The Tale of the Bills: O'Reilly & Joel

Seeing this Times article about the Long Island roots of Billy Joel reminded me of another Bill from Long Island, Bill O'Reilly.

I read the selections below to my wife without telling her it was about Billy Joel and asked her who it reminded her of. She immediately said, "Bill O'Reilly":

The romantic idealism and the yeah-right realism. The quickness to mock and to take offense. The need to prove oneself better than any Upper East Side twit...the worst that they can say is: He forgot where he came from. He’s full of it. A fake...

He comes from Long Island — and really, the thought goes, what hard-knocks artistry could possibly emerge from the land of suburban tracts?...

We Long Islanders have an inherent inferiority complex...we use ridicule and sarcasm to show affection.

“Everything was testing, testing, testing,” he says. “Testing your manhood, testing your humor — really, testing your friendship.”

Now a bad review doesn’t ruin his life. “I think that was a Long Island thing,” he says. “Someone would take a swipe, and I felt compelled to swing back.”

You can take the boy out of Long Island, but you can't take the Long Island out of the boy.

With O'Reilly, being an outsider has been put to good use in his ability to identify with the underdog, particularly with the defenseless: children.

Fiction for a Sunday...

It was the summer of '67 when I was invited by a Hollywood writer/acquaintance to a hot-tub party at the Playboy Mansion. I declined for reasons of fastidiousness - I couldn't (or didn't want to) imagine what bodily fluids were in the tub. I figured that hedonists, being of the "eat, drink, for tomorrow we may die!" disposition, wouldn't go to the trouble of changing the water or adding the chemicals.

I wondered then if the Playboy Mansion was like paradise for Muslims - 76 virgins, well... It seemed Muslims didn't leave anything to chance as far as motivating believers, at least not the male believers. The Christians took it on faith: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard...". If it was beyond human experience perhaps it wasn't beyond the imagination, though the harps and angels and music generally left something to be desired. Christianity being a social religion, I imagined it a very social place, like a large family reunion. Or a place of rest, like the Sabbath rest, although these were competing visions since what if you wanted a rest from the relatives?

I reasoned that Heaven was like girls though not in the Islamic sense. I figured it got more alluring as you got older or wiser or if you changed, just as girls were yucky until at some indistinct point in early adolescence when they weren't. Before then eye had not seen, ear had not heard...

At school and during summer jobs my default setting was to work rather than socialize, which set me apart. I found the latter more wearying than the former. It had the unintended effect of making me more interesting to co-workers and schoolmates who shared their exploits while I listened, having nothing to report myself. I learned that girls and concerts and alcohol were the Elysian fields that opened them to transcendence while I found the same through chaste Proustian dreams, at least until people broke the spell.

I wrote novels in my head while working, composed symphonies while showering. I began each novel lyrically, like a song, not to show off but because it was dreaming-out-loud and dreams were what made life worth living.

Dreams bled into real life too, like the time I saw a black dog walking in between the rows of a soybean field, his head just above the plants just like he was swimming on land, which is what day-dreaming was like. It was as surreal as the disembodied rabbit at a greyhound track.

Then, another real dream: I've strung etymologies of obscure words together, sang Hungarian folk songs, wandered amid wildflowers, became intoxicated by hectares but I never saw anything as beautiful as the Sunday I saw that farm sitting still in the sun.

It was exceptionally windy that day, though oddly not while I was looking at the small but prosperous spread, everything in exquisite order. Entropy was momentarily damned; God was in his heaven.

Fields flanked the structures like the seas flank the earth. There was a white house on the left with a perfectly manicured yard in front (as if done by hand with barber scissors & clippers), a long white barn that was neither too high nor too short next to it, and a plump silo surrounded by gravel.

The house had the patische of age without the neglect. The silo had a tall scaffolding of equipment attached that appeared - from the surrounding circle of gravel - to spin around the silo when the equipment was in motion.

Such profundities and peace this odd machinery produced in me! Not knowing what it was was its pleasure. I longed not to know for that would kill it, as certainly as it I figured it had killed it for the farmer then absent, who was presumably looking with longing at a Manhattan brownstone.

The gravel shown white under the sun, like beach sand, tasting of freedom and the Platonic ideal of the rural for in all my memories only rural estates had gravel drives and so I associated them with the plenary privacy in front of me. It was like Heaven, or so I imagined in the time before spiritual puberty...

What if Candidates Pandered to Economists?

Even though economists famously disagree about effects of many public policies, there are some things they agree on:

On many issues, from universal health insurance to increased taxes on the rich, economists do not speak with a single voice. But on some issues we do. Here is an eight-plank platform designed to attract a majority of economists. It is based on discussions I have had with my colleagues — call them focus groups, if you’d like — and polls of my profession:

SUPPORT FREE TRADE Economists are nearly unanimous in their support of an unfettered system of world trade. Here, Senator Obama lags behind Senator McCain. Senator Obama’s bad-mouthing of Nafta and his opposition to free-trade pacts with Colombia and South Korea make most economists cringe.

Many economists would go even further than Senator McCain has suggested by, for example, repealing antidumping laws. The ostensible purpose of these laws is to prevent foreign companies from selling in the United States at prices below fair value, but the law’s notion of “fair” rarely makes sense. In practice, these laws are little more than an excuse for special interests to shield themselves from competition.

OPPOSE FARM SUBSIDIES Economists like free markets, a principle that applies to agriculture as much as any good or service. Again, Senator McCain has the lead. Senator Obama’s endorsement of the recent $300 billion farm bill, his support for domestic ethanol subsidies and his opposition to imported sugar ethanol may bring votes from farmers, but economists view these policies as a burden on taxpayers and consumers.

LEAVE OIL COMPANIES AND SPECULATORS ALONE With the stunning rise in oil prices, both presidential candidates have been tempted to demonize market participants. Senator McCain has complained about the “obscene profits” of oil companies and called for a “thorough and complete investigation of speculators.” By contrast, most economists see nothing more sinister than the forces of global supply and demand at work. There is little benefit, and potentially much harm, in the candidates’ populist finger-pointing.

TAX THE USE OF ENERGY Senator Obama wins a point by opposing a summer gas tax holiday, a McCain proposal that economists greeted with derision. Most economists advocate increased taxes on energy products. The recent response of consumers to higher gas prices — including the increased use of mass transit and greater purchases of small cars, scooters, and even bicycles — demonstrates that the price mechanism is the most reliable way to reduce energy consumption and to curtail a variety of driving-related problems.

RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE Like both presidential candidates, most economists recognize that Social Security faces a long-term problem. Senator Obama says he wants to fix it by extending the payroll tax to high incomes. Senator McCain opposes tax increases and wants the Social Security system to include personal accounts, but he has avoided proposing specific benefit cuts needed to make the numbers add up.

Some economists endorse Senator Obama’s tax hike, and some endorse Senator McCain’s personal accounts, but a much greater number would increase the age of eligibility for benefits. As Americans live longer, we need to redefine old age — a theme that should resonate with Mr. McCain, who is 71.

INVITE MORE SKILLED IMMIGRANTS As part of their embrace of globalization, economists are more open to immigration than is the general public. Admittedly, unskilled immigrants raise some potential problems: They may depress wages for Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder, exacerbating the rise in inequality, and they may overburden the social safety net. By contrast, skilled immigrants promote economic growth, especially among poorer Americans, and pay more in taxes than they get in government benefits. The more, the merrier.

On this issue, economists very clearly practice what they preach. Many of the best economists at top American universities were born abroad.

LIBERALIZE DRUG POLICY Many economists marry their support of economic freedom with a similar support of personal freedom. Drug policy is a case in point. A 2006 poll of professional economists asked whether the United States should legalize marijuana. Those in favor outnumbered those opposed more than three to one.

The Great New Yorker Controversy

The reaction to the satirical New Yorker cover depicting Obama in a turbin and Mz. Obama in guerilla wear was far more amusing than the cover itself. To see liberals targeting other liberals over the correct words to their hymns of victimology triggered a bit of schadenfreude in me. Hoisted by their own pretard has been a common enough experience this primary season, as I'd written before. (And to see Al Gore answer to the charge of hypocrisy on Meet the Press for his ten thousand square-foot home was priceless if only because for liberals the only sin besides intolerance is hypocrisy.) We're seeing things we've hardly ever seen before, and I think it's mostly a testament to the utter lack of fear liberals feel in this extremely favorable political environment. They can afford to attack their own magazines & candidates.

The downside is that enjoying the show is the purview of those out of power, as the Republicans are now (GWB is a lame duck). But you take your pleasure where you can.

Bush routinely received far worse cartoon covers than the latest from the New Yorker, but at least the dust-up has served as a barometer of who lacks a sense of humor and proportion (is it any surprise that Al Gore failed the test during today's Meet the Press appearance?). Just like with the primary race of a black versus a woman led to preference pyrotechnics, here we have freedom of the press versus liberal piety.

It all screams out for parody but I kept procastinating despite having a blog called Parody is Therapy. Thankfully, procastination often works to our advantage and it did this time when I saw the cartoon above, which was funnier than anything I could've come up with.

It was penned by a Glenn McCoy and published in the Columbus Dispatch and restores my faith in the comic ability of this fine nation. It's one job we won't have to outsource...

Story and Sacrament

For sacraments, the material and the signifier are necessary. It's interesting to look at good fiction in the same way: the material is the story itself, the signifier is that which sets it apart for the believer.

St. Ambrose writes of sacrament:

I see the water I used to see every day; does this water in which I have often bathed without being sanctified really have the power to sanctify me? Learn from this that water does not sanctify without the Holy Spirit...The catechumen believes in the cross of the Lord with which he too is signed, but unless he is baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit he cannot receive the forgiveness of sins or the gift of spiritual grace.

Bishop Flores writes of fiction:

The author allows us to hear the thoughts of the sisters as they die...I suppose a non-believer would read those thoughts and be content to say, "Well, at least they had the consolation of their faith, though whether it is true or not is another issue." A believer, reading the same thoughts of the sisters laid bare, would likely recognize in them the signifying words that point to the reality embracing the sisters. If that sounds like a description devised out of deference to the Catholic Tradition of the Sacraments, it should. For I think sacramental signification is relevant here.

Thomas Aquinas says somewhere in his treatise on the Sacraments that the matter itself of a Sacrament is not sufficiently specific to signify the purposes to which the Lord, in instituting them, wills to put them. (He is elaborating Augustine here.) Thus, the words the Lord uses in instituting the Sacraments, the words the Church has custody over, are necessary in order sufficiently to signify the intended use of the matter.

Hence, in the Sacraments, if the matter is corrupted, even the addition of the words cannot supply for it; and if the form of the specifying words is so botched that the specification is lost, then the sign fails to signify, and the sacrament is invalid... Remember also that every deliberately conceived combination of event and word has an intended audience, for who signifies meaning into the air?

In any event, a Catholic author works in the world of things and events that signify in themselves, but not sufficiently clearly for us to catch their full intended significance. So the words an author uses are at the service of signifying the intentionality of life as guided providentially by God. But without the event, there is nothing for the word to specify, and without the word, the event flounders as a vehicle of meaning.

All this is simply to say that Catholic fiction is in some sense a work that participates in the dynamic of matter and form, thing and word. And the success or failure of a work of Catholic fiction depends on how well, how fluidly and effortlessly, the combination of event and word conspire to lead the reader to ponder the meaning of the intended sign.

This & That

This may be too cynical by a half, but a few weeks ago I began receiving Newsweek magazine despite not having subscribed to it. I'm wondering if this is a free 6-month subscription such that it would run till... drumroll... November. Which is to say that I wonder if Newsweek is providing free magazines to some of us in electorally-important states in order to try to swing the election towards Obama. After all, politics is the religion of the secular set and why wouldn't they want to prostyletize? On the other hand, I admit that does sound a bit conspiratorial.

* * *
My left-of-center brother-in-law becomes incensed when he reads of corporate ill-doing. Which seems odd; I'm always surprised by his surprise. Companies are run by individuals. Individuals are fallen. Why isn't he outraged by other news, including everything from shoplifting statistics to murder rates?

Economic systems often come under fire when human nature is truly to blame. Every economic system on earth is subject to some sort of particular abuse, has some sort of particular 'besetting sin', which is ameliorable only by a culture of life inspired by God.

* * *
Last night I was reading about 1920s/30s writer Jim Tully and how when he was a starving artist the socialist Upton Sinclair ignored him and returned his manuscript unread, while Rupert Hughes, a "reactionary" helped him turn his 100,000 word single paragraph into Tully's first novel.

* * *
Interesting excerpt from a highly respected scientific journal: :-)

Varieties of Physiological Stimuli Triggering Male Sexual Response

1) Change of Season
2) Stability of Season
3) Shapely female in immodest clothing
4) Shapely female in modest clothing
5) Happiness
6) Sadness
7) Low-fat diet
8) High-fat diet

* * *
Speaking of sex, least likely Jeopardy! category may well be: Lust & Religion. Be funny to hear Alex say it. The latter just came available on Gutenberg. (By the way, you can get an RSS feed and learn of new online books.)

* * *

You've heard of the Lives of the Saints...Well, Parody is Therapy examines the Lies of the Saints.

* * *
God is often revealed in small actions. I was touched when while riding my bike yesterday someone down the street pulling out of their driveway with loud rap music playing. The sound decreased as I neared and then increased after I went by. He'd thoughtfully turned down the noise for my sake.

* * *

The Spanish blogger at Compostela writes of having recently seen My Night at Maud's, a film I remember seeing about a decade ago. I remember it having made a big impression at the time but ought watch it again since our reaction to art changes over time as Angel mentions.

He writes of how he would have viewed it differently before his conversion (colorfully termed "Copernicano turn" via the ever interesting Babelfish translation service).

Update: I sent this email to Ham o' Bone:

After a second viewing, I was amazed by how much lying the main charater, Jean-Louise, did. I don't recall the deception in the first viewing, perhaps because I was inclined to be sympathetic given he was the believer amid unbelievers. Don't you think Maud and the Marxist friend of Jean-Louise were more likable that Jean-L & Francoise, the blonde? I wonder if that was the director's intention. Maud & the Marxist just seemed more other-directed and less self-involved. A detail is that when Maud was telling Jean-L of the death of her lover, Jean-L seems to have moved off disinterestedly towards the window and expressed no sorrow.

The other thing that blew me away was the mention on a movie review site that his blonde wife, Francoise, was a fundamentally unhappy person. She didn't seem so at all to me; the only time she appeared otherwise was when she thought he'd found out about her affair. At film's end they go off happily for a swim. Anyway, well worth another viewing!

Governed by Emotion, Not Reason?

Inside Catholic has a poll question¹ which asks:

Putting aside your own political preferences, who do you think will win the U.S. Presidential election in November?

The audience of Inside Catholic is presumably skewed far to the right. Hence the importance of the "putting aside your own political preferences" disclaimer.

Now what's interesting is that we all go in with the information that McCain has never led in the polls despite a long primary fight between the Democrat candidates. And that it's a heavily Democratic year. And that the national media has swooned over Obama and will paint things to his advantage. (Although there's the possibility of backlash given the low prestige of the media.)

But Inside Catholic readers are unpreturbed. About 52% say McCain will win, about 45% say Obama will:

There's no way, obviously, to quantify how many are voting out of emotion and not reason. Certainly some might say Obama out of a native pessimism, just as others might say McCain out of a native optimism. Both are based on emotion.

But the right has the reputation of being more rational than the left², and so one might expect a 50-50 Obama/McCain split at this point in the race from this crowd. And yet how predictable is it that this poll would skew towards McCain in this forum? It's as predictable as Obama leading on the Huntington Post. And this despite the crucial disclaimer "Leaving aside your own political preferences...".

If the results are disappointing it at least proves we are humans and not robots. And it's always possible that Inside Catholic readers are more politically astute, pending the election results in November.

(This brings to mind a poll in which Democrats and Republicans both errored in their recall of the inflation rate in various presidential administrations (always erroring in their party's favor of course). Republicans errored less, but it still shows the Right certainly doesn't have a lock on rationality. But do we want a bunch of Spocks? Isn't our ability to love somewhat predicated on irrationality by which we see and emphasize the qualities of our family, country and self and missing or downplaying the negatives?)

This interests me in part because my friend Ham o' Bone has a deep faith in rationality combined with a deep faith in his own judgment of what is rational, seeing the two as equivalent. Which we all tend towards, of course, but it gets difficult not only in imagining our own irrationality (think John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind") but in also imagining our neighbor's irrationality. Years ago, when he lost thousands in stock options, Ham said this was the fault of the market and that it points to the prevalence of ignorance bad opinion. I say this not to be critical, as I fiercely admire Ham's confidence because that's how so many wonderful inventions and businesses came to be. But either he was directly wrong, or he had failed to account for the irrationality of others. It happens.

Or, as a liberal famously said after Nixon beat McGovern, "Nixon couldn't have won - I don't even know anyone who voted for Nixon!"

Of course, all of this assumes voting is a rational process when actually it's mostly a crapshoot and always the choice of the lesser of two evils given that we are all flawed human beings. The crapshoot nature is illustrated in recent history by the fact that our best president was a former actor and the one with the most experience (LBJ) was a complete dud.
_____

¹- link also contains great thoughts from Amy & gang on Catholic literature.

²- i.e. someone on the left, Chris Matthews, refers to the Republicans as the "Daddy" party and the Democrats as the "Mommy" party. (This was before the Republicans became spendaholics during recent years.) The parties often separate between head versus heart, though with notable exceptions like protecting the unborn.

summer

'Each summer the last summer.'
-Denise Levertov, 'Living'

Each summer the summer
it did not rain so
much the summer before
because Then is turning
to accommodate Now
with small movements like
the fluttering of birds' wings
& every night the world
ends
the way scientists warned us it would;
what is it about
summer
that is so evanescent?
each summer
the last summer.   ---ryan blood

Watching COPS with the Sound Turned Down

I've found, over time, that this dialogue works for most episodes of COPS.

(Head shot of officer talking):"I've been with the [insert city name] police force for [X] years. I love being a police officer. Every day, every call is different. We get to get the bad guys off the street. The main thing is to come back home safely.”

(Pulls up behind suspect acting suspiciously): “Don't reach in your pocket! Got any ID?"

(Suspect runs and is caught):

Officer breathlessly: "Why'd you run?"

Suspect: "I was scared."

Officer: "Scared of the police? Why would you be scared of the police? Got a warant?"

Suspect: "No, no warrants."

Officer: "You sellin'?"

Suspect: "I don't do drugs. Don't have any drugs."

Officer: "What'd you toss out the window?"

Suspect: "I didn't toss anything."

(Officer picks up drugs tossed from window & then searches car, finds more drugs.)

Officer: "What's this?"

Suspect: "They ain't mine."

Officer: "Is this your car?"

Suspect: "Yes."

Officer: "Then how'd they get there?"

Suspect: "I don't know but they ain't mine."

COPS Laws

1) Oddly, cops act surprised when someone who likely just committed a crime lies to them. Police expect criminals to incriminate themselves by confessing.

2) It's been said that few in jail admit guilt. Similarly, almost no one caught admits guilt no matter how far-fetched the story (i.e. "someone just let me borrow their car - don't know their name or why"). "I didn't do nuthin'" is the most heard line on COPS.

3) Amazingly, cops are suspicious of people who act nervous when pulled over, even though being nervous is the natural reaction for someone who just got pulled over even if unaware of doing anything wrong.

4) Based on COPS, if there weren't drugs or domestic abuse they'd have little to do but drive around.

In Praise of Bad Art

If you want to make God laugh
mention "create" after a personal pronoun.
(Ex nihilo is the better trick.)

For Him everything is cloying,
mere sentiment and cliché
were he were not Simplicity and Lover
of the immature and unlovable.

Critical eyes dimiss and disparage
but the Authentic One mocks not
our derivative attempts.

Tractor Pull at the County Fair

First the pitch of engine froth
a jet black plume of smoke,
darks the edges of Old Glory
in the fumes she soaks.

"Two-hundred ninety feet!" he cries
just aft the Deere did halt,
"Two-hundred ninety feet!" was said
of the tractor that had no fault.

"Not a good place for the flag,"
I say while walking to the truck,
but tis true, I guess, that God and flags
don't mind getting in the muck.

* * *

St. Ambrose, from today's Office of Readings:

Wearing the garments given her in the rebirth by water, the Church says, in the words of the Song of Songs: I am black but beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem. Black because of the frailty of humanity, beautiful through grace; black because she is made up of sinners, beautiful through the sacrament of faith. When they see these garments the daughters of Jerusalem cry out in wonder: Who is this who comes up, all in white? She was black, how is she suddenly made white? When Christ sees his Church clothed in white – for her sake he himself had put on filthy clothing, as you may read in the prophecy of Zechariah – when he sees the soul washed clean by the waters of rebirth, he cries out: How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are...

Interesting Post...

Too long to condense for "Span the Globe"...from Amy Welborn, a review of “In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism.“:

The questions about stewardship bounced all over the place and reemerged in different forms every generation. Should stewardship be understood as primarily being about money or about a Christian’s whole life? Were fundraising efforts that depended on entertaining the giver or from which the giver derived some benefit legitimate, or were they manipulative and ultimately spiritually destructive?

And at every stage, church people are constantly, unfailingly frustrated at low levels of giving. As Americans became more prosperous, Protestant ministers fell in both status and income level, and church leaders could not help but notice that as Americans bought more and more stuff, they never seemed to manage to give any more to church.

Some..things..never change...

I do think, if there’s anyone out there involved in stewardship, in any Christian denomination, it’s worth it to take a look at this book. So often, we tend to look at the past through those blasted rose-colored glasses, thinking that in the past, Christians were so generous, while today, they’re so cheap. We also tend to look at the models we have for these things - what a church is and how its members should financially support it - as something that just is. Examining and thinking about how and why these models developed, and realizing that the conversations we’re having now and the concerns and frustrations are not at all new, it seems to me, is very important. Especially for Catholics who not only suffer from historical blindness, but from deep Protestant envy when it comes to giving and stewardship.

Links I Haven't Read

This is a new feature in which I link to things I haven't actually read...hopefully I'll remember to but in the meantime...

First off, here's an old TIME magazine piece in praise of uselessness.

This is a Zenit article that I cut & pasted in but can't recall what it was.

Here's a recommendation for one of E. Michael Jones's books.

And finally, Bill of Summa points us to a Nigerian email writing class that I'd likewise envisioned.

Making the World Safe for Memeology

Fred has done me the honor of meme'ing me with a quirky one: name six of your quirks.

Hhmmm.... how about:

I sometimes make up words in journal entries and posts.

I will likely develop back/shoulder troubles from foolishly carrying books with me everywhere I go. (Kindle should help.)

I named my cat "Motorboat Jones" after a Reds phenom but it was too long so I began calling him "Sam".

My wife and I add "-age" to many words in order to create our own language-age.

I used to think elite rhymed with "light".

I eat cereal while driving (I used to read while driving, but now I'm (hopefully) wiser.

By the power invested in me by the state of Blogdom, I hereby meme six people who want to play. You know who you are.

[Hitler's] degraded ethics were all too well-suited to modern man. If you don’t believe me, think about this: How many retarded children have you seen on the street lately? They used to be rather common—before the free, Christian peoples of the West discovered amniocentesis. Which side really won World War II? - Zmirak, via Eric Scheske

He never lived in Texas. - Mama T of "Summa Mamas" regarding Chekhov's quote that "People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy." [Note: Mama T's mother died a couple days ago. Please offer a prayer for her and Terry.]

Jesus' public mission was to reveal His Father...What would have happened if, long before the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles ("and Mary the mother of Jesus") at Pentecost, long before the Apostles even knew that Jesus was the Messiah?...It seems to me that would have only muddled His revelation and confused His disciples. The honor due to the Mother of God is a direct corollary of Jesus' self-revelation; to bring up the corollary before the primary lesson is known ill-befits the wise teacher. So it's not just that Jesus didn't happen to respond in these situations in a manner that makes it easy to demonstrate the scriptural basis for veneration of Mary. It's that He shouldn't have responded that way. He wasn't composing a catechism. He was revealing His Father, and He left it to those to whom He revealed the Father to discover that the light of the Father reveals the light of the mother. Catholics shouldn't try to paper over the development of Marian doctrine that can be found even within the New Testament...We should recognize that the very development that has occurred -- which I'd say Catholics must admit was intended by God to occur over time and not simply be given by Jesus as an explicit teaching -- teaches us important lessons about both the place of Mary (i.e., both logically and historically, distinctly after Jesus) and the nature of Jesus' revelation (i.e., completed but unfolding in time). - Tom of Disputations

We seem to aim at so little today, to have such small interests in mind. No wonder the biotech visionaries have gained a hearing: They claim to be going somewhere. Where they want to go is the destruction of human nature, but at least they are calling us to something beyond ourselves. To be a religious believer is to know that the hungers of the human heart will not find fulfillment without God, but even religious believers benefit from goals short of the ecstatic vision of the divine. A people without any temporal horizons—without any historical purpose or vision of the future—grow enervated and decadent, and they begin to follow strange gods, who promise them meaning. The science-fiction writers had it better: Space is the obvious next horizon for human beings. Want to diminish the biotech revolution to its proper role as a curer of disease? Offer a more exciting goal. Build a rocket ship, and fly it to Mars. - Jody Bottum of "First Things"

I just finished reading Steven Greydanus' fine review of Disney/Pixar's WALL-E, and it reminded me of this post about futurist David Zach. It reminded me specifically of the fascinating talk he gave at the recent annual G.K. Chesterton Conference, because it sounds like in the WALL-E movie, the writers make a common mistake that people make when thinking about the future; that is, they look at recent trends and follow them into the future in a straight line...Now, I call this a "mistake" on the part of the creators of WALL-E, but I don't think it was, really. If they were seriously presenting their ideas of what the future will be like, then it might be a mistake, but what they are doing is actually fine and good for storytellers. They are just exploring recent trends in our society and are using the future to pull them apart and show them to us... using the future as a kind of mirror on our lives. - Tim Jones on Jimmy Akins' blog

Gramm is right when he talks about the psychological toll of relentless recession talk. I have a steady job and I still freak when I see the price of everything go up. But calling people who have lost their jobs or foreclosed on a shoddy motrgage — even one they kinda knew they could not afford — is not the time to call them “whiners.” - Phil Albinus; though if not now, when?

Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy. - Frank Sinatra, via Forbes.com

There is no future for e-books because they are not books...E-books smell like burned fuel. - author Ray Bradbury via "Blog Kindle"

"Look! Aretha Franklin, when she sings 'I Say a Little Prayer', you can sense the power, the range she has available to her, but she keeps it all tightly controlled, in service of the SONG. If she sang in service of her SELF, you'd hear all kinds of crazy flourishes and crescendos and huge long sustained notes; she'd gyrate and bellow and distort the song to suit her own purpose.'

'That is the essence of my argument, that the artist serves the the song.'

'Celebrity is secondary, it is of no importance. It is a matter of integrity."

...."I think that you got no balls, is what...and I think you can appreciate a song without caring what it is 'about'. You have the classic, very classic, North American attitiude toward art, that it's only there for our consumption. You are also cursed, I think, with seeking the meaning to life through art."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Your own experience comes first." - blogger at "A Fortnight at SevenOaks"

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure.... I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture. - Christopher Hitchens, after being waterboarded (he voluneteered)

As a person who battles despairing, intrusive thoughts during many of her alert (caffeinated and non-caffeinated) hours, I found great consolation in the personal writings of Mother Teresa included in a compilation entitled "Come Be My Light," edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C. And I wept many times throughout the book, mostly at her graciousness toward God in her suffering. "I want to smile even at Jesus and so hide if possible the pain and the darkness of my soul even from Him," she wrote. I spent a week with Mother Teresa and her Sisters the winter of 1994. I stood beside her for about two hours as we distributed Christmas gifts to orphaned children. I sensed a sadness in her. But her light overshadowed it. Unlike a person wrapped in severe depression, wearing the expression of despair, she exuded light and hope. When she prayed, her deep love for God was visible, even contagious. This saint of darkness has much to teach me about how to live with inner anguish. - Therese Borchard on "Beliefnet"

Usually, I think, sinners are said to be those who aren't on the paths of the LORD at all, [but] we might infer from Hosea one reason sinners usually avoid the paths of the LORD: When they're on them, they stumble. Walking along the constricted road is painful and humiliating. Who wants that? No one, really, but if you have an idea of where the path leads, then you're willing to put up with falling seven times, because you can rise again and not stumble to ruin. - Tom of Disputations