early on, I had asked my mother whether she thought Down syndrome happened because of sin in the world. She responded gently, “The only evidence of sin I see is in how the world reacts to Penny.”

Rebooting ...

Lots of stuff in life has got in the way of regular contributions to this blog (obviously!).  But after the election, we've decided we need to be speaking out again.  Look forward to some changes here in the next few weeks and a more regular schedule.  Despair not!

Death of a Sales Job

This links to something I've read about in passing before:  Arthur Miller's put-away DS son.  The "the moralist of the past American century" (Denver Post) didn't seem to think anything was awry in putting his son away.

This is a more enlightened age, of course: we kill them now, instead.

Thanks to Mere Comments.

Parents Who Should Be Put Down Like Dogs Dept.

Just a slew of stories in the news recently, about parents who shouldn't be parents.

Crystal meth  -- always a happy ending.

Yeah, let's leave the baby with a pit bill.  Brilliant idea.

Sheesh!

On an unrelated note, this'll wash that taste outta your mouth; the world's oldest Downie, 71 and doin' just fine, thank you!