Notes From a Dying Tablet

It's old, it was dirt cheap, and it's starting to malfunction so frequently, and freeze requiring restarts thats it is almost useless.
So, I'm going through everything actually on it, rather than preserved for posterity somewhere in the ether, and I am at a loss - why did I once think it necessary to remember that Sheldon Cooper's proposed nicknames for Amy Farrah Fowler included Princess Corncob, Gollum, and Fester?

No, It Is Not True That "We Never Really Die As Long As Someone Remembers" Us

I understand such heretical nonsense, the denial of our immortal souls, in movies and tv scripts.
It's the warm-fuzzy of the Viaticum/Extreme Unction/Anointing of the Sick the way the  "unity candle" is the secular culture's warm-fuzzy of Matrimony, since it doesn't understand the sacramentality of marriage, but knows something is missing is missing without ritual.

Okay?
I understand that, I accept that.

But how is such   bull*  *t   finding its way into Christian thought and speech, into eulogies and sermons and saccharine poems on the back of memorial cards, even into homilies at Catholic funeral Masses?

Stop it.

Just. Stop. It.

So the lonely and friendless in this life will be even more so in the next? your continued existence is dependent on some other human being, and their managing to escape the scourge of Alzheimer's or senile dementia?
What a wonderful world...

(Yeah, yeah, all of this is compounded by "theological discourse" of the sort that may or may not have been conducted by an aging atheist and an elderly member of the hierarchy, but which has been allowed to stand uncontradicted by the latter:

Q: What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? A: there is no punishment, but the destruction/annihilation of that soul.  All the others will participate in the beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are destroyed/annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the body their journey is finished,) 

but what are you going to do?)

Human Flourishing and the Mad Ukrainian Assassin

First off, let me assure my 2.3 readers that I am aware that characters on television are not real. (Someone tried to tell me that that hysterically funny Donald Trump fabrication was an actual, living, breathing businessman/politician !!! Go on, pull the other one!)

But Great Truths may subsist in Little Fictions, and Deep Thought in Shallow Pop Culture.

I know. Paradoxes. (Paradoces?)

Here's another one-  a murderous, voracious Slavic clone raised by religious fanatics who is totally fictional may have a greater soul and a more profound respect for the dignity of human life than....
oh, I dunno... a Catholic "theologian" who works in international philanthropy? who says, "We uphold the sanctity of all human life" but "we're not, like, all fanatic about it, I mean, sure, they're all 'holy' but some of them aren't holy enough that you need to treat them that way, you know, as if they were 'holy.' Which I do profess they are, but not....well, holy-holy." (I think that's a fair presentation of her beliefs.)

Whereas Helena, said mad, Ukrainian assassin, upon whom every kind of dehumanizing indignity has been visited, not just from her conception, but from the moment her conception was imagined and planned for and "designed"; whose very personhood was stolen from her again and again; whose identity as a human being as an individual is denied her over and over, says that,

Human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death. 

Well, more or less, but she used fewer words.
As she solemnly and sadly and respectfully buries the cryo-tank in which the embryos created from eggs wrested from her very body by force, whose genetic twins she carries within her and loves unconditionally, (as all mothers ought their babies,) having been forced to "steal" the tank lest her torturers either kill them or subject them to what she has endured, she places a cross on their secret grave.
And how did she put it?

Little science babies, forgive me. I did not know to feed you liquid nitrogens. But your twins are in my belly. And when they are old, I will tell them all about you and our adventures.

That is how human beings, that is how mothers think about their children.
Well done, Orphan Black.

The Way We Live Now

(No, not Trollope.)
This is not a criticism of this charming house, but nor is it a denial of my own predilections and atrocious tv addiction..

Photo by Egon Walesch Interiors & Flowers - Search midcentury living room design ideas

Can you imagine an American "great room" with the seating oriented to the hearth and the flat screen off-center, in an alcove?
Me neither.
(One question -when you open ceilings to the joists and rafters, is there any insulation? That's me all over, profligate with useless media, tight-fisted with the heating and cooling bills.)
..................
Edit - should have read further.

“The building didn’t have any insulation at all, so when we took the ceilings back to the beams, we also took the roof tiles off and added a layer of insulation at the same time, which was a fairly large job!”

Playboy Magazine and the Episcopalian Priest Who's a Big Fan of Abortion

What? you ask....
I read a little blurb about a woman who was ordained in the Episcopal church and believes God is "on the side" of those who favor a woman's right to dismember her unborn child, and filed an Amicus brief with the Supremes regarding the Texas law placing more stringent requirements on "health" facilities where unborn children are done away with.
Her letter of recommendation, (that killing an unborn child be considered hunky-dory and should therefore be expedited,) begins on pg 27 of the PDF.

Killing her child effected the usual Good Things. It kept it from being impossible to finish Divinity School, which carrying the child a few more months and giving him up for adoption would have put the kibosh on.
Not sure why - shopping for maternity clothes and a few days in the hospital and a few more recuperating would have put her that far behind in her studies? or Divinity schools in those days frowned on public immorality and might have suspected her guilty of fornication, or adultery or some such?

Probably not the latter, as the pregnancy was "accidental", (as in, slipping on a banana peel and landing on some guys gamete.)

Anyway, thanks to discarding her child she was able to lead Three Capital Campaigns (!!!) engage in various forms of activism, and, (this was the phrase that struck me, "help the enormous number of people whose lives she has touched."
One Little Life  vs. An Enormous Number of People.
Off one person who you don't really know, to contribute to the happiness of a whole bunch you do know, yourself first of all.

Hmm....
Sound familiar?
Of course it does!
Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella were in a movie a few years back, there was a Twilight Zone episode on tv, apparently a radio play (who knew there were radio plays in the 1970s?) and the germ of the idea actually traces back to Chateaubriand, (not the steak. What would Jesus eat?)

But Richard Matheson's short story is probably most responsible for the resonance the plot has today.

You know it, even if you think you don't - a couple, or family, or divinity student in dire straits. A sinister stranger offers the way out of all difficulties.
Only one thing is needful.
See this button? Push it, and all your worries will magically disappear!
The catch?
Someone will die.
Don't worry, someone you don't even know.
A stranger.
A "Chinaman" thousands of miles away.
A baby in your womb.
Does it really matter who?
YOUR WORRIES WILL BE GONE.

Push the button.

The Matheson story dates from 1970.
It was a gentler, less inclined to look favorably on the convenient murder of the inconvenient or inconsequential, and I doubt anyone read it without thinking the person who made the offer was the Devil, and taking the deal was to do evil.
In 1970, I'll bet even the readers and editors of Playboy, which first published the story, thought so.

Yeah. Playboy.

Think about that. The vanguard of the Consequence-free Sex Movement, "An Ye Harm None Have Fun, Do What Ye Will."

Even Playboy knew that not knowing the innocent person you would kill to make your own life easier didn't make a heinous act somehow all right.

Don't tell me you don't see the irony in that....

"Com'on, Hugh, push the button. You'll be famous, have a mansion, beautiful women will pretend to love you, you'll be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Just push the button.... oh, don't worry, Anne, I have a button for you, too. YOU, my dear, will be able to become a priest and  'help' people, like Mrs Jellyby did...."

"You, Me and the Apocalypse"

"A blast of fresh air"?
"An unpredictably enjoyable ride"?
"Wild but thoughtful"?

Really, Neil Genzlinger? Really?

What drek.

Can a Musical Bear the Child of a Reality Show About Home Decor?

Haven't begun watching the new A and E War and Peace, (heck, haven't really finished Sroogeapalooza,) but I really had to laugh at this description by the Go Fug Yourself Ladies, (just reminding you that "fugly" means frighteningly ugly.....) of a flashback scene of Pierre Bezukhov's days of debauchery, wherein they fret that the writers or director had never actually been to a party:

RARELY do people sing to a window that's been liberated from its frame. This looks like the marriage of Les Mis and Love It Or List It.

Speaking of Kryptonite...

... sin is ours.
It is poison.
It is toxic.
There is no "mercy" in sitting back sipping your post-prandial port or brandy while someone else is enjoying poison.
And it is even worse to pass him the decanter.

"I say, old boy, I wouldn't touch it, but feel free... care for a splash with that anti-freeze?  Carson, would you fetch---"

"Don't be an ass....he will have a syrup of ipecac cocktail and stop being so suburban.".

"Gotham" May be Getting Just TOOOOO Bloody/Gorey/Creepy For Me

So I may not watch any more of it.
I like long-form tv about the struggle between good and evil, but not if it looks as if evil is going to win out in the soul of a character with whom you've come to sympathize.
But who knew that Miss Kringle was played by that guy from "White Collar"?

 

"Sin"

Don't you hate it when hysterics are right? (It's like when hypochondriacs are sick, or professional victims call attention to actual anti-Catholicism.)
Julia can be an hysteric.

(Diana Quick was extraordinary, she didn't act that unactable monologue, she simply was. that. person. That character whom Waugh had tried un- almost successfully to write, she made real the unrealistic words he had given her, she created Julia Flyte Mottram who simply had not existed until her performance.)

He's quite right. They know all about it... All in one word - one little flat word that covers a lifetime. "Living in sin". Not just "doing wrong", as I did when I went to America, doing wrong, knowing it's wrong, stopping doing it, forgetting it. That's not what they mean...
He means just what it says. Living in sin - every hour, every day, year in, year out. It's always the same. It's like an idiot child, carefully nursed, guarded from the world.
"Poor Julia," they say, "She can't go out. She's got to take care of her little sin. It's a pity it ever lived, but it's so strong. Children like that always are. Julia's so good to her little mad sin."
All those years when I was trying to be a good wife, in the cigar smoke, when I was trying to bear his child, torn in pieces by something already dead. Putting him away, forgetting him. Finding you - the past two years with you, all the future with you or without you.
It's a word from so long ago - Nanny Hawkins stitching by the hearth and the nightlight burning before the Sacred Heart.
Me and Cordelia with the Catechism in Mummy's room before luncheon on Sundays.
Mummy carrying my sin with her to church, bowed under it. Mummy dying with my sin, eating her more cruelly than her own deadly illness.
Mummy dying with it.
Christ dying with it nailed hand and foot, high among the crowds and soldiers. No comfort except a sponge of vinegar and the kind words of a thief. Hanging forever, over the bed in the night-nursery. There's no way back - the gate's barred. All the saints and angels posted along the wall. Thrown away, scrapped, rotting down. Nameless and dead. 

And -

How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I'll be bad again - punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean, starting a life with you - without Him. One can only see one step ahead.
But I saw today there's one thing unforgivable, like things in the school-room, so bad they're unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with.
The bad thing I was on the point of doing that I'm not quite bad enough to do - to set up a rival God to God.
It may be because of Mummy, Nanny, Sebastian, Cordelia, perhaps Bridey and Mrs Muspratt - keeping my name in their prayers.
Or it may be a private bargain between me and God.
That if I give up this one thing I want so much, how ever bad I am He won't quite despair of me in the end. Now we shall both be alone. And I shall have no way of making you understand.  
Yes, I've been thinking way too much, or at least too disjointedly, about sin.

But I think the Synod fathers would have made a much better go of it if they had just watched the last two episodes of the grandest, finest mini-series of all time.

The Catholic blogosphere is full of hysterics right now. And some of them, even when they are right, are so hate-filled I am ashamed for them.
And that goes for both Ratzingerites and Kasperites, which division of the Body of Christ doesn't exist, of course, Cdl Marx, sorry to have brought it up!

"Yeah, he's really sorry, so if you could just apologize to him...."

 

It is a staple of sitcoms and rom-coms, dating back at least to "Much Ado,", (so I guess, dating back to whatever the source from which Shakespeare lifted the plot of MAAN,) that two people have a falling out, and their circle, either because the enmity of the two is just wearing on their friends, or simply for sport, try to convince each that the other has more or less expressed contrition, so can't we put all this animosity behind us?

Can't we all just get along?

I keep thinking of the innumerable iterations of this situation as we hear, over, and over, and over the words "mercy," and "repentance," and "forgiveness" and "amendment."

Mercy, as I have always understood it, is as unmerited as Grace.  

If I am entitled to something, my receipt of it does not require mercy from anyone but simple justice.

You can extend forgiveness to anyone who has sinned against you, whether he asks for it or not; and God can extend mercy to and pardon whom He wills.

But does the Church have the authority to forgive someone who doesn't ask for it?

Mercy invites the sinner and it becomes forgiveness when one repents and changes one’s life. The prodigal son was greeted with an embrace from his father only when he returned home .

-- from the Synodal intervention of Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas

She can, She must show mercy, to all sinners, (that is, to all human beings, everyone of us,)  in inviting to repentance, but can she forgive them, on behalf of all Her members and especially on behalf the those who may have been wronged by the sin, if it is not sought by the sinner?

And if he "asks for forgiveness" *wink *wink, for a "sin" *nudge, *nudge, that he does not believe is a sin and in which he intends to continue to engage, is not "the last imposture worse than the first"? (Am I queering my own argument by using the words of the chief priests and Pharisees?)

And I fear sometimes, that those in high places urging admittance to the sacraments for those in "irregular" marriages, (is "irregular" like "disordered" and "indissoluble"? is it too harsh to say?) not those in the marriages themselves, urge with such fervor not because they think mercy is required but because -- and I apologize, this is a serious accusation I make --  because, ultimately, they do not see such situations as sinful.

Now I am not the kindest of human beings, and yet more than once I have apologized to someone when there was no question in my mind that nothing I had done merited remorse or regret much less a mea culpa.
But it made people feel better, or calmed someone down, or just seemed the easiest way out....

And as I said, not the most gentle or conciliatory, so if I've done this, EVERYONE has probably done it at one time or another.

So is that dishonesty on my part? is that a sin against the eighth commandment?

And to bring the conversation full circle, that is a staple of prison dramas, the innocent man, falsely imprisoned, who serves years longer than he needed to because he will not perjure himself by confessing to and showing contrition for a crime he did not commit.

When I was a kid, expedience being one of my core values, I always thought such nobility was the mark of a sucker and a patsy.
(So, another mea culpa.)

"Home Fires" and Samuel Sim's Music

There is so much television, and I am so prone to become an utter potato if I don't fight my indolence, that I'm making quick decisions as to whether a series is worth the time to invest in it.

After 2 episodes, I'm pretty sure I will stick with "Home Fires" on PBS but i can't be sure it has anything to do with the stories, characters, period production values or actors, (though all of that is fine and intriguing.)

No, it is the bewitching music by Samuel Sim.
Usually when scoring strikes me this strongly, I recognize the name, but Mr Sim is new to me.

Wow.

Who Said "A Turnip May Know No Greek But I Do"? and "Synod"

I'm probably remembering it wrong, and I haven't got a copy either of the book or the tv series, but I think Augustus in "I, Clavdivs,"  used that expression - a turnip may know no Greek....
(I, Claudius, with production values that rival Dr Who for tacky cheapness is still one of the two or three greatest television series EVER.)

Well, a turnip knows just about as much Greek as I, which is why I have to depend on the kindness of (erudite,) strangers.)

Can anyone tell me what the (minor,) hubbub is over the word, "synod," and the insistence by some bloggers that it means "meeting," (which I believe is true,) but that it does NOT mean "a path taken together," or "walking toward each other or with each other," as well, (which also seem feasible,)?

Why not both?

 

Is there anyone in Rome who 

has NOT slept with my daughter 

claimed to have an inside track 

on the Synod??!??!?#??$???

Shark-Jumping and Other Autumnal Activities

I'm old enough to still think of Fall as when the TV "season" starts, and young enough to be interested in... well, in settling on some new binge-worthy must-sees. (Although Jim Gaffigan's summer series was BRILLIANT.)

But what I'm noticing so far is that while there may be the odd good and even slightly original premises floating around, there seems to be a dearth of, what, producers? head writers?
Well, whoever it is whose job it is to take an idea and run with it, make it interesting over time, rather than creating one intriguing pilot and then following it up with a bouillabaisse of filth and gore featuring vaguely the same characters as the previous episode, but not even a single well crafted joke or moving scene.

Formula?

NOT A DIRTY WORD.

If "formulaic" sounds too pejorative, let's call it "theme and variations."

Sometimes, "like nothing you've ever seen before!"  is only true because the work so described, "makes no human sense!" and no one ws stupid enough to make it.

(Would you rather have another iteration of your favorite German's Chocolate cake, or a nice slice of one of Letitia Cropley's desserts?)

British TV had set the bar very high, over the years, for long-form but finite serials, and in the US we seemed to have the knack for a while as well.
But alas, eager to milk every last drop from our cash cows, we seem not to have realized that sci-fi or supernatural mysteries at last need to be revealed or solved, rather than prolonged into multiple seasons with illogical and contradictory plot twists, and the Brits are sometimes falling into the same trap.
There should be a limit to how many different series regulars any other regular will become romantically or sexually involved with, and we've had enough of couples who meet, break up, part, rekindle, fight, move in, run away, marry, divorce, get back together - and all for no better reason than, "the scrip says so."

And one last thing - severed heads?

Not an appropriate trope.

Stop.  It.  Now.

Heroic, Indeed

Well, who knew when I was writing earlier that the reboot of Heroes debuted on TV tonight?
Not I.
I was very fond of the original, (as evidence by my snitching their slogan and coining my own, "Save the Liturgy, Save the World," which was commandeered, no longer with attribution,) until it launched the shark into outer space and the ground under a freakshow opened up and swallowed it jumped the shark, (precipitated to some extent by a writers' strike, IIRC.)

Except that it features a degree of ramped up carnage and gore that is one of the curses of contemporary entertainment, it does not look unpromising. There will need to be appearance, and quickly, of some of the old characters who are still alive and whose portrayers are not otherwise engaged.

Not sure I have the time for a 13-parter, but we shall see.

Dim-witted "Star Wars" Fan That I Am....

Himself is watching an old British serial on Youtube.
I misidentified an actress for him, and chagrined, I looked online for support for my contention that the two I confused are... well, easily confused, (he didn't challenge me, since he couldn't recall seeing either of them before.)
It turns out that no, I am not the only one to have mistaken them, according to the actresses themselves.

But in the process, I also came across the oft remarked upon resemblance between Keira Knightly and Natalie Portman.
Yeah, sure everybody know that.
(And Winona Ryder could be their older sister. Her career, but the way, seems to have been rehabilitated, and I am very glad for her - she was tremendous in that Worricker series. I digress.)

What I didn't know, was that Keira Knightly had been in Phantom Menace.

The "decoy" handmaiden that looked so much like Queen Amidala?

I thought the idea was that it really was Queen Amidala, who was pulling a Henry-V-on-the-brink-of-battle, and that sci-fi often being careless about tying up loose ends, or providing linear story telling, they just forgot to explain that.

(You know, like, oh, Han's not blind anymore, did we forget to tell you that? or maybe, Luke's hand? well, yeah, but the artificial one looks exactly like a real one, so no emotional weight connected to the loss, in fact there isn't even really any point to us having bothered to show him losing it, except we could do a decent special effect.)

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, as was, actually, warranted by the movie.

Not that I didn't enjoy it.

Star Wars is like pizza, among other things, even bad Star Wars is good.

I Have an Idea

I'd never heard of the comic who starred in an FXX show and advertised a buffalo wing restaurant until he lost the latter gig for having lied about the danger he was in on 9/11, but now I have.
So, is any publicity good publicity, Steve Rannazzisi?

Maybe he could appear on Brian William's new show on another cable station, MSNBC, whihc I think starts next week?

Eye of the Tiber Author Unveiled

I knew I liked this guy.

I can't remember exactly which article caused the most controversy, but I know that the ones written about the Mass typically get the most heated. If I write an article titled, 'Report: Some 2nd Century Roman Christians Hated Latin Mass Because It Was Said In The Vernacular,' I know I'm gonna piss off liturgical traditionalists. If I write one titled, 'Clown At Circus Mass Reprimanded For Honking Sanctus Horn At Wrong Part Of Consecration,' I know it's gonna piss off whatever the complete opposite of a liturgical traditionalist is. I think they're called Protestants, actually.

And I'm glad he made a joke about hard liquor.
What can I say, the ideas that come to people when they're stotious are hee-larious. And when they try to put them into words pretending to still be sensible - well, that's gold.

I'm feeling a bit off about another of my guilty pleasures - Drunk History. The thing about it is, it doesn't have to be so obscenity-laden, the real humor comes from the anachronistic phraseology.

"So Alexander Hamilton calls his girlfriend, er, his wife...."

Yeah, that was your mistake, identifying the nature of the relationship between these people, barely out of the 16th century.

Some TV, For Instance, Is "Eroding My Inner Sea Wall"

Brilliant phrase from Quentin Letts:" 

There is a danger, when reporting trash, of elevating that trash, of normalising it and eroding our inner sea walls of revulsion."

And I don't even have the excuse that I must watch ion order to on the coarseness that passes for family entertainment.

Wishing You Well is Not the Same Thing As Endorsing Your Ideas

I get it, that the Holy Father thinks he should be able to say, or have someone say on his behalf something nice to any person who communicates on him.
He SHOULD be able.
Why is this even necessary?

But it is.

Francis has been popin' for a couple years now, and he knows, and everyone on his staff knows - It. Just. Doesn't. Work. That. Way.

Everyone else is working an angle, and he, or rather in this case, she doesn't mind skewing yours to work hers.

the Vatican Secretariat of State did not intend in any way to support “behavior and teachings which are not in accordance with the Gospel,” and using the Vatican response [to the author of a book about "gay" penguins talking care of a "Little Egg" as a couple] to imply otherwise “is completely out of place,” said Fr. Ciro Benedettini, deputy director of the Holy See Press Office...
The Holy See statement came in response to a media frenzy following reports that Francesca Pardi, author of a children’s book supporting gay adoption, received a letter from Pope Francis that allegedly encouraged her to keep up her work....
It includes the story of two gay penguins who adopt a baby penguin, among other non-traditional animal families.
Pardi is the author of a series of books supporting the notion of gay family, including “Why do you have two moms?” And “What is Dad’s secret?” [?]...
Pardi wrote a letter to Pope Francis, enclosing the catalogue of the books published by the publishing house “Lo Stampatello,” which she co-founded with her girlfriend....
Pardi said in a Facebook post that she had received “a private letter written by Msgr. (Peter) Brian Wells in the name of Pope Francis, on Vatican letterhead.”
She said that the letter was addressed to her and to her girlfriend, Silvia Maria Fiengo. She claimed that the Pope “had thanked her” for the “delicate gesture” and expressed wishes for “an always more fruitful activity in the service of young generations and the spread of genuine human and Christian values.”
Pardi added that the Pope gave her and Fiengo the Apostolic Blessing. Numerous media outlets covered the story by saying that the Pope was offering his support for Pardi and her book.
However, the Vatican says that the letter signed by Msgr. Peter Wells, assessor to the Secretariat of State, is not an indication of papal support.
Thanking people for their “delicate gesture” is part of the formula that is generally used whenever the Pope is offered a gift.
“(T)he Secretariat of State does not want in any way to back behaviors and teachings not in accordance with the Gospel,” Fr. Benedettini said. This is reflected in the letter’s wish for more fruitful activity “and the spread of genuine human and Christian values.”
He also said that the Secretariat of State addressed the reception of the letter “with a simple and pastoral style,” and later “clarified (that) it was a private response, and for this reason it was not intended for publication (as it unfortunately happened).”[and this was a surprise to anyone at the Vatican?????]
As far as the papal blessing, Fr. Benedettini clarified that “the blessing is for the person and not for (any) teaching against the Doctrine of the Church on gender ideology.”
He added that the Church’s position on gender ideology “has not changed, as the Holy Father reiterated many times.”

What IS Dad's secret????

(Just to be clear, I like penguins. Just remember, penguins get cheated on and they're adorable. I’d like to apologize for possibly making penguins seem like jerks, because 99% of them are stand-up guys.)