It's been more than a month since my last posting, but I'm not dead. I've been hard at work on a project, about which I wish strangers were as quick as "Colonel Taggart" has been in responding to requests for permission to use some of their material.

C'm'on, Dusty, speak to me!

In the meantime I want to talk briefly about Christmas. Last year I touted a book for gift-giving, A Monk's Alphabet, by Jeremy Driscoll, a Benedictine monk. He's a smart guy, funny too and a wonderful writer. He gave me permission to reproduce a story from his book. (The above link will take you to my review that includes that story, "First Love.") The latest is that A Monk's Alphabet is coming out in paperback on December 1st...or the 11th depending on where you look it up. Either way, it's in time for gift-giving, not mention cheaper than what you had to pay in 2006.

Although Father Jeremy is a religious man, his book is not abut religion in a preachy sense; more specifically, he's not trying to convert you to Christianity any more than Graham Green, Flannery O'Connor or Evelyn Waugh tried. Fr. Jeremy is very different from those writers, but he belongs on the list. That's why his book is good for giving to friends and family on other occasions. The anniversary of Pearl Harbor, for example. Around the fifth day of Hanukkah when you've run out of ideas. As a way to keep thoughts from straying to the obscene and the irreligious during Ramadan. Kwanzaa. My birthday on March 19th. The possibilities are endless.

In other news Vitorio Sanzone (known to me and the other 200 close personal friends on his email list as Vito or Veet) writes, "...the military ordered 1,000 copies of The Courage To Be Brilliant." Said book was published by Vito's company Vitorio Media Inc. and was authored by Martha Monahan with me tagging along.

Veet, which military? Give me a call.

Another note. Yes, Mrs. R., you are absolutely right, you have hit the nail on the head, gone to the heart of the matter and gotten the crux of it as it were. The way to make money on the internet is to have Google and other sponsors place advertising on your site.

There's a good movie coming out, Liberty. It has been more than a year in the making, on weekends and such, with a shoestring budget, prayers and sweat equity that is priceless.

Psst, Chris. Clarence. Google would have had to pay for that. Know what I'm saying?

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln