We have standards and practices?

On the late lamented Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin (I suppose, it was his show,) wrote this exchange, which stuck with me.

(Someone has presented an idea.)
Dubious executive: I dunno, we'll have to run it by Standards and Practices.

Smart-ass on-air personality: We have standards and practices?

Executive: You know we do, those guys in the suits are Standard and Practices.

Smart-ass: no, I mean, we have actual standards?

I think of it as discussions turn to rubrics.

I imagine some Liturgy-monger after being told his latest idea is in violation of the rubrics:
I mean, we have actual rubrics?

It seems Mary Jane had similar thoughts.

Many people in positions of actual authority literally don't know.

July 21, 2007
The Constant Temptation
It is the constant temptation of the liturgist and the creative, artistic mind to want to "set things right."
Truer words were never spoken. This line comes from a discussion of various liturgical changes made in the post-Vatican II period. And while it's easy (and in some cases, correct) to attribute sinister motives to some of the players, it's probably not true for all.

How many of us have gazed out at the listless (or so they seem) congregation and thought "if only we could do something that would wake them up"? I've thought it - and I've learned to squelch it quickly. There's no reason that my "creative liturgy" is more justifiable than anyone else's. Oh, but how I long some days "to set things right."

That is why we have rubrics. I've found the discussion of the difficulties of the extraordinary rite interesting. Commentators keep talking about how hard the rubrics would be to learn, with the unspoken implication that there are no rubrics at all in the Novus Ordo.
Excuse me.
I would be grateful if we followed the rubrics in the ordinary rite.