From My Reading Surplus

Reading the first chapter of Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky, a pro-Internet/social media book that mentions the gin craze of the early 1700s in London and how that was related to the overwhelming (and negative) effects of sudden industrialization resulting in densely packed urban environments. Reminds me of a similar mention of the Mother Gin in the book Drink by Ian Gately.

The devastation wrought by that liquor lasted nearly fifty years, and the two accounts differ slightly as to the why it abated. In Drink, the explanation seems to be a hybrid of Wesley's preaching, less stringent anti-gin laws (the draconian ones only made the poor drink more by flouting the rich law-makers) and the emergence of a middle class. In Shirky's book, the laws passed were trying to tackle the symptom and not the cause and (to borrow someone else's notes), that "gin drinking only subsided as new institutions, etc, arose in response to wider changes."

It said that we are now going through a similar transformative process in the move from urban to suburban alienation. The author said that the "gin" replacement in our time is television, as a substitute for declining social interactions. He says that the reason many young people are now watching less television is they want a more participatory rather than passive (television) experience, such as the Internet and social media.

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant of Variety of Posts

Our culture [has] lost a sense of tragic vision in regards to nature -- we naturally assume that unless some active force comes along and makes things bad, that they will be good. This could not be farther from a traditional view of nature. While neo-pagans are sure that being "in tune" with nature would be a blissful and pleasant state, real pagans of the ancient world saw the natural forces that were bound up with their gods as capricious, sometimes cruel, and almost always unconcerned with the impact of their actions upon mortals. We as Christians see nature as having been created by God and being something that He saw as good. Yet in a fallen world, I don't think we'd be far off in taking a fairly tragic vision, similar to the ancients, of how we relate to nature and what "nature's way" is. This also comes up in the current debate over same sex marriage, where I've on a number of occasions had people tell me that if attraction towards members of one's own sex is "not a choice" but instead something "natural", then obviously same sex marriage must be a good thing and what God intended. It would be cruel, it is argued, if God allowed some people to have such an inclination but did not allow it to be fulfilled through marriage...A tragic vision seems an essential means of coping with the world as we find it. More Greeks and Norse, please. - Darwin Catholic

Love that is less than sacrificial love is only sentimentality.
- Janice Connell

Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes / Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch / Her pleasant habitations, and dry up Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare, / Yet would the living Presence still subsist Victorious, and composure would ensue, / And kindlings like the morning--presage sure / Of day returning and of life revived. - From The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

They saw in that moment when reality burst through the artifice and irrelevance of every day and everything. The remains of Charles Gábor have no time to plead, to maneuver for position.. - Arthur Philips in the novel "Prague"

Budapest was in what her mother used to call “the impatient time,” when children demanded winter’s end, and they hated the dark spaces between buildings that protected the last of the last season’s snow, stubborn and horrible little leftovers precisely the shape of their patron-shadows. - Arthur Philips, "Prague"

The eye of the historian detected in Paul VI some similarities to Clement XIV. - Rev. George Rutler, "Cloud of Witnesses"

From the citizen’s point of view, the disbursements from Social Security, Medicare, etc., are entitlements because they fulfill promises the government has made to the people. These promises were not conditional commitments, ones where the government said, “We’ll help you . . . if we can, and to the extent we can.” Congress cannot, therefore, appropriate a fixed amount for food stamps and hope that the eligible beneficiaries don’t run through that allotment before the end of the fiscal year. The people’s insistence that the government fulfill its promises to the dollar is not, of course, unrelated to the fact that the promises are beneficial to the individuals who receive what the entitlement programs. - From "Never Enough" by William Voegeli

Surrealism, to me, is like coffee. (Get ready to STG this!) I can't be drinking coffee all the time, but I do need something most mornings to wake me up. Surrealism does that. - Dylan of "Reluctant Draggard"

Deep Fried Beer!

75% Want Law of Gravity to be Optional

Not bloody likely, 'eh? Neither is the fiction peddled by Paula Brooks, who's running for Congress in Ohio and whose big issue is a call for politicians to cut their pay until the budget is balanced. This goes into the Unlikely Hall of Fame next to the highest improbability of them all: that Congress opts into Social Security and gives up its lavish government pension.

Politics is about the art of the possible and what Brooks is actually doing is betting against a minimal amount of savvy on the part of voters in her district. To actually have Congress cut its salary one would have to elect a new Congress on that promise alone. And since the issue will never be brought up, Brooks gets to engage in silliness.

Rexroth Rexcerpts

A bit disappointed to learn over the weekend that one of the best Columbus antiquarian bookstores (noted here and here) is going out of business. They had a sale, 75% off everything, and so, natch, I gobbled up what I could joined with a host of fellow book vultures. Many of the books were cheap to begin with, from $3-$8, so it's mostly storage space that limited my buying. (Ironically, I picked up the Pope John XXIII: Letters to His Family, and he advises a nephew to buy fewer books and concentrate on the ones he has!)

Another of the books purchased was, unfortunately, Sheer Joy by Matthew Fox. Turns out Fox is heretical. Great idea though to imagine a conversation with Thomas Aquinas in today's language.

The poem from before was from one of those books, as is the following, from The Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth Rexroth:

AUTUMN

I lay aside the Diurnal
At the light drenched poetry
Of St. Ambrose that converted
St. Augustine to a world
More luminous and more lucid
Than one where light warred with dark.

BLUES

The tops of the higher peaks
Of the Sierra Nevada
Of California are
Drenched in the perfume of
A flower which grows only there --
The blue Polemonium
Confertum eximium,
Soft, profound blue, like the eyes
Of impregnable innocence;
The perfume is heavy and
Clings thickly to the granite
Peaks, even in violent wind;
The leaves are clustered,
Fine, dull green, sticky, and musky.
I imagine that the scent
Of the body of Artemis
That put Endymion to sleep
Was like this and her eyes had the
Same inscrutable color.
Lawrence was lit into death
By the blue gentians of Kore.
Vanzetti had in his cell
A bowl of tall blue flowers
From a New England garden.
I hope that when I need it
My mind can always call back
This flower to its hidden senses.

Poem Happened Across....

CONDOM by John Popielaski

At thirty-two we aren't looking
to commit ourselves to bearing a child.
The very thought of her conceiving
sometimes qualifies the pleasure
of our making love without one.
So a condom almost always comes
along with us to bed, to bath,
to the point at which it becomes
a kind of appendage, like a sheath
that has meshed with my penis
after years of intimate relations.
Even my desire to make love to her
is now attended by the urge to slip
a lubricated condom on, to feel
protected from the miracle of birth.

Cellphone Pic Monday...

From Saturday:

Truth is Freeing

Heard a former pro wrestler on Bill Simmons's podcast say that "anything said over and over on television will be believed." He talked about how even though he was playing a character, doing his schtick, people honestly hated him. They confused him for his wrestling identity.

I heard a similar thing with the woman, then child, who played Nellie Olsen on "Little House on the Prairie." To this day she has strangers coming up to her and yelling "bitch", pouring liquids on her and otherwise assuming she and her character were the same.

If this is true with television, which (mostly) labels itself as a fiction, how much more easily will people believe falsehoods that get repeated on network news shows?

If we generally believe what we've been told over and over on television, perhaps my faith would strengthen if I'm told over and over the Scriptural message by getting into the Word more. The Psalms seem like that - a lot of reminding ourselves who is Boss and who created and saves us. It's like Fox News or CNN or MSNBC except it's the unadulterated truth. Truth, in the form of Scripture, should have just as prevalent a platform.

Cooperation = Work, Leider

On the subject of cooperation between God and man, I think we see that explicitly in the canonization procedure. The Church sure isn't a Quietist on this front (or any other), but actively investigates the cause for sainthood as if everything depended on her, though of course the final say is God's, who either grants or doesn't grant a miracle. I read part of a book today containing the letters of Pope John XXIII to his family, and it's not always the most riveting read. And I think of the papal investigators who have to read every single thing a prospective saint has ever written - just for starters. Perhaps this is a symbol of how we should work our tails off to get into the Kingdom with God having the last say. I'm thinking of this also in conjunction with a Betty Duffy post about Christian unhappiness (not an oxymoron, though neither can you say if you're happy 'you're not doing it right' :-)).

The Church presumably looks at the background and writings of potential saints perhaps in part for the reason she wants to avoid being embarrassed, to avoid the case where someone says the Church canonized this individual despite this anti-Semitic streak or what-not. But it doesn't change the fact that the Church doesn't just sit back, relax, wait for a miracle, investigate it, and then canonize someone.

Late Summer, Turning to Fall

On the budding greens of campus again, soaking in the temperate sun and indulging in memories of the great book sales they used to have here. Over hill and dale I would fly, returning to my car with muscle-bending quantities of books. In some cases whole sets of encyclopedias! And at a price close to free.

The scent of vacationese lingers here, the languid motions of bodies not yet in school but preparing. Oh how holy those old abultions seemed, the gathering of groceries into one’s first “home”, that tiny dorm-room. The all-important furnishings… Oh how it felt like one long summer camp, even in winter, when I’d head to the gymnasium and do my imitation of a gym rat, playing basketball with that fabulous 20-year old body I used to have.

Ach, but isn’t autumn always a time rife with retrospection, fueled by the narcotic of looking back? And yet now I watch the ducks swim against the current at Mirror lake, the waters where in cold November Buckeye fans will take a midnight dip!
_____

The most freeing notion in recent days was reading Caryl’s advice about how we should let go of the sins of the past and not focus on them. It’s familiar, even trite, but so true. Too often I try to motivate myself by looking back on past sins, but wouldn’t it be better to motivate oneself by looking to the present, to the gift of Christ, and our union with Him? Or if we must look at our past shouldn’t we look at our Baptism, our latest sacrament of Penance? The attitude must be gratitude, and Fr. Terry pointed that out on Sunday, how if we grumble about going to Mass or volunteering we know we need a “course correction” and a spirit of thankfulness.
____

Sitting high off the hog, up on the 11th floor estuary in Thompson, a flood plain of knowledge. The day is cool and breezy with intermittent sun, a day as autumnal (in a late Septemberish way) in every way but visually, where the trees still carry their green camo. I think I’ll miss this weekly trip to the library, this “other world” so near and far from work. If last week was overkillian on beer this week underkillian. The daily ration of sun has been ratcheted down. From a minimum of 2 hours a night (6-8) to the new normal of 20 minutes (6-6:20).
____

Both Betty Duffy and Heather King emphasize that their journals are not their blogs, and that there is much shaping and editing that goes on. It's suggested they are more mean-spirited in their journals, more frustration. Heather said recently she is not a fan of stream-of-conscious renderings outside the journal. I wonder what makes it okay for a journal but not for a blog? Is it the negative influence we may have on others? Is it for privacy? Is it that it would undermine their real or potential writing careers? Is it some combination of the above?

Blogs are often a half-way house between serious writing and a journal. They house the momentary thought fragments of the author. A distinguishing characteristic, for me, is the personal nature of blogs, the way they can read like the personal letters of a public figure.

Blue Grass Friday

Down the Crooked Road
by The Dixie Bee-Liners

Heading out of Ferrum on this winding, two-lane road,
mountain music a-hummin' on my dashboard radio.
Singing along to those good old songs of faith & strife & woe,
rollin’ through the memories where the Holston River flows.

WCYB, I can hear you loud and clear,
songs of the brothers Stanley ringing sweetly in my ear.
There’s a store in Floyd, VA where they pick a mean guitar,
then it’s off to Galax Smokehouse and wet my whistle from an old fruit jar.

Chorus:
A fiddle, a bow & an old banjo, what we call mountain soul:
Come and be a part of it down on The Crooked Road.
Over the hill to Bristol, where the Speedway hot rods roar:
Tune in for Jim & Jesse, Bonnie Lou & Buster Moore.

Mother Maybelle & old Dock Boggs could really pick it right
Pull up on to the Burger Bar for our last meal tonight
Heading down to the Carter Fold and hit that old dance floor
I’ll do the buttermilk reel and the cornbread stomp til I can’t dance no more.
We’ll hit the Country Cabin if the room ain’t overpacked
and finish up at Lay’s Hardware if we bypass Mayor Jack.

Chorus:
Mountain music treasures are housed upon a hill,
Keith and Roy Lee’s legacies that we remember still,
where Curly Ray still saws away and Carter still lives on
and music lovers everywhere can come and join the song.

Demographics

Persuasive account of why lean times will be semi-permanent - because there are not enough young people.

“The rise in ‘prime age’ savers globally may also have played an important role in the story of the ‘savings glut’, putting downward pressure on global real interest rates. Here too, the demographic underpinnings of that story could intensify in the next 10-15 years.”

These elements conspire to keep America in a vicious cycle: the imbalance of savers (prospective retirees) and borrowers (young families and entrepreneurs) keeps returns on assets low, and low asset returns force the prospective retirees to save more, which increases the imbalance. That is just what happened in Japan during the 1990s...

Parody is Therapy Updated

...pondering all this Islamophobia in the mainstream media.

College Survival Kit

Interesting view of college by Eve Tushnet in Inside Catholic.

My Most Controversial Books

Librarything has a new feature that measures the standard deviation of members star ratings. Kind of interesting: (click to enlarge)