Another Media Free (sorta) Sabbath

It is a few hours after sundown on Saturday evening, the Wahoo Men's Basketball Team has dispatched the hapless Wolfpack, Seattle seems poised to move to the NFC Championship, and I am back on the interwebs after 24 hours of blackout.  Sort of.

We had a big day of Kitten stuff--with the younger of the two involved in a horse show and the older needing a pick up and drive home from school.  I drew the pick up from school task, though I got involved in the horse show too, as someone had to get the Princess to the barn at 0545 and "....you are just better at getting up early than I am", my five straight days of 0500 wakeups having provided ample evidence of the same.  Feeling like I really wanted to sleep in, I decided to take my sleeping in hours from the front of my sleep, and went to bed at 8PM, which was heavenly. 

Returning from the barn, I had a few hours of silence to enjoy, hours where generally I would troll the internet, blog, Tweet, etc.  But there is none of that on Saturdays now.  And so, I read.  I read Issues 16 and 18 (can't find 17) of National Affairs, a journal I consider to be simply the finest compendium of thinking for right of center policy fans.  For instance:

--Many think conservatives don't think enough about the jobless, poverty and poor people in general.  Read this and this for some great conservative thinking on the subjects.

--Tired of listening to the President prattle on about "universal preschool"  and his plan to spend tens of billions on it with little or no evidence that we get any bang for those bucks?  Read this

--Are you someone who believes that the Tea Party has it right on their sense of what the founders wanted government to do and not to do?  Read this. And this. 

--Want to read George Will on religion and politics?

--How about a great idea on how the Republican Party could alter its Presidential nomination process?

You get the point--really, really good reading.  What I like best about this journal is the fact that they 1) virtually always treat liberal counter-views with respect while taking them apart 2) the great thinkers and the great ideas behind conservatism are always front and center.  This is one of the great things about conservatism, its historicity.  Liberals quite frankly--by definition--tend to devalue their own history.  We don't.  There is great thinking by great thinkers behind ideas like limited government, individual freedom, etc, and you get to learn a good bit about those thinkers from this journal.

Enough of the unpaid advert--after five hours or so of reading, I left to go pick up Kitten 1 from school.  Realizing that I had to get in touch with her for the pickup, and that I would likely need to be able to contact The Kitten or be contacted by her while we were widely separated on our parenting beat, I realized that I would have to turn on the cell phone.  Never fear, I did not look at my email, I did not make any calls, and I accepted calls only from The Kitten.  Furthermore, I did not listen to the radio in the car.  So there.

As for this New Year's resolution, I have mixed feelings about it.  I miss the internet for the day I am not on it.  I like Twitter, and Facebook and this blog and others.  I like the news and being informed.  But there is something really peaceful about not being slaved to a piece of technology.  We'll see how it goes, but for now, it is going fine.