Quick Takes! School, shameless popery, and barbarians

Here we go with some randomness for the week!

1. Back to school time around here. My oldest just went back to college for her junior year, and in just a few days we are taking our second child to college for his freshman year! Three kids started back at their middle school/high school this week, and in a week or so I have two little redheads going to first grade and kindergarten! That will leave just me and the one-year-old at home -- the one whom I sometimes call Benevolent Destruction.

2. Perhaps during Benevolent Destruction's ever-shortening nap time I will be able to complete and polish the dozens of half-written blog posts that have been left to stagnate in my drafts file. Or I could do the five thousand and one things around the house that could not be done when ten bodies occupied the house, all day, all night, all summer long. Or, maybe I will just take a nap when Benevolent Destruction does.

3. I so appreciated the comments on my book recommendation post, because they made me realize that I should have made a huge disclaimer before I wrote it. Mine is not an exhaustive list, nor even a short list of essential Catholic classics. I didn't want to recommend anything that I haven't yet read (now there's a long list!). My little list consists only of those books that I find myself referencing often, or that I have read, loved, and remembered for years thereafter. However, I am thrilled that Brandon Vogt offered his much more complete list of the Best Catholic Books of All Time. Unfortunately, at the rate I'm going, I'll be dead before I get through the first couple of sections. Sigh. Well, I'll read them in Heaven. Assuming I make it to Heaven. But then again, if I do make it to Heaven, then I won't need or want to read the books anymore. Ah, the irony!

4. Found a blog I love, and it covers many of the same themes that we do here at the Bubble, but with so much more depth. If you haven't had a chance to check out Joe's amazingness at Shameless Popery, please do that now. The Bubble will never grow up and become sophisticated, but if it did, it would want to be Joe's blog for sure!

5. Ummm, so I'm sorry if this offends any of our friends on the Left, but the following two articles really said all I want to say about the barbarians who have been rioting, looting, burning, and terrorizing London.

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

The British writer describes the mobs this way:

[A] large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants. They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so. They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game. They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims….

Read the whole sickening thing, here.

Ann Coulter's take on the (majority white) barbarians includes some interesting specifics on the dehumanizing disaster that is the British welfare state:

The sun never sets on the British welfare system

It ain't pretty.

And, it's an odd association I know, but I keep thinking that "Mrs. Duggar's kids would not be involved in this type of thuggery!"

6. Speaking of barbarians, there have been more bombings of Catholic churches in the Middle East, including this one in Iraq. Please never forget to pray for our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ who are under siege and live in constant fear. And for me it's personal, as these are my people.

But since we are speaking of Catholic churches, I won't leave it on an ugly note. Please look at these amazing photos of an underground salt church in a salt mine in Poland! Even the chandeliers are made of salt! I love my bubble of faithful Catholics no matter where they are. Best people in the world. (I almost said "salt of the earth!" heh heh heh)

7. Finally, I watched the Republican Presidential Debate last night. I liked some candidates a lot more than some others, but I am left with one overwhelming feeling: Anybody but Obama.

2012 simply cannot come fast enough.


Thanks to Jen, for hosting!