TulipGirl

My boys, getting ready to go down to Independence Square for Yushchenko’s inauguration and to welcome in the New Year!

More New Year’s photos from Maidan, courtesy of Hubby.

From byFaith Online Magazine e-mail:

Mission to the World is spearheading relief efforts for victims of the recent Tsunami in Asia. MTW is in the process raising funds to help those in need. It is also planning to send response teams through its Disaster Response Ministry (DRM). The DRM is a mercy ministry of the Medical Missions Department of MTW, created with the specific purpose of deploying trained and equipped teams to areas of disaster and need in different parts of the world. To read the MTW appeal letter, to donate funds and/or to volunteer to be a part of a response team go to MTW.org

Honestly, I’m not going to be blogging about the tsunami. It’s just too much for me right now. It’s too big, too horrible, too overwhelming. I’m limiting what I read about it, what I pictures I view, and how much I think about it.

And while I know many, many people are suffering, I am very thankful that the people we personally know who live and minister in that part of the world are safe.

Update: More about the MTW Minutemen at Wittenberg Gate.

We are rejoicing to here that new baby Hampson has safely and healthily made it into this world. Much love to the Hampson family!

“O Lord my God, shed the light of your love on my child. Keep him safe from all illness and all injury. Enter his tiny soul, and comfort him with your peace and joy. He is too young to speak to me, and to my ears his cries and gurgles are meaningless nonsense… Let him as a child learn the way of your commandments. As an adult let him live the full span of life, serving your kingdom on earth. And finally in his old age, let him die in the sure and certain knowledge of your salvation. I do not ask that he be wealthy, powerful, or famous. Rather I ask that he be poor in spirit, humble in action, and devout in worship. Dear Lord, smile upon him.”

~Johann Starck, 1680-1756

The above prayer is at the top of Jenn’s blog, and is one I’m going to print out to keep above my kitchen sink.

Reason to Believe, by R. C. Sproul

(via Monergism.com)

Yushchenko Boys

These aren’t my boys, but my boys would certainly join them in accessorizing with orange ribbons.

Photo from obdymok, thanks to Hello.

This week I’m getting a wonderful Christmas present from Tim over at Challies Dot Com. *grin* He’s a tech guru and is doing what gurus do to templates and MT and the sorts of things that confound us unenlightened ones.

If there are any hiccups along the way, please be patient with me!

And go check out Challies Dot Com–one of my regular (and very worthwhile) reads.

Update: Ooooh, ooooh! MT 3.12 is already installed and already addressing the mire of spam that’s accumulated. Thank you, Tim!

“I met Kathy during the Cold War days, doing rallies and events in support of freedom and democracy for the Soviet bloc. (She loved Ukraine deeply — to this day most of what I know about Ukrainian culture is what she taught me — but she cheerfully worked to free all the Captive Nations.) At the time, most people thought the Cold War would go on for decades. Only true believers did the work Kathy did. There was no glory in it; certainly no money (one usually had to supply one’s own money) nor prestige. . . . But Kathy wanted Ukraine to be free and she was in the cause because of that love. I can’t say I am surprised to see that she is still on the job, because I never met anyone more dedicated to the freedom of her homeland than Kathy.

Amy Ridenour has a great post about when she knew and worked with Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko.

Quite a vivid difference from Lyudmilla “And their hands reach out for another orange” Yanukovich.

(Via FeebleKnees)

55.21% Yushchenko!
44.01% Yanukovich

From the Central Election Committee
99.09% of the votes tabulated
Reported at 3:38 p.m.

Watch the celebrations here and here. The boys are going around the flat singing, Yushchenko! Tak! Yushchenko! Tak! Nash president, tak, tak! They’re even more excited about Yushchenko’s election than they were about Bush’s. . . And that’s saying something.

If you are just starting to follow what is going on in Ukraine, let me help you find the heart of the matter. As our friend Lena wrote,

“. . .2 month ago I guessed that I live in the worst country in the world. I was oppressed when I could not see a dignity in my fellow citizens, willingness to freedom and happiness. . . . November, 22 I started to be really proud of my co-citizens. Now I can see that they are not passive mammals who want just to dig comfortable burrow, to generate they own posterity and to finish life in poverty, pretending that there is no another way. Since November, 22 there are not a crowd on the main square of my country. This is the PEOPLE. . . . And now I know for sure that there are a lot of us. But we are not only the force who able to be the opposition to criminals and cads. It can’t be enough for me, I think. We are the people in the most exalted and humane sense of this word. And not only number turns us to be the force, but exactly these LOVE, FAITH and HOPE which live in everyone now. . .”

Serhii Rakhmanin writes in the Mirror-Weekly,

“Ukraine has been awaiting this day since 1991, when independence fell to the people’s feet as an overripe fruit from a dried tree. At that time we were not ready to digest it. . . .The number of sincere dreamers was too small. There were too few new heroes to form a new type of elite. The same old people kept their offices, having only modified their rhetoric a bit.We got a new state. . . . Yet it proved insufficient to become a nation.

. . .

We have stood this test to be rewarded with a new generation of people.

We do not want to be disillusioned again. Yet even if it happens, today’s events will be remembered by generations to come.”

And please take the time to read Oksana Zabushko’s essay on Ukrainian Solidarity.

From Ovozrevatel:

Observers shot at in Zaporizhzhya

At polling station №83 of constituency № 215 in Zaporizhzhya an hour ago, observers found a violation of the law, which centered on dozens of applications to vote at home written in the same handwriting. As soon as the observers began to draw a judicial act about the violation, the members of the election commission began to expel them from the polling station by beating them.

The observers, with a video-tape of the violations, tried to leave the constituency. At that time they were shot at. As a result, the driver was wounded near the heart, and was hospitalized.

I hope this early report is an exaggeration of what happened, and I pray the driver and all involved will sustain only minor injuries.

the Center for Social Monitoring: YUSCHENKO – 58.1%, YANUKOVYCH – 38.4%

The Razumkov Center: YUSCHENKO – 56.5%, YANUKOVYCH – 41.3%,

The Interfax-Ukraine Exit Poll: YUSCHENKO – 53%, YANUKOVYCH – 41.3%

The Luntz Research Company at the request of ICTV: Yuschenko – 56%, Yanukovych – 41%

Poll numbers courtesy of InterFax.

Note: The polls have been closed for over an hour now. These polling results, to my knowledge, reflect the results from the whole day, not just part of the day (as the misleading Kerry-leading-polling was.)

(Via OrangeUkraine)

Dan and Hubby are at Maidan, in the center of Kyiv tonight. Both are live-blogging, posting as regularly as they can in the midst of participating. Keep checking on them throughout the day to see what’s really going on here in Ukraine.

Obdymok and Veronica are also updating pretty regularly.

Today is the election day in Ukraine–the third election in less than two months. And this time, with over 12000 international observers, we all hope that this vote will be held and counted as fairly and accurately as possible.

To keep updated, check out these blogs and news sources:

UkrBlogs, in and out of Kyiv:
Hubby, at Le Sabot
Neeka’s Backlog
Orange Ukraine
Foreign Notes
obdymok
Ukraine, Oh My!
LoboWalk
The Argus
Fistful of Euros
Daniel Drezner
The Periscope
SCSU Scholars
A Step at a Time
EuroPhobia

UkrNews in English:
Kyiv Post high integrity
PORA News
Maidan News
Ukraine Now
Ukraine Observer
ObozRevaTel
Mirror Weekly
Google News – Ukraine
EinNews – Ukraine
Hotline News

And, a big thanks to Instapundit, for keeping the Orange Revolution on the minds of his readers. *grin*

Last night I finished reading Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund. I wanted to quote my favorite passage from it, but already leant it out to a friend.

I google’d for an essay analyzing some of the themes and images in the book, and found very little, apart from websites that provide term papers for a fee. How dumb does a student have to be to buy a research paper online? Don’t they know how easy it is to discover plagiarism? A quick google search uncovers all but the most skilled word-stealing. And then there are special websites and computer programs that help identify more subtle plagiarism. What kind of screwball plagiarises the work of another and claims it as his own? If you’re going to take the time to go to school or university, at least put out the effort to learn and do your own work. . .

I never did find the sort of Hesse analysis I wanted to read.

Anyway, last year I tried each month to list all the books I was reading. I wasn’t as consistent as I wanted to be. While it’s not quite time for New Year’s resolutions, that’s one thing I’m going to again attempt in 2005.

Back to Hesse. . . I haven’t yet read Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, but Hubby’s talked to me about some of Paglia’s themes and says it’ll make a great follow up to Narcissus and Goldmund.