Sorry everyone, I couldn’t make it to the Flame in time today on Parliament Hill.  Will make it up at the Voris event which you’re all coming to on May 24, right?

We’ll go out for a brewskie afterwards with Michael and celebrate putting the boot to social justice in the Church.

Deborah Gyapong has suggested that Pro-Life Bloggers meet up after the March starts, but I don’t think I can do that with kids and all.

I’ll be arriving at Parliament Hill around Noon with my family and some family friends.  But I would like to say hello to any fellow bloggers and Socon or Bust readers at the Centennial Flame, say between 12:15-12:30PM.

I think this is a great idea. Let’s make it an annual event!

Maybe we can pay a visit to the CBC’s truck at the March and express our collective blogger “concern” over their coverage of prior years.

Relations between Catholic bloggers and Church officials have at times been quite strained as the new media has developed in the last couple years. Some prelates, clergy, and chancery officials have expressed strong reservations about the Catholic blogosphere, with some even speaking quite derogatorily.

Church leaders have been angered by the penchant of many bloggers to call them out on their failures to expound and defend controversial Catholic teachings on moral issues like contraception, homosexuality, and abortion.

The difficulties got to the point that last year the Vatican convened a special conference for bloggers to try to build bridges and learn more about this new method for advancing the Gospel.

But now even the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is saying Catholic bloggers have a “critical role” in defending the Church.

In a new statement on religious freedom released today they write:

The Catholic Church in America is blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom. (Source)

I’m all for co-operation on a case-by-case basis. Religious liberty is a no-brainer.  The question is not Blogger orthodoxy, but rather how serious the Bishops are about fighting Obama.  Is it all just talk or are they going to call Obama’s Bluff and shut down the hospitals?  Bloggers are willing to mix it up with the culture, and co-operate with the leadership of the U.S. Bishops, if they’re not just blowing smoke.  God help them if they yank the carpet from our feet and don’t follow through, though, once they start the train rolling.

Just a little warning to my fellow bloggers:  don’t get too cozy with the Bishops or else you lose your relevance and moral authority. Co-operation is on a “contract”, case-by-case basis.  The Catholic world has shifted because of the Catholic Blogosphere and Catholic New Media and that’s no embelishment, either.   We need to circle the wagons when the necessity arises, but we need to break up the wagons when the Bishops aren’t doing their jobs.

There’s no blogger blank cheque for the bishops.  There’s a very low limit on the credit card that they should be permitted to draw from.

Let’s not forget who put us in this mess, in the first place.

Moscow, March 26, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia advises Orthodox bloggers to direct their “enhanced energy” to real work.

“It’s enough to follow the discussions in blogs of believers, both laity and clerics. After reading them, you often think: “if to use this energy for good purposes!” the Patriarch said at a session of the Coordination Committee on Promoting Social, Educative, Cultural and other Initiatives under Auspices of the Russian Church.

He asked a question to the participants in these Internet discussions: “You speak very decisively – but what are your real work and your real deeds? What are your practical actions?”

“I don’t underestimate importance and need of deep, serious discussion among Orthodox believers, but I want to remind to its every participant, that the Savior speaks directly to you: “By their fruits you will know them.” By their fruit, not by their chats, jokes, desire to look strong, clever, convincing, biting and so on,” the Primate stressed. (Source)

It’s true…unless you are using the blog to effect meaningful change.

A shout-out to all the bloggers listed on the “Society’s” page….

You are all welcome to come out to hear Michael Voris on May 24 here in Ottawa.

We might go out for a pint afterwards and shoot the S. 

Who knows? Could be the start of a wonderful romance.

Socon or Bust, as some readers might knows, runs on WordPress.  WordPress is probably the most popular blogging platform on the Internet right now because it allows for maximum features and options.  It’s kind of like the VHS over Beta in video tapes, if anybody remembers what that was like.  (Go on, admit it, your Dad bought the Beta video machine.)  Anyhow, WordPress does have some issues from time to time with compatability of the plugins and other issues, but since we moved over to WordPress from Blogger,  I can say that I’ve been very happy and impressed with its functionality and breadth.  Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings everyone,

As you might have gathered by now, we’re experiencing long load times on our blog.

I’ve been on the WordPress forums and the problem is high CPU usage on my account, which apparently is pretty common in WordPress, and no one seems to know how to fix it.  Some solutions work, but most people have tried them all and nothing seems to work.
 
I have done the following:
 
1) Uploaded and enabled the following plugins which are supposed to decrease the CPU Usage:  WP-reCAPTCHA and WP Super Cache
2) Disabled all unnecessary Plugins
3) Configured WP-Cron to only request updates every 2 hours (instead of every time a page loads)
4) Optimiizing database

If anyone in cyberspace can help me out here, I would greatly appreciate it.  Email me at pacheco377@gmail.com

 
Here. 

Story about it here.

Excerpt:

“These blogs were not narrowly political, angry or philistine,” he said in an email interview. “They were well-written, by people who seemed to be alive in their faith, in their families, in their priestly and religious vocations.”

Narrow. Check.

Political. Check.

Angry. Checkerona.

Philistine.  Checkmate.

This explains why I didn’t make the cut.

As I mentioned earlier during the month, Socon or Bust is folding up the tent.

The scheduled departure date is scheduled for Fri. Dec.23, 2011.

I’d like to offer a few clarifications, thoughts, and details about our imminent departure from the blogosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

  Read the rest of this entry »

#2.  Not bad.

I’m so glad the stereotype sticks.

We’ve added some code to make Socon or Bust look nicer on mobile phones. Looks great! I hope you enjoy!

Here’s what it looks like on an iPhone.

Socon or Bust readers might have noticed that I have stepped back from doing heavy blogging over the past month or so.  There’s a difference between “heavy” and “light” blogging.  “Heavy” blogging involves composing a longer entry, and sometimes that entry has a lot of research behind it which makes it even more time-intensive.  Socon or Bust was never started to simply be another blog in cyberspace.  It was started, principally, to be an means of furthering social conservative activism and reporting on our activities.  Not to say that pure bloggers are not important; they most certainly are.  But our focus has always been somewhat different.  We used the blog to report on our activities…not simply to report on the news or what others are doing. Read the rest of this entry »

Easy as….

1.  Boston Catholic Parish Hosting Gay Pride Mass

2. 

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3. Cancelled Mass outrages gays