Since we're watching our 2-year-old grandson Jack the 1st week of January, I'm speaking a lot the 3rd week of January, and our family is vacationing in FL the 4th week of January, I thought January would be a good month to take time off from blogging. I've been at this 3-1/2 years straight and feel the need for a short sabbatical. I'll be back February 2.

I'll leave comments open on this post but am not sure how long. Am giving my indispensable moderators a month off, too. Will play that one by ear.

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Indeed, I will be posting important updates, particularly having to do with March for Life events.

Thanks for your support, without which I wouldn't need a break from the busyness!

While I'm on hiatus, visit ProLifeBlogs.com to get your pro-life blogging fix. Don't forget PLB's owner Tim Ruchti and I are working on a new pro-life project to be announced after the Life Prizes awards ceremony January 23.

The new poll question is up:

Who do you think should be named the 2008 Pro-Lifer of the Year?

Thanks for reader suggestions for nominees.

Here were responses to the previous poll question:

Here were your votes. Click on the map below to get a better view of your own brightly colored flag. Only 1 person voted from overseas, so I'm not including that map.

As always, make comments to either this or last week's poll here, not on the Vizu website.

No political cartoons on our issue this week. This one by Glenn McCoy came closest...

And in anticipation of the liberal response, by Chuck Asay...

Two questions:

What stands out in your mind as the biggest pro-life story of 2008?

Who would you nominate as Pro-Lifer of the Year for 2008? I'll run a poll after getting suggestions.

[Graphic courtesy of SimsGamer]

Bristol Palin, 18-year-old daughter of AK Gov. and former VP candidate Sarah Palin, gave birth to a son December 28. Weighing in at 7-7, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston was born at 5:30a. Father is fiancé Levi Johnston.

MTV News has weighed in on the name choice in a clever piece. I'm not sure why I was mostly not offended by the article on behalf of little Tripp. Perhaps I'm just tired of being offended. Or perhaps it's because the writer took equal shots at his own.

Oh sure, there are a couple jabs to scowl at, and the comments are another offensive story altogether. But most of the suggested names, particularly Maverick, struck me as quite funny. (That said, I didn't get the joke behind Easton Mitchell Easton Mitchell Johnston. Perhaps someone can explain.)

The author is correct. Celebrities not only have latitude but seeming obligation to choose wild names for their offspring. The worst in my recollection were those given by Julia Roberts to her twins, Phineas and Hazel. Although I do like Phin, there's nothing salvageable in Hazel.

Do love Tripp.

[HT: reader Quinn - another great name]

Caroline Kennedy's run for NY senator has surprised me on a few counts.

1, I'm surprised Caroline decided to run in the first place. This would seem to go against her lifelong very private grain. In this regard for all of her 51 years she has behaved like her mother, not her father. Her sudden dive into very public big time politics seems out of character.

2. I'm surprised by how much of an airhead Kennedy sounds like in interviews. I know she is well educated and cultured. But she sure comes off as not.

3. I'm surprised liberals are joining in the chorus to rebuff her candidacy. I was shocked to hear Alan Colmes question her legitimacy last night, for instance. And wow, even CNN is poking fun at her?

Of course, CNN had to find a way to draw in Sarah Palin, calling her wink a tic, which it certainly isn't.

Here's the Perfunction video mentioned in the CNN blurb...

You know, as an aside, I'm intrigued that pro-abortion Kennedy draws in her experience as a mother as an asset to her candidacy for U.S. Senator, although in the aforementioned interview she couched this with an interesting pro-abortion tag:

And so, you know, I think that, you know, I bring, you know, my life experience to this, and you know, that includes, um, you know, being a mother. Um, I understand sort of those choices that women make.

I received this poem yesterday via email:

the world is overpopulated
sometimes people make mistakes
sometimes people die to make the total population healthier
sometimes when a woman decides that the man she chose was a wrong choice
giving that person a child would be a travesty of life
sometimes those people are children
I wish I had never had one
my daughter has said frequently she wished she were never born
I think to my self "I do too"
she is 22 now and has no future that I can see
at least not in the world after Bush

I responded to the writer, whose name I'm omitting for the sake of his/her daughter, that it seemed they were both depressed, and had they sought counseling?

I wrote there are plenty of people who are grateful to be alive despite the fact their mothers didn't like their fathers, even if justified. It's not our call to determine intrinsic human value based on circumstances. Every person born has value endowed by our Creator, not by fellow createds.

And I wrote that placing the blame for a futureless world on President Bush is silly.

I forgot to write that "over population" is a myth.

[Graphic courtesy of overpopulationthreat.blogspot.com]

Chris La Tondresse, founder of RecoveringEvangelical.com, appeared on Fox News December 29 to promote talking points initiated during the Obama campaign that Evangelical concerns should reach beyond abortion and gay marriage.

La Tondresse's rationale...

RH Reality Check's Amanda Marcotte has listed her top 10 stories on "sexual and reproductive issues" for 2008. She wrote in her introduction:

But one thing I'm happy to report is that in a field where it seems we're always fighting an uphill battle, 2008 was actually packed full of good news.

Interesting that we also feel we're fighting an uphill battle, although we actually are. Pro-deathers have been kings of the hill since 1973. That said, 2008 was indeed a raucus year on the life issue. In general, do you think the pro-life movement moved the abortion issue forward or lost ground in 2008?

Several years ago I wrote The Embryonic Jesus Story. Andrew Tallman's Townhall.com discusses the same topic from a different angle with additional excellent observations...

A Christmas view of abortion

"The Bible says nothing directly about abortion." Have you ever heard this claim before? I know I have. And the uncomfortable truth is that, in a certain sense, it's accurate. The deliberate termination of a pregnancy is not directly addressed anywhere in scripture....