Mystery Creature Stalks Maryland

mysterycreatureKnow what this critter is?

Neither, it seems, does anyone else at present.

Yes, one of “nature’s special creatures” is now stalking the byways–and eating from the garbage cans–of Maryland.

Fortunately, the critter seems to be non-threatening (thus far) and is reported to get along well with cats.

Excerpts from the story:

More than a month after the first sighting, the creature has become a neighborhood regular and showing up often.

Kim Carlsen: “It comes to our house. It’s been up in the woods for a while and it comes up through the bottom of our yard and eats our cat food.”

Despite the fact it’s lurking in these woods and no one knows when or where it will come out, no one here seems afraid of it.

Jacob Wroe: “I don’t know, it doesn’t look like it’s going to harm anybody.”

Even the other neighborhood animals like Bullwinkle the dog next door seem okay with the beast.

Kim Carlsen: “It’s not afraid of the cats and the cats seem to get along with it fine.”

The beast is not shy, and visits most often under bright sun. While no one here knows what it is, they do have a name for it — the hyote, a combination of a hyena and a coyote.

In a boon to cryptozoologists, the hyote has been caught on film repeatedly, and in the story above there is a link to a good number of pictures.

Hopefully animal experts will be able to use these to determine what the creature is. If not, it might be captured and viciously identified.

Smelling A Big, Fat Liturgical Rat

A reader writes:

I am concerned about my church. We recently were assigned a new priest. Things have been going along ok until this week. A pastoral representative from the diocese came to our church to talk to us about aligning our church’s archetectural structure as -I believe- per the US Catholic Bishops requests. Currently we have a beautiful (large) wooden crucifix from Italy in the front (and middle) of the church. Under it is the tabernacle. My concern is that the recommendations call for removing the crucifix (not quite sure where yet) and moving the tabernacle to “the side” of the church. Now this is a small country church. There just is not that much room. Also, this priest said that the stations of the cross are too large and he wants to angle the pews -which are currently facing directly towards the alter- and angle them more coming to a point towards the alter (I don’t know why if the tabernacle is not going to be there anyway). I am really uncomfortable about all this. I believe I have cause for concern. I am waiting to here more and am prepared to fight these changes but want to make sure I am not overreacting. I smell a rat Jimmy but need your expertise. Do I have cause to be concerned.

You do have cause to be concerned. It sounds as if you may be being misled.

It is a standard strategy of liturgical renovators to claim that various changes were requested by the bishops when, in fact, the authoritative documents do not request the changes that they are reported to contain.

Often the will of the local bishop (who is the one who gets to decide, from among the options presented in the Church’s liturgical documents, where the tabernacle will be) is often misrepresented by such consultants.

I would ask to see the documents backing up the requested changes.

If the documents are from the national conference, I would check to make sure they are authoritative (some older documents on these subjects are not authoritative but are often pass off as such; in particular the document Environment and Art in Catholic Worship is not authoritative as the bishops as a whole never voted on it).

I would specifically ask to see a document from the local bishop where he makes a directive regarding the placement of tabernacles.

The directives currently in force regarding tabernacle placement are found in these two places:

* Universal Law (scroll down to paragraphs 314-317)
* Particular Law for the United States

Even if the local bishop has issued a general document on this subject, it would be be possible to appeal to him regaring the special situation of this church and the problems that would be posed by making the changes being requested by the consultant and/or pastor.

You also might want to contact the St. Joseph Foundation in San Antonio for assistance.

This Image Makes Me Want To Throw Up

I can’t believe it, but Planned Parenthood is marketing shirts that say “I had an abortion.”

Are they NUTS???

Are they so wrapped up in their warped, anti-life rhetoric that they can’t see how HORRENDOUS this idea is?

Putting this message on a T-shirt creates at minimum a defiant message and possibly a boastful one.

I can only conclude that PP has gone downhill since the days when Faye Wattleton was president of it. I remember her admitting that women know that there is a life within them and that it is a sad thing to end it. That kind of fuzzy “compassionate abortion” rhetoric contained enough acknowledgement of the truth to be dangerous. People might fall for it.

But THIS! This is simply beyond belief. It is up there in the same league as their inflammatory “Choice On Earth” campaign last Christmas.

If anybody is stupid enough to wear these things, Planned Parenthood will only be hurting its own cause.

That, of course, is a good thing. I just don’t want to see women destroy their own reputations by broadcasting such hate-filled, pride-filled messages to those around them.

"Nature's Special Creatures"

You’ve probably seen pictures of two-headed or two-tailed snakes, lizards, and other reptiles before.

Such creatures are always curios. One reader, knowing my interest in science, sent me this link, where you can view a number of interesting pictures of them.

The page title says “Nature’s Special Creatures,” but I think the URL of the page gives a more direct insight into what you’ll find there:

http://www.texasreptiles.com/freaks.html

“Nature’s Special Creatures”

You’ve probably seen pictures of two-headed or two-tailed snakes, lizards, and other reptiles before.

Such creatures are always curios. One reader, knowing my interest in science, sent me this link, where you can view a number of interesting pictures of them.

The page title says “Nature’s Special Creatures,” but I think the URL of the page gives a more direct insight into what you’ll find there:

http://www.texasreptiles.com/freaks.html

C.S.I., B.C.

You’ve no doubt seen those reconstructions in science documentaries and magazines of what ancient people looked like based on their bones. Until now, such reconstructions have missed a significant element of what you would have seen had you met the person in person–namely, what the person’s hair and skin color would have been.

Now that’s changing. A new gene-analysis technique allows researchers to determine what the hair and skin color of what many long-dead persons were.

Now if they could just use similar technique to determine the quesiton of the ages: what dinosaur skins looked like!

Short Stuff Today

I normally do my blog entries in advance of when they go up, and this weekend I was real busy–what with going to the San Diego Comic-Con and doing work for This Rock magazine.

As a result, my blog entries today (Monday) won’t be that long. Just recommended reading links.

Enjoy!

Episode III: We Have A Title

The third and last episode in the Star Wars saga now has a title: The Revenge of the Sith.

The title was announced today at the San Diego Comic-Con (which I was attending, though I didn’t go to the Star Wars presentation). It also appears on the official Star Wars website. Also announced was more DVD news.

The long fan guessing game about what title Lucas would go with is now over. The ensuing debate about whether it is a good title now begins.

For my money, this is a good title. Better than the title of Episode II (“Attack of the Clones”), and much better than the hopelessly obscure title of Episode I (“The Phantom Menace”).

The title for Episode III needed to have some reasonance with the title of Episode VI (“The Return of the Jedi”), which it does. The Episode III title also should hopefully do something to clarify the title of Episode VI, which is otherwise obscure. Does “the Jedi” mean an individual Jedi–Luke? Annakin?–or the Jedi as a class? (One friend a few years ago thought the Ep VI title should be parsed to simply mean “Luke’s Back!”). The new title clarifies matters. “The Revenge of the Sith” balances “The Return of the Jedi,” and so by symmetry, it makes “the Jedi” a class.

There are a few other titles I would have been happy with (“Birth of the Empire,” “Return of the Sith,” “Fall of the Republic”), but after the less-than-happymaking titles of Ep I and Ep II, I was concerned Lucas would come up with something smilarly unsatisfying.

Let’s hope the trilogy–and thus the series–ends with a film as strong as its title.

Here's A Thought . . .

babywalkingI was just thinking: You know how you are sometimes falling asleep–or are asleep–when your limbs suddenly jerk autonomically (by themselves)? At least, I experience that sometimes, and I assume that you do, too (if you’re attentive).

That limb jerk might have a purpose. Here’s what occurred to me:

When babies are in the womb, they often “kick,” though sometimes the kicks might actually be “punches.” In any event, they move their limbs in a jerky manner that causes their mothers some discomfort (while simultaneously providing delight to the mother, who can feel the child within her, and to others who place their hands on her stomach).

The reason that babies jerk their limbs in this way seems to be that they need to do it: It plays a useful role in their development. By moving their limbs around, the babies are ensuring that their joints work. Our joints–particularly at our shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees–are ball joints that could lock up if the bones grew in the wrong ways. Motion keeps the bones from growing in this way, and if the babies didn’t move in the womb then their bones might grow in ways that would cause their joints to lock up. But by moving them, they make sure that their joints remain fluid and flexible, so that when they emerge from the womb, they can move their arms and legs properly.

So here was my thought: Maybe the limb jerk that we experience when asleep or falling asleep is a survial of the prenatal limb jerk we all have. Maybe it’s a remnant of the reflex that causes our bones to grow right.

If any readers are doctors or others who have info on this, lemme know.

Here’s A Thought . . .

babywalkingI was just thinking: You know how you are sometimes falling asleep–or are asleep–when your limbs suddenly jerk autonomically (by themselves)? At least, I experience that sometimes, and I assume that you do, too (if you’re attentive).

That limb jerk might have a purpose. Here’s what occurred to me:

When babies are in the womb, they often “kick,” though sometimes the kicks might actually be “punches.” In any event, they move their limbs in a jerky manner that causes their mothers some discomfort (while simultaneously providing delight to the mother, who can feel the child within her, and to others who place their hands on her stomach).

The reason that babies jerk their limbs in this way seems to be that they need to do it: It plays a useful role in their development. By moving their limbs around, the babies are ensuring that their joints work. Our joints–particularly at our shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees–are ball joints that could lock up if the bones grew in the wrong ways. Motion keeps the bones from growing in this way, and if the babies didn’t move in the womb then their bones might grow in ways that would cause their joints to lock up. But by moving them, they make sure that their joints remain fluid and flexible, so that when they emerge from the womb, they can move their arms and legs properly.

So here was my thought: Maybe the limb jerk that we experience when asleep or falling asleep is a survial of the prenatal limb jerk we all have. Maybe it’s a remnant of the reflex that causes our bones to grow right.

If any readers are doctors or others who have info on this, lemme know.