You Beautiful Doll

A baby is born! Despite pregnancy-induced diabetes (now gone, thank God), nearly entering preeclampsia, soaring blood pressure, unbelievable swelling, three weeks spent in the hospital BEFORE the baby was born, and her staying in the hospital for a week after I was released, our little Brigid safely entered the world, beautiful, healthy, and adored by all and sundry. Thank God we both came through it safely, and thank God for many good family members and friends who supported us--and still do!

Scariness

OBAMA EATS INNOCENT WHITE BABY FOR DINNER 

Yes, friends, apparently, President Barack Obama agrees with those rabid baby-haters (a.k.a. Democrats) whose simple agenda is to kill as many babies and old people as possible before the Republicans can wrest office from him and rescue the nation from his godless heathen ways. Or at least that seems to be the view in certain Evangelical quarters, represented in lurid, vivid detail by this ad which appears at the time of writing on Crosswalk.com, one of the primary Evangelical Bible study tools websites. In perhaps the most astonishing, revolting, and irrational propaganda campaign since the Nazis, radical conservatives of all stripes have endeavored to smear Obama's attempt at health care reform and frighten the American public into rejecting it. Whether his proposal would work or not, open discussion and debate generally seems to be more productive than running around the farm yard, screaming, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" It is not the conservatives' disagreement with Obama that makes them radical; it is their refusal to engage in rational thought and discussion, rather than adopting simple scare tactics. Really a picture is worth a thousand of my or anyone else's words, isn't it?