Hugh Hewitt is killing me today as he plays clips from shows hosted by Dean Barnett, who passed away one year ago today. Last year I wrote the following:

Dean Barnett passed away today. Born in 1967, he was a young 41 years old. What a shame, what a loss for all of us.

I first discovered Dean while he was guest posting at Hugh Hewitt’s blog where his opinions and prose entertained and informed with a sense of glee. I used to send him Photoshops and he used one once, and often commented on others that he liked. When I got an email from him that was special. I loved it when he guest hosted for Hugh on the radio. That voice, that Boston accent, the way he had such fun talking with Glen in Texas.

Dean had cystic fibrosis and had already out survived the odds. He had many close calls before, but a new type of treatment gave him hope, and extra months and years. Dean wrote about CF in a blog 2006 post.

CF is a genetic disease, the number one genetic killer in the country. The average age of death is 36. I’m now 39; when I was born in 1967, the life expectancy for a newborn with CF was 8 years.

Yet, he thought that he was a lucky man.

Until I was a teenager, I was mostly asymptomatic. Even after I was a teenager, I enjoyed what is considered good health in the CF community. I’ve certainly been luckier than most CF patients.

After having a serious setback a few years ago and being placed on the lung transplant list he got a chance at being in a test of a new treatment.

At one point during my interview, the questioner asked me if I expected to see a cure to CF in my lifetime. I answered no, but that it doesn’t really matter. When you see death up close, a couple of things become clear. One is that we all die, and that death is just part of the deal. The other is that life is such a blessing, that’s it just so great, even though you know the inevitable might be near you still want as many bites of the apple as possible.

None of us know what the future of the salt water treatment might be. My health will maintain its current state indefinitely in the truest sense of the term. The good times could continue for years, or it could all crash tomorrow.

That treatment brought him a bit over 18 extra months of the “good times”.

Godspeed Dean. May God’s grace and comfort be with your family and friends.

I miss Dean . . .

Technorati Tags: Dean Barnett, cystic fibrosis

About a month ago The Anchoress took off from blogging for a personal retreat. Evidently she has been having a bit of trouble putting into adequate words what was gleaned from that period of contemplation. However, in a post today she wrote this:

And increasingly, even when my kneejerk instinct to a headline or a piece of news is to snarl, or rage, or smirk, I remember:

“Everything” is about nothing.
Everything ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb.
All is consummated.
We are forever and always at the Last Supper, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.
Time ended with the tearing of the veil and the rolling back of the stone.
The rest is illusion and catching up.
There is nothing to be afraid of.

And when I remember that, I dash all of my fury, all of my love, all of my passion against the cross of Christ, and settle beneath their shards and fragments as they rain down upon me, and pass and bite and dissolve. And I pray, most particularly for the event or the person or the feeling that has roused my headstrong, foolish passion and lured me toward the illusion, and away from detachment, wherein is found humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace.

I have to admit I was struck by the wisdom and the rebuke waiting for me in these words. Although I will never find true depths of “humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace” that she will, (trust me on this), I do need to remember that as crazy as the world can seem, and as terrible a future that can be imagined — Mankind only thinks it’s in control.

Gotta remember that a lot more often . . .

The Anchoress has this one pegged to the wall:

When Dubya swaggered, it was “arrogance.” When Obama “swaggas” it’s “cool.” Bunch of upper-class white pretenders calling it “swagga;” just makes you want to roll your eyes, doesn’t it? I can’t help but think Obama loathes them, and I wouldn’t blame him if he does. It’s hard to respect people who slobber all over you.

The White House Press Corps has revealed a profound truth about themselves: they’re a bunch of 14 year old girls. If they don’t like you, they will be absolute savages to you. But if they like you, you’re cool and they all want to be, they all want to invite you for a sleepover.

If they love you, they collect your bare-chested pictures they draw hearts around your name and sigh that you are the best, the smartest, the coolest, the funniest, the most elegant, the most brilliant, the handsomest and best-dressed, most charming evah, evah, evah, and have fantasies that you’ll take them on a dream date! They share minutiae about you; what you like and dislike. And when you break promises to them, they either ignore it or they make excuses for it.

Sorry for the loooooooooooong interlude between posts. This whole Obama’s 100 days thing has me gobsmacked — and it just keeps on smackin’ and a smackin’. I’ll be back in the ol’ saddle real soon — promise!

The Internet — What can ya say? If you ever wanted to hear your own words presented as a mini-movie: Xtranormal.com

Here’s the top few ‘graphs of a post from the other day.

Be sure and go full-screen — Heh!

[H/t: Ace Mine's not as weird as his . . .]

This time, he infiltrates the “JournoList Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room”.

If you’ve ever wondered what the Lefty bloggers, MSM reporters and other pathetic Lefty loooooooooozers do in their off time . . .

[Content warning!!!]

Heh!

Out of the loop due to actually trying to do some paying work — that is important once in a while ya know . . . Still, can’t not bring these next two to your attention, both by The Anchoress.

First post: Miracles, Indeed

For all those out there that just can’t bring themselves to entertain the concept of miracles, she gives us the very real, very current news of a pregnant mother with seemingly incurable cancer of the mouth and throat that can’t have full-blown treatment until after the baby is delivered — after much in the way of prayers and light radiation — her cancer is . . . gone!

In the same post is news of baby Faith, born without a cerebrum, without an upper brain. Told that it would be a miracle for the baby to live 39 minutes, she has survived 39 days and shows signs of consciousness and normal activity for an infant. The docs had to do an MRI to make sure that no cerebellum was actually there — it isn’t. There are no explanations, except . . .

Second post: “Not believing is even worse.”

Our Anchoress considers the nature of “belief” after a conversation with a New York cabbie and concludes:

[F]or believers there is the reality that our lives and our ways continually give scandal to “the faith,” no matter what faith. The Islamofacists give scandal to the Muslims, the shyster-televangelists give scandal to the Evangelicals, the sins of our priests give scandal to the Catholics, the Hadassah lady sneaking a pork egg roll gives scandal to the Jews. My sharp answer to a stranger, while I wear the cross of Christ crucified, gives scandal. The cranky driver who yelled at me two weeks ago gave scandal to whatever his faith is.

Believers aren’t any better than anyone else, and belief – for all the good it does, and it does much – still serves as the impetus for so much that is bad in the world!

And yet…not believing is even worse.

Tell me you don’t want to know the whole skinny about that conversation.

Technorati Tags: miracles, baby Faith

OK, OK — I’m a day late . . . sue me. Wait, this it LA, better scratch that.

If you read this blog much, you know that a reoccurring theme is chronicling the leftward bias that shows up in the pages of our local cat-box-liner The Los Angeles Times. Well, truth be told, I’m an abject piker when compared to LA County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey, whose blog Patericco’s Pontifications has been skewering those rascally Lefties at the LA Times for years — six to be exact. In this year’s wrap-up post, Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2008, the level of leftward bias, obfuscation and outright lying reached new heights — 2008 was after all an election year. Nothing like a presidential race to bring out the very “best” in the writers and editorial board of the LAT.

So grab a BIG cup o’ Joe and go read it all. If you’ve ever wondered, or kinda doubted, that our local rag wasn’t exactly tellin’ it to ya straight — this one from Patrick should lay your ears flat back!

Oh, ya betcha!

What if Barack Obama was not going to be the 44th President of the United States?

What if he wouldn’t even be the first African-American POTUS?

What if he ended up being POTUS number 46 instead?

Laer at Cheat-Seeking Missiles has the skinny on sweet GOP Revenge!

Heh!

[H/t: LGF via Ace]

The Obama campaign is very sensitive about the prior association of Barack Obama and the unrepentant-domestic-terrorist William (Bill) Ayers. They claim that there never was one, regardless of the facts that Obama and Ayers served on the same institutional boards, lived near each other, Obama’s political coming out party was held in the Ayers’ living room, etc. Obama’s own statement on Ayers is that he was only 8-years old when Ayers and the Weather Underground was bombing the Pentagon and the Capitol, and that he was unaware of Ayers radical past when he did actually meet him.

The Obama campaign also won’t comment on Barack’s years at Columbia University. In fact, that period of time in Barack’s life is a black hole information wise. Zombie put together the rationale that while Barack was only 8-years old when Ayers and the Weather Underground started their terror spree, he, Barack, was 20-years old when they made their final attacks. And it gets better because Barack and Ayers were both living in NY at that time. This was enough of a coincidence, combined with the dearth of public information on Obama’s Columbia years, that Zombie decided to go looking — to see just what could be found — to see if there is any evidence out there that would link Obama to the WU’s activities. Hitting brick wall after brick wall, he puts together enough pieces to at least strongly suggest that when Barack Obama makes the statement that until recently he didn’t know anything about Bill Ayers past, he’s lyin’ through his teeth.

Barack Obama would have you believe that the bombings by the radical domestic terrorists known as The Weather Underground were something that happened “when I was eight years old” and with which he had absolutely no connection. And while it is true that their bombings started when Obama was eight years old, they actually continued until he was twenty years old. And, incredibly, the life of Barack Obama and the terror campaign of the Weather Underground nearly intersected on the evening of September 26, 1981 at an anti-Apartheid protest which turned violent at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

I’m tempted to say they may have intersected, rather than just “nearly.” But I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is that Obama had the same political interests as the final remnants of the Weather Underground at the exact same time in the exact same place. That he was living in the same city where and when they conducted their second-to-last terror attack, which was a protest against the Apartheid polices of South Africa — the very topic to which Obama has said he was devoted at that time. So because of all this, Obama must have known about the Weather Underground and their tactics while he was still in college. So when he met Weather Underground founder William Ayers 13 years later, Obama certainly had to have known exactly who Ayers was and what he had done.

If you only have time to read one thing today, read the entire post. Especially if you still don’t know for whom you are voting. If Obama has nothing to hide about his years spent at Columbia, why won’t his campaign release any information about them? If Obama is supposed to be such a smart man, why does he insist that despite common political interests, despite two times in his life living in close proximity with Bill Ayers that until most recently he didn’t know that Ayers had been a domestic terrorist, that “he was just someone living in the neighborhood”? Given that statement and Zombie’s research, Barack Obama is either a brazen liar or an imbecile. He doesn’t come off as imbecilic to me, so that leaves us option number one. I’ll let Zombie’s words wrap this up:

Just below two photos Zombie writes:

On the left: Barack Obama in New York ca. 1982. On the right: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in New York in 1982. Had their lives just overlapped?

They were in the same city as each other, at the same time.
They lived near each other.
The went to school near each other.
They had the same political interests.
Their circles of friends and associates intersected.

By sheer coincidence, a decade later in Chicago, they were in the same city as each other, at the same time; they lived near each other; they had the same political interests; their circles of friends and associates intersected.

Or was it not a coincidence at all?

Dean Barnett passed away today. Born in 1967, he was a young 41 years old. What a shame, what a loss for all of us.

I first discovered Dean while he was guest posting at Hugh Hewitt’s blog where his opinions and prose entertained and informed with a sense of glee. I used to send him Photoshops and he used one once, and often commented on others that he liked. When I got an email from him that was special. I loved it when he guest hosted for Hugh on the radio. That voice, that Boston accent, the way he had such fun talking with Glen in Texas.

Dean had cystic fibrosis and had already out survived the odds. He had many close calls before, but a new type of treatment gave him hope, and extra months and years. Dean wrote about CF in a blog 2006 post.

CF is a genetic disease, the number one genetic killer in the country. The average age of death is 36. I’m now 39; when I was born in 1967, the life expectancy for a newborn with CF was 8 years.

Yet, he thought that he was a lucky man.

Until I was a teenager, I was mostly asymptomatic. Even after I was a teenager, I enjoyed what is considered good health in the CF community. I’ve certainly been luckier than most CF patients.

After having a serious setback a few years ago and being placed on the lung transplant list he got a chance at being in a test of a new treatment.

At one point during my interview, the questioner asked me if I expected to see a cure to CF in my lifetime. I answered no, but that it doesn’t really matter. When you see death up close, a couple of things become clear. One is that we all die, and that death is just part of the deal. The other is that life is such a blessing, that’s it just so great, even though you know the inevitable might be near you still want as many bites of the apple as possible.

None of us know what the future of the salt water treatment might be. My health will maintain its current state indefinitely in the truest sense of the term. The good times could continue for years, or it could all crash tomorrow.

That treatment brought him a bit over 18 extra months of the “good times”.

Godspeed Dean. May God’s grace and comfort be with your family and friends.

Others honoring Dean:

Hugh Hewitt

Mitt Romney

Captain Ed

Ace

Wizbang

LGF

Article 6 Blog

Protein Wisdom

The Anchoress

And I’m sure, there will be many, many more . . .

Technorati Tags: Dean Barnett, cystic fibrosis