Here’s a link to a video from a Hollywood guy on how liberals think. In short, any kind of values or culture must not be judged better or worse than any other, relatively speaking. Arguments ensue.

More rain today, and it’s supposed to rain even more over the weekend, then snow early next week.

But it’s Friday. I don’t intend to go out any more than I have to over the weekend, anyway.

I stopped for groceries on the way home. A side street at the grocery store intersection had been cordoned off by the police. Cop cars were parked all over. A news helicopter hovered patiently overhead. I don’t know what was going on, but somebody was involved in a life-or-death drama, just a few hundred feet from where I was buying bananas.

It seems wrong, somehow, that we can be utterly oblivious to the sufferings and stresses of our fellow humans, even near at hand. I often remember that episode of Star Trek where Mr. Spock felt a sudden psychic pain when a Vulcan starship exploded.

On the other hand, I have to admit what we’ve got is a mercy—a kind of spiritual and emotional air-lock system. C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Problem of Pain that, by God’s kindness, the greatest amount of pain that can exist in the universe is limited to the greatest amount that one individual can endure. That may be a lot of pain, but there is no accumulation of common suffering.

There’s been some “buzz” around the blogosphere about the proposal in the Minnesota State Legislature to make the Tilt-A-Whirl the Official State Carnival Ride. The proposal was made by a representative from Faribault, where the Tilt-A-Whirl was invented and continues to be manufactured.

Let me state for the record that, as a person born in Faribault myself, I fully support this initiative, and indeed any initiative intended to promote anything or anyone originating in Faribault (pronounced “Fair-boe”).

I plan, in fact, to petition to have myself named Official Minnesota Washed-Up Midlist Author.

I have less than nothing to say tonight. Anything I said would actually reduce the sum of public knowledge, just as a carbon credit is supposed to reduce global warming (but doesn’t).

Gleaned from a comment at Luther At the Movies: Scenes from Luther’s life done in Legos! That’s what I call culture!

For Aitchmark and other cat-lovers: This piece by Austrialian writer Hal G. P. Colebatch on cats in literature.

Sorry, that’s all I’ve got. Wake me when it’s summer.

If today’s weather were a meal, I wouldn’t be able to afford the restaurant where they serve it.

It’s 65° right now, and tomorrow’s supposed to be even nicer. When I took my evening walk, it seemed like everybody else in the community had the same idea. Pasty-faced Minnesotans were crawling out of their lairs, blinking in the sunlight, and stretching themselves like badgers (Gophers would be more appropriate, since the badger is Wisconsin’s animal, but badger sounds better).

Life felt good.

Which, of course, it isn’t.

I don’t do much politics here, with good reason, but I’d like to go on record with the opinion that the Islamists have now been notified that they can have anything in the world they want, including the full submission of the United States to Sharia law, if they remain ruthless enough for long enough.

I’m sure the American left will be perfectly content to watch their gay friends being stoned to death, just as long as we’re not at war. The important thing is not to be at war.

My big question is, once Islam has conquered the world, and the only war left is the one between Sunnis and Shiites, which side will the left support?

I’m a slave of mutabilitie, as Chaucer might have put it. One e-mail, and all of a sudden my attitude changes and the world looks brighter.

The e-mail to which I refer is one I got this afternoon, from a woman representing the local chapter of the Nordmanns Forbundet, a Norwegian-American friendship organization I once actually belonged to (though in Florida). They had a speaker cancellation for their April meeting, and she wondered if I could take the gig at short notice. She’d met me when I spoke to a Sons of Norway group in St. Paul last year.

Somebody needs me! I regard myself with scorn in my mind’s eye, saying, “You pathetic loser. Somebody shows you a little attention and you wag your tail like a dog.”

Yeah, I do. Having no self-esteem of my own, I depend entirely on outside reinforcement for my satisfaction.

I think my depression the last few days may have been a symptom of an unconscious feeling of closure. I’ve always considered my lecturing career a sort of dragging appendage of my novel writing, like a long tail. I’ve basically stopped advertising myself as a lecturer since I lost my publisher, so I’d figured the Owatonna gig on Monday was the final shot. The last gasp of the tail end of my life as an author.

But now it’s OK, at least until the middle of April. I’m not quite gone yet.

A second consideration is that it pays an honorarium, which will help with my ongoing financial crisis. It occurs to me that this is one of God’s methods of providing for me on a One Day At A Time basis, just like the Bible says.

I’m always hesitant to talk too loud about these manna deliveries. I don’t want to sound like one of those enthusiasts who gets a smile from a girl and decides it’s God’s will that he marry her, or has a cancer remission and loudly proclaims he’s been completely healed forever. Guh-lory!

So I sin in the opposite direction, denying God the praise He deserves.

But today I’m giving credit where credit is due.

Did I do good, God? Huh? Huh?

It’s dark and rainy today, and it’s dark and rainy in my soul.

I went to bed early last night, really tired, and then couldn’t get to sleep. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. These are things that haven’t happened much since I started the CPAP, and I don’t know what to think of it. Maybe my body’s still adjusting to the new sleep patterns. Maybe it’s an emotional reaction to having to pretend to be normal and talk with people at my lecture the other night. Maybe my suppressed psychosis is finally manifesting itself.

In any case, I’ve been low all day.

Found this site by way of Townhall.com. People list the odd things they believed when they were kids.

I’ve got some of those.

I believed a pack of nasty, winged dogs lived under my bed (but only at night). It was very important never to dangle my hand down over the edge where they could bite it. They couldn’t reach far out from their hiding place, though. Why a dog that lived under a bed would need wings, I never wondered.

I believed that there were other dangerous things after me in the night, beyond the winged dogs. But they couldn’t hurt me if I kept my sheets and blankets up right under my chin. If my neck got uncovered while I slept, though, I was in trouble.

I believed (or suspected) that all objects had personalities and feelings, like in the cartoons. To this day I feel guilty about throwing anything away. I know the objects are hurt by the rejection.

I used to wonder about that animal they always showed drawings of on weather reports. You know, that animal with the small head, thin front leg, and big hindquarters. My father eventually explained that it was a map of America.

When they did the Emergency Broadcast System tests on TV, I believed I was expected to hide under a table, like we did under our desks in school, during the bomb drills.

I believed that the Revolutionary War Battle of Concord had been fought in West Concord, Minnesota, a town near where we lived.

My mom told me that babies came from a seed that passed from a husband to a wife. So I figured the seed passed through their hands when they held hands during the wedding and the pastor pronounced them man and wife.

Brother Moloch and I had fun with our little brother Baal when he was scheduled for his first dentist visit. We told him they’d give him a shot with a big, square needle, and we made up a bunch of other harrowing stuff. This was standard family humor—we like ridiculous exaggeration. We thought he got the joke. He didn’t. They literally had to drag him into the office, screaming—and it was only a check-up.

It’s dark and rainy today, and it’s dark and rainy in my soul.

I went to bed early last night, really tired, and then couldn’t get to sleep. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. These are things that haven’t happened much since I started the CPAP, and I don’t know what to think of it. Maybe my body’s still adjusting to the new sleep patterns. Maybe it’s an emotional reaction to having to pretend to be normal and talk with people at my lecture the other night. Maybe my suppressed psychosis is finally manifesting itself.

In any case, I’ve been low all day.

Found this site by way of Townhall.com. People list the odd things they believed when they were kids.

I’ve got some of those.

I believed a pack of nasty, winged dogs lived under my bed (but only at night). It was very important never to dangle my hand down over the edge where they could bite it. They couldn’t reach far out from their hiding place, though. Why a dog that lived under a bed would need wings, I never wondered.

I believed that there were other dangerous things after me in the night, beyond the winged dogs. But they couldn’t hurt me if I kept my sheets and blankets up right under my chin. If my neck got uncovered while I slept, though, I was in trouble.

I believed (or suspected) that all objects had personalities and feelings, like in the cartoons. To this day I feel guilty about throwing anything away. I know the objects are hurt by the rejection.

I used to wonder about that animal they always showed drawings of on weather reports. You know, that animal with the small head, thin front leg, and big hindquarters. My father eventually explained that it was a map of America.

When they did the Emergency Broadcast System tests on TV, I believed I was expected to hide under a table, like we did under our desks in school, during the bomb drills.

I believed that the Revolutionary War Battle of Concord had been fought in West Concord, Minnesota, a town near where we lived.

My mom told me that babies came from a seed that passed from a husband to a wife. So I figured the seed passed through their hands when they held hands during the wedding and the pastor pronounced them man and wife.

Brother Moloch and I had fun with our little brother Baal when he was scheduled for his first dentist visit. We told him they’d give him a shot with a big, square needle, and we made up a bunch of other harrowing stuff. This was standard family humor—we like ridiculous exaggeration. We thought he got the joke. He didn’t. They literally had to drag him into the office, screaming—and it was only a check-up.

The issue of Relief Journal is in the wild, and from what I’ve read, it’s a strong issue. If you have not taken a chance on this journal or recommended it to your book club or writing group, I encourage you to do it. It will be far better than watching the news. I look forward to their Daily Sacrament contest winner, which will be featured in the next issue.

Also, Relief is trying to nurture new writers with a writing network.

The journal storySouth is calling for nominations for the best online fiction. Last year’s winner was a sci-fi short called “There’s a Hole in the City” by Richard Bowes.

David Lynn talks about refusing stories for The Kenyon Review which have also been submitted to other journals.

And there’s a new monthly literary review, Open Letters. They claim to be “dedicated to the proposition that no writing which reviews the arts should be boring, back-patting, soft-pedaling, or personally compromised.”

From blogging, not from work (more’s the pity). I’ll be doing a speaking engagement Monday evening, so there won’t be time to blog.

See you Tuesday evening.