The Week in Review - 7th August, 2010

Since I’ve been working for what appears to be a year on other articles, and coming up empty-handed, I’ll share with DR readers what I do best: links and brief, nearly stream of consciousness, commentary.The week just ending was World Breastfeeding Week; and we are still in the midst of National Breastfeeding month. In honor of the occasion, I suggest you become acquainted with an excellent organization. It so happens that I am a member of the board and can personally recommend the support network highly. Your parish may benefit by starting a discussion group, just contact us.  We’ll help you get started.In other news, apparently forces working against all that is right and good in the world never sleep—not even on Common Dreams—and they leave no lemon stand standing.And some of the fundamental problems before us stand in stark relief: Many remain unemployed in spite of ‘stimulus’ and ‘recovery’, and the little overlooked tidbit in all of this are folks who will be coming to retirement without enough, despite a lifetime of effort.All this draws me to the same conclusions it has every week for a couple of years now: "The Distributist Moment" is upon us. There are allies in every corner, many in places we would not expect.The pieces of the puzzle are everywhere, if we only connect the dots... Many urban centers have extraordinary places and neighborhoods. The fact that we have abandoned these places, and all the good that is in both the places and the people there, is shameful.  The opportunity waits for a Distributist Recovery in all of these so-called seemingly forgotten cities ... if we want to forget something, we ought to forget the ‘jobless recovery’; how about a recovery of our jobs and our place in the economic system as human beings? Speaking of treating one another as human beings—here’s a little something a friend of a friend here in Michigan is trying.But every time I consider the gift of being (human), I return to food. And food always brings me to gardening and preserving ... And I can’t forget the livestock either—my children would never forgive me if I didn’t turn out smiley face fried eggs by the dozen several days a week. Since I’m waxing about gardening and it’s bounty, I’ll tell you about the best gardening tools I’ve ever used; bar none. I receive no compensation when you purchase one of their tools, save the comfort in knowing you’ll never need to replace it.Then of course, since we’re talking about the best, and about solutions to what ails us ... Here is the Best. Graduation. Speech. Ever.Then lastly, Louis Armstrong celebrated another birthday this week—his 99th if memory serves.  I really can’t pout too much about the work "The Distributist Moment" suggests is ahead of us, when I realize that we are blessed with music for the journey. I’ll let Satchmo remind us that we really do live in a Wonderful World. Amen to that.Pax, Caritas, et Bonum