The crazy lady strikes again for Monday, July 31, 2006

I watched today's press conference updating the media on Francis Cardinal George's condition. The pathology reports have apparently come back from the pathologist, and it looks as if the cancer was basically limited to the bladder and the lower end of the right ureter. They did remove some lymph nodes - that's routine in any surgery designed to remove a tumor - and all the lymph nodes they took out were reported as being negative for cancer. In other words, there was no evidence of cancer... Sign in to see full entry.

Ariel70 provided me with an insightful comment on my last entry to this blog. Apparently, she's not an American, so she isn't as familiar with the Founding Fathers as are most Americans knowledgeable about history, but she did have some insights about them that I didn't know about. For example, I knew that many secular historians consider Thomas Jefferson, whose credentials as an American Founding Father are beyond dispute, a Deist (as I understand the term, that's someone who basically believes... Sign in to see full entry.

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in American fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Ever since the Religious Right became politically prominent just before I got married, these Christian communities have felt implicitly that one must be a political conservative if one wants to be considered born-again. It is not at all unusual for pastors of such churches to receive requests from members of the congregation regarding the placement of tables in the lobby containing, say, anti-abortion... Sign in to see full entry.

I've had to face the question I ask in the title twice just this year alone - in February when I was rendered incompetent by bacterial meningitis, and in April when I needed a ventilator during a bout with pneumonia and was unconscious for a few days. I read an article in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times which deals with this issue. One-third of the people surveyed for a professionally-conducted study stated that they'd rather have someone other than their spouses make health care decisions for... Sign in to see full entry.