CNN has a good story on the rise of type 2 diabetes in children -- Ominous rise of adult diabetes in kids. Unless American society starts to emphasis a healthier lifestyle -- more exercise, less fast food, healthier diets and lower caloric intake -- we are going to see an incredible epidemic of type 2 diabetes in all areas of society. It's a really serious problem.

So recently on the NetBSD -current mailing list, there was a long tangent about word usage. The specific topic was use (or disuse) of hyphens, e.g. in words like "coordinate" vs "co-ordinate". When I was a kid I remember that words like coordinate and cooperate usually had a diaresis mark (looks like two double dots) over the second "o". One participant in the discussion gave this quote:

"The Columbia Guide also says:

A dieresis (the plural is diereses; diaeresis/diaereses are the usual British variants) is the diacritical mark (¨) placed over the second of two consecutive vowel letters to indicate that it is to be given full syllabic force; thus each of the two contiguous vowels in naive is to have a syllable to itself: nei-EEV. Today American editors frequently specify a hyphen rather than a dieresis in some words (co-opt instead of coopt) that might otherwise confuse; in others, they often drop the dieresis and let context distinguish (naivete or naivete; reenlist, re-enlist, or reenlist)."

I don't know how to make a diaresis in HTML. Anyone?

I've been doing some research on the web, and in the process I came across the Archdiocese of Seattle's Implementation of Holy Communion Norms page. I'm a little confused about this issue though:

"The entire assembly is to stand from after the Great Amen through the distribution of Holy Communion, and everyone should remain standing when they return to their seat until all have received and the presider is seated. At that point, a period of religious silence is to be observed and each individual has the option of sitting or kneeling for this. "

I'll have to do more research on this. Comments from the peanut gallery?

Update: Okay, I checked out the new GIRM. The relevant points from paragraph 43:

43. The faithful should stand from the beginning of the Entrance chant, or while the priest approaches the altar, until the end of the Collect; for the Alleluia chant before the Gospel; while the Gospel itself is proclaimed; during the Profession of Faith and the Prayer of the Faithful; from the invitation, Orate, fraters (Pray, brethren), before the prayer over the offerings until the end of Mass, except at the places indicated below.

They should, however, sit while the readings before the Gospel and the responsorial Psalm are proclaimed and for the homily and while the Preparation of the Gifts at the Offertory is taking place; and, as circumstances allow, they may sit or kneel while the period of sacred silence after Communion is observed.

In the dioceses of the United States of America, they should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration. The faithful kneel after the Agnus Dei unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise.

So apparently the bishop has decided they won't kneel after the Agnus Dei. That's too bad. I still don't understand the directive to remain standing until all have received though, and I've certainly never seen it done that way. It seems to me to be a hardship, particularly in large congregations where those who received at the beginning could remain standing for 20 minutes or more.

Yet Another Blog Quiz...


You are Ratbert.
Your goal is to make people love you, but you only
succeed in making a fool of yourself as you
try. You're the butt of everbody's joke, but
that's ok : you can take it and still be
cheery.


Which Dilbert character are you ?
brought to you by Quizilla

Uh-oh! Slashdot is now reporting that AOL is refusing email from SMTP servers sitting on residential DSL. There's a brief mention of this on News.com: AOL wary of Comcast, Road Runner mail. This is a real problem.

So, I FINALLY got my taxes done. It really doesn't take that long with TurboTax. I've been using TurboTax for many years. This year I was pleased to see that in spite of the fact that I was out of work for 9 weeks or so, my charitable deductions were about the same and I was still able to itemize even though I don't own a house. YAY!

There's been a 7th sex abuse lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Tucson. This one dates back decades -- Two brothers' suit says priest, now dead, abused them in '60s.

Pete Vere has posted a picture of me from his visit to Tucson, as well as some kind words. Thanks Pete!

I was surfing the web tonight (when, of course, I should be sleeping) and came across a good site on the Keirsey Sorter, which is a personality typing test like the Meyers-Briggs (they are not the same, but produce more-or-less similar results). I am an ENTJ, dubbed "The Fieldmarshal". Okay, but I'm a nice fieldmarshal! And hey, I am half-German, after all.

Here's some good analysis of the war from the New York Times via CNN: Push to finish the job. The thing that most concerns me now is that with the Iraqi resistance crumbling and the Iraqi leadership, presumably, running to Tikrit, the battle for Tikrit could well be a dangerous and desperate one. The only good news about that is that Tikrit is a much smaller place, so at least the 4.5 million residents of Baghdad will be spared the kind of house-to-house fighting and destruction we were fearing only a few days ago.

Lunch, Lunch! Yesterday I had lunch with the aforementioned Pete Vere, canonist/writer/blogger, of Catholic Light and other places. We had a delightful lunch at Micha's (authentic Mexican food, yum!) with his wife and daughter, as well as Tucsonan Mike Mohr who is involved in the Tucson chapter of Catholics United for the Faith. Poor Pete was suffering from a nasty cold but gamely came out anyway. Thanks Pete!

Lunch today was an "alumni" lunch of present and former employees of NewMonics. We had 16 people turn out for a nice get-together. It was great to see everyone. Apparently not too many places do this kind of thing but it's pretty common among the circles I've moved in.

Slashdot has a cool discussion on VisiCalc, the original spreadsheet for the Apple ][. Check out this article on implementing VisiCalc. For the purists among you, you can download VisiCalc for your IBM PC compatible.

The saga of A Mountain draws to a close, at least for now... Tricolor 'A' will stay, says council. Yep, after all that hoo-hah and back and forth, our City Council has finally weighed in on the momentous and pressing issue of the day, namely, should our nearby mountain's "A" be painted in patriotic colors or not. Our tax dollars at work!

Update: The Arizona Daily Star weighs in with an editorial.

I still haven't done my taxes!

Kewl! Pete Vere from Catholic Light (and elsewhere) is visiting Tucson. We've arranged to have lunch tomorrow. I'm very psyched to meet a fellow blogger!

Here's one of those stories that gives one hope -- Teen mother wakes up, after year in coma. I always say, don't pull the plug too soon! Seriously, though, I'd be interested in knowing what her brain function looked like during the coma and whether doctors told her mom to stop feeding her.

Okay, the smoking gun (assuming it's confirmed, which these days is always something you have to ask) U.S. Finds Missiles with Chemical Weapons.

A followup on Lori Piestewa -- Tuba City mourns soldier killed in Iraq. For reasons I can't explain this makes me very sad.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace.
May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

Gaah. Since I am cheap and don't have Blogger Pro, and since the free Blogger is stupid, I had to reset my time zone setting. See, unlike most parts of the US, Arizona does not participate in the massive fraud known as Daylight Saving Time. After all, the last thing we are after here is to spend more daylight hours awake. It's bad enough as it is. In the summer we are usually waiting for sundown so we can go do things. Anyway, all that is by way of explaining that this is actually posted on Sunday evening, just like the Music for Mass posting.

Music for Mass
SSPP Latin Schola
5th Sunday in Lent, Cycle A readings for RCIA

Prelude: (instrumental)
Gathering Song: Parce Domine (vs. 5)
Penitential Rite: Kyrie (Chant Mass)
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 130 (Dominican tone 3)
Gospel Acclamation: (Chant, Domincan tone 11)
Preparation of the Gifts: Voce Mea ad Dominum Clamavi (Pius X #32)
Sicut Cervus (Palestrina)
Holy,Holy: Sanctus (Chant Mass)
Memorial Acclamation: (Chant Mass)
Great Amen: (Chant Mass)
Our Father: (Traditional Chant)
Lamb of God: Agnus Dei (Chant Mass)
Communion: O God, Accept My Heart This Day (Pius X #283)
O Sacrum Cor Jesu (Pius X #13)
Recessional: Lord of All Hopefulness (trad. Irish melody)