I have been trying to decide whether I ought to post commentary, or whether I ought to just post my poems without apology. I think I have decided on the latter; with 13 other people there should be enough intelligent people to make up for my babbling. (Dream on, Vicki.) I am going to the Czech Republic today, and I shan’t come back for a long time, so I will just leave you with a little teaser for more…

William Blake wrote poems a plenty
I have only one and twenty*
In the future be attendant
To the poems of Blake’s descendant.

*not counting this one. (=0

Hannah Roorda writes

It’s been an interesting summer, and I’m sure I don’t need to describe all of my time commitments for you to come to the conclusion that I’m about to make the excuse that I’ve been too busy to blog. Ah, reader, you are brilliant.

But, I did find some time to write. My church has a book study every other Wednesday night, and one of the features of this study is that there are a few people who like to talk a lot during the study who seem to sometimes miss it when someone else would like to talk (tip: don’t put two pastors in the same room). I’m fine with this, as I recognize there are many more moments in my life when I’m talking and just won’t shut up than there are moments when I can’t get a word in edgewise.

But when one wants to talk and one is not given opportunity to, it can be very frustrating. To alleviate the problem of boredom, I have taken to writing short poems about historical theological leaders. They’re not strictly Clerihews, since I rarely like following the AABB rhyme pattern, and they’re not usually limericks, since that’s hard (whine, whine). They’re just short little things.

I’ll be posting them over the course of the next few weeks. To start, here’s one on Rushdoony (look him up if you need to):

Nobody messed with Rousas John Rushdoony,
For he was really quite feared.
When others would speak, he’d bellow,
“Hush, loony!” And frighten them off with his beard.

As you may know, Pontification Ad Nauseam is adding 7 new members to its ranks. As such, there are a few revisions to our Standard Administrative Procedures necessary.

Topic and Size – as Nick said, grab bag. The description to the right of our blog fits it pretty well. Keep it sharp and organized.

Posting - we have these rules for even distribution of contributions, and so that we don’t have large clumps of posts and then vast plateaus of inactivity.

(1) You must post at least once a month. It’s pretty conspicuous if you haven’t posted for a year and it isn’t conducive to have you on if you are terribly erratic.
(2) Do not post until at least 24 hours days after the previous person’s post.
(3) Do not post until seven [7] days after your last post.
(4) Do not post consecutively.
(5) As we do have 14 members and you’re all expected to post at least once a month, if you’ve already posted in a given month, yield to the people who haven’t posted yet. If you have 14 or 15 members posting once every month, and there’s two days for each to have their post at the top of the list, that means that if one person posts twice, another person doesn’t get to post that month.

Addendum – group posts, of course, represent each contributor involved, and so Mark and I both post in Love Lost & Regained, giving us both a post for the month.

A lot of you haven’t finished your bios yet. Please get those edited in as soon as possible. Those of you who haven’t are just labeled “Pending”, which is extremely boring. In a way, you slayed Bambi’s mom. Uhh, never mind.

Roosters crow, boys fight, baked goods, well, bake, unfinished math books lie around, piano music blows thanks to the open window, and where is M. T. Petra? Right in the middle of it all, loving every (well, nearly every) minute. Raised in Hickville, New Mexico (just like Old Mexico, but cleaner, oh, and most people in Old Mexico are legal. Here, well, it’s a different story!), where something as simple as a trip to the grocery store provides endless opportunity for one of Ms. Petra’s favorite hobbies: people watching. When your back is turned – or maybe when it’s not – she enjoys putting her over-active imagination to work analyzing you and being amused by humanity in general. As the great philosopher Hobbes said to his buddy Calvin (yes, that Hobbes), “God must have a goofy sense of humor.” The offspring of a math whiz and an engineer, Mary Therese is, thank goodness, more interested in fun books, Theology, a touch of politics, and people in general.

While she has every respect for those who are good with a hammer and nails, she is convinced that her calling lies elsewhere. Recently she bent, oh, never mind, she didn’t want it known how many nails got bent while she was hanging paintings on the wall the other day. A happy Papist, she believes that a faithful, holy, one of the – ahem- original men in black is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Wait, when WAS sliced bread invented? Speaking of food, Mary Therese believes that road kill is a food group of its own, chocolate is a vegetable, and zucchini, well, belongs in breads and cakes. End of discussion. She refuses to submit a photo with this bio. After all, the guy PAN writers ought to stay around a while, right, and not faint? She was told just last night that she looks like a movie star, so she’d rather not risk losing the guys. After all, Canty is amusing, and Mary Therese would rather not lose her quite yet. She’s still useful. It would be a shame to lose her before she becomes useless. As for the rest of the world, well, they’d better make themselves useful pretty fast, or stay useful if they currently are. Watch out world, college in particular. Muahaha

Hello there. My name is Maudlin A. Taylor, and I am a Roman Catholic. I’m seventeen years of age, and currently residing in Newport Beach, California. I was born underneath the great shining stars in the deep blue sky, looking up to the moon. As a small child, I lived in the country, where the wind blew a thousand different ways over the golden fields of things that stick to your socks.

Later in life, after I moved to Newport Beach, I discovered my true love for observing people and their habits, facial expressions, and motives. My other interests include Cats, Horses, Dressage, painting, choir, music, playing Guitar, drinking tea, and reading.

Horses are quite a large part of my life, particularly Arabian horses. Besides Dressage, I’ve done some jumping, and I enjoy trail riding. I draw and paint; I sometimes spend hours at it, when the mood strikes. I am a lowly Alto in St. Stephen the First Martyr’s Choir. I taught myself to play the Guitar, and I play for a few hours every day. For me, Tea is essential to life, and it’s wonderful in the afternoon. I also read science fiction and mysteries in my spare time.

Before I was offered a position on the celebrated PAN editorial Staff, I considered the stage as a profession. It seemed my only hopes of livelihood. I lived for so long in hopes, and dreams… I so longed to belong heart and soul to the lives of the many people I could have portrayed, but, alas, it was not meant to be. And so, tears rolling down my cheeks, I resigned myself to my fate, and here I am today.

Nimba-Jimba, the gorgeous pink dust-duned and deep purple oceaned cube-planet, is my home. Naturally, I was born on a deep purple evening with much loud thunder and many a bright lightning on a near-sunk sailboat. I was born to be the light to a dark planet: Earth. (Though, I would have preferred Pluto, just to spite the cruel astrologers who are saying it’s not a planet.) Or maybe I’m just here to spy on your governments and steal your precious technology.

All my life I’ve been a weirdo (ask Gabriel), but only in the last four or so yearshave I become the mentally deranged person and movie lover that I am today. More than love, actually, it’s more of a crazed obsession. And, as a result, I went on to become an actress, and then a director and screenwriter, making a few fabulous films.

Wait—that hasn’t happened yet. Forget the bit after crazed obsession, it’s my evilscheme to take over Earth.

So my goal in life is to be a writer. How am I going to accomplish that? I’m going to accomplish it by studying music. Go figure. It’s all about performance; life is a stage, and all that. I dance, I write, I sing, I play the piano, I learn languages…an artist is someone who excels at hiding himself. Where am I going with this?

This is supposed to be a biography. Let me start over. I was born once, and from that point on I sort of had this peculiar habit of living. I still do. It’s one of those habits I can’t seem to kick. They say that if you can keep yourself from your habit for 2 weeks, you’ll be cured, but I’ve never been able to stay longer than a few minutes in some ketchup-filled scene.

So as I say, I’ve been alive for quite some time. I already said what I do with my life. Never mind. I’m bad at writing biographies. Just go read what I write. It says a lot more about me than I’ll ever be willing to bluntly say. And just for the record, I have an awesome boyfriend, so you can just go eat a pony.

I was born in Australia, and I lived most of my life in Mozambique.

My main interests are languages, of which I know Portuguese and English, but am working on French, Latin and Greek — and also sports. I’m a fanatic tennis player.

Currently, I am studying Engineering at Monash University, in Australia.

Corinth lives in California, out in the country compared to some people. She is sixteen years of age and will be entering into her third year of high school. School occupies much of her time, but when not doing schoolwork, she loves to read. Some of her favorite authors are L.M. Montgomery, Jane Austen, Robert Jordan, Diana Wynne Jones, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.

In school, she enjoys languages the most of all her subjects. She will hopefully be translating Homer in Greek this year, the Aenied in Latin, and learning either Japanese or French – unfortunately there is no time to do both. Second to languages is literature. Corinth will be taking her third Literature class with Dr. Bruce McMenomy, and has developed a love for ancient literature, especially Greek and Old Germanic.

She recently began participating in NCFCA Debate. It was an amazing learning experience last year, and she has found so many friends both in her club and in other debate clubs. Whether or not her speaking skills have actually improved is yet to be seen, but it has increased her confidence in standing up and speaking before groups of people. The topic for this year is US foreign policy with India, and she is looking forward to learning more about the topic, and honing her speaking skills.

In addition to school, she takes piano lessons. She used to take violin and is considering taking it up again. Other hobbies include reading, baking, writing, talking to dear friends from all corners of the world on the computer, planning trips to Europe, taking walks, smelling flowers, counting stars, and this summer, attempting to teach herself Old English.

A friend of mine made the following comment to me one fine April day, “Mark, you’re a calculator. I’m an open book.”
He then proceeded to act as if he had concocted a brilliant syllogism. Stuff like that ticks me off.

But enough about me. How are you doing? What are your interests. Do you, as I do, enjoy 3D animation, argumentation, philosophy, and creative writing? No? Well, what do you plan to do with your life? I, for one (but don’t let me influence your decision) am looking into a career in some sort of Engineering, perhaps Computer or Electrical. Social Studies? Sociology? Psychology? Never.

How about tastes? Do you also enjoy all non-combination/pineapple/gross-stuff pizzas? And are you partial to chocolate and ice-cream? How about Chicken Cordon bleu? Do mush.rooms scare you? Do you find that your mouth waters at the mention of cheesy fries? But what does your mom cook? Healthy food. In fact, she cooks INDIAN food, doesn’t she? And this, of course is because your mom is from India, right? Instead of burgers, do you get chicken curry? I know how you feel. I see that we both eat our fill of chicken.

Lastly, do you like practically all types of music aside from Rap? No? Then we are incompatible. I’m sorry, but it could never have worked.

Back to me.

I was one of the original members of PAN, and I have been threatened with dismissal several times. I think that everyone on here is a blockhead, but I AM NOT the person who keeps insisting so. Trust me. Who cares whether all the evidence is stacked against me? I don’t. I’m the only normal one on here.