Bloggerhood Etc. 6/16/14

Photo: Robert Rummel-Hudson

Hope all the dads out there had a great Father’s Day! Now on to the best of the week.

Best Special Needs Post. “Flygirl” by Robert Rummel-Hudson at Support for Special Needs.

Most Disturbing. “4.5 Degrees” by xkcd.

Best List. “9 Brilliant Contemporary Composers Who Prove Classical Music Isn’t Dead” by Lisa Bernier at Policy Mic.

Best Question. “Writing: How Do You Do It?” by Chuck Wendig at Terrible Minds.

Most Provocative. “If Gay Christians Go To Hell, So Are The Ones Who Don’t Recycle” by Benjamin L. Corey at Formerly Fundie.

Best Parenting Post. “ 10 Bad Habits Parents Need to Break Like Yesterday” by Dynamom at Scary Mommy.

Most Profound. “The Way of the Gun” by Nish Weiseth at A Deeper Story.

Best Advice. “Why Reading to Your Daughter is the Most Masculine Thing in the World” by Tom Burns at Reading Rainbow Blog.

Most Ridiculous Controversy. “Breast-feeding mom’s college graduation photo stirs controversy” by Lisa Flam at Today Parents.

Best Commentary. “Eric Cantor’s Loss: A Pro-Life Democrat’s Take” by Steve Schneck at The Whole Life Democrat.

Best Father’s Day Post. “If I Could Do It Over” by Jim Higley at the Chicago Tribune.

Best Trinity Sunday Post. “Wheeee! Some Thoughts on the Trinity” by Fran Rossi Szpylczyn at There Will Be Bread.

Most Present to the Moment. “Noticing” by Cara Strickland at Little Did She Know.

Best Sendoff. “Don Cherry techno compilation of the 2014 NHL playoffs” via YouTube.

See more of Don’s musical stylings here.

Bloggerhood Etc. 4/29/13

Schuyler Rummel-Hudson (Image: Schuyler and her “Daddy-O”)

First of all, a new name for my new Best Blogs of the Week feature. I will still run it every Monday (so they will still be “Monday Blogs”) but I like having a more distinctive title that corresponds to the title of my blog.

So here are some of my favorite posts from the last week.

Best Guest Post. “The Queen of Monsters” by Schuyler Rummel-Hudson on Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords. Every child deserves a voice. An iPad mini gives Schuyler her voice, and she expresses herself honestly and beautifully here.

Best List. “6 Secrets From a Special Needs Mom” by Suzanne Perryman on BlogHer (cross-posted at The Huffington Post). The blogosphere is overwhelmed with “5 ways to,” “10 examples of,” “101 Secrets to,” and 1,000,001 other varieties of list posts. Most are quickly slapped together with the sole purpose of gaining hits, but every so often this form gets put to good use. This is one of those times. Please read it.

Best Sociological Experiment. “Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA Professor Gamed a Game Theory Midterm” by Peter Nonacs on Which Way LA?
It’s not cheating if you don’t break the rules. You might even learn something.

Best Question. “Why Is This Not A ‘Weapon Of Mass Destruction’?” by Andrew Sullivan on The Dish. Two different weapons, both can cause multiple fatalities. One is a terrorist tool, the other is sacrosanct. Why? A question that needs to be asked even if no one in power has the guts to answer it.

Best Repost. “Love as the Boundary” by Alise Wright on Alise . . . Write!
A beautiful post from a year ago about love and friendship. It also qualifies as the Best Use of a Finding Nemo Quote.

Marlin: I promised I’d never let anything happen to him!

Dory: Hmmm. That’s a funny thing to promise.

Marlin: What?

Dory: Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.

Most Encouraging Video. RGIII at the Redskins Draft Day Party.

And finally, moving beyond the blogosphere . . .

Best Picture with Comment.

Posted on Facebook by Single Dad Laughing.

Like . . . EVER!!!

This Dad Demands Action Too!

I don’t put much political stuff up on this blog, but this has got me so angry that I can’t keep silent about it. I hope it doesn’t cost me readers, but if it does, so be it.

But to be fair, Harry Reid should be off this list since he changed his vote for procedural reasons, as explained in this Washington Post article on arcane Senate rules from February. In short, his “no” vote allows him to file a “motion to reconsider,” and give the bill another chance. Had he voted “yes,” the bill would be dead.

It makes no sense, but neither does the filibuster in its current form. Forty five votes is not a majority in a one hundred member legislature, and yet it is enough to thwart the popular will yet again.

This is What the Founders had in Mind . . .

When they approved the Second Amendment to the Constitution:

Photo: Rama (CC SA-BY 2.0)

Christina

I’ve never been a fan of word clouds, but this one from the Guardian shows why the President’s speech last night in Tucson was so brilliant:

In the center is the name that held the whole speech together: Christina.

It is her name and her face that has haunted us these last five days. Not that we don’t mourn for the others who lost their lives. We do. Not that we don’t pray together with Congresswoman Giffords’ family for her full recovery. We do. But the loss of someone so young, someone who could be our daughter or our granddaughter, touches us all in a way no other loss can.

Last night, Barack Obama spoke as our President, but he also spoke as father who saw in Christina’s eyes what he sees in his daughters’ eyes; what I see in Anna’s eyes:

Hope, untouched by cynicism.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.

From one father to another, thank you President Obama.