It seems like I was just getting into competitive running at about that time, and I never was very competitive, because I was very precious to myself and concerned about the onset of pain.Reminds me of my favorite eighth-grade saying: "I don't like pain. It hurts."
May 24, 2011
LOL
From the inimitable Betty Duffy:
Great Title
A Crisis magazine post has the fun title*: The Church Paid 1.8 million and all I got was this lousy report. My sentiments as well. At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think then-Cardinal Ratzinger's diagnosis worth more than these "experts" (since experts in part got us into the crisis given that there was the thinking that pedophiles could be rehabilitated).
* - full disclaimer: I mostly only read the title. I haven't done much of a study of the study.
* - full disclaimer: I mostly only read the title. I haven't done much of a study of the study.
The SYSTM System
Note: In my continuing attempt to not just jump the shark on this blog but to jump the whale, I hereby offer my advice on what to do with creeping weight gain.You've seen ads for weight-loss products and exercise equipment complete with before and after photos promising a new and fitter body.
Well there's a little secret I've discovered that provides the same results with no calorie counting or tiresome exercise routines! For just $19.95, you'll receive the secret of my fitter and leaner body.
But don't trust me. Let the results speak for themselves! Here are actual unretouched photos taken before and after the new SYSTM system:
Note flabby "beer belly" stomach.
After the SYSTM system (this photo taken just three seconds after the photo above):
Note the toned, slimmed down stomach.
The SYSTM system is a marvel in simplicity and has been used in cultures since the beginning of time. For $19.95 plus $19.95 in shipping and handling, you'll receive the secret behind this time-honored system such as what SYS stands for ("suck in your stomach"). You'll also received detailed instructions when to use SYS (when shirt off, at beach, or in presence of attractive woman). If you act now, you'll also receive a handy fake barbell with the motto "SYS instead!" on it at no extra charge!
Parody blog updated...
Parody is Therapy blog updated with Newt Gingrich's surprise win of the 2011 Spring Pander-bear contest and news that unborn babies are not okay with a "truce on the social issues".
May 23, 2011
May 22, 2011
Picking on Christians?
Fr. Charles recently posted a tweet in which he said he was uncomfortable with all the ridicule heaped upon the Rapture folks given the prospect of no similar ridicule coming in 2012 when the Mayan calendar supposedly has the world ending.
It's worth considering, but I think there are two defining differences.
One is that the Mayan claim has the patina of age, and thus a tiny slice more credibility. It's one thing to predict in 2009 that the world will end in 2011. It's another to predict it a thousand years earlier (disclaimer: I know nothing about the Mayan calendar thing; merely reporting my impressions which I suspect are not that different from the man on the street). If you predict something will happen well beyond your lifetime you are removing the "credit" you'll receive by the prediction. Tis true you also remove yourself from potential blame if it doesn't happen, but there's something a bit more palatable, in this age of self-promotion and hype, to come up with a calculation way beyond your lifespan. It seems less...arrogant.
Second, the promotion. If the Mayan story came complete with huge billboards and full-page ads in newspapers and someone presumably making money off it, then there's bound to be more ridicule than something that hangs more quietly in the background.
It's worth considering, but I think there are two defining differences.
One is that the Mayan claim has the patina of age, and thus a tiny slice more credibility. It's one thing to predict in 2009 that the world will end in 2011. It's another to predict it a thousand years earlier (disclaimer: I know nothing about the Mayan calendar thing; merely reporting my impressions which I suspect are not that different from the man on the street). If you predict something will happen well beyond your lifetime you are removing the "credit" you'll receive by the prediction. Tis true you also remove yourself from potential blame if it doesn't happen, but there's something a bit more palatable, in this age of self-promotion and hype, to come up with a calculation way beyond your lifespan. It seems less...arrogant.
Second, the promotion. If the Mayan story came complete with huge billboards and full-page ads in newspapers and someone presumably making money off it, then there's bound to be more ridicule than something that hangs more quietly in the background.
May 20, 2011
Fukuyama Excerpt
Fukuyama in "The Origins of Political Order":
Click to enlarge:
Reading that excerpt I couldn't help but think that it's fundamentally anti-Christian, or at least an implicit call to transcend it via spiritual means. Because if recognition is "zero-sum" then it is quantitatively different than, say, a quest for health or wealth (both of which could be seen as win-win, or at least are not dependent on someone else losing something). Trade, for example, is a win-win. But if recognition is you lose-I win then it's fundamentally anti-Christian. To me it was illustrative of a result of the Fall, because God wouldn't have set up the world originally this way. What really interested me was how we need to base our recognition for self and others in our being children of God and valued by God, and yet Fukuyama says that doesn't work since we only experience value relative to how we rank with others.
Click to enlarge:
Reading that excerpt I couldn't help but think that it's fundamentally anti-Christian, or at least an implicit call to transcend it via spiritual means. Because if recognition is "zero-sum" then it is quantitatively different than, say, a quest for health or wealth (both of which could be seen as win-win, or at least are not dependent on someone else losing something). Trade, for example, is a win-win. But if recognition is you lose-I win then it's fundamentally anti-Christian. To me it was illustrative of a result of the Fall, because God wouldn't have set up the world originally this way. What really interested me was how we need to base our recognition for self and others in our being children of God and valued by God, and yet Fukuyama says that doesn't work since we only experience value relative to how we rank with others.
May 19, 2011
Corner Posts
It's a good thing I don't read NR's "the Corner" too often, else I'd never emerge from it. It's interestin'.
‘Why, in My Day . . .’
May 18, 2011 7:08 P.M.
By Michael Potemra
One of the most annoying clichés I have run across among my fellow middle-aged people is the whine that kids had it so much tougher back in our day. Over on Patheos, blogger Max Lindenman has delivered a pitch-perfect parody of the genre:“These poor bubble-wrapped Oprafied kids! Why, in my day, we poured ground glass on our pancakes and chewed the dishes like breath mints. After we finished, I’d grab my Kenner stainless-steel tomahawk, my brother would grab his Hasbro single-action Colt Navy revolver, and we’d play cowboys and Indians. Once my dad told me, ‘Son, I’d rather see your sister in a whorehouse than you in a seat belt.’ To make his point, he beat me bloody with a sjambok. That was my ninth birthday.”Spot-on. I grew up in the 1970s, with (perhaps a little more than?) my share of issues, and it was tough enough. When I look at the pressures, stresses, and competitiveness (in both the economy and the overall society) that today’s kids put up with — all of which look vastly more difficult than the ones my generation faced — all I can say is, 1) Be brave, kids; and 2) Good heavens, I’m glad it’s not me having to face all that.
A Word to the Unwise
May 19, 2011 9:48 A.M.
By John Hood
The spectacular self-destruction of Newt Gingrich should have surprised no one. It fits with his personality and history. He is a smart man, but not a wise one. You can see it in both his public career and his private life.
Intelligence and wisdom are very different things. For example, a smart person may want to be the smartest person in the room, but a wise person wants to be in the room with the smartest people. A smart person may spend a great deal of time developing sweeping, elaborate, and internally consistent ideas, but a wise person spends his time identifying a few simple ideas and practicing how to deliver them persuasively. A smart person may place a great value on self-actualization, but a wise person reserves a higher place for self-discipline.
While there is nothing wrong with attracting smart people into the ranks of political leadership, wisdom is a far more important trait. A leader can hire highly intelligent people to fill key roles, give him ideas, and carry out his directives. But if he is unwise himself, it is unlikely that he will successfully hire for wisdom — or listen to it.
President Obama is another person who exhibits far more intelligence than wisdom. He is the ideal candidate of the academic Left, for whom verbal acuity and abstract thinking are markers of status. Gingrich has a far different ideology, obviously, but he is also essentially a man of the intelligentsia. You listen to such people. You learn from them. You honor their intellectual accomplishments. But you don’t put them in charge of anything.
May 18, 2011
Politics...
You want fire in the belly? Newt Gingrich has fire in the belly. Too bad he couldn't have loaned some of that to ol' Mike Huckabee. It might've made Newt more politically viable and Huckster more willing to jump in.
So much fire hath Newt that he'd been planning this run for Prez for years and yet a few days after he announced he shot hisself in the foot by trying to placate seniors in Iowa. Yes, he figured he'd corner the leave-Medicare-untouched part of the political market and thus get a leg up on his competitors. Machiavelli, he.
Usually you run to the right for the primary, and move to the center for the general election. Ol' Newt, too clever by a half, thought he'd try to further granulize the process: go for the older voters for the early primaries, move to the right for the later primaries and then move towards the center for the general. It seems to have caught him by surprise, but being too politically transparent has its risks. Too much political ambition is unseemly, despite it being something of a catch-22: you don't run for POTUS unless you're full of political ambition.
So much fire hath Newt that he'd been planning this run for Prez for years and yet a few days after he announced he shot hisself in the foot by trying to placate seniors in Iowa. Yes, he figured he'd corner the leave-Medicare-untouched part of the political market and thus get a leg up on his competitors. Machiavelli, he.
Usually you run to the right for the primary, and move to the center for the general election. Ol' Newt, too clever by a half, thought he'd try to further granulize the process: go for the older voters for the early primaries, move to the right for the later primaries and then move towards the center for the general. It seems to have caught him by surprise, but being too politically transparent has its risks. Too much political ambition is unseemly, despite it being something of a catch-22: you don't run for POTUS unless you're full of political ambition.
Short Takes
The weather report reads like a bad parody. The little icons of four days’ worth of local weather on my Google home page are all identically pictured as long knives of rain pouring down. Just like the last couple days in fact. And cold for mid-May! 48 high yesterday, 53 today. Very reactionary weather, a throwback to late March/early April. We’re starting to cut into potentially really good weather given the calendar date and summer feels no obligation to stay around longer despite having arrived later. Still, I sort of like the bad weather pattern because I’m working. I think: “Thank God I didn’t take this week off!” and indeed nothing better suits a day at work than a cold, damp day.
* * *
It occurred to me again the reality that we can’t “earn” Heaven. And the reason is not merely because we aren’t perfect. Even if we were we couldn’t earn Heaven, it seems to me, because nothing we could do during a finite and extremely brief time on earth could be worthy of immortal joy. Think about that: our lives on earth are a blink compared to eternity. What could anyone do with a blink that could be said to have earned eternal joy?
* * *
So the big bossman in these parts is heading trading green acres for a house near Manhattan. Ambitious cuss, he. Going to work in the financial district. Said he’ll be living 30-40 miles north of work. I’m vicariously excited for him. The heart of it all! The belly of the capitalist beast! I google his new location and am there, on google road map, and I can see the towering buildings, the sun glinting in through the canyons. The cost of living is surreal there so I’m wondering if he’s factored that in. He’s one of those guys I somewhat misread. Short & mild-mannered, he had that Napoleon complex for willingness to gratuitously end careers without a shred of pity.
* * *
My mom thinks the Old Testament is full of cruel happenstances and a cruel God, but funny I find my greatest comfort in the verse in the OT, IS 54:5, that goes, “Your maker is your husband!” and the least comfort in the NT verse that goes, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom!” Just goes to show how perspectives can differ.
* * *
My tendency is to think Jesus was recreating the whole of salvation history in his life and that the Old Testament was reflected in the days up to his Passion & Resurrection, the New Testament reflected in the Resurrection life.
* * *
Finally succumbed and bought an iPad. I could seemingly justify it by the greater portability of the word processor, the ‘easier on the eyes’ web-surfing (compared to the little iPod). I see it as a replacement of the slightly cumbersome netbook and partial replacement of the iPod. I plan on giving it a solid week or two trial to see if it makes sense and truly does replace the heavier netbook. If not, I can always send it back. Ergonomically speaking, the touch screen is a nice touch. And it’ll go easier on my shoulder and allow greater room in the European shoulder bag that I carry the Kindle & netbook in.
* * *
After the glow of Sunday Mass - the homilist reminded us that our chances of safety are much better as sheep being part of a community - Buddy the German Shepherd (not Good Shepherd) and I headed on the heels of “Alleluia, Sons and Daughters” to the environs of the local metro park. I expected few fellow hikers given the chill and damp but alas there was little privacy and, what’s much worse, a fellow dog-walker. That resulted in a Buddy eruption that was historic. It lasted thirty seconds, perhaps a minute, but he gave me a battle and ripped my church pants like they were made of paper, and removed the skin from my left knee, causing it to bleed into the already ruined green khaki. What I’d hoped was a peaceful sojourn into the wilds of the park to see the grazing bison (caught sight of them, though they were afar), I was left with adrenalin pumping and a pain in the knee literally, ass metaphorically.
* * *
I've heard the John Jay study on priestly abuse of minors cost something like $1.8 million. Oy vey, a study to find out why sin exists. Good luck with that. Funny, the Pope (then Cardinal Ratzinger) already called the scandal the result of a lack of faith.
Catholic Sensibility writes, "This study won’t help the rehabilitation. It will spark new outrage. And even among those of us loyal to the Church, we will wonder what bombshell is next."
* * *
It occurred to me again the reality that we can’t “earn” Heaven. And the reason is not merely because we aren’t perfect. Even if we were we couldn’t earn Heaven, it seems to me, because nothing we could do during a finite and extremely brief time on earth could be worthy of immortal joy. Think about that: our lives on earth are a blink compared to eternity. What could anyone do with a blink that could be said to have earned eternal joy?
* * *
So the big bossman in these parts is heading trading green acres for a house near Manhattan. Ambitious cuss, he. Going to work in the financial district. Said he’ll be living 30-40 miles north of work. I’m vicariously excited for him. The heart of it all! The belly of the capitalist beast! I google his new location and am there, on google road map, and I can see the towering buildings, the sun glinting in through the canyons. The cost of living is surreal there so I’m wondering if he’s factored that in. He’s one of those guys I somewhat misread. Short & mild-mannered, he had that Napoleon complex for willingness to gratuitously end careers without a shred of pity.
* * *
My mom thinks the Old Testament is full of cruel happenstances and a cruel God, but funny I find my greatest comfort in the verse in the OT, IS 54:5, that goes, “Your maker is your husband!” and the least comfort in the NT verse that goes, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom!” Just goes to show how perspectives can differ.
* * *
My tendency is to think Jesus was recreating the whole of salvation history in his life and that the Old Testament was reflected in the days up to his Passion & Resurrection, the New Testament reflected in the Resurrection life.
* * *
Finally succumbed and bought an iPad. I could seemingly justify it by the greater portability of the word processor, the ‘easier on the eyes’ web-surfing (compared to the little iPod). I see it as a replacement of the slightly cumbersome netbook and partial replacement of the iPod. I plan on giving it a solid week or two trial to see if it makes sense and truly does replace the heavier netbook. If not, I can always send it back. Ergonomically speaking, the touch screen is a nice touch. And it’ll go easier on my shoulder and allow greater room in the European shoulder bag that I carry the Kindle & netbook in.
* * *
After the glow of Sunday Mass - the homilist reminded us that our chances of safety are much better as sheep being part of a community - Buddy the German Shepherd (not Good Shepherd) and I headed on the heels of “Alleluia, Sons and Daughters” to the environs of the local metro park. I expected few fellow hikers given the chill and damp but alas there was little privacy and, what’s much worse, a fellow dog-walker. That resulted in a Buddy eruption that was historic. It lasted thirty seconds, perhaps a minute, but he gave me a battle and ripped my church pants like they were made of paper, and removed the skin from my left knee, causing it to bleed into the already ruined green khaki. What I’d hoped was a peaceful sojourn into the wilds of the park to see the grazing bison (caught sight of them, though they were afar), I was left with adrenalin pumping and a pain in the knee literally, ass metaphorically.
* * *
I've heard the John Jay study on priestly abuse of minors cost something like $1.8 million. Oy vey, a study to find out why sin exists. Good luck with that. Funny, the Pope (then Cardinal Ratzinger) already called the scandal the result of a lack of faith.
Catholic Sensibility writes, "This study won’t help the rehabilitation. It will spark new outrage. And even among those of us loyal to the Church, we will wonder what bombshell is next."
May 17, 2011
How to Appreciate Glass
From Chesterton's "Outline of Sanity":
Now this has a considerable relevancy to the real criticism of the modern mechanical civilization. Its supporters are always telling us of its marvellous inventions and proving that they are marvellous improvements. But it is highly doubtful whether they really feel them as improvements. For instance, I have heard it said a hundred times that glass is an excellent illustration of the way in which something becomes a convenience for everybody. "Look at glass in windows," they say; "that has been turned into a mere necessity; yet that also was once a luxury." And I always feel disposed to answer, "Yes, and it would be better for people like you if it were still a luxury; if that would induce you to look at it, and not only to look through it. Do you ever consider how magical a thing is that invisible film standing between you and the birds and the wind? Do you ever think of it as water hung in the air or a flattened diamond too clear to be even valued? Do you ever feel a window as a sudden opening in a wall? And if you do not, what is the good of glass to you?"
This may be a little exaggerated, in the heat of the moment, but it is really true that in these things invention outstrips imagination. Humanity has not got the good out of its own inventions; and by making more and more inventions, it is only leaving its own power of happiness further and further behind.
I remarked in an earlier part of this particular meditation that machinery was not necessarily evil, and that there were some who valued it in the right spirit, but that most of those who had to do with it never had a chance of valuing it at all.
A poet might enjoy a clock as a child enjoys a musical-box. But the actual clerk who looks at the actual clock, to see that he is just in time to catch the train for the city, is no more enjoying machinery than he is enjoying music.
How to Read Free
(I need a How to Stop Writing 'How to' Posts but if I knew, I'd stop this.)
Sunday’s quenching read included the neat trick of gathering the pollen of Christian scholars’ work for free. I downloaded the introduction to “Moby-Dick” and “Romeo and Juliet” from the Ignatius Press classics series. It’s nirvana to read a Catholic perspective on great works of art such as the aforementioned. It opened up Romeo & Juliet in a surprisingly new way. I’d long been attuned the modern, romantic spin that Romeo & Juliet’s love was beautiful and pure and that it was their families that wrecked it. But the redoubtable Joseph Pearce points out the pains Shakespeare went to in describing a Romeo whose definition of “love” was tragically immature and whose love for Juliet was no different than the feeble type demonstrated towards Rosalind. Which should be obvious of course - how do you “love” someone you’ve just met? I've breathed too much of the noble savage myth.
Moby-Dick’s introduction was less satisfying but still interesting. Melville was ahead of his time, the introduction reports, with some of it modern and even post-modern. Melville was trapped between belief and unbelief and wanted to either do one or the other.
Finally, all of this Christian perspective on art led me back to Lucy Beckett's The Light of Christ, which I'd actually bought. Read her chapter on St. Augustine’s “City of God”.
Sunday’s quenching read included the neat trick of gathering the pollen of Christian scholars’ work for free. I downloaded the introduction to “Moby-Dick” and “Romeo and Juliet” from the Ignatius Press classics series. It’s nirvana to read a Catholic perspective on great works of art such as the aforementioned. It opened up Romeo & Juliet in a surprisingly new way. I’d long been attuned the modern, romantic spin that Romeo & Juliet’s love was beautiful and pure and that it was their families that wrecked it. But the redoubtable Joseph Pearce points out the pains Shakespeare went to in describing a Romeo whose definition of “love” was tragically immature and whose love for Juliet was no different than the feeble type demonstrated towards Rosalind. Which should be obvious of course - how do you “love” someone you’ve just met? I've breathed too much of the noble savage myth.
Moby-Dick’s introduction was less satisfying but still interesting. Melville was ahead of his time, the introduction reports, with some of it modern and even post-modern. Melville was trapped between belief and unbelief and wanted to either do one or the other.
Finally, all of this Christian perspective on art led me back to Lucy Beckett's The Light of Christ, which I'd actually bought. Read her chapter on St. Augustine’s “City of God”.
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