Reading through my morning blog feeds, I see that commie pinko liberals don’t celebrate Mother’s day, but the real American blogging icons have dutifully cranked out their Mother’s Day columns. I don’t know which is more touching, Eric son of Erik’s tribute to his wife, who he married because she cooks him bacon, or K Lo’s Mother’s Day interview with the author of “Blessed Beautiful and Bodacious: Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Womanhood”.
Reader Interactions
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cathyx
I like the new look of this blog this morning. Is it permanent?
Maude
Happy Mother’s Day to all.
I’d start in about the site, but others have already done so.
Caps are hard to read, btw.
Amir Khalid
@cathyx:
Probably not. I hope not. I want to see the return of the guy with the megaphone, the Recent Comments box, and General Stuck.
Baud
Happy Mother’s Day.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
I missed Recent Comments until I discovered the Comments RSS. Works better because there are more comments and you can actually read the comments without clicking to open up a new page.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
How do I getting the Comments RSS?
cathyx
I like the font for the title and I like the blue block quote box.
WereBear
If one is strict about what the Pope says, I would regard Catholic Womanhood as a hideous travesty of forced birth, risked death, and outright marginalization. With a side of probable priest-based child abuse for the offspring.
I left the Southern Baptists because they insisted I was a tad short of fully human; and that was in the ’70’s, when they let you wear pantsuits. Now, they are this close to throwing people into volcanoes.
dmsilev
@cathyx: I like the shading, but will have to disagree with you on the title font. Feels a bit cramped to me.
And so the carping and criticizing begins…
cathyx
@WereBear: Most catholic women treat the Pope like he’s crazy Uncle Charlie. They just smile and nod and then go about their lives as they see fit and ignore his advice.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Far right link on the website, under META. It’s in XML, so it may not display in all browsers, especially tablets and phones.
Direct Link if you prefer:
https://balloon-juice.com/comments/feed/
max
I already got my mom her stuff from Amazon. So you know, the bullshit column is unneeded, given that mom is ill anyways.
max
[‘But it’s OK if the wingers say nice things about their moms – at least they act like humans towards someone.’]
Riley's Enabler
I can’t see a blessed thing as far as change from the mobile site; ignorance is truly bliss.
I’m too lazy to get up and desktop. Plus I got hot coffee in bed from the Squidlet. Well…he pushed the ON button; I did the ferrying. Still!
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
10-Q.
aimai
@WereBear: I love you werebear. You are one of my favorite commenters. I wouldn’t throw you into a volcano for anything. I wish the Southern Baptists knew what a wrong turn they took.
WereBear
@cathyx: That is incredibly sensible, and so it is with all the Catholic women I know. In fact, most of them no longer even go to Church except for ritualized holidays, since their parish priests are rotated through so quickly, they don’t get much in the way of shepherding from them.
piratedan
so the NEWSMAX story feed box serves what purpose? The fact that the site is linked to blood pressure medication manufacturers and this is a way to ensure that the site reaps some easy cash flow?
also too, the formatting is much better than last night, tyvm
Amir Khalid
@piratedan:
The narrow comments column was intriguing. Too bad I didn’t think to write a comment using the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
red dog
My screen/font are all the same on a desktop with windows 7. I have no Newsmax box either. I guess being an unchangeable old grouch has scared the new stuff away.
Mustang Bobby
Guess I’m not commie pinko enough because I paid tribute to my mom, my sister, and one of my sisters-in-law this morning on my blog.
Frankly, I can’t tell the difference between this site and the old one, but then I’m an old fart so get off my lawn ya wild kid ya.
ETA: Oh, now I see it. Very nice. (Refreshing is a wonderful thing.)
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m ready to go visit Mom. Instead of cut flowers I have an outdoor potted plant as a gift. Geraniums, Vinca Major and some kind of ornamental grass. It’s from a greenhouse and it’s way prettier than anything that I could have constructed myself. And it won’t wilt/die in a week like cut flowers.
Mike in NC
CBS Sunday Morning observed Mothers Day by bringing on some clown from the Weekly Standard to discuss whether couples without children were evil assholes, or just assholes.
Joey Maloney
Newsmax? Really? Why not WorldNutDaily or The Blaze while you’re at it? No half-measures, sez I.
MattF
Speaking as a grizzled veteran of the dysfunction wars, I just say ‘no’ to Mother’s Day.
Ash Can
@cathyx:
@WereBear:
As far as I’m concerned, Catholic women are the ones who get to define Catholic womanhood, not a small group of shriveled old bachelors. According to scripture, Mary did go along with God’s plan for her, but she had to be asked and give her consent first. And once she was Jesus’s mother, she certainly wasn’t afraid to push him around when she thought she was right and he was wrong, just like any other mom does with her kid (cf. the story of the wedding feast at Cana).
The Church hierarchy would go poof if it weren’t for us lay women. The fact that they ignore that fact is one of the main reason we ignore them when they tell us how to act as women.
JPL
This morning I went to Whole Foods and it was filled with guys wandering around aimlessly. It was quite funny.
jeffreyw
A bouquet for your Momma.
JPL
@jeffreyw: Has Katie attempted to escape again? You know she will but good job rescuing her.
Valdivia
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in the BJ crew
MomSense
@MattF:
I’m dreading the call this morning to my Mom. Mine was more the Tale of Two Moms best of times/worst of times experience.
Hoping for the former this am.
I found some presents on my bed last night from my boys and a sweet 2am text from a dance party telling me that he was alive, having fun, and pretty sure he is the best son for wishing me a happy mother’s day first.
@cathyx:
@WereBear:
I once overheard a nun talking with a lapsed Catholic woman about coping strategies she might try so she could go back to Mass.
aimai
Did you know that what Mom wants is a soda fizzerator? The site ad at the top tells me so. I find mother’s day kind of bittersweet. Buddhists would say that by bringing one life into this world, we bring one death as well. I’ve been a lucky mother –I had two pregnancies and both resulted in two (so far) happy and healthy and beautiful daughters. But I had a sister who died in early childhood, and my husband’s niece died at age 8 leaving her mother, my sister in law, to grieve her entire life. And I’ve seen innumerable relatives and acquaintances wrestle with the horror of seeing a loved child go mad, or go wrong, or suffer through a medical or emotional crisis. So I have a kind of fraught relationship with mother’s day. First of all it began as an anti war protest and was co-opted by the sentiment business. Second of all it reminds me of how fragile all our relationships are. So that’s my blogging contribution to mother’s day. Actually I need to go back to writing about the Tale of Genji which will be my real blog post today.
rikyrah
Happy Mother’s Day!!!!
Have a good day.
I miss my mother dearly….enjoy yours
Ash Can
@jeffreyw: Beautiful! That reminds me to get out and water my own peonies and irises today.
@Valdivia: I’m sure I speak for all of the moms here when I say “thank you!”
MomSense
@aimai:
A lovely contribution, Aimai. Thank you. And a happy mother’s day to you.
ruemara
I am more of a formulaic supporter of these parental days. No offense to my parents, but they were horrible. However, there are so many wonderful people who offer good mothering and fathering to people around them. So I do call the birth mother and wish her well, but I also contact the women in my life and thank them for all the aspects of myself they mothered. Happy Mother’s Day to all those who mother, including fathers who mother.
schrodinger's cat
If you are planning to grill this evening for mother’s day, I have a recipe for you.
ETA: Photographs not as purty as jeffreww’s. I is still learning.
cmorenc
@MisterMix:
Actually, I’m with Erik on at least this one thing…a wife who will cook me nice, crispy bacon is a wonderful trait indeed, much better than a wife who will only fix tofu.
cmorenc
@ruemara:
Well, I’m a father whom various people have frequently called “mother”. Except they made it sound like I was being accused of incest.
aimai
@ruemara: Happy needing to be mothered day, ruemara. I was just watching the Canadian show “Lost Girl”–in this episode the magical, seductress, succubus, heroine has to go back to her conservative christian religious family in the backfields of Canada and forgive them so she can move on with her new life. She finds her crazy adoptive christian mother is suffering from dementia and she is able to see that this woman, the bugaboo of her life as a young girl, was really just unable to grapple with motherhood or the reality of her child. Hard, hard, hard to have to be the child and forgive the adult for being incompetent or cruel. But its really all we can do.
I think my mother’s day wish is that everyone should get the mothering they deserve, like the fathering they deserve, somewhere down the line from the many incredible people out there with love and care to spare.
aimai
@MomSense:
Have a wonderful day, MomSense, as a mother if not as a daughter. I think some of the best mothers I know, with the best experiences of mothering (not of motherhood, of mothering) are people who have mastered what-not-to-do. And their children shall call them blessed.
Yatsuno
@aimai: I LOVE Genji no Monotagari! It’s only European chauvinism that keeps some scholars from crediting it as the first novel ever written. And it’s a very complex tale filled with drama and also quite a bit of comedy. Lady Murasaki was a genius. Someday I promised myself to read it in Japanese.
@schrodinger’s cat: NOMZS!! Have you tried making your own garam masala? I’ve seen a couple recipes, oesn’t look too bad.
Which translation are you using?
Villago Delenda Est
An entire book on the Madonna/Whore syndrome?
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
My favorite part of the K-Lo interview is her very first question:
It’s so generous that K-Lo’s first concern is for the poor victimized men who are left out and discriminated against while we give special rights and privileges to women on Mother’s Day.
.
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: I have never made garam masala. My garam masala is made by my mom, she sends me some of her stash when she makes it. The key to good garam masala is using cloves, cinnamon and pepper corns leaving out cumin. They add cumin in the commercial mixes since it is cheaper.
aimai
@Yatsuno:
Yatsuno,
I am reading Genji (first time) back to back with Proust (fourth time) just for the heck of it. I’m using Waley’s translation because I wanted to start with something so historically important and novelistic in a European sense and I figured I might compare accross with some other translations. I can read Proust in French but, as Charlie Pierce says about Peggy Noonan “you could break an ankle in some of those clauses” so I don’t and I’m using my old copy which is not the newest translation. I am reading both books for the way they make me feel, not so much for authenticity. At the rate I’m going, and now doing two books tandem, I should finish up in about ten years.
Yatsuno
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve seen a few mixes that looked interesting. I would omit the cumin since I have a friend who’s allergic to it plus I think it would interfere with the warmth the other spices give. Cinnamon, cardamom, and clove are magic together. A little nutmeg and pepper and I think we got something.
@aimai: I think you’ll enjoy Genji a lot. It’s very interesting to read a story that is not structured like we would expect in Western norms yet still stands as a fantastic piece of art. It’s very beloved by the Japanese.
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: I think the nutmeg is an excellent idea. Black cardamom is a good addition, as well.
ETA: If you want, I can ask my mother for her garam masala recipe.
aimai
@Yatsuno:
I highly recommend a cookbook “660 Curries” every dish I’ve made from it has been stellar. And his spice mixtures are very good. Some are so good that I’ve tweaked them and made rubs from them that I use on everything from chicken fingers to popcorn.
aimai
To get back to the subject at hand, motherhood, could anything be sadder than Kathryn Lopez being forced to write about “Catholic Motherhood and womanhood” on Mother’s day? She outright says whats bugging her with this question:
LOPEZ: Cardinal Dolan was proclaiming the other day that life is about babies, and Catholic bishops seem to be talking about marriage and babies a lot these days. What does that mean for the infertile? For the unmarried?
And the woman she is interviewing comes back with a longwinded explanation that everyone can be a “spiritual” mother to lots of other people. I don’t deny that but there is something creepy about the exaltation of the celibate priesthood and its insistence on marriage and babies for everyone else, under all circumstances. If its good for one, why is it not good for all? Second of all I found the entire interview very painful because of its insistence that it is woen and society who are not listening, rather than the church who is not communicating. The author of the book tells Lopez that despite the churches best efforts women suffer from misery and a sense of grief and the ugliness of their lives (“fill in the blank sorrow” is the way she puts it, which has to be the blah blah blah message I care of all writing samples) why is that? How is that? since the church is perfect and the male voices in it are perfect the fault must lie in women because they must not be listening.
Lurking Canadian
@aimai: Aimai, if you are still reading, is that show any good?
Just Some Fuckhead
Great, now aimai has disappeared.