Brews You Can Use
It’s drinkin’ time. First, it’s Michigan Week. All three of my long-time fans know that I have a hard time finding beer at Michigan Week. But I’ve got it licked now. The festival is held on U.S. 12, right in front of my law office. My firm owns the small park/yard on the corner of U.S. 12 and Clay Street. State law doesn’t prohibit a person from drinking beer in his own yard (give MADD a little time to work on this one). It’s my yard, my beer, my buzz. I’ll be there tomorrow with friends, enjoying some first-rate people watching, music from my CD player, and Oberon.
Second, it looks like my children’s school problems are resolved: They will attend St. Mary’s Catholic School in the neighboring village, about twelve miles down the road. My family attended the school’s open house last night, and they came out happy and excited. It’s the first time since the Black News was announced that I’ve seen them smile and say “school next year” at the same time. It’s a tremendous relief. Moreover, it appears all of them will have old friends at the school, thanks to a client of mine who has promised to procure a bus for the school and another anonymous donor that has donated $1,000 to get a transportation fund started (maintenance, gas, etc.). We have also identified some recently-retired bus drivers (all good people and die-hard Catholics) to drive it (please pray that they’ll accept the call). Things are looking up. I’m sufficiently cynical not to get too excited; something always seems to go wrong. But I’m sufficiently hopeful to hoist some extra ones this weekend.
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Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage
The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers.
Fortunately, I’m not a serious imbiber. I like to think I’m a fun imbiber, but definitely not serious.
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It’s a close call:
Australian police who pulled over a driver were shocked to find he had secured a load of beer with a seat belt – but not a five-year-old boy.
Officers were appalled to find the man was more concerned about his 30 “tinnies” than the child travelling with him.
While the consignment of alcohol was safely buckled in, the boy was sitting on the floor in the back, unrestrained.
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A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of a group calling itself the Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday. Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones – aka Master Jonba Hehol – with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates’ Court. Why is this Brews You Can Use? “Hughes claimed he couldn’t remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon box of wine beforehand. ‘He knows his behavior was wrong and didn’t want it to happen but he has no recollection of it,’ said Hughes’ lawyer, Frances Jones.”
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7 Responses to “Brews You Can Use”
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May 16th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Good news about the school. And your kids will be crossing this place every day:
http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/01/13/william-hogeland-and-the-whiskey-rebellion/
I suppose it would be more appropriate if it was a beer rebellion.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
A drunk Darth Vader?!? Tooooooo funny! I’d have paid money to see that “fight”. May the malts be with you!
May 16th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Good for you on the improved school situation. My kids are now in public schools (for a variety of reasons, economic and practical) with mixed results. There are benefits for them, as well as dangers. We have done Catholic school, home school, and now public.
I’m happy for your family, though, that your kids are able to continue in a Catholic school.
I think they should have done a scene in Return of the Jedi where Darth Vader gets drunk (using a straw) and pours his heart out to a scruffy bartender… you know, how the Emperor can be such a hardass, and how no one understands what stress he’s under being the baddest dude in the galaxy, and then there’s the stinking rebels complicating things. Flesh out his character, a little.
Anyway, enjoy your weekend. Myself, I have an appointment with Sam Adams.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Eric, Tim:
I’m interested in why Eric has opted for Catholic school work and Tim ultimately chose public school. My kids are 3.5, 2, and #3 is due next month. We’re moving back to my home state for a new job in a couple of months. We still have a year until our oldest is in kindergarten, but we’re already thinking about public v. Catholic school. My biggest concern about Catholic schools is that they aren’t going to be sufficiently Catholic to justify the fairly steep tuition. Part of me thinks that we should send them to strong public schools and use some of the money we would have spent on Catholic school on religious-themed vacations/pilgrimages or something like that might have a more lasting impact on their spiritual development. What do you two think?
Brandon Hale
May 17th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Brandon:
I have a unique position. The tuition is very cheap (as far as parochial schools go), about $1,500 per year, and both schools are highly Catholic. Not as conservative as I’d like, but faithful to the Magisterium to the extent they understand it and certainly no influence from liberal nuns. The choice between the Catholic school that shut down and the public schools was a “no brainer”: I’m Catholic, and I don’t want my children in a (literally) Godless environment 35 hours a week. I don’t like the “disconnect” between (i) insisting on devout religious belief, and then (ii) putting them in an environment where all the adult leaders can’t mention Jesus, Mary, the saints, etc. Again, a no brainer . . . if (i) the tuition is reasonable (which means I can swing it without jeopardizing my ability to pay current bills and save a little bit for the future), (ii) there aren’t liberals poisoning the school, and (iii) my kids have no unique learning situations that would benefit from programs that only public schools can offer. I suspect the majority of Catholics don’t have a situation that meets all three elements, so I rarely fault someone for declining to use Catholic schools. Until I walk a mile in their shoes . . .
May 17th, 2008 at 7:13 am
“My biggest concern about Catholic schools is that they aren’t going to be sufficiently Catholic to justify the fairly steep tuition.”
As a Catholic pastor, I think Brandon has presented THE concern for Catholic education. A lot of lip service is given to this, but I see little real movement at the diocesan level, in this diocese and others. Individual parishes have been able to reinvigorate the Catholic content and identity in schools, where the local leadership is thoroughly committed to the promotion of the Catholic faith and understands this is the sole reason for the existence of Catholic schools.
But this kind of unapologetic Catholic identity is really against a trend toward a post-modern homogenization, a “lowest common denominator” approach that attempts to be all things to all folks, and a bend-over-backwards ecumenism. You have a situation in some places, even in this diocese, when concerns are raised by diocesan officials about a Catholic school being too Catholic, or, to be more diplomatic and generous to those officials (than they would ever be to me or the lay leadership here), of being not sufficiently promotive of ecumenical and liturgical values of the Second Vatican Council. This “concern” is being offered by individuals who I am convinced haven’t read the documents of Vatican II, but are quick to swing the term “Vatican II” as a cudgel to beat down those who are aware of what the Second Vatican Council actually taught, as well as the other twenty ecumenical councils in the history of the Catholic Church.
When a Catholic school or diocesan Office of Schools is more interested in how it can retain its non-Catholic clientele instead of strengthening a school’s commitment to and instruction of the Catholic faith, there will be legitimate concerns raised by the Christian Faithful, and these concerns will lead Mr. Hale and others to reconsider their personal investment in institutions that are not fulfilling the explicitly evangelical mission for which they were founded.
I applaud Mr. Hale for his intrepid concerns about Catholic schools being sufficiently Catholic, and encourage him and others like-minded to urge their pastors and school administrators to rediscover, reinvigorate and replenish Catholic identity. In the absence of substantial local commitment to the growing concerns for sufficient Catholic orthodoxy in spiritual development, catechesis, curriculum content and liturgical practice, Mr. Hale’s suggestion about the redirection of funds towards family-based Catholic formation experiences seems a most reasonable proposal.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
“Mr. Hale’s suggestion about the redirection of funds towards family-based Catholic formation experiences seems a most reasonable proposal.”
I must confess that I should have been more precise: this suggestion seems a most reasonable proposal to me. I cannot comment on how reasonable Mr. Hale’s suggestion would appear to my brother priests in this diocese. I suspect that such suggestion would fall on deaf ears. Insofar as I have a sufficiently Catholic grade school, and am striving to achieve Full and Unapologetic Catholic grade school status, I happily do not have to consider seriously Mr. Hale’s suggestion here in Aqua Frigida.
Yes, the students study Latin here, in the third, fourth and fifth grades.