johnrpierce.info blog

I watched part of Diane Sawyer's interview of Howard Dean and his wife last night. I thought that, on the whole, Diane Sawyer and her questions were dreadfully boring.

Teresa Heinz is the only wife of a Democratic presidential candidate whose participation in the campaign has registered on my radar. If wives of most of the other candidates are campaigning, I don't know and I don't care. If Howard Dean's wife wishes to attend to her medical practice, that's fine, and that's her business.

Transcript of the interview

Harper Collins are publishing the first novel of Cecelia Ahern, the 22-year-old daughter of the Irish prime minister. Called PS, I Love You, it "is the story of Holly who loses her lover, Gerry, to a terminal illness only to find he has left her a series of letters with monthly tasks to complete after his death. In the US, it has been compared to Bridget Jones's Diary and in the UK it will be serialised in a tabloid before its release in a week." Source: article by Angelique Chrisafis at guardian.co.uk.

The book can be ordered from amazon.co.uk and from amazon.com.

January 22, 2004

"Senator John F. Kerry, his campaign invigorated by his surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses, has opened up a 10-point lead over Howard Dean among New Hampshire primary voters and redoubled his fund-raising efforts in order to compete aggressively in states that will vote Feb. 3," wrote Patrick Healy for an article on the front page of the Boston Globe.

On the editorial page, the Boston Globe endorsed Kerry as a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic party presidential primary.

January 21, 2004

Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But there were "mass destruction-related program activities," said President Bush in his State of the Union address last night.

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"Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage," said President Bush.

In a society that allows no-fault divorce, the sanctity of marriage has already been lost. Marriage as it exists in the United States today is not marriage as defined by the moral tradition of Christianity. The majority of the population wish to be free to do as they please, to divorce and remarry at will, to abort fetuses for reasons of convenience, etc., without regard to Christian moral tradition. But some are willing to invoke that tradition to require that an unpopular minority conduct their lives in accordance with that tradition.

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I did not hear any mention of the sanctity of the life of the unborn in the President's address last night. Apparently he and many Republicans would like to forget certain aspects of the Christian moral tradition that won't appeal to enough voters.

But the government will give money to some faith-based programs, even if they have crosses on the wall. If certain clergy are getting a little money from the government for their "programs," will they be happy to keep quiet about the immorality of abortion and focus their attention on the issue du jour, gay marriage, that affects far fewer of their followers?

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"Activist judges . . . have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard," said the President.

What about presidential elections? Are they issues of great consequence? Should the people's voice be heard, or may elections be decided by the justices of the Supreme Court?

Archbishop K. G. Hammar of the Church of Sweden has said that gay couples should be allowed to get married in church, says a Reuters report in the Boston Metro.

I think that I am one of the few regular readers of some blogs, even if I am not part of the ideal fantasy audience their bloggers are writing for.

January 20, 2004

A few thoughts for Howard Dean:

1. Avoid petty negativity.

2. If you don't know enough about religion to talk about it convincingly and intelligently, then don't talk about it. In Christian parlance, everyone is everyone's neighbor. So to say that Bush isn't your neighbor in a flip way doesn't make sense, unless you explain carefully what you mean.

3. And being seen with certain people, such as Jimmy Carter, should not seem to be the motivation for attending a church service.

January 19, 2004

"Charles I of Austria and Charles IV of Hungary, the last emperor who ascended to the Habsburg throne in the middle of the first world war in 1916 and died in exile on Madeira six years later at the age of 35, is to be beatified by the Vatican this year," reports guardian.co.uk.

In 1960, a "nun in a Brazilian convent prayed for the late emperor's beatification and woke up the next morning able to walk for the first time in years."

January 7, 2004

"Roughly 77 percent of {Harvard] students said in a mid-December [Harvard] Crimson poll that they support the [Massachusetts] Supreme Judicial Court’s November decision [that] gave the state legislature 180 days to change Massachusetts law to allow homosexual couples to marry.

"Of the 365 poll respondents, a majority—59 percent—said they 'strongly' endorse the decision.

"And the 16 percent of undergraduates who said they disagree with the verdict remain split between 'somewhat' and 'strongly' opposing the outcome."

--from an article by Margaret W. Ho in the Harvard Crimson.

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