A glorious gray day of splendid foliage
Some rain in the afternoon, but otherwise awesome. The kind of gray cool November day for which one yearns all summer with an almost physical lust.
C S Lewis said somewhere in Surprised by Joy that he liked bleak, northern, gray, cold, stark, autumnal-wintry landscapes, and almost lusted for them ... I might be confused; and even if not, I don't have the exact words on hand, because I borrowed Surprised from the library.
Lewis also admits to having liked Longfellow's translation of Tegner's Drapa, a Norse poem, for conveying that kind of scene :
I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Amherst tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Words of wisdom, worth the heeding
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."
3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
6. You should not confuse your career with your life.
7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
10. Never lick a steak knife.
11. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
12. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. (Not I, says dylan, not I ! )
17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important -- Pay attention. It never fails.)
19. Your friends love you anyway.
Thought for the day :
Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."
3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
6. You should not confuse your career with your life.
7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
10. Never lick a steak knife.
11. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
12. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. (Not I, says dylan, not I ! )
17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important -- Pay attention. It never fails.)
19. Your friends love you anyway.
Thought for the day :
Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
The marginalized left?
I've added a few links to the left-hand margin of this here web-log. To the blog-list, I've added Michael Roesch's recently re-christened Res et Rationes ... and to the Other Sites (Faith, Poetry, Culture, Politics, In No Particular Order) I've added :
-- Jewish World Review
-- The Weekly Standard
-- Poems of Catullus
I'm nothing if not eclectic. To the point of being eccentric!
I've added a few links to the left-hand margin of this here web-log. To the blog-list, I've added Michael Roesch's recently re-christened Res et Rationes ... and to the Other Sites (Faith, Poetry, Culture, Politics, In No Particular Order) I've added :
-- Jewish World Review
-- The Weekly Standard
-- Poems of Catullus
I'm nothing if not eclectic. To the point of being eccentric!
Hope the link works : an article about the Democrats' man of the hour, US Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., first Congressman to have been born in the 1970s. He enjoys a reputation for moderation, and the respect of many Republicans. Which seems to indicate that the apple has fallen a safe distance from the tree.
I love the "has been perceived."
Some Tennessee Democrats say privately that Ford's biggest liability in winning statewide office is his family, which for decades has operated a major political machine in Memphis.
At the top is his father Harold Ford Sr., the first black Tennessee congressman, who defeated a well-entrenched white Republican in 1974. Ford Sr. has been perceived as racially divisive; he once referred to backers of a black Republican opponent as "white devils." But one of Ford's uncles, state Sen. John Ford, could pose a real problem for his nephew, depending on the outcome of state and federal investigations into an alleged kickback scheme involving government payments to childcare centers.
As Democrats ponder how best todeceive the country into thinking they have good ideas present their innovative and exciting new visions for America, it seems that there are two paths they can go by (but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on ...). The path of Ford elder -- petulance, arrogance, derision -- or the path of Ford younger -- gentility, good humor, and temperamental moderation. It'll be interesting to see which path they choose.
I love the "has been perceived."
Some Tennessee Democrats say privately that Ford's biggest liability in winning statewide office is his family, which for decades has operated a major political machine in Memphis.
At the top is his father Harold Ford Sr., the first black Tennessee congressman, who defeated a well-entrenched white Republican in 1974. Ford Sr. has been perceived as racially divisive; he once referred to backers of a black Republican opponent as "white devils." But one of Ford's uncles, state Sen. John Ford, could pose a real problem for his nephew, depending on the outcome of state and federal investigations into an alleged kickback scheme involving government payments to childcare centers.
As Democrats ponder how best to
true lovers in each happening of their hearts
by edward estlin cummings (1894-1962)
true lovers in each happening of their hearts
live longer than all which and every who;
despite what fear denies,what hope asserts,
what falsest both disprove by proving true
(all doubts,all certainties,as villains strive
and heroes through the mere mind's poor pretend
--grim comics of duration:only love
immortally occurs beyond the mind)
such a forever is love's any now
and her each here is such an everywhere,
even more true would truest lovers grow
if out of midnight dropped more suns than are
(yes;and if time should ask into his was
all shall,their eyes would never miss a yes)
:: :: :: :: :: ::
The syntax of that couplet is difficult, but having heard the tape of Cummings reading the poem has helped a little. "If time should ask into his was / all shall" or, if this order helps to clarify, "If time should ask All Shall into his Was."
If the whole world's future is to be non-existent. If all tomorrows are dead. If the gods should declare that next year is cancelled, or as defunct as yesteryear. If fate should decree that "futures are obsolete, pasts are unborn" as Cummings said elsewhere, still, the eyes of the "true lovers" would never miss a Yes.
The word "yes" served Estlin Cummings as (at least!) noun, adjective, and verb. Cummings is certainly, to my mind, the poet of the dolce stil nuovo (the new sweet style) of the American 20th century. He is the poet of springtime, of birth and of rebirth.
by edward estlin cummings (1894-1962)
true lovers in each happening of their hearts
live longer than all which and every who;
despite what fear denies,what hope asserts,
what falsest both disprove by proving true
(all doubts,all certainties,as villains strive
and heroes through the mere mind's poor pretend
--grim comics of duration:only love
immortally occurs beyond the mind)
such a forever is love's any now
and her each here is such an everywhere,
even more true would truest lovers grow
if out of midnight dropped more suns than are
(yes;and if time should ask into his was
all shall,their eyes would never miss a yes)
:: :: :: :: :: ::
The syntax of that couplet is difficult, but having heard the tape of Cummings reading the poem has helped a little. "If time should ask into his was / all shall" or, if this order helps to clarify, "If time should ask All Shall into his Was."
If the whole world's future is to be non-existent. If all tomorrows are dead. If the gods should declare that next year is cancelled, or as defunct as yesteryear. If fate should decree that "futures are obsolete, pasts are unborn" as Cummings said elsewhere, still, the eyes of the "true lovers" would never miss a Yes.
The word "yes" served Estlin Cummings as (at least!) noun, adjective, and verb. Cummings is certainly, to my mind, the poet of the dolce stil nuovo (the new sweet style) of the American 20th century. He is the poet of springtime, of birth and of rebirth.
Dante sees Beatrice for the first time
La Vita Nuova, section 2
At that moment
I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words : "Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me." At that moment the animate spirit, which dwelleth in the lofty chamber whither all the senses carry their perceptions, was filled with wonder, and speaking more especially unto the spirits of the eyes, said these words : "Your beatitude hath now been made manifest unto you." At that moment the natural spirit, which dwelleth there where our nourishment is administered, began to weep, and in weeping said these words : "Alas! how often shall I be disturbed from this time forth." I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul; which was immediately espoused to him, and with so safe and undisputed a lordship, (by virtue of strong imagination) that I had nothing left for it but to do his bidding continually. He oftentimes commanded me to seek if I might see this youngest of the Angels : wherefore I in my boyhood often went in search of her, and found her so noble and praiseworthy that certainly of her might have been said those words of the poet Homer,
She seemed not to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God.
Translated into English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
La Vita Nuova, section 2
At that moment
I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words : "Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me." At that moment the animate spirit, which dwelleth in the lofty chamber whither all the senses carry their perceptions, was filled with wonder, and speaking more especially unto the spirits of the eyes, said these words : "Your beatitude hath now been made manifest unto you." At that moment the natural spirit, which dwelleth there where our nourishment is administered, began to weep, and in weeping said these words : "Alas! how often shall I be disturbed from this time forth." I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul; which was immediately espoused to him, and with so safe and undisputed a lordship, (by virtue of strong imagination) that I had nothing left for it but to do his bidding continually. He oftentimes commanded me to seek if I might see this youngest of the Angels : wherefore I in my boyhood often went in search of her, and found her so noble and praiseworthy that certainly of her might have been said those words of the poet Homer,
She seemed not to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God.
Translated into English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The View from the Core 2.10
Poetry page. War poetry and patriotism. And "Harvest Moon : 1916" by Josephine Preston Peabody. Note the Sapphic stanzas!
Poetry page. War poetry and patriotism. And "Harvest Moon : 1916" by Josephine Preston Peabody. Note the Sapphic stanzas!
Monday, November 11, 2002
Ah, yes, the tolerant left.
They're just so much more c-o-m-p-a-s-s-i-o-n-a-t-e than us viciousmeanspiritedintolerantinsensitive right-wingers.
I feel so guilty for having voted for the Gruesome Oppression Party (GOP). Why not vote for those open-minded civilized Democrats instead?
They're just so much more c-o-m-p-a-s-s-i-o-n-a-t-e than us viciousmeanspiritedintolerantinsensitive right-wingers.
I feel so guilty for having voted for the Gruesome Oppression Party (GOP). Why not vote for those open-minded civilized Democrats instead?
God bless Barry Crimmins
The Boston-based arch-leftist makes Fidel Castro look like Jack Kemp. He once observed that an "intellectual conservative" is a thug with excellent grammar. Here is a link to his quips, sententiae & obiter dicta.
I must admit. This bit -- apparently written on Election Night -- gave me a mighty chuckle :
About 10:30, my dog Lloyd went out and demonstrated his solidarity for Democrats by getting skunked.
The Boston-based arch-leftist makes Fidel Castro look like Jack Kemp. He once observed that an "intellectual conservative" is a thug with excellent grammar. Here is a link to his quips, sententiae & obiter dicta.
I must admit. This bit -- apparently written on Election Night -- gave me a mighty chuckle :
About 10:30, my dog Lloyd went out and demonstrated his solidarity for Democrats by getting skunked.
A reader asks
eagerly, almost impatiently, in reference to one of the bloggings herebelow, "Who is Cynthia?"
And with appropriate borrowings from Wisdom chapter 7, Sirach chapter 24, and the Song of Songs, I answer :
We speak with reticence about the holy mysteries of our lives; it is quite possible that in attempting to communicate who she is, something will get lost in the translation, or one will resort to oft-heard poetic platitudes.
Suffice it to say that the name stands for the one who is inspiratrix of every noble impulse of the heart, every love poem of the last decade (both the written and the unwritten); she is the earthly and enfleshed embodiment of every grace and every blessing, sweeter than honey from the honeycomb and terrible as an army with banners : dark and beautiful as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Salma; the dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the hills, to whom we plead, "Let us see your face, let us hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely." Sweet, but also, as said before : "terrible as an army with banners."
She is, in short, if you must know la vita nuova. Nuova? Perduta. The newness of life that seems, from this vantage point, irrevocably lost. I shall not look upon her like again.
She is the one of whom all poems, all sonnets, all symphonies, all art in the world's museums constitute but the faintest and feeblest prefigurement. C'est le premier matin du monde, we thought at the first glimpse, comme une fleur confuse exhalée dans la nuit. Un souffle nouveau qui se lève des ondes. Un jardin bleu s'épanouit.
She is a certain pure emanation of the glory of God, and a vapour of the power of God. She gives birth to honourable love and to reverence, to peace and to holy hope. To the sweetest meditations of the mind. She is the radiance that streams from the everlasting Light, the flawless mirror of the active power of God, and the image of his goodness. She is the rose of Sharon and a lily among the thorns.
Please forgive the brevity and inadequacy of our answer.
eagerly, almost impatiently, in reference to one of the bloggings herebelow, "Who is Cynthia?"
And with appropriate borrowings from Wisdom chapter 7, Sirach chapter 24, and the Song of Songs, I answer :
We speak with reticence about the holy mysteries of our lives; it is quite possible that in attempting to communicate who she is, something will get lost in the translation, or one will resort to oft-heard poetic platitudes.
Suffice it to say that the name stands for the one who is inspiratrix of every noble impulse of the heart, every love poem of the last decade (both the written and the unwritten); she is the earthly and enfleshed embodiment of every grace and every blessing, sweeter than honey from the honeycomb and terrible as an army with banners : dark and beautiful as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Salma; the dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the hills, to whom we plead, "Let us see your face, let us hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely." Sweet, but also, as said before : "terrible as an army with banners."
She is, in short, if you must know la vita nuova. Nuova? Perduta. The newness of life that seems, from this vantage point, irrevocably lost. I shall not look upon her like again.
She is the one of whom all poems, all sonnets, all symphonies, all art in the world's museums constitute but the faintest and feeblest prefigurement. C'est le premier matin du monde, we thought at the first glimpse, comme une fleur confuse exhalée dans la nuit. Un souffle nouveau qui se lève des ondes. Un jardin bleu s'épanouit.
She is a certain pure emanation of the glory of God, and a vapour of the power of God. She gives birth to honourable love and to reverence, to peace and to holy hope. To the sweetest meditations of the mind. She is the radiance that streams from the everlasting Light, the flawless mirror of the active power of God, and the image of his goodness. She is the rose of Sharon and a lily among the thorns.
Please forgive the brevity and inadequacy of our answer.
Oh, please forgive me
but I'm in one of those Smiths moods again. What she asked of me at the end of the day ...
but I'm in one of those Smiths moods again. What she asked of me at the end of the day ...
The Weekly Standard's Top Ten Letters
Scroll down to #10.
People like the President. Running as the Dubya Sucks candidate, by and large, did not translate to victory.
Politeness counts. In tennis lingo, (2) Romney def. (1) O'Brien. Also, in this connection : people avoid the shrill and arrogant.
Scroll down to #10.
People like the President. Running as the Dubya Sucks candidate, by and large, did not translate to victory.
Politeness counts. In tennis lingo, (2) Romney def. (1) O'Brien. Also, in this connection : people avoid the shrill and arrogant.
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Stephen Fry
on his beloved, who
was even more beautiful than I had supposed. Even more beautiful than I had ever imagined it was possible to imagine imagining beauty. Beautiful in a way that made me realise that I had never even known before what beautiful really meant : not in people, nature, taste or sound.
There are many in Norfolk for whom "big city" means Norwich.
"I been to Norwich once and I didn't like it," they say. "Swaffham's big enough for me." They can only guess at what London, Los Angeles or Manhattan might be like.
I realised at this moment that I had only ever experienced the townships of Charming, Pretty, Attractive, Comely, Sweet, Delicious, Handsome and Cute and now I had finally penetrated the city limits of Beautiful. I was instantly aware of Beauty and the whole Greek and Keatsian fuss about it made sense.
Just as when an artist shows you a new view of something -- as Matisse for example might show you a quality in an apple that you had never noticed before and from then on you are able to see that same quality in every apple you encounter -- so I would from this second onwards be able forever to see beauty, real beauty, in familiar things all around me. Before this moment I may have thought a particular sunrise or hillside was stunning or attractive but after this moment I would be able to see beauty there. Absolute beauty.
-- Moab, pp. 225-6
(With the painter and the apple, I think Fry confuses Matisse with Cézanne, but no matter.)
on his beloved, who
was even more beautiful than I had supposed. Even more beautiful than I had ever imagined it was possible to imagine imagining beauty. Beautiful in a way that made me realise that I had never even known before what beautiful really meant : not in people, nature, taste or sound.
There are many in Norfolk for whom "big city" means Norwich.
"I been to Norwich once and I didn't like it," they say. "Swaffham's big enough for me." They can only guess at what London, Los Angeles or Manhattan might be like.
I realised at this moment that I had only ever experienced the townships of Charming, Pretty, Attractive, Comely, Sweet, Delicious, Handsome and Cute and now I had finally penetrated the city limits of Beautiful. I was instantly aware of Beauty and the whole Greek and Keatsian fuss about it made sense.
Just as when an artist shows you a new view of something -- as Matisse for example might show you a quality in an apple that you had never noticed before and from then on you are able to see that same quality in every apple you encounter -- so I would from this second onwards be able forever to see beauty, real beauty, in familiar things all around me. Before this moment I may have thought a particular sunrise or hillside was stunning or attractive but after this moment I would be able to see beauty there. Absolute beauty.
-- Moab, pp. 225-6
(With the painter and the apple, I think Fry confuses Matisse with Cézanne, but no matter.)
A sonnet by Jorge Luis Borges
which makes me wish I knew a little more Spanish
La Cierva Blanca
¿De qué agreste balada de la verde Inglaterra,
de qué lámina persa, de qué región arcana
de las noches y dÃas que nuestro ayer encierra,
vino la cierva blanca que soñé esta mañana?
DurarÃa un segundo. La vi cruzar el prado
y perderse en el oro de una tarde ilusoria,
leve criatura hecha de un poco de memoria
y de un poco de olvido, cierva de un solo lado.
Los númenes que rigen este curioso mundo
me dejaron soñarte pero no ser tu dueño;
tal vez en un recodo del porvenir profundo
te encontraré de nuevo, cierva blanca de un sueño.
Yo también soy un sueño fugitivo que dura
un tiempo más que el sueño del prado y la blancura.
:: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Via fotos del apocalipsis.
which makes me wish I knew a little more Spanish
La Cierva Blanca
¿De qué agreste balada de la verde Inglaterra,
de qué lámina persa, de qué región arcana
de las noches y dÃas que nuestro ayer encierra,
vino la cierva blanca que soñé esta mañana?
DurarÃa un segundo. La vi cruzar el prado
y perderse en el oro de una tarde ilusoria,
leve criatura hecha de un poco de memoria
y de un poco de olvido, cierva de un solo lado.
Los númenes que rigen este curioso mundo
me dejaron soñarte pero no ser tu dueño;
tal vez en un recodo del porvenir profundo
te encontraré de nuevo, cierva blanca de un sueño.
Yo también soy un sueño fugitivo que dura
un tiempo más que el sueño del prado y la blancura.
:: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Via fotos del apocalipsis.
The antidote to Miss Gulch's theme
A beautiful version of this song was featured in the 1992 film Peter's Friends, a film with one big flaw (it seems predicated on the assumption that all one needs is a good sex life, and one will be happier than the saints in heaven) and several virtues, among them the able mostly-British cast of Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Thompson's mum Phyllida Law, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, American comedienne Rita Rudner, and -- stop me if you think that you've heard this name before -- Stephen Fry.
Not all members of St Blog's would approve of the film. They'd definitely approve of the song. So beautifully arranged in that film.
I often ask myself which character in the film I most resemble. It breaks down thus :
42% Peter
42% Andrew
10% Maggie
6% everybody else
A beautiful version of this song was featured in the 1992 film Peter's Friends, a film with one big flaw (it seems predicated on the assumption that all one needs is a good sex life, and one will be happier than the saints in heaven) and several virtues, among them the able mostly-British cast of Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Thompson's mum Phyllida Law, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, American comedienne Rita Rudner, and -- stop me if you think that you've heard this name before -- Stephen Fry.
Not all members of St Blog's would approve of the film. They'd definitely approve of the song. So beautifully arranged in that film.
I often ask myself which character in the film I most resemble. It breaks down thus :
42% Peter
42% Andrew
10% Maggie
6% everybody else
Title of autobiography
If I write one -- and it'll be read by no one except its author, that's for sure -- the title will likely be A Misanthrope's Concerto : Monologue of a Stand-up Tragedian.
Concise, isn't it?
The epigraph would be these lines from Walt Whitman, in "Song of Myself," section 51 :
Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
I love that third line.
I am large.
It's got such honesty and confidence and endaring brashness. I'll leave "en-daring" for "endearing."
I contain multitudes.
You can say that again!
If I write one -- and it'll be read by no one except its author, that's for sure -- the title will likely be A Misanthrope's Concerto : Monologue of a Stand-up Tragedian.
Concise, isn't it?
The epigraph would be these lines from Walt Whitman, in "Song of Myself," section 51 :
Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
I love that third line.
I am large.
It's got such honesty and confidence and endaring brashness. I'll leave "en-daring" for "endearing."
I contain multitudes.
You can say that again!
Continuing the conversation
and in my case, taking it down a notch (but not changing positions)
At Ono's Thoughts, Mr Ekeh blogs passionately -- and compassionately -- about, as he sees it, the need for Republicans to adopt some Democratic values : solicitude toward the downtrodden, the elderly, battered women. And he is certainly right.
But I think that his argument does present us with, in some cases, the fallacy of the false alternative. And in one case, with the term "pro-life Nazi" -- a term that rather wants explaining. (I guess he means candidates like David Duke. Note from 6 years ago, the last time that scoundrel sought office. He lost big time in the Republican primaries. And if Mr Ekeh is remotely aware of all the associations that obtain to the word "Nazi," he couldn't smack the adjective "pro-life" onto it without a keen sense of the ridiculous.)
I know of no Republican candidate who is campaigning against battered women's shelters, and precious few Republican candidates who do not have a plan to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
The Democrats might more ably defend these life issues, themselves, if they were not funding programs that are either needless or harmful, or what have you.
-- Should there be bilingual education or English immersion? A recent referendum in Massachusetts went 70-30 in favor of the latter.
-- Should there be any funds directed toward programs to promote gay and lesbian awareness in the public schools? Consider : we have a sitcom like Will & Grace. Tolerance is compulsory. We're in no danger, not since Culture Club crooned "Karma Chameleon," of being unaware of gay folks. Do we need the evangelists for homosexuality to be preaching in public schools? If a state is using money for that purpose, is the money being misallocated?
-- How often, and by how much, should public officials raise their own salaries?
-- Has education improved at all in the less than 30 years that this country has had a Dept. of Education?
-- Is universal health care truly universal if it excludes the unborn as Lebens unwürdig (speaking of Nazis) ?
We could, to coin a plagiarism, multiply examples.
and in my case, taking it down a notch (but not changing positions)
At Ono's Thoughts, Mr Ekeh blogs passionately -- and compassionately -- about, as he sees it, the need for Republicans to adopt some Democratic values : solicitude toward the downtrodden, the elderly, battered women. And he is certainly right.
But I think that his argument does present us with, in some cases, the fallacy of the false alternative. And in one case, with the term "pro-life Nazi" -- a term that rather wants explaining. (I guess he means candidates like David Duke. Note from 6 years ago, the last time that scoundrel sought office. He lost big time in the Republican primaries. And if Mr Ekeh is remotely aware of all the associations that obtain to the word "Nazi," he couldn't smack the adjective "pro-life" onto it without a keen sense of the ridiculous.)
I know of no Republican candidate who is campaigning against battered women's shelters, and precious few Republican candidates who do not have a plan to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
The Democrats might more ably defend these life issues, themselves, if they were not funding programs that are either needless or harmful, or what have you.
-- Should there be bilingual education or English immersion? A recent referendum in Massachusetts went 70-30 in favor of the latter.
-- Should there be any funds directed toward programs to promote gay and lesbian awareness in the public schools? Consider : we have a sitcom like Will & Grace. Tolerance is compulsory. We're in no danger, not since Culture Club crooned "Karma Chameleon," of being unaware of gay folks. Do we need the evangelists for homosexuality to be preaching in public schools? If a state is using money for that purpose, is the money being misallocated?
-- How often, and by how much, should public officials raise their own salaries?
-- Has education improved at all in the less than 30 years that this country has had a Dept. of Education?
-- Is universal health care truly universal if it excludes the unborn as Lebens unwürdig (speaking of Nazis) ?
We could, to coin a plagiarism, multiply examples.
Well, that's about right ...
Which Beatles Album Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
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Memorandum to self
so please, no one else read it!
Get the "love story " out of the library. That is, if it isn't such a good book that every copy has been stolen from the library already. This seems to happen to Cummings.
Might also have to read (pace the NaNoWriMo crew) Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.
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Commonweal discovers St Blog's
Can't link to it, because it ain't up yet, but Commonweal has a decent-ish article on St Blog's by Peter Feuerherd entitled "Catholics Online." The customary condescension toward the tight world of Catholic "orthodoxy" (as if C'weal were somehow one-fourteenth as popular as EWTN!), but a few of the big names are mentioned with varying degrees of praise. The author's attention turns favorably toward Ms Welborn, Mr Shea, and Mr Sullivan.
It's a gift susbscription I have. I think it runs out with the next issue. Fitting, methinks, that the last issue of Commonweal I receive will likely contain the coverage on the recent plebiscite.
Commonweal has the lamentable tendency of putting a question mark where holy Church has put a period, or even where God Almighty has put an exclamation point!
Which Beatles Album Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
:: :: :: :: :: ::
:: :: :: :: :: ::
Memorandum to self
so please, no one else read it!
Get the "love story " out of the library. That is, if it isn't such a good book that every copy has been stolen from the library already. This seems to happen to Cummings.
Might also have to read (pace the NaNoWriMo crew) Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.
:: :: :: :: :: ::
:: :: :: :: :: ::
Commonweal discovers St Blog's
Can't link to it, because it ain't up yet, but Commonweal has a decent-ish article on St Blog's by Peter Feuerherd entitled "Catholics Online." The customary condescension toward the tight world of Catholic "orthodoxy" (as if C'weal were somehow one-fourteenth as popular as EWTN!), but a few of the big names are mentioned with varying degrees of praise. The author's attention turns favorably toward Ms Welborn, Mr Shea, and Mr Sullivan.
It's a gift susbscription I have. I think it runs out with the next issue. Fitting, methinks, that the last issue of Commonweal I receive will likely contain the coverage on the recent plebiscite.
Commonweal has the lamentable tendency of putting a question mark where holy Church has put a period, or even where God Almighty has put an exclamation point!
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti,
beatae Mariae semper virgini,
beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae,
sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo,
omnibus Sanctis et vobis fratres,
quia peccavi nimis
cogitatione, verbo, et opere,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper virginem,
beatum Michaelem archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam,
sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,
omnes Sanctos, et vos fratres,
orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.
Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus,
et dimissis peccatis vestris,
perducat vos ad vitam aeternam.
Amen.
beatae Mariae semper virgini,
beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae,
sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo,
omnibus Sanctis et vobis fratres,
quia peccavi nimis
cogitatione, verbo, et opere,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper virginem,
beatum Michaelem archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam,
sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,
omnes Sanctos, et vos fratres,
orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.
Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus,
et dimissis peccatis vestris,
perducat vos ad vitam aeternam.
Amen.
Stephen Fry
Please indulge me. At least two more brief passages of his sublimely profane autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, given a perceptive and laudatory notice (a "rave review") by one of the nation's most prominent and hallowed journals of conservatism (National Review).
In Moab, Fry devotes many a page to discussing the greatest love of his adolescence. That love was another young lad.
My sense of kinship with Fry is in no wise impaired by this. For his Matthew, one can for oneself readily substitute any other name (Amanda, Beatrice, Cynthia, Deborah, Emily) ... Besides, when Fry writes about Matthew, twenty-five years after the fact, it is evident that the primarily impulse in his reminiscence is not eroticism -- though he doesn't in any way deny that that's there -- but awe.
This book is in no danger of being found in the library of a Camaldolese monastery, as I wrote in a review of it elsewhere. But it is, to my mind, a gem. It's been described as "a gay coming-of-age memoir," not inaccurately, but too reductively. It's a Stephen Fry coming-of-age memoir. He wins us over with his ebullient dexterity of language, his honesty, his charm ... and passages on the beauty of his beloved that could be, with a slight adjustment of idiom -- and yes, orientation -- Dante writing about Beatrice, Petrarch about Laura, dylan_tm618 about Cynthia ... etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Here is Fry, describing how his universe changed one bright September day. I empathize and sympathize beyond completely.
And then I saw him and nothing was ever the same again.
The sky was never the same colour, the moon never the same shape : the air never smelt the same, food never tasted the same. Every word I knew changed its meaning, everything that was once stable and firm became as insubstantial as a puff of wind, and every puff of wind became a solid thing I could feel and touch.
This is where language is so far behind music. The chord that Max Steiner brings in when Bogart catches sight of Bergman in his bar in Casablanca, how can I bring that into a book of black ink marks on white paper? The swell and surge of the Liebestod from Tristan, Liszt's Sonata in B minor -- even Alfred Brendel can't conjure that up from this keyboard, this alphanumeric piano beneath my fingers. Maybe, because sometimes pop music can hit the mark as well as anything, I could write you out a playlist. We would start with the Monkees :
And then I saw her face, and now I'm a believer
Naaah ... it's no use.
There's nothing for it but old words and cold print. Besides, you've been there yourself. You've been in love. Why am I getting so hysterical? Just about every film, every book, every poem, every song is a love story. This is not a genre with which you are unfamiliar even if by some fluke (whether a cursed fluke or a blessed one I would be the last able to decide) you have never been there yourself.
-- Moab Is My Washpot : An Autobiography (US edition Random House, 1999), pp. 217-8
Another excerpt soon to follow.
Please indulge me. At least two more brief passages of his sublimely profane autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, given a perceptive and laudatory notice (a "rave review") by one of the nation's most prominent and hallowed journals of conservatism (National Review).
In Moab, Fry devotes many a page to discussing the greatest love of his adolescence. That love was another young lad.
My sense of kinship with Fry is in no wise impaired by this. For his Matthew, one can for oneself readily substitute any other name (Amanda, Beatrice, Cynthia, Deborah, Emily) ... Besides, when Fry writes about Matthew, twenty-five years after the fact, it is evident that the primarily impulse in his reminiscence is not eroticism -- though he doesn't in any way deny that that's there -- but awe.
This book is in no danger of being found in the library of a Camaldolese monastery, as I wrote in a review of it elsewhere. But it is, to my mind, a gem. It's been described as "a gay coming-of-age memoir," not inaccurately, but too reductively. It's a Stephen Fry coming-of-age memoir. He wins us over with his ebullient dexterity of language, his honesty, his charm ... and passages on the beauty of his beloved that could be, with a slight adjustment of idiom -- and yes, orientation -- Dante writing about Beatrice, Petrarch about Laura, dylan_tm618 about Cynthia ... etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Here is Fry, describing how his universe changed one bright September day. I empathize and sympathize beyond completely.
And then I saw him and nothing was ever the same again.
The sky was never the same colour, the moon never the same shape : the air never smelt the same, food never tasted the same. Every word I knew changed its meaning, everything that was once stable and firm became as insubstantial as a puff of wind, and every puff of wind became a solid thing I could feel and touch.
This is where language is so far behind music. The chord that Max Steiner brings in when Bogart catches sight of Bergman in his bar in Casablanca, how can I bring that into a book of black ink marks on white paper? The swell and surge of the Liebestod from Tristan, Liszt's Sonata in B minor -- even Alfred Brendel can't conjure that up from this keyboard, this alphanumeric piano beneath my fingers. Maybe, because sometimes pop music can hit the mark as well as anything, I could write you out a playlist. We would start with the Monkees :
And then I saw her face, and now I'm a believer
Naaah ... it's no use.
There's nothing for it but old words and cold print. Besides, you've been there yourself. You've been in love. Why am I getting so hysterical? Just about every film, every book, every poem, every song is a love story. This is not a genre with which you are unfamiliar even if by some fluke (whether a cursed fluke or a blessed one I would be the last able to decide) you have never been there yourself.
-- Moab Is My Washpot : An Autobiography (US edition Random House, 1999), pp. 217-8
Another excerpt soon to follow.
Pondering a post of the Professio Fidei
Recently, I thought of posting the Professio here at Tenebrae. A number of reasons why I think of doing so, but a number of reasons why I probably won't.
One reason I thought of posting was that I encountered some disaffecting rhetoric about the Roman Catholic Church on the web-page of a fellow who identifies himself as Orthodox, and out of something more than simple reactionary impulse, I wanted to show solidarity with my Church, and with the Universal Pontiff, and with the Magisterium.
I also want to show solidarity with my fellow Catholic bloggers who are out there defending the faith against misconceptions with able and good-humored apologetics. And I also find myself (not quite a reason for posting the Professio, but perhaps connected somehow) in urgent need of the prayers of my fellow Catholics -- and, heck, of everyone. But I need the prayers of the Church, liturgical and private. I need the prayers of my brothers and sisters -- and I hope I have them, whether or not I post the Professio here!
Reasons why I will probably not post the Professio :
Neither this web-log, nor its predecessor (error503 : La vita nuova) could be considered an apologetics web-log. It comes from a Catholic standpoint, inevitably, ineluctably, instinctively -- but it also contains matter that might seem out of place in a Catholic weblog (e.g., snippets from the autobiography of a gay British actor).
Eastern Orthodoxy continues to exert an attraction for this believer, almost to the point where one ponders conversion. I believe that the Western Church, in terms of liturgy especially, needs to recover what the East (both Orthodox and Catholic) has never lost. Join me in praying that amity will increase, and enmity will decrease, between Catholics and Orthodox.
If I posted the Professio, it could be interpreted as either yielding to a kind of "peer pressure," or as exerting pressure for others to do so.
It might also lead some folks to think that I am trying to create the impression of being more virtuous than others. Trust me here. I am not more virtuous than others!
Also, I note the words "the power of" in the English version of the Professio seen at one web-log; and in a post many days ago, I mentioned that I don't see why those words are there. Incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.
And, as seen immediately herebelow, there is my unclarity on what the Church teaches about the death penalty, and my resistance to certain ways of opposing the death penalty, and to certain arguments against the death penalty.
And there is the feeling, quite often, that it is sheer effrontery to consider myself a Christian at all!
I'd end by saying, as others have said, that I don't want my non-posting of the Professio to be interpreted as a kind of militancy against, or disloyalty to, the Holy See. I'm not a theologian, just a lowly blogger whose aim here at Tenebrae is to share poetry and meditation and personal insight, nourished (it is hoped) by the Church of one's baptism. For all the factors listed above, and for at least one more reason, one hesitates to post the Professio.
But I repeat to my readers : Please pray for me, a poor sinner. Thank you, all, and God be with you all, to maintain you in hope and holiness of life both now and always.
Recently, I thought of posting the Professio here at Tenebrae. A number of reasons why I think of doing so, but a number of reasons why I probably won't.
One reason I thought of posting was that I encountered some disaffecting rhetoric about the Roman Catholic Church on the web-page of a fellow who identifies himself as Orthodox, and out of something more than simple reactionary impulse, I wanted to show solidarity with my Church, and with the Universal Pontiff, and with the Magisterium.
I also want to show solidarity with my fellow Catholic bloggers who are out there defending the faith against misconceptions with able and good-humored apologetics. And I also find myself (not quite a reason for posting the Professio, but perhaps connected somehow) in urgent need of the prayers of my fellow Catholics -- and, heck, of everyone. But I need the prayers of the Church, liturgical and private. I need the prayers of my brothers and sisters -- and I hope I have them, whether or not I post the Professio here!
Reasons why I will probably not post the Professio :
Neither this web-log, nor its predecessor (error503 : La vita nuova) could be considered an apologetics web-log. It comes from a Catholic standpoint, inevitably, ineluctably, instinctively -- but it also contains matter that might seem out of place in a Catholic weblog (e.g., snippets from the autobiography of a gay British actor).
Eastern Orthodoxy continues to exert an attraction for this believer, almost to the point where one ponders conversion. I believe that the Western Church, in terms of liturgy especially, needs to recover what the East (both Orthodox and Catholic) has never lost. Join me in praying that amity will increase, and enmity will decrease, between Catholics and Orthodox.
If I posted the Professio, it could be interpreted as either yielding to a kind of "peer pressure," or as exerting pressure for others to do so.
It might also lead some folks to think that I am trying to create the impression of being more virtuous than others. Trust me here. I am not more virtuous than others!
Also, I note the words "the power of" in the English version of the Professio seen at one web-log; and in a post many days ago, I mentioned that I don't see why those words are there. Incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.
And, as seen immediately herebelow, there is my unclarity on what the Church teaches about the death penalty, and my resistance to certain ways of opposing the death penalty, and to certain arguments against the death penalty.
And there is the feeling, quite often, that it is sheer effrontery to consider myself a Christian at all!
I'd end by saying, as others have said, that I don't want my non-posting of the Professio to be interpreted as a kind of militancy against, or disloyalty to, the Holy See. I'm not a theologian, just a lowly blogger whose aim here at Tenebrae is to share poetry and meditation and personal insight, nourished (it is hoped) by the Church of one's baptism. For all the factors listed above, and for at least one more reason, one hesitates to post the Professio.
But I repeat to my readers : Please pray for me, a poor sinner. Thank you, all, and God be with you all, to maintain you in hope and holiness of life both now and always.
Saturday, November 09, 2002
On the death penalty
Catholicism, the life issues, American politics : perhaps more later
Forbidden or not forbidden? that is the question. And the answer that I come up with, based on reading (and re-reading) The Catechism of the Catholic Church is, Almost but not quite.
Cardinal Mahony was on C-Span a year or two ago and announced with some asperity, "The Catholic view on the death penalty is, there should be no death penalty."
It is clear that the Church's preference is almost always for clemency. But does the CCC, even in the 1997 Modifications to the Editio Typica, issue a clarion call for abolition? "The cases in which execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically non-existent'" (CCC Mod 2267).
And this sentence, while not overtly endorsing the death penalty, speaks strongly against under-sentencing and is perhaps the most under-noticed sentence in the Catechism : "Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense" (CCC Mod 2266, italics mine).
And somewhere around here I have a First Things article by Cardinal Dulles in which he explains why abolition of the death penalty should never be sought to the exclusion of seeking to abolish abortion. I think of self-styled consistent ethic of lifers, who voted insouciantly for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, who fulminate about GOP support for the death penalty, shrug about the abortion license, and who'd vote for the most wayward Green before dreaming of voting for a Republican.
Your ideas, input, observations, and quotations of minds in the Church wiser than mine (that's virtually everyone!) are welcome.
Catholicism, the life issues, American politics : perhaps more later
Forbidden or not forbidden? that is the question. And the answer that I come up with, based on reading (and re-reading) The Catechism of the Catholic Church is, Almost but not quite.
Cardinal Mahony was on C-Span a year or two ago and announced with some asperity, "The Catholic view on the death penalty is, there should be no death penalty."
It is clear that the Church's preference is almost always for clemency. But does the CCC, even in the 1997 Modifications to the Editio Typica, issue a clarion call for abolition? "The cases in which execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically non-existent'" (CCC Mod 2267).
And this sentence, while not overtly endorsing the death penalty, speaks strongly against under-sentencing and is perhaps the most under-noticed sentence in the Catechism : "Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense" (CCC Mod 2266, italics mine).
And somewhere around here I have a First Things article by Cardinal Dulles in which he explains why abolition of the death penalty should never be sought to the exclusion of seeking to abolish abortion. I think of self-styled consistent ethic of lifers, who voted insouciantly for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, who fulminate about GOP support for the death penalty, shrug about the abortion license, and who'd vote for the most wayward Green before dreaming of voting for a Republican.
Your ideas, input, observations, and quotations of minds in the Church wiser than mine (that's virtually everyone!) are welcome.
Four paraphrases
of Basho
The small poems that follow make no pretension to be great poems or great translations, but were written as an exercise on June 12 of this year, to see if Harold Henderson's rhymed translations of certain Japanese haiku could be rendered in the bi-linear 14-syllable form (eight and six) often used by Emily Dickinson, even in her epistolary prose, e.g. :
The Sailor cannot see the North -- but knows the Needle can --
Again, these are merely exercises.
1.
This thoroughfare has walkers none
as falls the autumn night.
2.
Lightning! You hear it, in this dark?
Nightbird's fractious cry.
3.
A "noble" village has ... no bell
to ring at dusk in spring.
4.
Cantankerous most mornings,
but this crow loves the snow!
of Basho
The small poems that follow make no pretension to be great poems or great translations, but were written as an exercise on June 12 of this year, to see if Harold Henderson's rhymed translations of certain Japanese haiku could be rendered in the bi-linear 14-syllable form (eight and six) often used by Emily Dickinson, even in her epistolary prose, e.g. :
The Sailor cannot see the North -- but knows the Needle can --
Again, these are merely exercises.
1.
This thoroughfare has walkers none
as falls the autumn night.
2.
Lightning! You hear it, in this dark?
Nightbird's fractious cry.
3.
A "noble" village has ... no bell
to ring at dusk in spring.
4.
Cantankerous most mornings,
but this crow loves the snow!
Libertarians and Marxists, unite!
It occurs to me that these two groups, ostensibly at the antipodes, have a great deal in common.
Both groups seem to scoff, reflexively and thoughtlessly, that human affairs are ultimately governed by God.
Both groups are very brainy, very literate, very adept in vocabulary and argumentation -- but they're not nearly as smart as they think they are.
Both groups are absolutely obsessed by, if not religiously devoted to, politics. To both, political activity represents the Be-All and the End-All.
Ignore the absolutely irrelevant fact that the Berties believe in "small government" asymptotically approaching the non-existent; that the Marxists believe in "big government," as omnipresent as the Stalinists, and managing every aspect of life. Both groups are chock-full of arid, fevered evangelists for the primacy of the political. We have no souls, we have no hearts; we have only politics and ideology.
Both groups contain persons whom I'd love to bop across the faccia brutta with an instrument at least as potent as a cutting-board.
And even though, in the absence of Republican candidates, I voted for two Libertarians in the most recent election (state auditor; US Senate), I deplore the blindness and narrowness and unpalatability of Libertarians as much as I lament the follies and sins and lunacies of the Marxists.
It occurs to me that these two groups, ostensibly at the antipodes, have a great deal in common.
Both groups seem to scoff, reflexively and thoughtlessly, that human affairs are ultimately governed by God.
Both groups are very brainy, very literate, very adept in vocabulary and argumentation -- but they're not nearly as smart as they think they are.
Both groups are absolutely obsessed by, if not religiously devoted to, politics. To both, political activity represents the Be-All and the End-All.
Ignore the absolutely irrelevant fact that the Berties believe in "small government" asymptotically approaching the non-existent; that the Marxists believe in "big government," as omnipresent as the Stalinists, and managing every aspect of life. Both groups are chock-full of arid, fevered evangelists for the primacy of the political. We have no souls, we have no hearts; we have only politics and ideology.
Both groups contain persons whom I'd love to bop across the faccia brutta with an instrument at least as potent as a cutting-board.
And even though, in the absence of Republican candidates, I voted for two Libertarians in the most recent election (state auditor; US Senate), I deplore the blindness and narrowness and unpalatability of Libertarians as much as I lament the follies and sins and lunacies of the Marxists.
It speaks volumes about my strange sense of humor
that I laughed loudly and raucously at this dreadful pun from Envoy Encore. Beam me up, Scotus!
that I laughed loudly and raucously at this dreadful pun from Envoy Encore. Beam me up, Scotus!
Classic rant
How do they let this fellow stay in San Francisco? Gratitude to the Lady of Shalott for linking to this tongue-in-cheek jeremiad against the axis of Republican "evil."
Sad part is : I have at least one relative to whom the rant would not seem like hyperventilating parodistic exaggeration, but a clear, calm, sober, assessment of the facts.
This relative has denounced Massachusetts Governor-elect Mitt Romney -- moderate, genial, unadventurous, calm, Weldian Ken-doll Mitt Romney -- with as straight a face as his orientation will permit -- as a sworn foe of Catholics, as a demeaner and belittler of women, as a hater of gays; a reactionary enemy of everything good and noble and true. "And he's probably never shopped for his own groceries!"
Yes, but people who do shop for their own groceries found him more normal than his unbecoming opponent.
San Francisco journalist Mark Morford has channeled this relative of mine.
Except for the part where he drops the sarcasm, and shakes his head at the world's oldest party still not getting it.
How do they let this fellow stay in San Francisco? Gratitude to the Lady of Shalott for linking to this tongue-in-cheek jeremiad against the axis of Republican "evil."
Sad part is : I have at least one relative to whom the rant would not seem like hyperventilating parodistic exaggeration, but a clear, calm, sober, assessment of the facts.
This relative has denounced Massachusetts Governor-elect Mitt Romney -- moderate, genial, unadventurous, calm, Weldian Ken-doll Mitt Romney -- with as straight a face as his orientation will permit -- as a sworn foe of Catholics, as a demeaner and belittler of women, as a hater of gays; a reactionary enemy of everything good and noble and true. "And he's probably never shopped for his own groceries!"
Yes, but people who do shop for their own groceries found him more normal than his unbecoming opponent.
San Francisco journalist Mark Morford has channeled this relative of mine.
Except for the part where he drops the sarcasm, and shakes his head at the world's oldest party still not getting it.
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
Because, alas, that's the way the world is, and has always been, and will always be. St Thomas the Apostle knew it. Mark Shea speaks of those who are strong enough for tragedy but not strong enough for hope. Read his article at Catholic Exchange.
From a worldly perspective, hope is an absurdity. No one gets out of life alive. Donald Hall's epigraph in that recent book of poems, where his alter-ego poet says that judging solely from how most of us meet our earthly end, the purpose of life sometimes seems to suffer in agony and die.
Worldly joys, blisses, pleasures are all drastically brief and quite often cruelly truncated. I love the realism of this piece by Mr Shea. And am tempted to address this topic, at greater length, from my own personal perspective.
Because, alas, that's the way the world is, and has always been, and will always be. St Thomas the Apostle knew it. Mark Shea speaks of those who are strong enough for tragedy but not strong enough for hope. Read his article at Catholic Exchange.
From a worldly perspective, hope is an absurdity. No one gets out of life alive. Donald Hall's epigraph in that recent book of poems, where his alter-ego poet says that judging solely from how most of us meet our earthly end, the purpose of life sometimes seems to suffer in agony and die.
Worldly joys, blisses, pleasures are all drastically brief and quite often cruelly truncated. I love the realism of this piece by Mr Shea. And am tempted to address this topic, at greater length, from my own personal perspective.
Devotional
My lady's voice could vanquish and entrance,
Enslave the soul and liberate the tears :
A murderous mercy, passionate and fierce
Aimed at the heart. A pagan soldier's lance.
Her footsteps blessed the ground, as April sun
Kisses awake the anaesthetic earth,
Giving all cold-killed life a second birth :
She was an Easter Christ to him with none.
© 2002 by dylan_tm618
My lady's voice could vanquish and entrance,
Enslave the soul and liberate the tears :
A murderous mercy, passionate and fierce
Aimed at the heart. A pagan soldier's lance.
Her footsteps blessed the ground, as April sun
Kisses awake the anaesthetic earth,
Giving all cold-killed life a second birth :
She was an Easter Christ to him with none.
© 2002 by dylan_tm618
Incumbent encumbrances
Signor da Fiesole at Disputations has serendipitously coined the word "encumbent" to describe an incumbent politician who has become something of an encumbrance!
But my cousin's got him beat. She came up with a sublime typographical error, to which she said stet -- "statesmeanship" to describe the tenor of most political campaigns!
Signor da Fiesole at Disputations has serendipitously coined the word "encumbent" to describe an incumbent politician who has become something of an encumbrance!
But my cousin's got him beat. She came up with a sublime typographical error, to which she said stet -- "statesmeanship" to describe the tenor of most political campaigns!
In no Strange Land
by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
‘The Kingdom of God is within you’
O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumb’d conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shutter’d doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendour’d thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
‘The Kingdom of God is within you’
O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumb’d conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shutter’d doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendour’d thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
The Formidable Fifty-Seventh
chapter of Isaiah
Note : The translation being used here is the Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha. Not the best, but it has its moments of grace, and surpasses other NABysmal translations in fluency and euphony.
Yesterday morning I was reading Scripture at a rather Cistercian hour, and happened upon the 57th chapter of Isaiah. It's not one of the more "famous" chapters of Isaiah, no oft-quoted verse comparable to "Come, let us reason together" or "the lion will lie down with the lamb" or "a bruised reed he shall not break" -- but it is formidable.
It begins with a scathing indictment, full throttle, full force, no holds barred. The Lord, via his prophet, is letting his people have it, with both barrels!
The righteous perish
and no one is concerned;
all who are loyal to their faith are swept away
and no one gives it a thought.
The righteous are swept away by the onset of evil
[ . . .]
3 Come near, you children of a soothsayer.
You spawn of an adulterer and a harlot,
4 who is the target of your jests?
Against whom do you open your months
and stick out your tongues?
Children of sin, spawn of a lie,
5 you are burning with lust under the sacred oaks,
under every spreading tree
and sacrificing children in the wadis,
under the rocky clefts.
Five verses later,
9 You drenched your tresses with oil,
were lavish in your use of perfumes;
you sent out your procurers far and wide
even down to the confines of Sheol.
10 Though worn out by your unending excesses,
you never thought your plight desperate.
You found renewed vigour
and so had no anxiety.
That is dreadfully, typically human. We've sinned but let's keep going. We haven't been gravely harmed by our follies yet. They're practically peccadilloes. And if they were sins, they wouldn't be so much fun. Three cheers for folly! Please God, it's not typical of us as we read it ... but perhaps ...
But we are approaching the changing of the tide, the turning of the movement ... usually in a sonnet, it comes at the start of line 9, with a mighty "But!" ... Shakespeare speaks of fading beauty and short summers and declining grace and nature's changing course untrimmed ... "But thy eternal summer shall not fade."
Isaiah 57 has 21 verses and the "but" comes about two-thirds of the way through.
12-13 Now I shall expose your conduct
that you think so righteous.
Your idols will not help you when you cry;
they will not save you.
The wind will carry them off, one and all,
a puff of air will take them away;
but he who makes me his refuge will possess the land
and inherit my holy hill.
Before we continue.
"Now I shall expose your conduct ... " This is a promise and a threat. And it scares the living daylights out of us, or at least it should. Actually, "living daylights" might not be the right word. It should scare the stuffing out of us. It should shock us out of our security. It should scare the grace into us, so the living God-light can come in.
"Now I shall expose ... " There's a type of exposure that is iniquitous. "Guess what so-and-so did ..." But the "I" of this sentence is God. He's exposing our shams, tricks, excuses, treasons, apostasies, lazinesses, double-dealings, and suicidal addictions to all things sinful, convenient and bad. The first step to recovery or healing is the acknowledgment that something is wrong.
What we should do -- and, speaking for myself, what we don't often do -- is pray for that wind to come, to carry off our idols and our guilty amusements. A wind not like the gentle "new breeze" of the kindly statesman, but the deracinating whirlwind that takes all our edifices of evil, our statues to the glorification of Self, our dying trees of poisonous fruit, and clears them away ... ruthlessly, and yet, mercifully.
Let us proceed.
14 Then the LORD will say :
Build up a highway, clear a road,
remove all that blocks my people's path.
15 These are the words of the high and exalted One,
who is enthroned forever, whose name is holy;
Remove what blocks the path of God into our hearts. And "clear a road"! Sometimes, to clear a road -- well, virtually always -- there's a radical re-shaping of the landscape. How do we clear roads nowadays? With delicate, quiet instruments ... like bulldozers and dynamite! God as dynamite, exploding the rock of deadness -- but not to make a four-lane interstate, but to clear a path into our hearts, for our own soul's health's life's hope's joy's sake.
Verse 15 continues :
I dwell in a high and holy place
and with him who is broken and humble in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
to revive the courage of the broken.
Stop everything.
Stop breathing, if you must. Stop reading for a few seconds. Clear the mind.
These words bear repeating, and a special particular focus. Let's zoom in.
I dwell in a high and holy place
and with him who is broken and humble in spirit
Here you have the most shocking, the most amazingly concise expression of the inexpressible. The paradox of God being Transcendence (in a high and holy place) AND Immanence (with him who is broken and humble in spirit).
King of Kings and Lord of Lords (pleni sunt caeli ...) and knocking on the hardened hearts, living within the penitent hearts, of prostitutes, addicts, murderers.
Up here AND down here.
God Immeasurable, whom the skies cannot confine. God amid our human dust and bricks and thoroughfares, roaming the city streets at all hours of the night to find someone he loves. Francis Thompson bumped into him more than once in the gutters of London, but let the famous Thompson stand for all the anonymous vagabonds and children of the night. Jacob's ladder is pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross, between Heaven and the South Bronx, between Heaven and Peoria, between Heaven and the nation's capital. "With him who is broken and humble in spirit." With him and in him.
In our Lady's case, in her and with her. Emerging from the blessed womb, into a cold cave, a stable for donkeys and cattle.
King of Kings, the Exalted One, in a high and holy place.
Isaiah gives us "the rest of the story" in the remaining verses of chapter 57. The promise, the pledge, the certain hope of which, alas, we are all too often oblivious.
18 I have seen his conduct,
yet I shall heal him and give him relief;
I shall bring him comfort in full measure,
and on the lips of those who mourn him
19 I shall create words of praise.
Peace, peace, for all, both far and near;
I shall heal them, says the LORD.
On the lips of those who mourn him. In other words : "How could we fail to celebrate this happy day? Your brother here was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found."
chapter of Isaiah
Note : The translation being used here is the Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha. Not the best, but it has its moments of grace, and surpasses other NABysmal translations in fluency and euphony.
Yesterday morning I was reading Scripture at a rather Cistercian hour, and happened upon the 57th chapter of Isaiah. It's not one of the more "famous" chapters of Isaiah, no oft-quoted verse comparable to "Come, let us reason together" or "the lion will lie down with the lamb" or "a bruised reed he shall not break" -- but it is formidable.
It begins with a scathing indictment, full throttle, full force, no holds barred. The Lord, via his prophet, is letting his people have it, with both barrels!
The righteous perish
and no one is concerned;
all who are loyal to their faith are swept away
and no one gives it a thought.
The righteous are swept away by the onset of evil
[ . . .]
3 Come near, you children of a soothsayer.
You spawn of an adulterer and a harlot,
4 who is the target of your jests?
Against whom do you open your months
and stick out your tongues?
Children of sin, spawn of a lie,
5 you are burning with lust under the sacred oaks,
under every spreading tree
and sacrificing children in the wadis,
under the rocky clefts.
Five verses later,
9 You drenched your tresses with oil,
were lavish in your use of perfumes;
you sent out your procurers far and wide
even down to the confines of Sheol.
10 Though worn out by your unending excesses,
you never thought your plight desperate.
You found renewed vigour
and so had no anxiety.
That is dreadfully, typically human. We've sinned but let's keep going. We haven't been gravely harmed by our follies yet. They're practically peccadilloes. And if they were sins, they wouldn't be so much fun. Three cheers for folly! Please God, it's not typical of us as we read it ... but perhaps ...
But we are approaching the changing of the tide, the turning of the movement ... usually in a sonnet, it comes at the start of line 9, with a mighty "But!" ... Shakespeare speaks of fading beauty and short summers and declining grace and nature's changing course untrimmed ... "But thy eternal summer shall not fade."
Isaiah 57 has 21 verses and the "but" comes about two-thirds of the way through.
12-13 Now I shall expose your conduct
that you think so righteous.
Your idols will not help you when you cry;
they will not save you.
The wind will carry them off, one and all,
a puff of air will take them away;
but he who makes me his refuge will possess the land
and inherit my holy hill.
Before we continue.
"Now I shall expose your conduct ... " This is a promise and a threat. And it scares the living daylights out of us, or at least it should. Actually, "living daylights" might not be the right word. It should scare the stuffing out of us. It should shock us out of our security. It should scare the grace into us, so the living God-light can come in.
"Now I shall expose ... " There's a type of exposure that is iniquitous. "Guess what so-and-so did ..." But the "I" of this sentence is God. He's exposing our shams, tricks, excuses, treasons, apostasies, lazinesses, double-dealings, and suicidal addictions to all things sinful, convenient and bad. The first step to recovery or healing is the acknowledgment that something is wrong.
What we should do -- and, speaking for myself, what we don't often do -- is pray for that wind to come, to carry off our idols and our guilty amusements. A wind not like the gentle "new breeze" of the kindly statesman, but the deracinating whirlwind that takes all our edifices of evil, our statues to the glorification of Self, our dying trees of poisonous fruit, and clears them away ... ruthlessly, and yet, mercifully.
Let us proceed.
14 Then the LORD will say :
Build up a highway, clear a road,
remove all that blocks my people's path.
15 These are the words of the high and exalted One,
who is enthroned forever, whose name is holy;
Remove what blocks the path of God into our hearts. And "clear a road"! Sometimes, to clear a road -- well, virtually always -- there's a radical re-shaping of the landscape. How do we clear roads nowadays? With delicate, quiet instruments ... like bulldozers and dynamite! God as dynamite, exploding the rock of deadness -- but not to make a four-lane interstate, but to clear a path into our hearts, for our own soul's health's life's hope's joy's sake.
Verse 15 continues :
I dwell in a high and holy place
and with him who is broken and humble in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
to revive the courage of the broken.
Stop everything.
Stop breathing, if you must. Stop reading for a few seconds. Clear the mind.
These words bear repeating, and a special particular focus. Let's zoom in.
I dwell in a high and holy place
and with him who is broken and humble in spirit
Here you have the most shocking, the most amazingly concise expression of the inexpressible. The paradox of God being Transcendence (in a high and holy place) AND Immanence (with him who is broken and humble in spirit).
King of Kings and Lord of Lords (pleni sunt caeli ...) and knocking on the hardened hearts, living within the penitent hearts, of prostitutes, addicts, murderers.
Up here AND down here.
God Immeasurable, whom the skies cannot confine. God amid our human dust and bricks and thoroughfares, roaming the city streets at all hours of the night to find someone he loves. Francis Thompson bumped into him more than once in the gutters of London, but let the famous Thompson stand for all the anonymous vagabonds and children of the night. Jacob's ladder is pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross, between Heaven and the South Bronx, between Heaven and Peoria, between Heaven and the nation's capital. "With him who is broken and humble in spirit." With him and in him.
In our Lady's case, in her and with her. Emerging from the blessed womb, into a cold cave, a stable for donkeys and cattle.
King of Kings, the Exalted One, in a high and holy place.
Isaiah gives us "the rest of the story" in the remaining verses of chapter 57. The promise, the pledge, the certain hope of which, alas, we are all too often oblivious.
18 I have seen his conduct,
yet I shall heal him and give him relief;
I shall bring him comfort in full measure,
and on the lips of those who mourn him
19 I shall create words of praise.
Peace, peace, for all, both far and near;
I shall heal them, says the LORD.
On the lips of those who mourn him. In other words : "How could we fail to celebrate this happy day? Your brother here was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found."
Also, from the JWR
Michelle Malkin ruminates on the disparity of media attention between Winona Ryder's legal trouble and something that is becoming known as the Wichita Massacre (sure, blame the city rather than the perpetrators -- see also 7th December 1993, "Long Island Railroad Massacre").
Michelle Malkin ruminates on the disparity of media attention between Winona Ryder's legal trouble and something that is becoming known as the Wichita Massacre (sure, blame the city rather than the perpetrators -- see also 7th December 1993, "Long Island Railroad Massacre").
Friday, November 08, 2002
"In an off-year election in which the opposition is headed by a sitting president who lost the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000, and whose administration is presiding over recession and war, the Democrats should have cleaned up. At the very least they should have lost nothing. And yet they lost almost everything. They lost Massachusetts to a Mormon! They lost Maryland with a Kennedy! The president and his party picked up support from one end of the country to the other, and the Democrats lost their one national power base, the Senate. Now they have only the media. That's a lot, but Paula Zahn is not a state, at least not yet, and she doesn't get a vote in the Senate."
The latest from Peggy Noonan.
The latest from Peggy Noonan.
I love this part
of the First Eucharistic Prayer :
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.
In olden days, the foregoing passage began with the words Hanc igitur; I may, when energies are greater, post the excerpt in Latin.
I also love, after the consecration :
Almighty God,
we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice
to your altar in heaven.
It's vivid, it's wondrous, it makes it very, very real and immediate ...
of the First Eucharistic Prayer :
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.
In olden days, the foregoing passage began with the words Hanc igitur; I may, when energies are greater, post the excerpt in Latin.
I also love, after the consecration :
Almighty God,
we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice
to your altar in heaven.
It's vivid, it's wondrous, it makes it very, very real and immediate ...
Notes toward Some Possible Future Bloggings
What might be coming up :
What might be coming up :
-- Hanc igitur (Done.)
-- Plans? Plans ?? (Done.)
-- Haiku (both sublime & ridiculous)
-- The Formidable Fifty-Seventh
-- Pondering the Professio
-- The Death Penalty : Albutnotquitemost Forbidden?
-- A bit more Stephen Fry, I'm afraid
Thursday, November 07, 2002
D. G. Rossetti writes in Italian
Barcarola
Per carità,
Mostrami amore :
Mi punge il cuore,
Ma non si sa
Dove è amore.
Che mi fa
La bella età
Sè non si sa
Come amerà?
Ahi me solingo!
Il cuor mi stringo!
Non più ramingo,
Per carità!
Per carità,
Mostrami il cielo :
Tutto è un velo,
E non si sa
Dove è il cielo.
Se si sta
Così colà
Non si sa
Se non si va.
Ahi me lontano!
Tutto è in vano!
Prendi-mi in mano,
Per carità!
Barcarola
Per carità,
Mostrami amore :
Mi punge il cuore,
Ma non si sa
Dove è amore.
Che mi fa
La bella età
Sè non si sa
Come amerà?
Ahi me solingo!
Il cuor mi stringo!
Non più ramingo,
Per carità!
Per carità,
Mostrami il cielo :
Tutto è un velo,
E non si sa
Dove è il cielo.
Se si sta
Così colà
Non si sa
Se non si va.
Ahi me lontano!
Tutto è in vano!
Prendi-mi in mano,
Per carità!
a poem by
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Heart's Compass
sonnet 27 from The House of Life
Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular; --
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.
Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Heart's Compass
sonnet 27 from The House of Life
Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular; --
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.
Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.
Sang from the heart, Sire,
Dipped my Beak in it,
If the Tune drip too much
Have a tint too Red
Pardon the Cochineal --
Suffer the Vermilion --
Death is the Wealth
Of the Poorest Bird.
Bear with the Ballad --
Awkward -- faltering --
Death twists the strings --
'Twasn't my blame --
Pause in your Liturgies --
Wait in your Chorals --
While I repeat your
Hallowed name --
-- Emily Dickinson, poem #1059
Dipped my Beak in it,
If the Tune drip too much
Have a tint too Red
Pardon the Cochineal --
Suffer the Vermilion --
Death is the Wealth
Of the Poorest Bird.
Bear with the Ballad --
Awkward -- faltering --
Death twists the strings --
'Twasn't my blame --
Pause in your Liturgies --
Wait in your Chorals --
While I repeat your
Hallowed name --
-- Emily Dickinson, poem #1059
Dove, ragazzo solo, dove andrai?
what foreign language are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm pleasantly surprised. I thought I'd be French, like the bored existentialist in those DHL commercials of a half-decade ago.
And in case you were wondering : The headline to this post comes from the Italian version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ("Ragazzo Solo") ...
La mia mente ha preso il volo
Un pensiero uno solo
Io cammino mentre dorme la città
I suoi occhi nella notte
Fanali bianchi nella notte
Una voce che mi parla chi sarà?
Dimmi ragazzo solo dove vai,
Perché tanto dolore?
Hai perduto senza dubbio un grande amore
Ma di amori è tutta piena la città
No ragazza sola no no no
Stavolta sei in errore
Non ho perso solamente un grande amore
Ieri sera ho perso tutto con lei
Ma lei
I colori della vita
Dei cieli blu
Una come lei non la troverò mai più
Ora ragazzo solo dove andrai
La notte è un grande mare
Se ti serve la mia mano per nuotare
Grazie ma stasera io vorrei morire
Perché sai negli occhi miei
C'è un' angelo, un' angelo
Che ormai non vola più che ormai non vola più
Che ormai non vola più
C'è lei
I colori della vita
Dei cieli blu
Una come lei non la troverò mai più
Amazing. The lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with the English original!
what foreign language are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm pleasantly surprised. I thought I'd be French, like the bored existentialist in those DHL commercials of a half-decade ago.
And in case you were wondering : The headline to this post comes from the Italian version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ("Ragazzo Solo") ...
La mia mente ha preso il volo
Un pensiero uno solo
Io cammino mentre dorme la città
I suoi occhi nella notte
Fanali bianchi nella notte
Una voce che mi parla chi sarà?
Dimmi ragazzo solo dove vai,
Perché tanto dolore?
Hai perduto senza dubbio un grande amore
Ma di amori è tutta piena la città
No ragazza sola no no no
Stavolta sei in errore
Non ho perso solamente un grande amore
Ieri sera ho perso tutto con lei
Ma lei
I colori della vita
Dei cieli blu
Una come lei non la troverò mai più
Ora ragazzo solo dove andrai
La notte è un grande mare
Se ti serve la mia mano per nuotare
Grazie ma stasera io vorrei morire
Perché sai negli occhi miei
C'è un' angelo, un' angelo
Che ormai non vola più che ormai non vola più
Che ormai non vola più
C'è lei
I colori della vita
Dei cieli blu
Una come lei non la troverò mai più
Amazing. The lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with the English original!
I can resist everything except temptation
dylanthropos estin zoon politikon
Rachelle Cohen of the Herald's got it right, methinks. On why Rendell won in Pennsylvania, and O'Brien lost in Massachusetts. Note especially paragraphs three through five.
Rendell projected regular guy. O'Brien projected ... personality of a different sort.
dylanthropos estin zoon politikon
Rachelle Cohen of the Herald's got it right, methinks. On why Rendell won in Pennsylvania, and O'Brien lost in Massachusetts. Note especially paragraphs three through five.
Rendell projected regular guy. O'Brien projected ... personality of a different sort.
Stephen Fry in prison
My accent and my vocabulary endeared me to everyone. Again, I had expected nothing but jeering cries of "Oh I say! How absolutely topping, don't you know?" and similar inaccurate mockeries, but I think the inmates enjoyed the confusion I caused to the screws who found it difficult to talk to me without thinking of me as Officer Class or suspecting me to be some Home Office official's son, planted to keep an eye on things.
"Don't think me some awful antinomian anarch, sir," I might say to one of the screws, "but is the rule about drinking hot cocoa in precisely forty seconds not perhaps dispensable? The ensuing scalding of the soft tissues about the uvula is most aggravating."
-- Moab, p. 346
Something tells me that young Mr Fry might not have fared so well in a hoosegow here in the States.
My accent and my vocabulary endeared me to everyone. Again, I had expected nothing but jeering cries of "Oh I say! How absolutely topping, don't you know?" and similar inaccurate mockeries, but I think the inmates enjoyed the confusion I caused to the screws who found it difficult to talk to me without thinking of me as Officer Class or suspecting me to be some Home Office official's son, planted to keep an eye on things.
"Don't think me some awful antinomian anarch, sir," I might say to one of the screws, "but is the rule about drinking hot cocoa in precisely forty seconds not perhaps dispensable? The ensuing scalding of the soft tissues about the uvula is most aggravating."
-- Moab, p. 346
Something tells me that young Mr Fry might not have fared so well in a hoosegow here in the States.
Vast post chez Video Mel ...
An excellent, entertaining and engaging DC travelogue from Mr O'Rama.
I have a bit of blogger's block. (Now, watch : eight or nine posts will follow between now & midnight.)
And I'm still tempted to talk politics.
An excellent, entertaining and engaging DC travelogue from Mr O'Rama.
I have a bit of blogger's block. (Now, watch : eight or nine posts will follow between now & midnight.)
And I'm still tempted to talk politics.
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Absolutely right. Nœut anymœur.
Say nay to Gray
The archeologist Eve Tushnet has unearthed my paleolithic haruspications about the 2004 Democratic presidential sweepstakes. I'll stick with Lieberman, maybe promote Kerry a notch for Stuart Smalley reasons (he's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it, his wife's got more money than Fort Knox). But I didn't know, as I wrote this back in, what?, May? ... that Gov. Gray Davis of California was (1) an abortocentric extremist; (2) wildly unpopular in his home state, even despite his win last evening.
Another name I'd throw into the mix ... and I await affirmation or refutation from Pennsylvania readers ... is Ed Rendell. Don't know much about him, but in the little I've seen of him, he's always struck me as an amiable fellow. Maybe veep material. (Wait. Is this Ed Rendell? Never mind.)
Howard Dean of Vermont is reportedly interested. (Dean has the advantage of being, even to this New Englander, a tabula rasa.) Sam Nunn? Zell Miller? (These two Georgia chaps seem to be patriots, impatient with the more unpalatable excesses of soi-disant "liberalism.")
Robert B. Reich. Failed in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor. Impressed many, even those who'd vehemently disagree with him on ... oh, everything ... as a genuinely nice guy. A good-humored progressive? They still exist!
But, trust me, if last night is any indication, and if the Dumb Aquatic Putty continues to say Dubya's a dummy because he added an extra syllable to "subliminal," and if the stridency of infanticide-über-alles rhetoric continues among the world's oldest and most juvenile political party, the President should cruise to a re-election victory, by a margin somewhere between those of 1988 and 1984.
Say nay to Gray
The archeologist Eve Tushnet has unearthed my paleolithic haruspications about the 2004 Democratic presidential sweepstakes. I'll stick with Lieberman, maybe promote Kerry a notch for Stuart Smalley reasons (he's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it, his wife's got more money than Fort Knox). But I didn't know, as I wrote this back in, what?, May? ... that Gov. Gray Davis of California was (1) an abortocentric extremist; (2) wildly unpopular in his home state, even despite his win last evening.
Another name I'd throw into the mix ... and I await affirmation or refutation from Pennsylvania readers ... is Ed Rendell. Don't know much about him, but in the little I've seen of him, he's always struck me as an amiable fellow. Maybe veep material. (Wait. Is this Ed Rendell? Never mind.)
Howard Dean of Vermont is reportedly interested. (Dean has the advantage of being, even to this New Englander, a tabula rasa.) Sam Nunn? Zell Miller? (These two Georgia chaps seem to be patriots, impatient with the more unpalatable excesses of soi-disant "liberalism.")
Robert B. Reich. Failed in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor. Impressed many, even those who'd vehemently disagree with him on ... oh, everything ... as a genuinely nice guy. A good-humored progressive? They still exist!
But, trust me, if last night is any indication, and if the Dumb Aquatic Putty continues to say Dubya's a dummy because he added an extra syllable to "subliminal," and if the stridency of infanticide-über-alles rhetoric continues among the world's oldest and most juvenile political party, the President should cruise to a re-election victory, by a margin somewhere between those of 1988 and 1984.
Ah, the tolerance, the sensitivity, the grace, the tact, the unimpeachable nobility of the Democratic Party.
A fellow blogger wonders aloud how Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, one of the junior lieutenants in La Famiglia Kennedy, could have possibly lost the Maryland governor's race.
Chris Matthews attributes the Ehrlich win to "people growing up, no longer voting for celebrity kids -- after all, it's an election, not People magazine."
Yes, the hoary old long-playing record of the Camelot soundtrack is getting a mite scratchy with decades of overplaying.
Then there's this charming little tidbit via Pilgrimage :
At a September debate in Maryland between the candidates for lieutenant governor, supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend passed out Oreo cookies to mock black Republican hopeful Michael Steele. At another debate that month, between Townsend and Republican Bob Ehrlich, Democrats also passed out Oreos -- and then led the crowd in raucous booing of Ehrlich's wife and elderly parents. Afterwards, Democrats keyed the cars of several Ehrlich supporters.
Well, as the Church Lady would say : Isn't that special?
See also Jonathan Last in the Weekly Standard, aptly observing : "Democrats now ARE what they believe Nixon was." It is from the Weekly Standard article that we get the charming little anecdote about Kathleen Kennedy & Co., and other heartwarming tales of Democratic honesty & probity & decency & fairness & gallantry & all-around benevolence.
A fellow blogger wonders aloud how Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, one of the junior lieutenants in La Famiglia Kennedy, could have possibly lost the Maryland governor's race.
Chris Matthews attributes the Ehrlich win to "people growing up, no longer voting for celebrity kids -- after all, it's an election, not People magazine."
Yes, the hoary old long-playing record of the Camelot soundtrack is getting a mite scratchy with decades of overplaying.
Then there's this charming little tidbit via Pilgrimage :
At a September debate in Maryland between the candidates for lieutenant governor, supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend passed out Oreo cookies to mock black Republican hopeful Michael Steele. At another debate that month, between Townsend and Republican Bob Ehrlich, Democrats also passed out Oreos -- and then led the crowd in raucous booing of Ehrlich's wife and elderly parents. Afterwards, Democrats keyed the cars of several Ehrlich supporters.
Well, as the Church Lady would say : Isn't that special?
See also Jonathan Last in the Weekly Standard, aptly observing : "Democrats now ARE what they believe Nixon was." It is from the Weekly Standard article that we get the charming little anecdote about Kathleen Kennedy & Co., and other heartwarming tales of Democratic honesty & probity & decency & fairness & gallantry & all-around benevolence.
Election '02 : Obiter dicta
Remarkable paragraph, this, from the Globe :
''One of the assumptions of the O'Brien candidacy was that she would be able to hold the urban ethnic base with her ethnicity,'' said Lou DiNatale, director of the University of Massachusetts poll. ''In fact, her positions on social issues, particularly highlighting abortion in the final debate, seem to have alienated a significant segment of this urban base.''
In liberal Massachusetts (which went for Reagan twice & which has elected its fourth consecutive Republican governor), it's heartening to see that some forms of pro-abort extremism can still be rebuked by the electorate.
Romney is at best 2 micro-millimeters better than O'Brien on this issue ... but when the Democrat giggled during a discussion of lowering the age of consent to 16, it seems even "moderates" were shocked.
Congratulations to John H. Sununu in the Granite State, unharmed by Jeanne Shaheen's abrasively pro-choice ads.
Congratulations to Lieutenant Governors-elect Michael Steele of Maryland and Jennette Bradley of Ohio. Both African-American. Both Republicans !
Congratulations to Norm Coleman, to Jim Talent ... to John Ellis Bush ... to George W. Bush !
Congratulations to Chris Matthews, Peggy Noonan, Brit Hume and the rest, for staying awake and reasonably coherent.
A jeer to CNN Headline News which on its "crawl" had the item : Republicans wrench control of US Senate from Dems.
News flash, folks. This is America. And the voters gave the Republicans control of the Senate.
With the usual skeptical pessimist's reservations, and the necessary asterisks and qualifications, three cheers for the USA.
Remarkable paragraph, this, from the Globe :
''One of the assumptions of the O'Brien candidacy was that she would be able to hold the urban ethnic base with her ethnicity,'' said Lou DiNatale, director of the University of Massachusetts poll. ''In fact, her positions on social issues, particularly highlighting abortion in the final debate, seem to have alienated a significant segment of this urban base.''
In liberal Massachusetts (which went for Reagan twice & which has elected its fourth consecutive Republican governor), it's heartening to see that some forms of pro-abort extremism can still be rebuked by the electorate.
Romney is at best 2 micro-millimeters better than O'Brien on this issue ... but when the Democrat giggled during a discussion of lowering the age of consent to 16, it seems even "moderates" were shocked.
Congratulations to John H. Sununu in the Granite State, unharmed by Jeanne Shaheen's abrasively pro-choice ads.
Congratulations to Lieutenant Governors-elect Michael Steele of Maryland and Jennette Bradley of Ohio. Both African-American. Both Republicans !
Congratulations to Norm Coleman, to Jim Talent ... to John Ellis Bush ... to George W. Bush !
Congratulations to Chris Matthews, Peggy Noonan, Brit Hume and the rest, for staying awake and reasonably coherent.
A jeer to CNN Headline News which on its "crawl" had the item : Republicans wrench control of US Senate from Dems.
News flash, folks. This is America. And the voters gave the Republicans control of the Senate.
With the usual skeptical pessimist's reservations, and the necessary asterisks and qualifications, three cheers for the USA.
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
The Boston Globe and Catholicism
go together like (if I can steal a George Will-ism) sauerkraut and ice cream
The bad : Yet another author accuses the church of "grave crimes" with respect to the Holocaust. I confess to not having read the article. In fact, I'm not even going to link to it. So there!
The good : Alex Beam on Gilbert!
go together like (if I can steal a George Will-ism) sauerkraut and ice cream
The bad : Yet another author accuses the church of "grave crimes" with respect to the Holocaust. I confess to not having read the article. In fact, I'm not even going to link to it. So there!
The good : Alex Beam on Gilbert!
Worth exploring? Looks like it.
The Poem Tree, an online anthology emphasizing modern metrical verse.
Found it by a Yahoo search for the poet Robert Francis (check out Francis's poetry, esp. "Fall," if you can tolerate the somewhat distractingly cute background graphics).
And here, with suitably understated graphics, is a beautiful quiet poem called "Unsaid," by (my resistance is slowly, slowly dissipating) Dana Gioia.
The Poem Tree, an online anthology emphasizing modern metrical verse.
Found it by a Yahoo search for the poet Robert Francis (check out Francis's poetry, esp. "Fall," if you can tolerate the somewhat distractingly cute background graphics).
And here, with suitably understated graphics, is a beautiful quiet poem called "Unsaid," by (my resistance is slowly, slowly dissipating) Dana Gioia.
Canticum Canticorum
The Song of Songs, from chapter 4
7 Tota pulchra es, amica mea,
et macula non est in te.
8 Veni de Libano, sponsa,
veni de Libano,
ingredere;
respice de capite Amana,
de vertice Sanir et Hermon,
de cubilibus leonum,
de montibus pardorum.
9 Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa,
vulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum
et in uno monili torquis tui.
10 Quam pulchri sunt amores tui, soror, mea sponsa;
meliores sunt amores tui vino,
et odor unguentorum tuorum super omnia aromata.
11 Favus distillans labia tua, sponsa;
mel et lac sub lingua tua,
et odor vestimentorum tuorum
sicut odor Libani.
12 Hortus conclusus, soror mea, sponsa,
hortus conclusus, fons signatus;
13 propagines tuae paradisus malorum punicorum
cum optimis fructibus,
cypri cum nardo.
14 Nardus et crocus,
fistula et cinnamomum
cum universis lignis turiferis,
myrrha et aloe
cum omnibus primis unguentis.
15 Fons hortorum,
puteus aquarum viventium,
quae fluunt impetu de Libano.
The Song of Songs, from chapter 4
7 Tota pulchra es, amica mea,
et macula non est in te.
8 Veni de Libano, sponsa,
veni de Libano,
ingredere;
respice de capite Amana,
de vertice Sanir et Hermon,
de cubilibus leonum,
de montibus pardorum.
9 Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa,
vulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum
et in uno monili torquis tui.
10 Quam pulchri sunt amores tui, soror, mea sponsa;
meliores sunt amores tui vino,
et odor unguentorum tuorum super omnia aromata.
11 Favus distillans labia tua, sponsa;
mel et lac sub lingua tua,
et odor vestimentorum tuorum
sicut odor Libani.
12 Hortus conclusus, soror mea, sponsa,
hortus conclusus, fons signatus;
13 propagines tuae paradisus malorum punicorum
cum optimis fructibus,
cypri cum nardo.
14 Nardus et crocus,
fistula et cinnamomum
cum universis lignis turiferis,
myrrha et aloe
cum omnibus primis unguentis.
15 Fons hortorum,
puteus aquarum viventium,
quae fluunt impetu de Libano.
Morning has broken!
Well, not exactly. We were nearly asleep, but some sundry noises of this placid vale, this happy little spot, this congenial bailiwick did obtrude upon our semisomnolent state.
Yesterday evening, I found what looked to be an excellent resource of Orthodox prayers on some fellow's personal website. But it seems that elsewhere on this site, there's rhetoric about Roman Catholicism which makes the remarks of former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders seem intelligent by comparison. Not a discussion of theological differences, but bigoted fulmination from a Baptist-turned-Orthodox (or semi-Orthodox; he seems to be caught in the jaws of some kind of quasi-fundamentalist hell). This may be addressed further, with actual quotations provided.
Please pardon me, I'm in my mellow-yellow up-with-people mood. I'm very pro-people, at this moment. Major league. Big time.
Well, not exactly. We were nearly asleep, but some sundry noises of this placid vale, this happy little spot, this congenial bailiwick did obtrude upon our semisomnolent state.
Yesterday evening, I found what looked to be an excellent resource of Orthodox prayers on some fellow's personal website. But it seems that elsewhere on this site, there's rhetoric about Roman Catholicism which makes the remarks of former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders seem intelligent by comparison. Not a discussion of theological differences, but bigoted fulmination from a Baptist-turned-Orthodox (or semi-Orthodox; he seems to be caught in the jaws of some kind of quasi-fundamentalist hell). This may be addressed further, with actual quotations provided.
Please pardon me, I'm in my mellow-yellow up-with-people mood. I'm very pro-people, at this moment. Major league. Big time.
Monday, November 04, 2002
Fr Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983)
from For the Life of the World; via Doxos
Secularism is a religion... and it "works" and it "helps". Quite frankly if "help" were the criterion one would have to admit that life-centered secularism helps actually more than religion. To compete with it, religion has to present itself as "adjustment to life", "counseling", "enrichment", it has to be publicized in subways and buses as a valuable addition to "your friendly bank" and all the other "friendly dealers": try it, it helps!
For Christianity, help is not the criterion. Truth is the criterion. Salvation ... is not only not identical with help, but is, in fact, opposed to it.
This book was also published under the title Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965); in my copy, the quotation above appears on page 123 (Chapter 6).
from For the Life of the World; via Doxos
Secularism is a religion... and it "works" and it "helps". Quite frankly if "help" were the criterion one would have to admit that life-centered secularism helps actually more than religion. To compete with it, religion has to present itself as "adjustment to life", "counseling", "enrichment", it has to be publicized in subways and buses as a valuable addition to "your friendly bank" and all the other "friendly dealers": try it, it helps!
For Christianity, help is not the criterion. Truth is the criterion. Salvation ... is not only not identical with help, but is, in fact, opposed to it.
This book was also published under the title Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965); in my copy, the quotation above appears on page 123 (Chapter 6).
a poem by
edward estlin cummings (1894-1962)
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend;blow space to time)
--when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
--whose hearts are mountains,roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't:blow death to was)
--all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
edward estlin cummings (1894-1962)
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend;blow space to time)
--when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
--whose hearts are mountains,roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't:blow death to was)
--all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
a poem by
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."
Syllables
Is there any insanely pedantic prosodist out there, someone of a gloriously encyclopedic capacity for retaining the most nugatory nuggets of information, who could tell me the name of the four-syllable poetical foot whose only stress is on the first syllable, exemplorum gratia: "reasonable," "seasonable," "cassowary," "emissary," "ordinary"?
Or would these tetrasyllables be considered trochaic dimeter because, especially in the latter three examples, the 3rd syllable is ever-so-slightly, nonetheless discernibly, louder than syllables two and four?
Later ...
Ah! Here it is!
Paeon : Greek and Latin metrical foot consisting of three short and one long syllables: the first paeon / ' ~ ~ ~ /, the second paeon / ~ ' ~ ~ /, the third paeon / ~ ~ ' ~ /, and the fourth paeon / ~ ~ ~ ' /.
So, "first paeon" it is!
Is there any insanely pedantic prosodist out there, someone of a gloriously encyclopedic capacity for retaining the most nugatory nuggets of information, who could tell me the name of the four-syllable poetical foot whose only stress is on the first syllable, exemplorum gratia: "reasonable," "seasonable," "cassowary," "emissary," "ordinary"?
Or would these tetrasyllables be considered trochaic dimeter because, especially in the latter three examples, the 3rd syllable is ever-so-slightly, nonetheless discernibly, louder than syllables two and four?
Later ...
Ah! Here it is!
Paeon : Greek and Latin metrical foot consisting of three short and one long syllables: the first paeon / ' ~ ~ ~ /, the second paeon / ~ ' ~ ~ /, the third paeon / ~ ~ ' ~ /, and the fourth paeon / ~ ~ ~ ' /.
So, "first paeon" it is!
I have just rendered
a brief visitation unto the Dana Gioia website, and can recommend the poem entitled "Rough Country" ... in part, perhaps because I like poems to be rough countries, sometimes. I like words that resist the flow of chatter, the words that make the reader stop, switch to a rhythm other than that of newspaper-prose. Read "Rough Country" aloud, especially the middle lines.
What worries me about Mr Gioia's poetry is that, in the laudable effort to free his work of the more flamboyant and facile eccentricities, he might be at times too cautious. But poetry -- like the Church? -- has room for all kinds. A priest once said in his homily that the Church embraces, among its apologists and evangelists, both the tenacious and the subtle. (One of the happiest phrases this fellow ever came up with!) Similarly, in the family of poetry, you'll find the reticent and the rambunctious. And there's room enough for both, and for all gradations & variations in between. Perhaps, the reticent and the rambunctious can exist in the same poet!
To bring up the name of Estlin Cummings yet again, who wrote
so many selves(so many fiends and gods
each greedier than every)is a man
(so easily one in another hides;
yet man can,being all,escape from none)
-- we have in him someone who wrote metrically irregular, "shocking" sonnets about prostitutes (and can we forget, from etcetera, the sonnet with "the fooling groove intuitive"?) ... who wrote Herrick-like poems about the first violet of spring, who wrote urban pastorals (sitting in mcsorley's ... "outside it was New York and beautifully snowing"), and who often gave us the most mature thought in the guise of nursery rhyme. He alternated politcial jibes ("a politician is an arse upon / which everyone has sat except a man") with beautiful sonnets ("true lovers in each happening of their hearts") that wouldn't be out of place in the Pauline Books & Media Poetry as Prayer series.
There is definitely a popular lyric poetry. Poetry still speaks to people.
Now, what to do about the deplorable postmodernist tendencies in the Anglo-American "epics" of our day? What do to about the lexicographical hermeneutics of the caco-syntactical multivalence of the neo-phonemic discognitive aposiopesis of the gibberistical zxcvbnm of quasi-aleatoric ... oy, it resists parody!
Well, those of us who write can just ignore the pomo crowd, and get on with the business at hand -- producing things that need (in our feeble, strong, or flickering light of discernment) to be written!
a brief visitation unto the Dana Gioia website, and can recommend the poem entitled "Rough Country" ... in part, perhaps because I like poems to be rough countries, sometimes. I like words that resist the flow of chatter, the words that make the reader stop, switch to a rhythm other than that of newspaper-prose. Read "Rough Country" aloud, especially the middle lines.
What worries me about Mr Gioia's poetry is that, in the laudable effort to free his work of the more flamboyant and facile eccentricities, he might be at times too cautious. But poetry -- like the Church? -- has room for all kinds. A priest once said in his homily that the Church embraces, among its apologists and evangelists, both the tenacious and the subtle. (One of the happiest phrases this fellow ever came up with!) Similarly, in the family of poetry, you'll find the reticent and the rambunctious. And there's room enough for both, and for all gradations & variations in between. Perhaps, the reticent and the rambunctious can exist in the same poet!
To bring up the name of Estlin Cummings yet again, who wrote
so many selves(so many fiends and gods
each greedier than every)is a man
(so easily one in another hides;
yet man can,being all,escape from none)
-- we have in him someone who wrote metrically irregular, "shocking" sonnets about prostitutes (and can we forget, from etcetera, the sonnet with "the fooling groove intuitive"?) ... who wrote Herrick-like poems about the first violet of spring, who wrote urban pastorals (sitting in mcsorley's ... "outside it was New York and beautifully snowing"), and who often gave us the most mature thought in the guise of nursery rhyme. He alternated politcial jibes ("a politician is an arse upon / which everyone has sat except a man") with beautiful sonnets ("true lovers in each happening of their hearts") that wouldn't be out of place in the Pauline Books & Media Poetry as Prayer series.
There is definitely a popular lyric poetry. Poetry still speaks to people.
Now, what to do about the deplorable postmodernist tendencies in the Anglo-American "epics" of our day? What do to about the lexicographical hermeneutics of the caco-syntactical multivalence of the neo-phonemic discognitive aposiopesis of the gibberistical zxcvbnm of quasi-aleatoric ... oy, it resists parody!
Well, those of us who write can just ignore the pomo crowd, and get on with the business at hand -- producing things that need (in our feeble, strong, or flickering light of discernment) to be written!
#258
by Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --
None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --
When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death --
:: :: ::
#543
I fear a Man of frugal Speech --
I fear a Silent Man --
Haranguer -- I can overtake --
Or Babbler -- entertain --
But He who weigheth -- While the Rest --
Expend their furthest pound --
Of this Man -- I am wary --
I fear that He is Grand --
by Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --
None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --
When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death --
:: :: ::
#543
I fear a Man of frugal Speech --
I fear a Silent Man --
Haranguer -- I can overtake --
Or Babbler -- entertain --
But He who weigheth -- While the Rest --
Expend their furthest pound --
Of this Man -- I am wary --
I fear that He is Grand --
Sunday, November 03, 2002
Psalm 134. Ecce nunc.
BEHOLD now, praise the LORD, * all ye servants of the LORD;
2 Ye that by night stand in the house of the LORD, * even in the courts of the house of our God.
3 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, * and praise the LORD.
4 The LORD that made heaven and earth * give thee blessing out of Sion.
BEHOLD now, praise the LORD, * all ye servants of the LORD;
2 Ye that by night stand in the house of the LORD, * even in the courts of the house of our God.
3 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, * and praise the LORD.
4 The LORD that made heaven and earth * give thee blessing out of Sion.
A pair of Dem women say, Three cheers for "choice"
and one of them (Shannon O'Brien, candidate for governor of Massachusetts) is dropping in the polls, since her truly ugly debate performance a few nights back, in which the erstwhile pro-lifer boasted of her NARAL endorsement. O'Brien now has a 53% unfavorable rating among independents and unenrolled voters; her opponent, Mitt Romney -- also pro-choice, alas, but opposed to lowering the age of consent for abortions -- leads among senior citizens by 20 percentage points.
Moderator Tim Russert reminded O'Brien that 16-year-olders cannot legally see R-rated movies unless accompanied by someone older. When pressed to explain why 16-year-olders should be able to get abortions without their parents' knowledge, O'Brien basically giggled.
The other turn-off about Shannon : She is never wrong. And she'll be the first one to tell you that. Her voice has the very lacerating quality of someone who believes devoutly in her own ideological infallibility.
The other, Jeanne Shaheen, candidate for US Senator in New Hampshire is hoping to score some points against her GOP opponent, pro-life congressman John E. Sununu (son of former Granite State governor and Bush 41 Chief of Staff John H.) -- "John Sununu voted 75 times against a woman's right to choose."
Question : Why doesn't Sununu hit back with ads that remind voters that "pro-choice" has come to mean unswerving pro-abortion extremism, to the point of endorsing partial-birth abortion, a practice which one of the most illustrious Democrats of the last half-century (former US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) has called "infanticide"?
Why doesn't Sununu ask the electorate of his state if ninth-month abortions truly represent (the phrase Shaheen lobs about with such cavalier facility) "New Hampshire values"?
Just a few thoughts as the dies illa (Election Day) impends.
and one of them (Shannon O'Brien, candidate for governor of Massachusetts) is dropping in the polls, since her truly ugly debate performance a few nights back, in which the erstwhile pro-lifer boasted of her NARAL endorsement. O'Brien now has a 53% unfavorable rating among independents and unenrolled voters; her opponent, Mitt Romney -- also pro-choice, alas, but opposed to lowering the age of consent for abortions -- leads among senior citizens by 20 percentage points.
Moderator Tim Russert reminded O'Brien that 16-year-olders cannot legally see R-rated movies unless accompanied by someone older. When pressed to explain why 16-year-olders should be able to get abortions without their parents' knowledge, O'Brien basically giggled.
The other turn-off about Shannon : She is never wrong. And she'll be the first one to tell you that. Her voice has the very lacerating quality of someone who believes devoutly in her own ideological infallibility.
The other, Jeanne Shaheen, candidate for US Senator in New Hampshire is hoping to score some points against her GOP opponent, pro-life congressman John E. Sununu (son of former Granite State governor and Bush 41 Chief of Staff John H.) -- "John Sununu voted 75 times against a woman's right to choose."
Question : Why doesn't Sununu hit back with ads that remind voters that "pro-choice" has come to mean unswerving pro-abortion extremism, to the point of endorsing partial-birth abortion, a practice which one of the most illustrious Democrats of the last half-century (former US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) has called "infanticide"?
Why doesn't Sununu ask the electorate of his state if ninth-month abortions truly represent (the phrase Shaheen lobs about with such cavalier facility) "New Hampshire values"?
Just a few thoughts as the dies illa (Election Day) impends.
Hymn
words by Edward Caswall (1814-1878)
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Let the holy anthem rise,
And the choirs of heaven chant it
In the temple of the skies;
Let the mountains skip with gladness
And the joyful valleys ring,
With Hosannas in the highest
To our Savior and our King.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Like the sun from out the wave,
He has risen up in triumph
From the darkness of the grave,
He’s the splendor of the nations,
He’s the lamp of endless day;
He’s the very Lord of glory
Who is risen up today.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Blessèd Jesus make us rise,
From the life of this corruption
To the life that never dies.
May Your glory be our portion,
When the days of time are past,
And the dead shall be awakened
By the trumpet’s mighty blast.
words by Edward Caswall (1814-1878)
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Let the holy anthem rise,
And the choirs of heaven chant it
In the temple of the skies;
Let the mountains skip with gladness
And the joyful valleys ring,
With Hosannas in the highest
To our Savior and our King.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Like the sun from out the wave,
He has risen up in triumph
From the darkness of the grave,
He’s the splendor of the nations,
He’s the lamp of endless day;
He’s the very Lord of glory
Who is risen up today.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Blessèd Jesus make us rise,
From the life of this corruption
To the life that never dies.
May Your glory be our portion,
When the days of time are past,
And the dead shall be awakened
By the trumpet’s mighty blast.
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Author of light, revive my dying spright :
Redeeme it from the snares of all-confounding night.
Lord, light me to thy blessed way :
For blinde with worldly vaine desires, I wander as a stray.
Sunne and Moone, Starres and underlights I see,
But all their glorious beames are mists and darkness, being compar'd
to thee.
Fountaine of health, my soules deepe wounds recure,
Sweet showres of pitty raine, wash my uncleannesse pure.
One drop of thy desired grace
The faint and fading hart can raise, and in joyes bosome place.
Sinne and Death, Hell and tempting Fiends may rage;
But God his owne will guard, and their sharp paines and grief in time
asswage.
Author of light, revive my dying spright :
Redeeme it from the snares of all-confounding night.
Lord, light me to thy blessed way :
For blinde with worldly vaine desires, I wander as a stray.
Sunne and Moone, Starres and underlights I see,
But all their glorious beames are mists and darkness, being compar'd
to thee.
Fountaine of health, my soules deepe wounds recure,
Sweet showres of pitty raine, wash my uncleannesse pure.
One drop of thy desired grace
The faint and fading hart can raise, and in joyes bosome place.
Sinne and Death, Hell and tempting Fiends may rage;
But God his owne will guard, and their sharp paines and grief in time
asswage.
Saturday, November 02, 2002
A driver's right to choose
We really need to end these draconian, archaic laws against drunk driving. It really does militate against the principle of freedom for which this country stands. I trust the motorists of America to make their own decisions regarding use of their own private vehicles. I believe in a motorist's right to choose, and no legislator, no government, has the right to interfere in that difficult decision. We must ensure access to motor vehicles for all our citizens who have reached the driving age, regardless of their condition. To legislate against a driver's right to choose shows an abysmal distrust of the motorists of America. It turns back the clock to the days of speakeasies and velocipedes, of Prohibition and the horse-and-buggy. We should not elect any politican who does not believe in the driver's right to choose.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am personally opposed to drunk driving. But I also believe that I don't have the right to make that decision for you. If you are old enough to drive, and old enough to drink, you can be trusted with your own decisions regarding the operation of your automobile.
We really need to end these draconian, archaic laws against drunk driving. It really does militate against the principle of freedom for which this country stands. I trust the motorists of America to make their own decisions regarding use of their own private vehicles. I believe in a motorist's right to choose, and no legislator, no government, has the right to interfere in that difficult decision. We must ensure access to motor vehicles for all our citizens who have reached the driving age, regardless of their condition. To legislate against a driver's right to choose shows an abysmal distrust of the motorists of America. It turns back the clock to the days of speakeasies and velocipedes, of Prohibition and the horse-and-buggy. We should not elect any politican who does not believe in the driver's right to choose.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am personally opposed to drunk driving. But I also believe that I don't have the right to make that decision for you. If you are old enough to drive, and old enough to drink, you can be trusted with your own decisions regarding the operation of your automobile.
Stephen Fry
on his deputy headmaster; on the possible etymology of "bumptious"
In my memory Mid Kemp's hands, his patched tweed jackets, his moustache and his hair were all yellowed with nicotine. I don't know what it is about modern cigarettes, but no longer does one see the great stained smoking fingers and egg-yolk streaked white hair of old. Mid Kemp looked and talked like C. Aubrey Smith in The Four Feathers. His favourite word, one for which I have a great deal of time myself as a matter of fact, was "arse." Everyone was more or less an arse most of the time, but I was arsier than just about everyone else in the school. In fact, in my case he would often go further -- I was on many occasions a bumptious arse. Before I learned what bumptious actually meant I assumed that it derived from "bum" and believed therefore with great pride that as a bumptious arse I was doubly arsey -- twice the arse of ordinary arses.
-- Moab, p. 91
on his deputy headmaster; on the possible etymology of "bumptious"
In my memory Mid Kemp's hands, his patched tweed jackets, his moustache and his hair were all yellowed with nicotine. I don't know what it is about modern cigarettes, but no longer does one see the great stained smoking fingers and egg-yolk streaked white hair of old. Mid Kemp looked and talked like C. Aubrey Smith in The Four Feathers. His favourite word, one for which I have a great deal of time myself as a matter of fact, was "arse." Everyone was more or less an arse most of the time, but I was arsier than just about everyone else in the school. In fact, in my case he would often go further -- I was on many occasions a bumptious arse. Before I learned what bumptious actually meant I assumed that it derived from "bum" and believed therefore with great pride that as a bumptious arse I was doubly arsey -- twice the arse of ordinary arses.
-- Moab, p. 91
If I'm boring you stiff
... and I concede that this is a very real possibility ...
check out (and it shames me to say that I haven't thoroughly explored the site before today) The 'Roescht' of the Story. Not merely for the web-log itself, but for all those cool links in the upper left, the FAQ, the Credo, the Fides, the Ratio, the supremely well-thought-out political articles, etc.
Mr Roesch writes and thinks with agility and charity and dexterity. It should be noted, too, that he is an antediluvian, superannuated, Methuselan, prehistoric graybeard ... of twenty.
... and I concede that this is a very real possibility ...
check out (and it shames me to say that I haven't thoroughly explored the site before today) The 'Roescht' of the Story. Not merely for the web-log itself, but for all those cool links in the upper left, the FAQ, the Credo, the Fides, the Ratio, the supremely well-thought-out political articles, etc.
Mr Roesch writes and thinks with agility and charity and dexterity. It should be noted, too, that he is an antediluvian, superannuated, Methuselan, prehistoric graybeard ... of twenty.
Stephen Fry
yet again, this time from prison for credit-card theft at 18
The bishop of Malmesbury came to visit one Wednesday. A group of us was selected to sit round him in a circle while he asked us to speak frankly about prison conditions and how we were being treated and what we thought of ourselves. There were screws [prison guards] standing against the walls, eyeing the ceiling, and we all knew better than to complain. All except Fry, of course.
"I would like to draw your lordship's attention to one thing that has been bothering me," I said. "It is, I fear, a very grave matter and the source of aggravation and discomfort to many of us here."
There was a hissing in of breath from the others and a meaningful clearing of the throat from one of the senior screws.
"Please," said the bishop, "please feel free."
"I am sure," I said, "that Her Majesty has many calls on her time and cannot be expected to know everything that goes on in her name within the walls of institutions such as this."
"No indeed," agreed the bishop, blinking slightly.
"However, I must urge you to draw her attention to the quality of the soap available in our bathrooms."
"The soap?"
"The soap, my lord bishop. It lathers not, neither does it float; it doesn't smell nice, it doesn't even clean you. The best that can be said for it, I am afraid, is that it keeps you company in the bath."
This was from an old Morecambe and Wise book I had bought years ago at Uppingham.
The bishop burst out laughing and the screws dutifully joined in with smiles, shaking their heads at the jollity of it all.
"If your lordship will undertake to make urgent representation in the right quarters?"
"Certainly, certainly! Um, may I ask you, young man, I know this is not good prison form and you really don't have to answer, but may I ask you nonetheless ... what, ah, are you in for?"
"Oh the usual," I said carelessly. "Churchmen."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The senseless slaughter of clerics. I murdered four minor canons, two archdeacons, a curate and a suffragan bishop in a trail of bloody carnage that raged from Norwich to Hexham last year. Surely you read about it in the Church Times, my lord? I think it made the third page of the late racing extra."
"All right, now. That's enough of that, Fry."
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, Bishop, you must forgive my freakish humours. In here we laugh that we may not weep. It was theft, I'm afraid, my lord. Plain old credit-card fraud."
"Oh. Oh, I see."
-- Moab, pp. 348-9
yet again, this time from prison for credit-card theft at 18
The bishop of Malmesbury came to visit one Wednesday. A group of us was selected to sit round him in a circle while he asked us to speak frankly about prison conditions and how we were being treated and what we thought of ourselves. There were screws [prison guards] standing against the walls, eyeing the ceiling, and we all knew better than to complain. All except Fry, of course.
"I would like to draw your lordship's attention to one thing that has been bothering me," I said. "It is, I fear, a very grave matter and the source of aggravation and discomfort to many of us here."
There was a hissing in of breath from the others and a meaningful clearing of the throat from one of the senior screws.
"Please," said the bishop, "please feel free."
"I am sure," I said, "that Her Majesty has many calls on her time and cannot be expected to know everything that goes on in her name within the walls of institutions such as this."
"No indeed," agreed the bishop, blinking slightly.
"However, I must urge you to draw her attention to the quality of the soap available in our bathrooms."
"The soap?"
"The soap, my lord bishop. It lathers not, neither does it float; it doesn't smell nice, it doesn't even clean you. The best that can be said for it, I am afraid, is that it keeps you company in the bath."
This was from an old Morecambe and Wise book I had bought years ago at Uppingham.
The bishop burst out laughing and the screws dutifully joined in with smiles, shaking their heads at the jollity of it all.
"If your lordship will undertake to make urgent representation in the right quarters?"
"Certainly, certainly! Um, may I ask you, young man, I know this is not good prison form and you really don't have to answer, but may I ask you nonetheless ... what, ah, are you in for?"
"Oh the usual," I said carelessly. "Churchmen."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The senseless slaughter of clerics. I murdered four minor canons, two archdeacons, a curate and a suffragan bishop in a trail of bloody carnage that raged from Norwich to Hexham last year. Surely you read about it in the Church Times, my lord? I think it made the third page of the late racing extra."
"All right, now. That's enough of that, Fry."
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, Bishop, you must forgive my freakish humours. In here we laugh that we may not weep. It was theft, I'm afraid, my lord. Plain old credit-card fraud."
"Oh. Oh, I see."
-- Moab, pp. 348-9
The Road
by James Stephens (Irish, 1882-1950)
... blogged for those who seek a popular, lucid poetry; for those enamored of things Hibernian; and for those, like myself, who see nothing wrong with locks and keys, with hidden shy abodes and brick-built dens!
Because our lives are cowardly and sly,
Because we do not dare to take or give,
Because we scowl and pass each other by,
We do not live; we do not dare to live.
We dive, each man, into his secret house,
And bolt the door, and listen in affright,
Each timid man beside a timid spouse,
With timid children huddled out of sight.
Kissing in secret, fighting secretly!
We crawl and hide like vermin in a hole,
Under the bravery of sun and sky,
We flash our meannesses of face and soul.
Let us go out and walk upon the road,
And quit for evermore the brick-built den,
And lock and key, the hidden, shy abode
That separates us from our fellow men.
And by contagion of the sun we may
Catch at a spark from that primeval fire,
And learn that we are better than our clay,
And equal to the peaks of our desire.
by James Stephens (Irish, 1882-1950)
... blogged for those who seek a popular, lucid poetry; for those enamored of things Hibernian; and for those, like myself, who see nothing wrong with locks and keys, with hidden shy abodes and brick-built dens!
Because our lives are cowardly and sly,
Because we do not dare to take or give,
Because we scowl and pass each other by,
We do not live; we do not dare to live.
We dive, each man, into his secret house,
And bolt the door, and listen in affright,
Each timid man beside a timid spouse,
With timid children huddled out of sight.
Kissing in secret, fighting secretly!
We crawl and hide like vermin in a hole,
Under the bravery of sun and sky,
We flash our meannesses of face and soul.
Let us go out and walk upon the road,
And quit for evermore the brick-built den,
And lock and key, the hidden, shy abode
That separates us from our fellow men.
And by contagion of the sun we may
Catch at a spark from that primeval fire,
And learn that we are better than our clay,
And equal to the peaks of our desire.
by Sister Elvira Petrozzi
Magnificat meditation for Friday 25th October
all emphasis in boldface is dylan's
We have to ask ourselves, "Am I able to love?" Love is, above all, to give of yourself even when you don't want to, when you are not doing well, or when everything around you tells you to live comfortably and to think only about yourself. True love sacrifices, passes through the cross, and knows how to put aside its own selfishness in order to serve others.
To love is to come out of ourselves, to communicate, to make the journey "from me to others" in a way that needs no gain, in a free and enriching way. Our lack of love is revealed in a thousand ways. ... One way is showing love is to dialogue.
[dylan here : I hate the word "dialogue" as a verb, but I should let it pass for the sake of the excellent point that Sister Elvira here makes.]
In a frenetic world like ours, where we are always busy, it seems like a waste of time to stop and communicate, to share. In reality, dialogue with your wife, with your children, or with your friends enriches you to the measure in which it becomes true communication about yourself. If your life is false, you communicate falsity. If it is lived immersed in God, then you give joy to the others.
This is why it is important to respond to God's call with all of our being. Who are you? Who do you want to be with your real self, face to face with him? There is no true communion with our brothers and sisters, if there is not a real encounter with God in prayer. Prayer makes our lives and our actions real. What we do reveals who we are. A selfish person, a proud one, is an arrogant one; a weak one, or a shallow one is unmasked by how he does things. A careless person, who is dead inside, thinks only of himself, is not attentive to the little things, and doesn't think about those around him ...
Selfishness is defeated with seemingly small daily choices. You have to train yourself to think of those around you, and then you will see that the new mentality of giving brings freshness and a renewed joy to your heart. The gift of life was given to me freely. I welcome being alive, and I want to live by giving of myself. I don't want to be a cadaver! If I am alive, the most important thing that I must [do] and want to do is love. This is the secret to every life and to every vocation.
Magnificat meditation for Friday 25th October
all emphasis in boldface is dylan's
We have to ask ourselves, "Am I able to love?" Love is, above all, to give of yourself even when you don't want to, when you are not doing well, or when everything around you tells you to live comfortably and to think only about yourself. True love sacrifices, passes through the cross, and knows how to put aside its own selfishness in order to serve others.
To love is to come out of ourselves, to communicate, to make the journey "from me to others" in a way that needs no gain, in a free and enriching way. Our lack of love is revealed in a thousand ways. ... One way is showing love is to dialogue.
[dylan here : I hate the word "dialogue" as a verb, but I should let it pass for the sake of the excellent point that Sister Elvira here makes.]
In a frenetic world like ours, where we are always busy, it seems like a waste of time to stop and communicate, to share. In reality, dialogue with your wife, with your children, or with your friends enriches you to the measure in which it becomes true communication about yourself. If your life is false, you communicate falsity. If it is lived immersed in God, then you give joy to the others.
This is why it is important to respond to God's call with all of our being. Who are you? Who do you want to be with your real self, face to face with him? There is no true communion with our brothers and sisters, if there is not a real encounter with God in prayer. Prayer makes our lives and our actions real. What we do reveals who we are. A selfish person, a proud one, is an arrogant one; a weak one, or a shallow one is unmasked by how he does things. A careless person, who is dead inside, thinks only of himself, is not attentive to the little things, and doesn't think about those around him ...
Selfishness is defeated with seemingly small daily choices. You have to train yourself to think of those around you, and then you will see that the new mentality of giving brings freshness and a renewed joy to your heart. The gift of life was given to me freely. I welcome being alive, and I want to live by giving of myself. I don't want to be a cadaver! If I am alive, the most important thing that I must [do] and want to do is love. This is the secret to every life and to every vocation.
The emetic hypocrisy of the Kansas Supreme Court
Mrs vonH of Oblique House has pointed us in the direction of this abominable story.
Is it also time to cut down the trees in the graveyard, for taking up too much space?
As for gravestones having to have remains beneath them, what of victims of terrorism, let us say, or souls lost at sea, whose remains cannot be recovered? Would the lovely judges of the Kansas Supreme Court deny a monument in such an instance?
The judges on the Kansas Supreme Court are lousy hypocrites. They are liars, who lack even the base courage of in-your-face blatancy (cf. the odious bumper-sticker which begins, "If men could get pregnant ...")
This isn't about taking up too much space. At all.
This is about hating the truth, viz., that abortion is infanticide, is murder, "equals death." Ends life. Innocent life. Unpleasant reminders of that fact (fact, fact, fact) must be hidden behind the dulcet intransitive use of the verb "to choose."
Low, creeping cowardice on the Kansas high court.
Who are the spiritual ancestors of these utterly contemptible judges? I'd say those who plotted to kill Lazarus after Christ raised him from the dead (John 12:9-11). Mustn't merely close our eyes against the light, but stop any mention of the word "light," any implication that there is a light larger than our own compromising minds, our own little world of murky grays and misty morality. Our utterly ersatz Freiheit.
Addenda to the foregoing
And please, keep in mind, the following words do not come from someone who is reflexively pacifistic, or thoughtlessly critical of the current administration.
It is probably high time to end our hypocritical rhetoric in terms of the current war against terrorism. "Unlike our enemies, we value freedom! Freedom of religion! Freedom of speech! We believe in ensuring the value and dignity of all human life!" In a rat's patootie, we do.
This is a country where the President's graciously eulogistic words on the death of Senator Wellstone were censored by the PMS (Polluted Main Stream) Media. Guess which sentence some outlets starting clipping from the clip?
"May the Lord bless those who grieve."
I didn't share Mr Riddle's paint-it-black mood until I bumped into this dreadful little story out of Kansas.
Mrs vonH of Oblique House has pointed us in the direction of this abominable story.
Is it also time to cut down the trees in the graveyard, for taking up too much space?
As for gravestones having to have remains beneath them, what of victims of terrorism, let us say, or souls lost at sea, whose remains cannot be recovered? Would the lovely judges of the Kansas Supreme Court deny a monument in such an instance?
The judges on the Kansas Supreme Court are lousy hypocrites. They are liars, who lack even the base courage of in-your-face blatancy (cf. the odious bumper-sticker which begins, "If men could get pregnant ...")
This isn't about taking up too much space. At all.
This is about hating the truth, viz., that abortion is infanticide, is murder, "equals death." Ends life. Innocent life. Unpleasant reminders of that fact (fact, fact, fact) must be hidden behind the dulcet intransitive use of the verb "to choose."
Low, creeping cowardice on the Kansas high court.
Who are the spiritual ancestors of these utterly contemptible judges? I'd say those who plotted to kill Lazarus after Christ raised him from the dead (John 12:9-11). Mustn't merely close our eyes against the light, but stop any mention of the word "light," any implication that there is a light larger than our own compromising minds, our own little world of murky grays and misty morality. Our utterly ersatz Freiheit.
Addenda to the foregoing
And please, keep in mind, the following words do not come from someone who is reflexively pacifistic, or thoughtlessly critical of the current administration.
It is probably high time to end our hypocritical rhetoric in terms of the current war against terrorism. "Unlike our enemies, we value freedom! Freedom of religion! Freedom of speech! We believe in ensuring the value and dignity of all human life!" In a rat's patootie, we do.
This is a country where the President's graciously eulogistic words on the death of Senator Wellstone were censored by the PMS (Polluted Main Stream) Media. Guess which sentence some outlets starting clipping from the clip?
"May the Lord bless those who grieve."
I didn't share Mr Riddle's paint-it-black mood until I bumped into this dreadful little story out of Kansas.
#709
by Emily Dickinson
Publication -- is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man --
Poverty -- be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly -- but We -- would rather
From Our Garret go
White -- Unto the White Creator --
Than invest -- Our Snow --
Thought belong to Him who gave it --
Then -- to Him Who bear
Its corporeal illustration -- Sell
The Royal Air --
In the Parcel -- Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace --
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price --
:: :: :: :: ::
#212
Least Rivers -- docile to some sea.
My Caspian -- thee.
by Emily Dickinson
Publication -- is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man --
Poverty -- be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly -- but We -- would rather
From Our Garret go
White -- Unto the White Creator --
Than invest -- Our Snow --
Thought belong to Him who gave it --
Then -- to Him Who bear
Its corporeal illustration -- Sell
The Royal Air --
In the Parcel -- Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace --
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price --
:: :: :: :: ::
#212
Least Rivers -- docile to some sea.
My Caspian -- thee.
Friday, November 01, 2002
Stephen Fry
at a school reunion; spoonerizing Mabel Tucker
Table Mucker had grown an explosive pair of breasts and a large brood of daughters the eldest of whom looked ready to start production on her own. Mary Hench grinned at me from behind a downy moustache and a fierce girlfriend (clearly boys were still soft in her book) while John Kett himself seemed unchanged from the man whose puzzled eyes had lived with me in silent reproach for twenty-five years.
-- Moab, p. 40
at a school reunion; spoonerizing Mabel Tucker
Table Mucker had grown an explosive pair of breasts and a large brood of daughters the eldest of whom looked ready to start production on her own. Mary Hench grinned at me from behind a downy moustache and a fierce girlfriend (clearly boys were still soft in her book) while John Kett himself seemed unchanged from the man whose puzzled eyes had lived with me in silent reproach for twenty-five years.
-- Moab, p. 40
Stephen Fry
de cantu
It is common enough, all things being equal, for a father to send his sons to the prep school he attended as a boy himself. My father, however, had been a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school. My brother and I were unlikely to follow in his footsteps. The sound of Roger and Stephen Fry singing, even before Dame Nature had her impertinent pubic way with us, could cause people to stab themselves in the throat with sharpened pencils, jump from high windows, claw out their own inner ears, electrocute their genitals, put on a Jim Reeves record, throw themselves cackling hysterically into the path of moving buses ... anything, anything to take away the pain. The cathedral choir school of St Paul's with its fussy, outworn emphasis on tunefulness and harmony was never going to be an option.
-- Moab, p. 15
de cantu
It is common enough, all things being equal, for a father to send his sons to the prep school he attended as a boy himself. My father, however, had been a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school. My brother and I were unlikely to follow in his footsteps. The sound of Roger and Stephen Fry singing, even before Dame Nature had her impertinent pubic way with us, could cause people to stab themselves in the throat with sharpened pencils, jump from high windows, claw out their own inner ears, electrocute their genitals, put on a Jim Reeves record, throw themselves cackling hysterically into the path of moving buses ... anything, anything to take away the pain. The cathedral choir school of St Paul's with its fussy, outworn emphasis on tunefulness and harmony was never going to be an option.
-- Moab, p. 15
Stephen Fry
just back from the speech therapist
We moved on from John Masefield's "Cargoes" to Alfred Tennyson's "Blow Bugle Blow" and within a term I was comprehensible to all. Like those foreigners in adventure stories who would come out with Caramba! Zut! and Himmel! when excited, I was still likely to revert to rushing streams of Stephenese at moments of high passion, but essentially I was cured. But something wonderful and new had happened to me, something much more glorious than simply being understood. I had discovered the beauty of speech. Suddenly I had an endless supply of toys : words. Meaningless phatic utterance for its own sake would become my equivalent of a Winnine the Pooh hum, my music. In the holidays I would torment my poor mother for hours in the car by saying over and over again, "My name is Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton. Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton. Snetterton. Snetterton. Snetterton." Ignoring the gender implications of such a name choice, which are not our concern just now, these were the only songs that I could sing. It was the journey from consonant to vowel, the tripping rhythm, the texture that delighted me. As others get tunes on the brain, I get words or phrases on the brain. I will awaken, for example, with the sentence "Hoversmack tender estimate" on my lips. I will say it in the shower, while I wait for the kettle to boil, and as I open the morning post. Sometimes it will be with me all day.
I was immensely put out, incidentally, when a few years later Monty Python used the name Vince Snetterton in one of their sketches. Snetterton is a village in Norfolk, and I felt that they had stolen it from me. From that day forward, Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton ceased to be.
Language was something more than power then, it was more than my only resource in a world of tribal shouts and athleticism and them, the swimmers and singers, it was also a private gem collection, a sweet shop, a treasure chest.
-- from Moab Is My Washpot : An Autobiography (Random House, 1997), p. 89
just back from the speech therapist
We moved on from John Masefield's "Cargoes" to Alfred Tennyson's "Blow Bugle Blow" and within a term I was comprehensible to all. Like those foreigners in adventure stories who would come out with Caramba! Zut! and Himmel! when excited, I was still likely to revert to rushing streams of Stephenese at moments of high passion, but essentially I was cured. But something wonderful and new had happened to me, something much more glorious than simply being understood. I had discovered the beauty of speech. Suddenly I had an endless supply of toys : words. Meaningless phatic utterance for its own sake would become my equivalent of a Winnine the Pooh hum, my music. In the holidays I would torment my poor mother for hours in the car by saying over and over again, "My name is Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton. Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton. Snetterton. Snetterton. Snetterton." Ignoring the gender implications of such a name choice, which are not our concern just now, these were the only songs that I could sing. It was the journey from consonant to vowel, the tripping rhythm, the texture that delighted me. As others get tunes on the brain, I get words or phrases on the brain. I will awaken, for example, with the sentence "Hoversmack tender estimate" on my lips. I will say it in the shower, while I wait for the kettle to boil, and as I open the morning post. Sometimes it will be with me all day.
I was immensely put out, incidentally, when a few years later Monty Python used the name Vince Snetterton in one of their sketches. Snetterton is a village in Norfolk, and I felt that they had stolen it from me. From that day forward, Gwendoline Bruce Snetterton ceased to be.
Language was something more than power then, it was more than my only resource in a world of tribal shouts and athleticism and them, the swimmers and singers, it was also a private gem collection, a sweet shop, a treasure chest.
-- from Moab Is My Washpot : An Autobiography (Random House, 1997), p. 89
Stealing this wholesale from Quenta Nârwenion
Meat-and-Potato Catholics
This is from the October 2002 issue of First Things.
(The following report is submitted by our ubiquitous correspondent George Weigel.)
Outraged commentary quickly followed Bishop Timothy M. Dolan’s June 25 remark that his first priority as the tenth Archbishop of Milwaukee would be to talk with those “meat-and-potato Catholics” who are “the strength of any diocese.” Bishop Dolan, whose fondness for the table is not entirely disguised by clerical black, made the comment at a press conference introducing him to his new archdiocese, where he was to be installed on August 28.
Meeting in emergency session, the executive committee of the Catholic Theological Society of America adopted a resolution condemning Dolan’s “insensitivity to our animal companions” and asserting that vegetarianism was “the more excellent way of Christian nutrition.” The Society noted that it had banned steaks from its banquet menus for decades, substituting tofu salads as “more responsive to the moral demands of sustainable development,” a point argued in the Society’s study of eco-ethics, “People Are the Problem.”
In a signed editorial in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonwealth, editor Margaret McGillicuddy Steinflyte claimed that Bishop Dolan’s statement of priorities was “redolent of the boys’ locker-room ambiance of this pontificate.” A “preferential option for ‘meat-and-potato Catholics,’” Ms. Steinflyte claimed, would “disenfranchise” those hundreds of “brie-and-chardonnay, spirit-of-Vatican II Catholics” who form the core of her magazine’s regular readership. In a separate article in the same issue, Commonwealth columnist Paul Bauhaus suggested that the “extravagant carnality” of “Bishop Dolan’s gustatory imagery” and its “attempt to sacramentalize a body function, eating” was in fact a “sly strategy” for “sneaking John Paul II’s theology of the body” into an archdiocese where it was hitherto unknown—“which has certainly been a blessing for Milwaukee.”
A close student of the American hierarchy, Father Thomas Reach, S.J., told the Washington Post that, while it was customary for a “hefty bishop” to follow a “lean bishop” in Milwaukee, he was concerned that Bishop Dolan’s reference to “meat-and-potato Catholics” would “reinforce Milwaukee’s image as a stolid, bowling-alley town—an image my colleagues at Marquette, a university in the Jesuit tradition, have worked so hard to erase.” Moreover, Fr. Reach noted, to “lay such stress on meat and potatoes” was “pastorally insensitive,” given Milwaukee’s “longstanding commitment to frozen custard as the signature local dish.” “Bishop Dolan’s claim to be a man of tradition is somewhat questionable, given his failure to even mention frozen custard at his inaugural press conference,” said Fr. Reach.
Criticism was also heard from Catholic commentators in the secular press. In a bitter attack on Bishop Dolan, James Careall, the Boston Globe columnist, argued that “meat-and-potatoes Catholicism” is inherently anti-Semitic, “as John Chrysostom made unmistakably clear in his fourth-century sermon on Acts 9:9-16.” Veteran Washington Post columnist Mary McGrouchy wrote in a more elegiac mode. “With John XXIII and the Kennedy White House, we thought, we prayed, that we had put ‘meat-and-potatoes Catholicism’ behind us,” Ms. McGrouchy reminisced. “When will Catholicism in America develop even a surface level of sophistication?”
Maureen Dowdy was in a less gentle mood on the New York Times op-ed page. “Bishop Dolan’s adolescent wisecrack is of a piece with President Bush’s fondness for cowboy boots. When are these guys going to grow up?” Following a pattern established in the first months of 2002 on the Times’ op-ed page, Bill Killerbee took Ms. Dowdy one better, with a biting critique of Dolan’s “slash-and-burn ecclesiastical style, reminiscent of such scoundrels of Catholic history as Torquemada and Pope John Paul II.”
This firestorm of deprecation was challenged by Stanislaw Miesozerny, a cattle and dairy farmer in Dodge County, northwest of Milwaukee. “I think what Bishop Dolan said is great,” Mr. Miesozerny, a 1962 Marquette University philosophy major, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Everyone who studies the Summa understands that beef cattle achieve the ‘final end’ of their existence as New York Strips at the Outback. That’s just good Thomism.”
“Besides,” he continued, “these vegans want us to abstain from all milk products. And you know what that means for Wisconsin. I’m looking forward to Archbishop Dolan endorsing our campaign to change Wisconsin’s license-plate slogan. ‘America’s Dairyland’ is a little lame. My meat-and-potatoes Catholic friends think it ought to be ‘Eat Cheese or Die.’”
Meat-and-Potato Catholics
This is from the October 2002 issue of First Things.
(The following report is submitted by our ubiquitous correspondent George Weigel.)
Outraged commentary quickly followed Bishop Timothy M. Dolan’s June 25 remark that his first priority as the tenth Archbishop of Milwaukee would be to talk with those “meat-and-potato Catholics” who are “the strength of any diocese.” Bishop Dolan, whose fondness for the table is not entirely disguised by clerical black, made the comment at a press conference introducing him to his new archdiocese, where he was to be installed on August 28.
Meeting in emergency session, the executive committee of the Catholic Theological Society of America adopted a resolution condemning Dolan’s “insensitivity to our animal companions” and asserting that vegetarianism was “the more excellent way of Christian nutrition.” The Society noted that it had banned steaks from its banquet menus for decades, substituting tofu salads as “more responsive to the moral demands of sustainable development,” a point argued in the Society’s study of eco-ethics, “People Are the Problem.”
In a signed editorial in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonwealth, editor Margaret McGillicuddy Steinflyte claimed that Bishop Dolan’s statement of priorities was “redolent of the boys’ locker-room ambiance of this pontificate.” A “preferential option for ‘meat-and-potato Catholics,’” Ms. Steinflyte claimed, would “disenfranchise” those hundreds of “brie-and-chardonnay, spirit-of-Vatican II Catholics” who form the core of her magazine’s regular readership. In a separate article in the same issue, Commonwealth columnist Paul Bauhaus suggested that the “extravagant carnality” of “Bishop Dolan’s gustatory imagery” and its “attempt to sacramentalize a body function, eating” was in fact a “sly strategy” for “sneaking John Paul II’s theology of the body” into an archdiocese where it was hitherto unknown—“which has certainly been a blessing for Milwaukee.”
A close student of the American hierarchy, Father Thomas Reach, S.J., told the Washington Post that, while it was customary for a “hefty bishop” to follow a “lean bishop” in Milwaukee, he was concerned that Bishop Dolan’s reference to “meat-and-potato Catholics” would “reinforce Milwaukee’s image as a stolid, bowling-alley town—an image my colleagues at Marquette, a university in the Jesuit tradition, have worked so hard to erase.” Moreover, Fr. Reach noted, to “lay such stress on meat and potatoes” was “pastorally insensitive,” given Milwaukee’s “longstanding commitment to frozen custard as the signature local dish.” “Bishop Dolan’s claim to be a man of tradition is somewhat questionable, given his failure to even mention frozen custard at his inaugural press conference,” said Fr. Reach.
Criticism was also heard from Catholic commentators in the secular press. In a bitter attack on Bishop Dolan, James Careall, the Boston Globe columnist, argued that “meat-and-potatoes Catholicism” is inherently anti-Semitic, “as John Chrysostom made unmistakably clear in his fourth-century sermon on Acts 9:9-16.” Veteran Washington Post columnist Mary McGrouchy wrote in a more elegiac mode. “With John XXIII and the Kennedy White House, we thought, we prayed, that we had put ‘meat-and-potatoes Catholicism’ behind us,” Ms. McGrouchy reminisced. “When will Catholicism in America develop even a surface level of sophistication?”
Maureen Dowdy was in a less gentle mood on the New York Times op-ed page. “Bishop Dolan’s adolescent wisecrack is of a piece with President Bush’s fondness for cowboy boots. When are these guys going to grow up?” Following a pattern established in the first months of 2002 on the Times’ op-ed page, Bill Killerbee took Ms. Dowdy one better, with a biting critique of Dolan’s “slash-and-burn ecclesiastical style, reminiscent of such scoundrels of Catholic history as Torquemada and Pope John Paul II.”
This firestorm of deprecation was challenged by Stanislaw Miesozerny, a cattle and dairy farmer in Dodge County, northwest of Milwaukee. “I think what Bishop Dolan said is great,” Mr. Miesozerny, a 1962 Marquette University philosophy major, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Everyone who studies the Summa understands that beef cattle achieve the ‘final end’ of their existence as New York Strips at the Outback. That’s just good Thomism.”
“Besides,” he continued, “these vegans want us to abstain from all milk products. And you know what that means for Wisconsin. I’m looking forward to Archbishop Dolan endorsing our campaign to change Wisconsin’s license-plate slogan. ‘America’s Dairyland’ is a little lame. My meat-and-potatoes Catholic friends think it ought to be ‘Eat Cheese or Die.’”
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