] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, has been chosen to succeed
] John Paul II as Pope. He will be known as Benedict XVI.
  . . .
] Cardinal Ratzinger has been a head of the Congregation
] for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican's guardian of
] orthodoxy since 1981.
]
] As such, he has also taken some uncompromising political
] positions, calling for pro-abortion politicians to be
] denied communion during the US election campaign for
] instance, or arguing that Turkey should not be admitted
] into the European Union.

I've been eagerly watching Vatican News, and was watching a cam feed to see the first wisps of white smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel. But I have to admit, that when I heard that it was Ratzinger who had been elected, my heart sank.

Then again, I keep in mind that he's 78 years old, so it's doubtful that this is going to be another 20-year Papacy. Also, sometimes Popes who preached one point of view as a Cardinal, find a different voice as a Pope, so I can still be hopeful there as well. But at this moment, I have a sour and disappointed feeling in my stomach. :/

Habemus Papam: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Becomes Pope Benedict XVI

A list of reviews of the various sushi restaurants in town, by some of the snootiest sushi snobs I've ever met in my entire life. They'll mark a place down just because the soy sauce dishes aren't in the right shape. ;) They also regard any restaurant outside of the immediate metro St. Louis area as being in a "cultural wasteland".

On the plus side, this site has the most comprehensive list of sushi restaurants in St. Louis that I've found.

I've sent in a few dissenting reviews, since I'm a bit more forgiving on some things (like I'm more interested in the quality of the sushi, as relative to price, and decor isn't as big a deal). Then again, I'm out in "cultural wasteland" territory, so what do I know? ;) We'll see if they post my opinions. If not, I may just have to make my own website . . .

Elonka :)

Sushi St. Louis

Brilliant. :)

Video: A Cappella Nintendo

] There are about 10 million blogs out there, give or take.
 . . .
] Mark Jen, who was fired from Google in January after just two
] weeks, having made some ill-advised comments about the company on
] his blog, is now busy helping to draft a blogging policy for his
] new employer, Plaxo
 . . .
] With Plaxo's blessing, Mr. Jen is soliciting public comment on
] the new blogging policy at blog.plaxoed.com.
]
] Most of the points are the kinds of common-sense items
] that employees would do well to remember, particularly if
] they plan on identifying themselves as employees in their
] blogs, or discussing office matters online: don't post
] material that is obscene, defamatory, profane or
] libelous, and make sure that you indicate that the
] opinions expressed are your own.

This is an interesting subject to me, and one which is going to get more attention as more and more people (especially non-tech-literate people) get online and start blogging.

Personally, every time I post something to my blog, I am excruciatingly aware that it is *not* private speech, and even if my friends are the only ones visiting the page when I write it, that there are almost certainly many strangers (and probably some family) reading whatever I write. Also, I keep in mind that no matter what I say, it's going to be floating around the internet for quite probably the rest of my life, so I may have to be willing to live with whatever I say, since it may well be quoted back at me several years down the line.

I view blogging as something akin to "recorded soapbox ranting", where someone goes into a park or other public place, drops a soapbox on the ground, and then steps onto the box and begins shouting their opinion at the top of their lungs to anyone who can hear, and then posts written transcripts of everything they said for anyone who happens to come by later.

So I've been really uncomfortable seeing other friends treat their blogs like a private confessional. They talk about the things they like and don't like about other mutual friends, or they'll discuss their personal sexual habits, or crimes they may have witnessed (or engaged in). All of which could easily come back to bite them later.

And workplace ranting is especially dangerous. When an employee goes online and rants about the bad day they had at work, and vents about how their supervisor is a real SOB, the employee is oblivious to the fact that their ranting is *not* private speech that disappears as soon as they said it. Indeed, someone may eventually forward their words to "that SOB", resulting in potentially serious consequences.

Me personally, I try to reserve my online posting for informational and public debate kind of stuff, with a smattering of humor and fun human interest links tossed in. If I need to be venting about an ex-boyfriend or troublesome work associate, that venting is best done verbally, in a non-recorded fashion, and only around people I trust.

Elonka

When the Blogger Blogs, Can the Employer Intervene?

] People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We
] can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and
] harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will
] run the government again! There will be coffee and
] cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

You can also have your own "Unitarian Jihad" name assigned here:

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/jihad

Signed:

Sister Burning Spear of Reasoned Balance ;)

Unitarian Jihad :)

Decius wrote:
] You think I'm rolling out of bed at 11:00AM on Sunday
] for my health? :)

Heh. Personally, I find the entire article kind of silly and hysterical.

It really baffles me the way that some people seem to think about nutrition: that there are certain foods that are just plain bad, and should never be eaten, or that there are other "good" foods (like carrots), and if they eat a lot of them, that they'll lose weight. In reality, neither is true.

There is nothing wrong with eating Dim Sum (or french fries). Also, just because carrots are good for you, does not mean that eating a diet of nothing but carrots is even better (indeed, I've been reading articles lately about something called "Vitamin A Toxicity").

The secret is balance. :) For example, for someone of my body size, the recommendation is a max of 22 grams of saturated fat per day. My total "all kinds of fat" target: A minimum of 40 g, max of 97 g/day. Sodium intake recommendations are a bit more controversial, but I personally try to shoot for a minimum of 500 mg/day, max of 3300. If I had high blood pressure or some other salt-sensitive condition, that max would probably be lower.

Now where I choose to get my 2 g of sodium or 22 g of saturated fat from, is up to me. Like if I have an Egg McMuffin, that's 5 g of saturated fat. Or a Big Mac (11 g). Or if I head to a restaurant and order a meal with lemon/butter dipping sauce, that's 15 g of saturated fat. None of which are pushing me over my daily max, and any of which I could eat on a *daily* basis, without a problem, as long as it was part of that oft-repeated to the point of cliche "balanced diet". :) In other words, along with the saturated fat that day, did I also get a couple hundred grams of carbs? 25 of fiber? 50 of protein? Was cholesterol intake under 300 mg? And all within the constraints of a healthy calorie max for a typical desk job person? (ballpark 2000/day)

The article panics that steamed bean curd has 12 g of fat. So what? That's not saturated fat, and even if it were, it still wouldn't be a problem, depending on how *much* of it was eaten, and what's going on in the rest of the diet.

Now if someone is wolfing down dim sum, *every day*, and regularly consuming twice their recommended max of saturated fat, then yes, that's a problem. But they could do the same damage with Dim Sum, or McDonald's, or too many mixed nuts, or even yogurt and oatmeal (granted, it would be faster to do with McDonald's than oatmeal).

So my advice is, especially to those that are smart enough to crunch the numbers (and I'm still highly recommending the program "Diet Organizer" as a way of charting the spreadsheet):

Eat what you want. Don't feel guilty about Dim Sum. Just try to pay attention to *how much* of it that you're eating, and make sure you're eating enough other kinds of stuff that you're getting *all* the nutrients you need, and not just the saturated fat part.

Elonka :)

RE: Dim Sum Too High in Fat, Sodium - Study

] The litany of the saints, in which a cantor names saints
] and worshipers respond by asking that saint to pray for
] them, is one of the most ancient forms of Christian
] prayer.
]
] On Friday, along with naming early Christian martyrs, the
] giant outdoor congregation appealed to modern Polish
] saints Maxmilian Kolbe and Maria Faustina Kowalski, as
] well as several other saints canonized by John Paul II
] during his unprecedented campaign to recognize examples
] of holiness all over the world.

Litany of Saints at the Pope's Funeral

] Polish characters in HTML

My webpage about Saint Raphael is starting to get attention around the Carmelite community (I even found out that the Discalced Carmelite Order has a mailing list on Yahoogroups, heh). I have this image of barefoot friars alone in their cells, typing feverishly on an internet connection. Which may not be too far from the truth!

Anyway, I'm starting to get more information sent to me about Saint Raphael's life, which I'm going to add to my webpage. But the extra Polish characters are giving me conniptions, since I can't copy/paste them into vi (they just show up as a dot). I've been having some luck inserting the necessary & #xxx codes though...

Polish HTML codes

I've been searching for a webcam that's pointing at the Sistine Chapel chimney, to watch during Conclave. Haven't found quite that yet, but here's a live stream of St. Peter's from the Vatican website.

VaticanCam

I've been piecing together tons of different pieces of information about my great uncle. Multiple books, biographies in different languages, and even several photographs from the mid-1800s.

Evidently he was a huge deal in Poland, even before he was sainted. For example, after his death, so many pilgrims would visit his gravesite and take handfuls of earth, that the convent had to regularly replace dirt and plants in the area. Then when his body was moved to a different tomb, the visiting pilgrims would literally scrape bits of plaster off the wall, just to have some relic to take with them. I've got a pic of this on the website, showing the holes that were being worn through the plaster.

And as another link between my uncle and the current pope's funeral -- It turns out that my uncle founded a monastery in Wadowice, Poland. He died there in 1907, and then 14 years later, the Pope, aka Karol Wojtyla, was born in the same town. So the pope grew up listening to stories about my great uncle. When Pope John Paul II beatified him in Krakow, in 1983, it was in front of a crowd of over two million people.

So if anyone would like to see the webpage I've created about what I've learned so far (with official Carmelite approval, no less), here's the link!

Elonka :)

Elonka's webpage about Saint Raphael Kalinowski