Bryan Strawser

You are here: Home / Archives for Bryan Strawser

Bryan Strawser

Dooce Poop

by ·

You should read it too. Why? Because it’s Dooce.

She sounded like she was being ripped apart. I immediately transferred her to the changing table where I took off her diaper, and there we found an almost apple-sized piece of coal hanging from her butt. It wasn’t budging, and because Jon had once picked up my poop I did what any decent human would do and I pried it out of her. Leta, when you’re 16-years-old and you’re reading this and you start to think, ohmigod, I can’t believe my mother just wrote that, you should know that I pulled out that piece of poop BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. THAT’S WHAT MOTHERS DO.

Hi, my name is Heather and I used to have a career and make lots of money. Now I poop while my daughter sits at my feet and plays with Tampax, and that’s what I consider a successful morning.

Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?

by ·

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow:

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

– Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream

VDH: On Being Disliked

by ·

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson speaks the truth:

America should not gratuitously welcome such dislike; but we should not apologize for it either. Sometimes the caliber of a nation is found not in why it is liked, but rather in why it is not. By January 1, 1941, I suppose a majority on the planet — the Soviet Union, all of Eastern Europe, France, Italy, Spain, and even many elsewhere in occupied Europe, most of Latin America, Japan and its Asian empire, the entire Arab world, many in India — would have professed a marked preference for Hitler’s Germany over Churchill’s England.

Think about it. When Europe orders all American troops out; when Japan claims our textbooks whitewash the Japanese forced internment or Hiroshima; when China cites unfair trade with the United States; when South Korea says get the hell off our DMZ; when India complains that we are dumping outsourced jobs on them; when Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians refuse cash aid; when Canada complains that we are not carrying our weight in collective North American defense; when the United Nations moves to Damascus; when the Arab Street seethes that we are pushing theocrats and autocrats down its throat; when Mexico builds a fence to keep us out; when Latin America proclaims a boycott of the culturally imperialistic Major Leagues; and when the world ignores American books, films, and popular culture, then perhaps we should be worried. But something tells me none of that is going to happen in this lifetime.

At dinner last night, the sidekick and I were discussing a discussion about gun control over at another blog where we had both commented. After awhile, some Europeans came over and started commenting about America’s fascination with guns and how unsafe our country was, and so on, and so forth.

While I have nothing against Europe as a whole, it’s this holier-than-thou enlightened attitude that some Europeans have that frustrates me. In alot of ways, I’ve lost my desire to debate some of those topics.

The UN? Corrupt, but salvageable.

Iraq, we did the right thing.

Afghanistan, we did the right thing.

Re-electing George W. Bush, we did the right thing.

Gun Control? A firm grip, no more.

Our taxes? Too high.

As our esteemed Secretary of State said recently while in France:

“There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy. Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles.”

I’m quite happy being an American, thanks.

Where are you?

by ·

Galadriel Where Are You-1

Where are you? You should be home. It’s sunny.

Oh wait, is that a bird. Hmmm. Hey, there’s a rabbit. Well, who cares where you are.. I can soak up the sun, and watch birds eat your new grass seed, and the neighbors wander around… and the rabbit hop. Oh.. there’s that dog. I don’t like dogs. I could scratch him.. yes, yes, scratch him.

Oh wait is it nap time? *yawn*. I should sleep.

The Word From Rome

by ·

I’m not Catholic. I was raised Methodist and go through my days today mostly agnostic, but I do have my moments.

Last year for Christmas, some family gave me a book called Conclave, by John Allen, the Vatican Bureau Chief for the National Catholic Reporter. John is probably one of the best writers on the subject of the Catholic Church and the Vatican I’ve ever read. His book, Conclave, is a fascinating read on the events that we just watched unfold in Rome.

He writes, in his column The Word from Rome, of his own response to the death of Pope John Paul II:

Oddly enough, having prepared for these experiences night and day for more than five years, having run through endless scenarios on both logistical and journalistic fronts, the one thing that I never accounted for is that I would also have a personal, emotional response. After all, a man died, and not just any man — John Paul loomed incredibly large in my life. I met him eight times, traveled with him to 21 nations, and probably wrote millions of words about him all told. While I realize there are perfectly reasonable criticisms to be made of various aspects of his papacy, what seems to me beyond question is that he was a man of deep faith and integrity, a genuinely good person striving by his lights to serve God, the church, and all of humanity. His final days taught me, and taught all of us, how to face impending death with both grit and grace, and it’s a lesson I will never forget.

All that came to a crescendo during the funeral Mass, as I was sitting next to Christiane Amanpour and my colleague Delia Gallagher on the CNN set, watching the papal gentlemen pick up the pope’s casket and turn it around for one final farewell to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. At that moment I had to choke back tears, realizing in an instant that I would never write another sentence about John Paul II in the present tense.

You don’t say goodbye to someone like John Paul without a sense of loss.

I have more thoughts on Allen’s writings and on my own emotional and spiritual response to the death of the Pope to say in the coming days…