Positively Puzzled

In a blog entry back in June, titled the tao of plainchant , I set out to relate, while it was still fresh in my mind, the encounter I had with a group of men in the community who gather on Sundays to sing Gregorian Chant. In that post, however, I all too quickly used up my meager personal blogging resources to fill in the background and describe the history of my interest in the arcane art form, only to cap it off by promising to describe in a future post my experience with the chant group. Voila, a scant five months later, I’m delivering on my promise! (Sorry it took so long, O’Donovan .). It was the end of May when I was invited to sit in with the group. I’d known about them for at least 20 years, and had always been intrigued by the improbable idea of a non-monastic (no cowls required) chant gathering in California, and was delighted that it was still going on. Since Meera was attending Sunday services at a nearby church at roughly the same time, it was perfectly convenient for ...

A brief glimpse at these marvelous and mesmerizing creatures. We visited the aquarium on Sunday, November 11, 2007, celebrating my son Julian's 8th birthday. Click the photo below to see the jellyfish in motion (and hear the family color commentary).

I thought Ted Kennedy's dissenting comments on the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation of Mukasey were very eloquent: SEN. TED KENNEDY: The Department of Justice is in dire need of new leadership to guide our nation back to its constitutional moorings. Under Attorney General Gonzales, the Department lost its way as a genuine force for justice, too often served as a rubber stamp for the White House and as a facilitator and enforcer of political objectives, rather than the rule of law. After a period of such tarnished leadership in the department, we need a clear, decisive, straightforward attorney general who’s not afraid to stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, even if it means disagreeing with the President of the United States. I had hoped that Judge Mukasey could be that person. He is certainly intelligent and has demonstrated an admirable dedication to public service. As a federal judge for almost nineteen years, he was, by all accounts, fair and conscien...

I told myself that my next blog post would be about Maher Arar. You know, that Canadian guy who was changing planes at JFK airport on his way home to Canada , when he was seized by U.S. Officials, and sent to Syria to be tortured and confined for nearly a year. I watched an excerpt of his testimony before Congress last month, courtesy of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! (quoted below) . So chilling is his story, I felt compelled to talk about it. However, it has been difficult for me to compose my thoughts. Part of it is lazy procrastination, an inability to allocate and manage my time well, sustain focused concentration; an age-old problem for me, and of far too many people in today's society. I also find that every single day there is something new reported in the news that I feel compelled to speak out about. So many astonishing things going on all at once. With my compulsion to respond to each and every thing firing in every direction, I ultimately write about nothing...