T-Shirts & Bier

Funny shirt from the blogger at The Cafeteria Is Closed. The money quote: "Eat what's on the table kids!".

And Julie's humorous post reminds me of an email I got immediately after Pope Benedict XVI's selection. One of my favorite German brewers is Spaten, makers of Franzikaner biers. They sent out this email:

Pope Benedict XVI enjoys Franziskaner weissbeer !!!!!

"...Cardinal Bertone said he occasionally allows himself a glass of "excellent" wine from Piedmont. Manuela Macher, co-owner of the Cantina Tirolese, a Bavarian restaurant near the Vatican where he is a regular, said he also liked an occasional German beer, Franziskaner Weissbier. Which raises a question: Does he order the large size or the small?"

    Spanning the Globe To Bring You The Constant Variety Of Posts

Teletubbies.

- Erik Keilholtz self-reported favorite television show, on Summa Mama's blog. As Letterman said of Madonna, he 'loves to shock us'.

He hands me another rock, his brown eyes wide and says, "Daddy, what kind of rock is this?" And living where we do the answer is nearly always the same...I rejoice that the same answer is always new to him.

- Steven Riddle, excerpt of poem concerning his son Samuel

Since you can’t do or be anything without existing, it does not seem like a stretch to say that existence — i.e. reproduction — is the most important purpose of sex. Without existence, nothing else would matter. I guess in today’s overcrowded world, bringing in new people may not seem very important or even desirable. But we were not created for an overcrowded world. And even now, all eight billion of us who live here are doomed to die. There’s only one thing that will keep humanity going from now till Judgment Day, and it ain’t a good blow job.

- Camassia, who went on to write that "if God or evolution or whatever created a system where existence itself depends on a particular sex act, I’m taking that as a pretty big sign that that's the reason sex exists."

I know this because of the times someone confesses something like, 'I cheated on my boyfriend.' When you unpack this statement, you discover that the 'penitent' is confessing having had sex with someone other than the steady boyfriend with whom she regularly fornicates. She is not confessing fornication, mind you. And if you point out that she shouldn't be fornicating at all, you get a quizzical look. That's not the sin she's interested in confessing.

- Fr. Wilson on Amy's blog

Sometimes I really want to complain about my lot in life. Today, while making a call at a local government agency, the office was completely dead. Paid employees - making more than I do, no doubt - were sitting around reading the newspaper. How come I can never land jobs like this?

- Jeff C. of Hallowed Ground

To throw something else into the mix, consider what St. Thomas says. He asks, "Is it better to love a friend or an enemy?" The objection says "an enemy," because it's more difficult. But Thomas says it's better to love a friend, because a friend represents a greater good for us, and virtue or merit is measured not by its degree of difficulty, but by its goodness. The best thing is what's good, not necessarily what's the most difficult. After all, some sins are difficult to commit, like planning and carrying out a bank robbery. It takes a lot of effort. This is why I like St. Thomas--he's so balanced.

- Sr. Lorraine on Dispuations

It is with some reluctance that I venture to disagree with the formidable Elinor Dashwood; yet Apes rush in where fools fear to tread.

- Bob of "Trousered Ape" (life insurance paid up Bob?)

I [think] non-hugginess might be an Irish thing, at least sometimes. I have a lot of theories about how Irish teaching nuns influenced the personality of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Brooklynites who may not have been or strongly identified as Irish. I don't know -- I've seen something in my own family that I have wanted to chalk up to that Irish-Brooklyn thing, which is a weird combination of hard belligerence and deep sappiness, as demonstrated by overwrought special-occasion toast speeches and flowery poetry-and-extra-translucent-layer-equipped greeting cards from relatives you'd better watch yourself in front of at ordinary gatherings lest you knock that huge chip off their shoulder.

- Recovering Owl

I almost enjoy the rhetoric about "safe abortions." This is like describing a robbery where the person being robbed was killed, but the robber walked safely away.

- Jeff Miller of "Curt Jester"

The whimsical insight is not an oxymoron.

- Bill Luse of Apologia, in a particularly fine post.

Bier Hier!

Julie's humorous post reminds me of an email I got immediately after Pope Benedict XVI's selection. One of my favorite German beers is brewed by Spaten (supply your own umlaut) and so they sent me the following email:

Pope Benedict XVI enjoys Franziskaner weissbeer !!!!!

...Cardinal Bertone said he occasionally allows himself a glass of "excellent" wine from Piedmont. Manuela Macher, co-owner of the Cantina Tirolese, a Bavarian restaurant near the Vatican where he is a regular, said he also liked an occasional German beer, Franziskaner Weissbier. Which raises a question: Does he order the large size or the small?

Mr. SpamMan

Inspired by Bill's post (sing to the tune of Mr. Sandman):

Mr. SpamMan
you're quite the dream
or more a nightmare
so it would seem.
You misspell words
to sidestep the filter
your own grandma?
you would surely bilk her!

SpamMan
you're easy to hate
you treat women
as if they were bait.
You offer drugs
that we've never heard of
and peddle lust as if a
proxy for love!

Mr. SpamMan
we're on to your game
you fill our inbox
without any shame.
Don't need your Cialis
or valium bliss
so go on packing
for you won't be missed!

Faithful Friends

They perfume the library with their aging pages and I wonder how some of them ever landed here in the first place, chosen by a younger me or perhaps found at thrift shops when thrift was crucial. I feel sentimental towards old, unread books who have patiently waited their turn for naught. A sense of loyalty induces me to pick them up and read a bit.

Elliot Paul's non-fictional "The Last Time I Saw Paris" and its appropriately nostalgic title is a good place to begin. Published in 1942, I read at random: "The trouble with Madam Claire," said the cook Therese, with finality, "is that she has no sins of her own to weep about."

I love obscure books by authors long dead. They are like bloggers, having small-to-extinct audiences, and yet retaining dignity by the uniqueness of their voice and time.

My wife gave me a signed copy of Jeanne Candido's Civil War story "The Redemption of Corporal Nolan Giles". Wonderfully obscure. Lloyd Abbey's "The Last Whale" has survived at least eight moves and is still revered in memory if not enough to warrant completion. Alan Bron's "Audrey Hepburn's Neck" survives too, if only on the strength of the title and cover art.

I've read a few of William F. Buckley's Blackford Oakes series but none in the last twenty years. So I'm glad to see "Mongoose, R.I.P" and know that some pleasures are still stored in this literary wine cellar.

Sentiment clings to "The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories", purchased during a long ago visit to Manhattan...I recall reading the fantasy "Lord Foul's Bane" in between sets at a gym in college. Good memories, all. E-books will never replace the real deal.

Poems Inspired by Spring Wearing Summer's Clothes


From a Terrace at the Hotel Casa Granda

They say that the Havanans
are the happiest of the destitute*,
the sun there echoes of Genoa
and dresses them in joy-suit.

~ ~ ~

A Day's Worth of Difference

Monday

I can't be held responsible
when Kiss of the Rose plays
inside my 'phones and the road goes to asphalt-melt
and I feel like Fiedler
directing a campus of shimmer.

Tuesday:

The sun wrote checks
my body couldn't cash.
Thor laid his golden hammer down
and now the hardest chair
smacks of gossamer
just for the joy of sitting.

__

* - it was in the latest National Review so you know it's true. In this poem the Hotel Casa Granda is Heaven, the sun Christ, and the destitute are the spiritually poor.

Verse Manufactured With Spam Received 5/10/05 9:02 E.S.T

  (actual spam content is italicized)

Incredible Offers,
seems a lie
for the pork Ephrine
consult your rabbi.

Urban Bena-D50
sounds like a rap group,
synangia hydrocollidine
sounds like a dupe.

This company is cranking up
The PR in high gear
but will stoic Codafen sell
without passion dear?

Augustinians & Thomists

Googled for opinions about how Thomists differ from Augustinians. Reflections below do not reflect my own views, which are worth less than the paper this is not printed on. First up, an interesting column on Pope Benedict's Augustinian roots:

As a theologian the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI has been described as Augustinian rather than Thomist and more "ressourcement" than "aggiornamento."...

St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest theologians of the ancient church, is noted for his strong emphasis on the corruption of human nature by sin and the absolute necessity of grace for salvation.

St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest medieval theologians, did not deny sin or the need for grace, but he placed greater emphasis on the goodness of nature, including human nature.

For an Augustinian theologian like the new pope, "there's a certain pessimism about what a human being can do on his own without God's grace," said Dennis Doyle, a professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. "I think that does color his approach, and it mixes in very well with his strong anti-Marxism, which is also at the same time an anti-utopianism, the idea that human beings should not try to create a perfect world on their own."

The idea that there is "something very negative about the human experience if we consider it apart from God's grace ... is a strong characteristic of his work," Doyle said.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

The most telling difference between the pope [Wojtila] and the prefect [Ratzinger] is John Paul II's more successful blend of Augustinian otherworldliness and Thomist trust.

From The Tablet:

There had been a long and intense debate over the formulation of Gaudium et Spes. Afterwards the progressives who had come together to support its passage separated out. One of those who had always had his reservations was Joseph Ratzinger, who at Vatican II was one of the periti or theological experts. For Ratzinger, as an Augustinian, the pastoral constitution was too Thomist, too ready to see grace at work in the world, too hesitant to put the Cross at the centre of everything.

The future is Augustinian?

On John Paul the Great's unique way:

While rooted in both the Augustinian and Thomistic traditions, it is crystal clear that John Paul's Theology of the Body has a startling and unexpected new "twist." It, together with his other works, represents a new synthesis, a new way of conveying the faith to the modern world. This new approach is necessary because most people in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries do not think and act in the categories of either Saint Thomas or Saint Augustine.

Both Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas lived and taught in a culture which might be described as objective, deductive, and principled. The modern world is primarily subjective, inductive, and experiential.

Many will insist that John Paul II is a Thomist. Of course, he is! St. Thomas was an Augustinian. Each new synthesis builds on the previous ones. There is no question that John Paul II is a Thomist. But there is also no question that he is building a new theological synthesis which will be one of the building blocks of the Church in the twenty-first century and beyond. The Augustinian synthesis was the way the Church thought about Revelation for about eight hundred years! St. Thomas' synthesis was in place for more than seven hundred years. If the pattern holds, John Paul II's synthesis will be with us for centuries.

Various Thoughts

I’ve been watching Steven Riddle’s rediscovery of poetry with a tinge of envy. There is an aliveness that comes from writing poems or stories that should be its own reward. Too often utilitarianism rears its ugly head and we think that if we don’t get paid for something in some form then it is worthless.
_

One of the things that fascinates me is how families all have their own dynamic, their own idiosyncracies and with a sort of internal pace to doing things. I was not aware of these differences pre-marriage. One of the more fascinating studies would be to check for similarities between "outlaws" in order to tell us something about the family in question. I note a familiar pattern in my wife's outlaws: semi-cold, non-huggers, independent souls who are attracted to a family and spouses who are hugging, warm, and mutually dependent.
_

a religious dialogue, having already had the experience of the futility of arguing both infancy narratives really happened:

A: "After years of reading about the infancy stories I finally had to make a decision whether Luke or Matthew was true. Because they both can't be. They are wildly different. So I decided I believe Luke."

TS: "Why do you have to decide and how can you know? There are some things that we simply don't know. I can't say 'I have to decide what the weather will be next weekend and I've decided it will be sunny.'...There are scholars who say that as far as the Christology of Matthew, well, 'you can't make that up'...
__

I find it hard to take the Laura Bush flap seriously, partially because I thought everything she said was so over-the-top that it couldn't be taken seriously. If a joke went "then John Paul II killed the guy..." I couldn't really be offended because I knew this was an example of the theatre of the absurd. But if it was a joke in which the actor could've killed that would be a different matter. Same thing with Laura Bush or Lynn Cheney going to a strip club. I suppose everyone's sense of humor is different, but other than the Desperate Housewives reference I thought it hilarious, though admittedly we have to be sensitive to what is a stumbling block to our brother. Still, I'm not losing sleep over my nieces thinking that because Lynn Cheney goes to strip clubs then she can.

I tend to think it shows the typical lack of finesse we have in picking our battles. (Blogs exacerbate this, tending to 'major in minors'.) No, I wouldn't have made the jokes. But were ten people outside the beltway influenced by her comments? What's interesting about the fuss is that she managed to offend many serious Christians in such different ways. For some it was just that she was criticizing her husband (which is a complaint I find more compelling than most). For others it was the horse joke. The part most off-putting to me in my initial viewing was the "Desperate Housewives" plug. I wasn't excited by that show getting a national advertisement, but I didn't include that complaint in my post because a) apparently Amy Welborn has watched and liked the show and her judgement is worth something and b) I haven't even seen the show so it would raise the ol' blog to a new level of hypocrisy to comment on that.

Long Post.

Received my Catechism of Trent from TAN last week. It has the whiff of the ancient about it, so stern and consolingly sure of itself. The Church has become confused. The coverleaf suggests this is not a church ashamed of its role. There’s no hedging about how "it would be presumptuous for us to wield authority or be dogmatic". We can't all major in theology down here, nor discern everything we need to discern. We need the Church to be authoritative. And this is not done, I believe, in an egotistical way but in a way that is for our own good. We can plainly see how things have gone since the Church became our buddy rather than our Mother and teacher.

I love to revel in those old texts, like the Douay-Rheims of Haydock’s vintage, or the dulcet text of the old Roman Catechism of St. Charles. It is, perhaps, a guilty pleasure, since we are called to follow our leaders today and not our leaders five hundred years. Trying to live in a past era is a masturbatory exercise since we are here to serve God and neighbor, and one can scarcely minister if you’re living in the 16th century. Gotta be on the same page of the hymnal. (As an old school nun said when one of us fifth graders complained about a sermon - she said that "even though you don't like it, it could be that someone else needed to hear that very sermon today.") God has shown his flexibility over the eons and we who make up the Body of Christ can be no less flexible. But for nostalgia purposes it is a reverie worth getting lost in for awhile. It is part of heritage, part of who we are now, just as our family ancestors provide some of our physicality.

Our pastor gave a sermon on the Feast of the Ascension that I wish, like many of his sermons, he would put online. The gist of it is how Christianity differs from, say, Islam. Christ, naturally. But also there is a core difference in the concept of God. We don't much understand the Trinity, he says, so we don't emphasize it. But the idea is that Three Persons are so in love that their boundaries become blurred. The concept of the Trinity is of a "relational" God. He said that anytime we begin to view God as being other than relational, we end up in tyranny, with a desire to force our views on others.

He said that we've botched many opportunities by seeing the Church and Western European culture as one in the same. We failed to respect other cultures. He said that China was open to Christianity during the 17th century but Jesuit missionaries were arrogant and rejected anything in Chinese culture that did not conform easily to Western European culture.

I'd hadn't heard that before. I thought one of the strengths of Catholicism was its willingness to respect and somewhat accommodate cultural differences. Much that was pagan has been baptized; the Christmas tree and the wedding ring come immediately to mind. These were of German and Roman culture that were explicitly pagan but the Church respected the symbols enough not to reject them out of hand but to "baptize" them.

But it was a decent answer to my mother's Mother's Day query. She said it seemed Christ mission wasn't so successful given that only one or two billion of six billion on earth are Christians. But I summarized Monsignor's sermon for her and said that that is the fault of Christians, not Christ.

Short Stories

I remember the Nosferatu viewing at an all night camp outing. I recall watching it and then going outside in the dark-dew’d three a.m. grass. There was that air of unreality about the world, created in part by the art I’d just seen. The air was crisp and dangerous and seemed capable of any sort of nasty surprise. Back when I was a kid it was poor form not to stay up all night when you could stay up all night. It was like refusing to thank your sweet aunt for the Christmas fruit cake. So we stayed up all night in the face of cowardly fatigue and dawn’s slow begetfulness.
__

It was pre-Christmas, that time of year of darkness allievated by so many colored lights, when Maria gave me a gift pack of Life-Savers that formed a kind of book. I was so astonished by it, by her unprecendented generousity, and astonished by her wanting me to be her boyfriend. I was twelve or thirteen and predictably behind the curve. Still even at that age of incoahticies I understood that I liked the lighter skinned and the fuller-bodied. She was thin and dark-haired and I thought her too much like my thin, dark-haired sister. I wonder how many romances are failed by someone looking too much like family, although I’ve since discovered that breasts are pretty much a universal attractant.

Gone Fishin'

   -a very special 'Fictional Monday' (say like 'a very special Frasier')

(Note: This was written a few years back. It stands up better than most of my old stuff.)

I quit my job after 17 years (3,621 work days) at the moment I realized I still had exactly 3,621 more work days left to go. The fact was too staggering to bear for a mere mortal. Other than my boss and co-workers and the nature of the work itself, I liked Orange Corporation. I liked the food at cafeteria, liked the hours, liked the credit union rates.

It was 2:48pm on a Friday when I made the life-altering decision. It was easy. I was surprised at how easy! I double-clicked on the “Word” icon on my desktop and a blank note popped up at my command. I typed the following double-spaced:

"Effective two weeks hence, April 24th at 5:00pm, I proclaim my liberation from Orange Corp. After 730 meetings, 4,804 cups of stale coffee and a string of bosses who made the Marquis De Sade look like a hale fellow well-met, I am ready to call it quits."

I dated it and slipped it under my bosses keyboard, next to a Post-it note that said cryptically, “follow-up on new Follow-Up strategy”.

The notion of freedom was intoxicating and heady. The spring mornings leading up to the 24th felt pregnant with possibility. At work I was the Dead Man Walking, seeming alive but soon to be cut off from everyone’s consciousness. But at home I was Alive Man Waking. Instead of listening to news and pontificating on what was wrong with the world, I was listening to old Statler’s Brothers tapes and eating cinnamon toast with Captain Crunch. I even made some French Toast which I hadn’t done since sick days during high school. That last morning I drove to work it was freakishly warm and sunny. I rolled down the windows of the Mustang and sang Motley Crew's “School’s Out For Summer” at the top of my lungs.

Though I quit Orange, I could not afford to retire completely. For the same reason adults dress up in costumes and become someone else at Halloween parties, I decided to change careers completely. I bought a pair of jean overalls I found at a surplus store and picked up some motor oil at 7-11 and smeared it all over my clothes. I let my face gain the bristly consistency of a 3-day beard. I was ready. Ready for my interview with “Kreiger Auto Repair” in a small town off the outskirts of Columbus.

“What ‘sperience you got in car repair?” he asked gruffly after motioning to sit down on a chair that showed some of its stuffing.

“I have owned cars for nearly 20 years (I paused to let that sink in) and I have sucessfully opened the hoods even of cars where it is tough to find the latch. I have also changed the occasional tire, put on the spare. I’ve been expert at diagnosing and correcting deficient levels of gasoline – I would say that is my specialty because few people are better at judging how much gas they have left than I.”

“You’ll need training...”

This will appeal to all of three people...(I hope Rich Leonardi is reading):

You May Be From Cincinnati If...

Instead of saying "What?" or "Huh?" you say, "Please?"
Your favorite convenience store sounds like a labor union (United Dairy Farmers).
You can't hear the words "Mike Brown" without getting angry.
You honestly believe that Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
You somehow have a soft spot for Marge Schott.
You don't think it weird that everyone has an Uncle Al.
Your favorite Coney Island isn't near New York.
You like Nick Clooney better than George Clooney.
You know how Jerry Springer got his start.
You know what a pony keg is.
You have friends and neighbors with names like Machenheimer, Guckenberger, Schlottman, Schoenling, and Schweitering.
You know what "brats" and "metts" are.
You know that cars (like eggs) are cheaper in the country.
You know that Cherokee Motors was located at 7505 Vine (where Paddock meets Vine at the big Indian sign).
You think a mixed marriage is when an East Sider marries a West Sider.
You know the difference between Hudy and "Who Dey."
Someone says "Norwood" and you automatically laugh (unless you actually live there).
You hate Cleveland, even though you've probably never been there.
You think Kentucky is only slightly more civilized than Afghanistan.
You know in which state the Greater Cincinnati Airport is located.

What's New?

my level of interest (1-10 scale)

Michael Jackson case = 0
Paula Abdul = -1
runaway bride = 6.5
Charles & Camilla = 1.5
Tom Delay's woes = 3
Laura Bush's speech = 8.5
John Bolton = 3

my level of irritation

At military lying about details concerning Pat Tillman's death: 6.5
At Lynndie England taking the fall alone for Abu Graib: 8.5

For the Business Minded

BusinessWeek notices blogs.

There are some 8,700,000 blogs now and I feel confident that this blog is in the top 2.8 million quality-wise. So if you read 2.8 million blogs a day and aren't reading this one then shame on you.