Well, a few. I’ve got something I really need to get done, it’s naptime, so it’s 2 hours and counting ’til my work time runs out. Some things I’ve been looking at:

At Mirror of Justice, there is an interesting ongoing conversation about abortion, politics and the Catholic voter. (Not an unusual conversation for that fine blog to be having.) The focus of the past couple of days is, "What can we agree on?" and the specific subset is, "Can we agree that abortion is a moral tragedy?" Who can sign on to that? Does even that provide wiggle room?

Also at MOJ, Michael Perry has posted the entire text of a piece on Benedict and Regensburg that appears in the new issue of The New Republic.  Well, now I don’t have to wait until it shows up on Lexis Nexis. Anyway, it’s there, and the beginnings of some discussions.

At Ignatius Insight, Carl Olson fisks an LA Times piece on the Pope and Islam, and there’s a Crusades 101 post from Jimmy Akin.

If it’s Friday, that means it’s the day for Muslim clerics to get up and blast the Pope:

It was an act of madness what the Pope did and he disgraced himself and the system he represents," said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the constitutional watchdog the Guardian Council.

"His comments showed either that he did not have information on Islam, or the he had information and did injustice to Islam, or that he had fallen into a trap," Jannati told a Friday prayers gathering, broadcast on state radio.

He also said the Pope was following "the same path" as those who published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in the Danish press. Those cartoons outraged Muslims around the world.

"These moves aimed at confronting Islam and the (Islamic) revolution (in Iran) are all doomed to defeat," Jannati said.

I Scourge the Body Electric: an essay on corporeal mortification from Godspy

In our society, it’s considered perfectly normal to mortify our bodies so long as the reason is secular and the goal is physical. No one bats an eye at cosmetic plastic surgery, Botox, tattoos, and body piercing. Even physical fitness taken to extremes is looked upon as almost de rigeur. I’m all for staying in shape, but when I see joggers here in Florida sweating in 95 degree heat during their run at lunch hour, I have to wonder: Are you trying to have a stroke?

None of these examples are controversial. Titillating perhaps, but not controversial. But if you perform corporal mortification for religious reasons, to achieve some spiritual good, you’re an oddball. To borrow an analogy from Boston College professor Peter Kreeft and give it a twist, if I were to announce at a cocktail party that I just got my tongue pierced, I would be surrounded by an eager crowd of spectators. But if I were to announce that each morning before work I take a cold shower as a religious ritual, I would soon be talking to myself.

Finally, All Things Catholic: John Allen’s column of the week. Benedict, Regensburg, a critique of the Hellenization portion of Regensburg from Richard Gaillardetz of the University of Toledo, a brief chat with (Bishop) Stallings, who claims that the Unification Church will not be funding Milingo’s travels around the country in which he will be "preaching, teaching and casting out demons," an attempt to tease out what exactly the Vatican has said about these ordinations, a comparison of this situation with the Thuc situation…etc.

No, not finally. One more thing – an action request of sorts:

Annie at After Abortion is putting out a call to all those who have witnessed or even been a part of an abortion that has been forced in anyway to write to Ellen Goodman about it:

I’m writing Ellen Goodman (again), and I’m inviting our readers to consider emailing her as well in reply to her column on the young woman kidnapped by her parents to force her to have an abortion.

I invite all our readers to write Ellen Goodman another "mother lode of e-mails," if any of you yourselves personally have witnessed a forcing of abortion on any woman, whether or not the forcing was successful. For most effectiveness, we suggest CCing your email to Christine Chinlund, the Boston Globe’s ombudsman, at ombud@globe.com as we did the first time our readers forced her to recant her false facts.

Or call her at (617) 929-3020. To leave a recorded message, call (617) 929-3022.

You could be a compassionate sidewalk counselor, a CPC worker, a friend, relative, girlfriend, boyfriend. You could be pro-choice, or pro-life. Maybe it even happened to you personally.

I’m specifically answering Goodman’s accusation of Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue, whom Goodman quoted as saying "that forced abortions are ‘epidemic in scope…I have seen sobbing women dragged into abortion clinics by the neck and hair’" and whom Goodman implied was making this up:

[Sullenger] did not, of course, say who or when or where, since drama is best unencumbered by facts.

Drama, she complains? Drama is what keeps Ellen cashing paychecks. Goodman wrote that book.

Oh, and remember "Wash for Life" a couple of weeks ago? Go here for an update on how the project went.