John Cochran, Humor Guru

Cheers
Music and the Sacred: This new website is the official blog of Sacred Music at Notre Dame. If you are involved with Sacred Music here at ND, are knowledgeable about the subject and fancy yourself a writer, the blog is welcoming new articles to edify its burgeoning reader base. If you are interested, please contact Professor Carmen-Helena Téllez at ctellez1@nd.edu.
March for Life: On January 25th, Notre Dame students (led by the Right to Life Club) will travel to DC to march and proclaim the sanctity of all human life. Notre Dame Right to Life has been accorded the honor of leading the March this year; an indication of Notre Dame’s important role in the pro-life cause.

Ivan Fernandez Anaya – In the mood for a positive sports story (sorry, ESPN)? Last month, the Spanish runner was in second place when the leader unwittingly stopped short of the finish line, thinking the distance race was over. Instead of capitalizing on this mistake, he allowed the frontrunner, Abel Mutai, to finish first. Score one for sportsmanship.

Jeers
More Gun Control – President Obama tasked Vice President Joe Biden with spearheading new measures to reduce gun violence. When Obama sat down last week for a press conference to reveal this strategy, he was flanked by children who purportedly sent in letters pleading for gun control. Leaving out the politicization of the Sandy Hook school shooting and the irony of this administration’s call for crack-downs on straw purchases of firearms (does Eric Holder à la ‘“Fast and Furious” ring a bell?), what irritated me most was the inspiration drawn from elementary school-aged children.  I couldn’t figure out which was worse: that the administration was actually taking advice from pre-teens, or that this advice may actually be intellectually superior to that which is housed in the federal government (and that is not an endorsement of the children’s letters…).

Notre Dame’s Lawsuit against the HHS mandate – hang on, stay with me on this one guys. Sure, district Judge Robert Miller Jr. dismissed Notre Dame’s lawsuit on the grounds of prematurity (and the implicit “trust the government on this one”), but the root of this whole mess was the Obamacare bill. Then-Indiana Representative Joe Donnelly, an ND alumnus himself, wavered on voting yes for the bill (due to its provision for abortion funding), that is, until he received a call from Fr. Hesburgh – yes, that Fr. Hesburgh. Why file lawsuit against that which you helped to implement?