Cole Porter: Cultural Revolutionary
Dr. Potomac, venturing very far-afield indeed from Beltway politics, would like to offer comment on the film, De-Lovely, a musical recounting of the life of Cole Porter. To put it succinctly as possible, Dr. Potomac would like to nominate Mr. Porter as the Most Destructive Influence in 20th Century Popular Culture. You think he's kidding but let me assure you he is not.
If you haven't caught the Kevin Klein film yet, put it at the top of your Netflix queue. Other than enjoying the Porter's toe-tapping tunes from the 30s, 40s and 50s, Dr. Potomac had had no other exposure to the Porter story. It was a very rude shock, indeed. Porter, it turns out, was a not-so-closeted homosexual who carried on mutliple gay affairs simultaneously over the course of his long marriage to Linda Lee Porter. The film reinterprets Porter's music through this prism (and quite a prism it is) to disturbing effect. Cole Porter turns out to be the Elton John of his generation using catchy tunes to cast he most base human impulses as natural and inevitable.
We are all acquainted with songs like "Anything Goes" and "Let's Do it (Let's Fall in Love)" -- more about the unpleasant juxtaposition those paretheses create later --but "De-Lovely" throws these songs into a light that reveals them as nothing short of cultural subversion. The movie script has Porter suggesting, as he and his wife traverse what seems to be a marriage that was one long, sad, rough patch, that all the songs "sound like they are written in code." He's too modest: they are written in code and the code is frontal assault on traditional morality.
"Experiment," which sounds like a paean to gay liberation, was edited and edited but never ultimately used in a film that was never made:
Experiment.
Make it your motto day and night.
Experiment
And it will lead you to the light.
The apple on the top of the tree
Is never too high to achieve,
So take an example from Eve,
Experiment.
Be curious,
Though interfering friends may frown.
Get furious
At each attempt to hold you down.
If this advice you always employ
The future can offer you infinite joy
And merriment,
Experiment
And you'll see
Were it not for all the rhyming and tinkling piano accompaniment the song would not be out of place at Woodstock. One wonders what the studio guys, in on the worst-kept secret in Hollywood, thought when they laid their eyes on "Experiment." Evidently, they asked Cole to re-think because it was subsequently revised to something with a little more appeal to middle-class movie goers of the mid-1940s:
Experiment,
Be curious,
And when you've picked a perfect wife,
Get furious
Till she is yours and yours for life.
If this you do (and no cock-and-bull)
In time she may give you a nurs'ry full
Of merriment.
Experiment
And you'll see.
"Let's Misbehave" reinforces the a kind of naturalistic worldview that extinguishes differences between human love and sexuality and sexual reproduction among the animals:
They say that spring
Means just one thing
To little love birds
We're not above birds
Let's misbehave
They say that bears
Have love affairs
And even camels
We're merely mammals
Let's misbehave
"Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)" was (and is) one of my favorites in the Porter repetoir but I won't play it with children in the room. The song is particularly egregious in its crude reduction of love to mere sex.
Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me
"shad roe"
In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love.
And on and on it goes. There are Webpages with lots of unused verses that run together in a dizzy string.
It is interesting to think about the influence of figures like Cole Porter on the cultural context of their time -- and our present. It is not difficult to see how his music, immensely popular among the parents and grandparents of the 1960s radicals, might have had effects far beyond his imagining but not, Dr. Potomac thinks, beyond his hope. He seems to have been out to liberate bourgeois culture from behavioral constraints that he himself could not and would not conform himself to. In doing so, he added his considerable influence to a sexual revolution that, toward the end of his life in the 1960s, would reshape American society and from which we are still recovering. Damos of Athens' reminder on the cultural influence of music comes to mind, "Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws."
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Of course, this Shrove Tuesday, you could mimic Atherstone, Warwickshire: play football.
After two hours a klaxon is sounded, and the stewards search the pile of bodies to find out who is clutching the ball.
The brave winner gets to keep the ball, which one of the game's organiser Howard "H" Taft said was patented and specially made each year.
Mr Taft told BBC News: "We always have injuries; it's part and parcel of the game - bloody noses, cuts and bruises, black eyes, that kind of thing.
"We've never had any serious injuries though, as far as I know."
After two hours a klaxon is sounded, and the stewards search the pile of bodies to find out who is clutching the ball.
The brave winner gets to keep the ball, which one of the game's organiser Howard "H" Taft said was patented and specially made each year.
Mr Taft told BBC News: "We always have injuries; it's part and parcel of the game - bloody noses, cuts and bruises, black eyes, that kind of thing.
"We've never had any serious injuries though, as far as I know."
The Great Disrael and the GOM
I am curious about what the Doc thinks regarding David Gelernter's recent Weekly Standard essay, "The Inventor of Modern Conservatism: Disraeli and Us".
Myself, I have never liked Disraeli much, once I had actually read about him rather than just enjoyed him as a character in costume dramas. He struck me as an unprincipled opportunist, which is much what Gladstone thought of him. The assault upon Sir Robert Peel seemed to me crass, serving only to eliminate an opposition party from British politics for decades. Nor could I see any pattern in Disraeli's legislative program when he was Prime Minister, other than making the Conservative Party very popular. Here my feelings were exactly in line with Anthony Trollope's. In Phineas Finn, the story of a rising young Irish MP, the Disraeli-esque leader of the Tories suddenly decides to advocate the disestablishment of the Church of England as part of his solution to the Irish question. It must have seemed somewhat plausible to Trollope's readers; they knew that Disraeli might do anything for political advantage.
Maybe it was Trollope, or Roy Jenkins' great, big, fat biography, but I came to view Gladstone as a much more acceptable figure. And, in a lovely synchronicity, here is a review essay from Books and Culture that deals with David Bebbington's new book, The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics. (Since Jenkins was not so muchunsympathetic as uncomprehending of Gladstone's spiritual and religious life, and more than a touch patronizing towards the GOM's classical scholarship, Bebbington's biography is very welcome indeed.)
Compare and contrast, class.
I am curious about what the Doc thinks regarding David Gelernter's recent Weekly Standard essay, "The Inventor of Modern Conservatism: Disraeli and Us".
Myself, I have never liked Disraeli much, once I had actually read about him rather than just enjoyed him as a character in costume dramas. He struck me as an unprincipled opportunist, which is much what Gladstone thought of him. The assault upon Sir Robert Peel seemed to me crass, serving only to eliminate an opposition party from British politics for decades. Nor could I see any pattern in Disraeli's legislative program when he was Prime Minister, other than making the Conservative Party very popular. Here my feelings were exactly in line with Anthony Trollope's. In Phineas Finn, the story of a rising young Irish MP, the Disraeli-esque leader of the Tories suddenly decides to advocate the disestablishment of the Church of England as part of his solution to the Irish question. It must have seemed somewhat plausible to Trollope's readers; they knew that Disraeli might do anything for political advantage.
Maybe it was Trollope, or Roy Jenkins' great, big, fat biography, but I came to view Gladstone as a much more acceptable figure. And, in a lovely synchronicity, here is a review essay from Books and Culture that deals with David Bebbington's new book, The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics. (Since Jenkins was not so muchunsympathetic as uncomprehending of Gladstone's spiritual and religious life, and more than a touch patronizing towards the GOM's classical scholarship, Bebbington's biography is very welcome indeed.)
Compare and contrast, class.
Shrive, Shrove, Shriven
In the liturgical year, today, the last day before the season of Lent is Shrove Tuesday. Shrove is the past tense of the verb “to shrive”, which in what Merriam Webster informs me is an intransitive archaic form means “to confess one's sins especially to a priest”.
The intransitive archaic form is precisely the form we want, because why “to shrive” also means to administer the sacrament of reconciliation or to free from guilt, the emphasis of the name “Shrove Tuesday” was not on the act of the priest although that is obviously an integral part of the process, but rather on the act of the penitent. At some time during the day, the penitent was required to shrive, to go to the priest and confess his sins and receive absolution (to be shriven), so that he could enter the Lenten season with a clean slate. So important was this practice that in England, workers were given the afternoon off so they had time to hit the confessional. (I‘m sure you’ll all be astonished to hear that this practice is no longer followed.) In many towns, a bell rang to announce the cessation of work and that the shriving season was now open. And in the afternoon as the people tucked into the pancakes you could doubtless hear sentences like “ Round about 2 o’clock I shrove and by half past was shriven.”
Did I say pancakes? Why yes I did, because it is tradition in England to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. The reason for this is more apparent in the French name for the day “Mardi Gras”, which does not mean, as millions of Americans doubtless think, “Flash your breasts and get some beads” or “Get drunk and urinate in your trousers,” but rather means “Fat Tuesday.”
Lent is a time of repentance and contrition and one primary of the forms of contrition during Lent involved food, to wit the practice of abstinence, refraining from eating certain foods, and fasting, not eating or eating substantially less than usual. Fasting was a common practice in the Bible, but the particular motivation the Lenten fast was Christ’s 40 days of fasting and prayer in the wilderness, which is why Lent is 40 days long (excluding Sundays). The fasting rules in the Western church used to be almost as strict as they still are in the Eastern Church. Originally the faithful were not to eat meat, eggs, or dairy products, including that most lovely form of fat, butter. Thus your frugal housewife has to use up all her milk, eggs, and butter before Lent, and what do you get when you milk together milk, eggs, butter, flour and a bit of leavening (or not) yes, if you're English or Irish, you get a pancake. (Other countries arrive at a different result. On the continent the Teutonic peoples eat doughnuts for Fastnacht (the Eve of the Fast) and during Carnevale the Italians eat pastries, fritters and many other lovely things depending upon the region. And other regions have their own gastronomic traditions.
So tightly were pancakes and Shrove Tuesday intertwined that the bell ringing to announce the time of shriving in is sometimes known as the “Pancake Bell." Olney, England even has a pancake race. The story is that in 1445 a housewife making pancakes lost track of time and when she heard the shriving bell she went dashing out the door with her apron on and her pan in her hand, and thus the pancake race was born, although there are alternative explanations as well.
As the end of Carnival, today was also traditionally a time of merry making, games, celebration, revelry and downright debauchery right up until midnight or dawn when abruptly everything changed to a somber Lenten mood. So get your one last big party in now before the clock strikes midnight!
In the liturgical year, today, the last day before the season of Lent is Shrove Tuesday. Shrove is the past tense of the verb “to shrive”, which in what Merriam Webster informs me is an intransitive archaic form means “to confess one's sins especially to a priest”.
The intransitive archaic form is precisely the form we want, because why “to shrive” also means to administer the sacrament of reconciliation or to free from guilt, the emphasis of the name “Shrove Tuesday” was not on the act of the priest although that is obviously an integral part of the process, but rather on the act of the penitent. At some time during the day, the penitent was required to shrive, to go to the priest and confess his sins and receive absolution (to be shriven), so that he could enter the Lenten season with a clean slate. So important was this practice that in England, workers were given the afternoon off so they had time to hit the confessional. (I‘m sure you’ll all be astonished to hear that this practice is no longer followed.) In many towns, a bell rang to announce the cessation of work and that the shriving season was now open. And in the afternoon as the people tucked into the pancakes you could doubtless hear sentences like “ Round about 2 o’clock I shrove and by half past was shriven.”
Did I say pancakes? Why yes I did, because it is tradition in England to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. The reason for this is more apparent in the French name for the day “Mardi Gras”, which does not mean, as millions of Americans doubtless think, “Flash your breasts and get some beads” or “Get drunk and urinate in your trousers,” but rather means “Fat Tuesday.”
Lent is a time of repentance and contrition and one primary of the forms of contrition during Lent involved food, to wit the practice of abstinence, refraining from eating certain foods, and fasting, not eating or eating substantially less than usual. Fasting was a common practice in the Bible, but the particular motivation the Lenten fast was Christ’s 40 days of fasting and prayer in the wilderness, which is why Lent is 40 days long (excluding Sundays). The fasting rules in the Western church used to be almost as strict as they still are in the Eastern Church. Originally the faithful were not to eat meat, eggs, or dairy products, including that most lovely form of fat, butter. Thus your frugal housewife has to use up all her milk, eggs, and butter before Lent, and what do you get when you milk together milk, eggs, butter, flour and a bit of leavening (or not) yes, if you're English or Irish, you get a pancake. (Other countries arrive at a different result. On the continent the Teutonic peoples eat doughnuts for Fastnacht (the Eve of the Fast) and during Carnevale the Italians eat pastries, fritters and many other lovely things depending upon the region. And other regions have their own gastronomic traditions.
So tightly were pancakes and Shrove Tuesday intertwined that the bell ringing to announce the time of shriving in is sometimes known as the “Pancake Bell." Olney, England even has a pancake race. The story is that in 1445 a housewife making pancakes lost track of time and when she heard the shriving bell she went dashing out the door with her apron on and her pan in her hand, and thus the pancake race was born, although there are alternative explanations as well.
As the end of Carnival, today was also traditionally a time of merry making, games, celebration, revelry and downright debauchery right up until midnight or dawn when abruptly everything changed to a somber Lenten mood. So get your one last big party in now before the clock strikes midnight!
Monday, February 07, 2005
The British Pub is Being Killed Quickly
Not, alas, a very surprising story. The worst pub "interior desecrations" are when they put in a fake historic interior, with photos of pub cricket teams that never existed, fishing rods that probably never caught a fish, reproduced Times headlines announcing the German invasion of Poland or Queen Victoria's death...it's always very discouraging. It's what happened to all the Morrell's pubs when they got bought up by Thomas Hardy Brewery in '99 (and now I see that Hardy has folded, and Greene King has swallowed up the Morrell's pubs, and who can keep track anymore?).
Not, alas, a very surprising story. The worst pub "interior desecrations" are when they put in a fake historic interior, with photos of pub cricket teams that never existed, fishing rods that probably never caught a fish, reproduced Times headlines announcing the German invasion of Poland or Queen Victoria's death...it's always very discouraging. It's what happened to all the Morrell's pubs when they got bought up by Thomas Hardy Brewery in '99 (and now I see that Hardy has folded, and Greene King has swallowed up the Morrell's pubs, and who can keep track anymore?).
More on "Bill Moyers" and the Jesus-Loving, Environment-Hating Nutjobs
Please pardon the Ombudsman his cynicism--or perhaps his attractive, Gaulois puffing, languid world-weariness, with a touch of je ne sais quoi--but it is with a complete lack of surprise that he reads that "Bill Moyers" in his lengthy opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune committed some errors of fact.
You will recall that "Bill Moyers" in his essay made the following syllogism: Christian fundamentalists believe in the bodily return of Christ to earth; this is an event which these Bible-thumping wackos led by the "Right Rev. Bush" [thank you, James Lileks] believe will be preceded by, among other things, the devastation of the environment (due to plagues, droughts, infestations of locusts, hordes of mice, and PBS pledge drives); ergo, Christian fundamentalist nutjobs eagerly approve of environmental destruction since they believe it will move the return of Jesus several millennia forward in the Divine EpochTimer.
As "evidence" for this "syllogism", "Bill Moyers" offered the testimony of James Watt, once Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior. Watt is Exhibit A for "Bill Moyers" of a Christian fundamentalist nutjob; "Moyers" writes the following:
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious.
BTW, notice the nice rhetorical self-stroking? "Bill Moyers" alone knew what Watt was talking about, snickered, and realized that this Christian fundamentalist nutjob was, you know, really dangerous because he was a Christian fundamentalist nutjob. This "Moyers", with his deep perceptiveness, will ruin all the plans of the nutjobs. If you want to make yourself look good, be certain to employ the same rhetorical techniques, OK?
Too bad for Bill, in terms of the whole logic and dialectic and truth part of the argument, that James Watt never said any such thing.
You see, it turns out that "Bill Moyers" favorite envirojournal was wrong, because it was quoting from a guy who didn't know what he was talking about. Go to Powerlineblog to read the whole thing, including Watt's actual testimony from the Congressional Record. Powerline, thanks in part to a phone call they received from James Watt himself, tracked down the Watt's testimony.
But hang on a moment! What's this?
Even for green activists within the evangelical movement, there are landmines. One faction in the movement, called dispensationalism, argues that the return of Jesus and the end of the world are near, so it is pointless to fret about environmental degradation.
James G. Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first interior secretary, famously made this argument before Congress in 1981, saying: "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." The enduring appeal of End Time musings among evangelicals is reflected in the phenomenal success of the Left Behind series of apocalyptic potboilers, which have sold more than 60 million copies and are the best-selling novels in the country.
That's from the Saturday's Washington Post, in an article entitled "The Greening of Evangelicals". It reads as a Post attempt to educate blue state intelligentsia about the complexities of the evangelical movement. And it does make a refreshing change from reading "Bill Moyers", to be sure.
But it's too bad they had to repeat what seems to be a canard of long standing. Sigh. Maybe they too have been reading Grit.
The rest of the article, BTW, is enough to give Virginia Postrel and Glenn Reynolds nightmares and a warm case of smug self-satisfaction. Both of these highly intelligent libertarians deplore any dust mote that lands on the tracks of Human Progress. As the Instapundit blogged recently:
SONIA ARRISON WRITES about the mainstreaming of transhumanism. And Alyssa Ford writes that the next big political divide will be between transhumanists and technophiles on one side, and bioconservatives and lefty-Luddites on the other.
I hope not, but as Rand Simberg observes: "If this is the next political divide, I know which side I'm on."
And that was about transhumanism, for crying out loud! Imagine how green (heh) Professor Reynolds could get reading this:
"Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn," said a banner that Ball carried in last month's antiabortion march in Washington. Holding up the other end of the banner was Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals' chief lobbyist.
They handed out carefully footnoted papers that cited federal government studies showing that 1 in 6 babies is born with harmful levels of mercury. The fliers urged Christians not to support the "Clear Skies" act, a Bush administration proposal to regulate coal-burning power plants that are a primary source of mercury pollution.
Not that I don't get more than a little squeamish myself at such reckless trampling upon scientific data. (Just how many parts per billion is this mercury poisoning that's killing the unborn? Do you think that abortions might kill more?) But that's because I believe in prudential judgments.
That's why I can believe that transhumanism is sick-inducing and not a little silly; that "Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn" is disingenuous rhetoric; that coal plants do pollute too much; that they should be replaced by third-generation nuclear fission reactors; that wilderness must be protected; that resources must be preserved and improved for future generations; that Progress is not a moral good; and that "Bill Moyers" is the Blue State version of a shameless, dishonest, disingenuous, and deceitful revival preacher.
See? You can believe all those things at once, with a little prudence.
Please pardon the Ombudsman his cynicism--or perhaps his attractive, Gaulois puffing, languid world-weariness, with a touch of je ne sais quoi--but it is with a complete lack of surprise that he reads that "Bill Moyers" in his lengthy opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune committed some errors of fact.
You will recall that "Bill Moyers" in his essay made the following syllogism: Christian fundamentalists believe in the bodily return of Christ to earth; this is an event which these Bible-thumping wackos led by the "Right Rev. Bush" [thank you, James Lileks] believe will be preceded by, among other things, the devastation of the environment (due to plagues, droughts, infestations of locusts, hordes of mice, and PBS pledge drives); ergo, Christian fundamentalist nutjobs eagerly approve of environmental destruction since they believe it will move the return of Jesus several millennia forward in the Divine EpochTimer.
As "evidence" for this "syllogism", "Bill Moyers" offered the testimony of James Watt, once Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior. Watt is Exhibit A for "Bill Moyers" of a Christian fundamentalist nutjob; "Moyers" writes the following:
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious.
BTW, notice the nice rhetorical self-stroking? "Bill Moyers" alone knew what Watt was talking about, snickered, and realized that this Christian fundamentalist nutjob was, you know, really dangerous because he was a Christian fundamentalist nutjob. This "Moyers", with his deep perceptiveness, will ruin all the plans of the nutjobs. If you want to make yourself look good, be certain to employ the same rhetorical techniques, OK?
Too bad for Bill, in terms of the whole logic and dialectic and truth part of the argument, that James Watt never said any such thing.
You see, it turns out that "Bill Moyers" favorite envirojournal was wrong, because it was quoting from a guy who didn't know what he was talking about. Go to Powerlineblog to read the whole thing, including Watt's actual testimony from the Congressional Record. Powerline, thanks in part to a phone call they received from James Watt himself, tracked down the Watt's testimony.
But hang on a moment! What's this?
Even for green activists within the evangelical movement, there are landmines. One faction in the movement, called dispensationalism, argues that the return of Jesus and the end of the world are near, so it is pointless to fret about environmental degradation.
James G. Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first interior secretary, famously made this argument before Congress in 1981, saying: "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." The enduring appeal of End Time musings among evangelicals is reflected in the phenomenal success of the Left Behind series of apocalyptic potboilers, which have sold more than 60 million copies and are the best-selling novels in the country.
That's from the Saturday's Washington Post, in an article entitled "The Greening of Evangelicals". It reads as a Post attempt to educate blue state intelligentsia about the complexities of the evangelical movement. And it does make a refreshing change from reading "Bill Moyers", to be sure.
But it's too bad they had to repeat what seems to be a canard of long standing. Sigh. Maybe they too have been reading Grit.
The rest of the article, BTW, is enough to give Virginia Postrel and Glenn Reynolds nightmares and a warm case of smug self-satisfaction. Both of these highly intelligent libertarians deplore any dust mote that lands on the tracks of Human Progress. As the Instapundit blogged recently:
SONIA ARRISON WRITES about the mainstreaming of transhumanism. And Alyssa Ford writes that the next big political divide will be between transhumanists and technophiles on one side, and bioconservatives and lefty-Luddites on the other.
I hope not, but as Rand Simberg observes: "If this is the next political divide, I know which side I'm on."
And that was about transhumanism, for crying out loud! Imagine how green (heh) Professor Reynolds could get reading this:
"Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn," said a banner that Ball carried in last month's antiabortion march in Washington. Holding up the other end of the banner was Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals' chief lobbyist.
They handed out carefully footnoted papers that cited federal government studies showing that 1 in 6 babies is born with harmful levels of mercury. The fliers urged Christians not to support the "Clear Skies" act, a Bush administration proposal to regulate coal-burning power plants that are a primary source of mercury pollution.
Not that I don't get more than a little squeamish myself at such reckless trampling upon scientific data. (Just how many parts per billion is this mercury poisoning that's killing the unborn? Do you think that abortions might kill more?) But that's because I believe in prudential judgments.
That's why I can believe that transhumanism is sick-inducing and not a little silly; that "Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn" is disingenuous rhetoric; that coal plants do pollute too much; that they should be replaced by third-generation nuclear fission reactors; that wilderness must be protected; that resources must be preserved and improved for future generations; that Progress is not a moral good; and that "Bill Moyers" is the Blue State version of a shameless, dishonest, disingenuous, and deceitful revival preacher.
See? You can believe all those things at once, with a little prudence.
We thank the Style Editor for her kind words. It has been a giddy time for New England sports fans, 'lo these last several years. The Red Sox and now the Patriots, again. I cannot help but feeling a tad spoiled for all the good fan fortune coming our way after a prolonged walk in the wilderness which was the 1990s.
By the way, I'd surprised if a mob of Eagles' fans aren't hanging around the stadium with torches and pitchforks, waiting for Andy Reid to appear and explain himself. To have your team huddle and mill around the field with 5 minutes left, down by 10 points, is a sports felony. I don't recall ever seeing such poor strategy and time management in the Super Bowl. Just plain dumb.
On another note, a strikingly odd and interesting note, a former Nureumberg guard now claims that he believes he gave Hermann Goering the cyanide poison that killed him. Two strange figures named "Erich" and "Mathias" showed up at the prison, said the Field Marshall was ill, and that he needed this medicine.
"(Erich) said it was medication, and that if it worked and Goering felt better, they'd send him some more," Stivers said. "I wasn't thinking of suicide when I took it to Goering. He was never in a bad frame of mind."
A military investigation concluded that Goering had the cyanide all along and that a vial of poison was at various times in a body cavity or behind the rim of his cell toilet.
The Army's explanation never rang true to him, Stivers said, noting that Goering "was there over a year. Why would he wait all that time if he had the cyanide?"
How fascinating and bizarre. First, who are Erich and Mathias? Second, how could they get such easy access to such a high-ranking figure as Goering? Third, how dumb could this guard be to agree to do this? Too many holes here, and unanswered questions. I smell a book coming.
Happy Birthday Sir Thomas More, Charles Dickens, and Sinclair Lewis.
The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings...(Opening lines to Lewis' "Babbitt," 1922)
By the way, I'd surprised if a mob of Eagles' fans aren't hanging around the stadium with torches and pitchforks, waiting for Andy Reid to appear and explain himself. To have your team huddle and mill around the field with 5 minutes left, down by 10 points, is a sports felony. I don't recall ever seeing such poor strategy and time management in the Super Bowl. Just plain dumb.
On another note, a strikingly odd and interesting note, a former Nureumberg guard now claims that he believes he gave Hermann Goering the cyanide poison that killed him. Two strange figures named "Erich" and "Mathias" showed up at the prison, said the Field Marshall was ill, and that he needed this medicine.
"(Erich) said it was medication, and that if it worked and Goering felt better, they'd send him some more," Stivers said. "I wasn't thinking of suicide when I took it to Goering. He was never in a bad frame of mind."
A military investigation concluded that Goering had the cyanide all along and that a vial of poison was at various times in a body cavity or behind the rim of his cell toilet.
The Army's explanation never rang true to him, Stivers said, noting that Goering "was there over a year. Why would he wait all that time if he had the cyanide?"
How fascinating and bizarre. First, who are Erich and Mathias? Second, how could they get such easy access to such a high-ranking figure as Goering? Third, how dumb could this guard be to agree to do this? Too many holes here, and unanswered questions. I smell a book coming.
Happy Birthday Sir Thomas More, Charles Dickens, and Sinclair Lewis.
The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings...(Opening lines to Lewis' "Babbitt," 1922)
Sunday, February 06, 2005
The Manolo Reminds the Mens...
"...that the Day of the San Valentino it approaches, and that the man who in his life has the woman, would be unwise to forget this."
Manolo makes many good observations, at all times, so this is why we are proud to link to him so that he may be of great helpfulness to you as well as he is to many, many mens–and to the womens who read his blog on the shoes.
"...that the Day of the San Valentino it approaches, and that the man who in his life has the woman, would be unwise to forget this."
Manolo makes many good observations, at all times, so this is why we are proud to link to him so that he may be of great helpfulness to you as well as he is to many, many mens–and to the womens who read his blog on the shoes.
Brooks Agrees with what Dr. Potomac said First
Over the past two years, what we might loosely call the university-town elite has come to dominate the Democratic Party not just intellectually, but financially as well.
Howard Dean, in his fervent antiwar phase, mobilized new networks of small donors, and these donors have quickly become the money base of the party. Whereas Al Gore raised only about $50 million from individuals in 2000, John Kerry raised $225 million, including $87 million over the Internet alone. Many of these new donors are highly educated. The biggest groups of donors to the Dean and Kerry campaigns were employees of the University of California, Harvard, Stanford, Time Warner, Microsoft and so on...
Howard Dean may not be as liberal as he appeared in the primaries, but in 1,001 ways - from his secularism to his stridency - he embodies the newly dominant educated class, which is large, self-contained and assertive.
Thanks to this newly dominant group, the Democrats are sure to carry Berkeley for decades to come.
Naturally, you should never tell an academic that they are out of touch with the rest of America. They know exactly what the "rest" of America thinks, they will say huffily, and they are a bunch of ignorant red-state boobs who need to hold still long enough for some intelligent people to re-educate them.
Over the past two years, what we might loosely call the university-town elite has come to dominate the Democratic Party not just intellectually, but financially as well.
Howard Dean, in his fervent antiwar phase, mobilized new networks of small donors, and these donors have quickly become the money base of the party. Whereas Al Gore raised only about $50 million from individuals in 2000, John Kerry raised $225 million, including $87 million over the Internet alone. Many of these new donors are highly educated. The biggest groups of donors to the Dean and Kerry campaigns were employees of the University of California, Harvard, Stanford, Time Warner, Microsoft and so on...
Howard Dean may not be as liberal as he appeared in the primaries, but in 1,001 ways - from his secularism to his stridency - he embodies the newly dominant educated class, which is large, self-contained and assertive.
Thanks to this newly dominant group, the Democrats are sure to carry Berkeley for decades to come.
Naturally, you should never tell an academic that they are out of touch with the rest of America. They know exactly what the "rest" of America thinks, they will say huffily, and they are a bunch of ignorant red-state boobs who need to hold still long enough for some intelligent people to re-educate them.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Factory in a Box
I think this is very, very cool:
IF YOU ASK Neil Gershenfeld, there may come a day, perhaps not so far in the future, when we'll no longer need manufacturers to make our products for us. Gershenfeld, a physicist and computer scientist who runs the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, envisions a time when many of us will have a "fabrication center" in our homes. We'll be able to download a description of, say, a toaster -- perhaps one we designed ourselves -- to our computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a personal fabricator. At the push of a button, almost like hitting "print," the machine will spit it out.
Wuh? Huh? How's that work then?
... The fab labs -- which consist of about $25,000 worth of high-tech equipment and supplies, including a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter (normally for making signs but used here to cut copper for circuits), and a 3-D milling machine to make circuit boards, all connected to Linux-based computers loaded with open-source design and manufacturing software...
In other words, a machine shop in a box. Very nice. This turns out to be perfect for use in countries or areas without an industrial infrastructure.
The idea is that they can be empowering, especially in rural, developing communities, by giving people the ability to design and create the tools they want or need to solve local problems. In Ghana, users are trying to find an inexpensive way to build large solar energy collectors to turn the country's near-constant sunlight into power. In Pabal, India, a small community more than 100 miles outside of Mumbai, lab users developed diagnostic instruments to help fix tractor engines with timing troubles. And at the lab in Norway, users are working on GPS systems for boats and de-icing machines for windmills.
But wait, there's more:
Gershenfeld describes the shift from large-scale, expensive machine tools to personal fabrication as analogous to the evolution that began 40 years ago from room-sized mainframes to personal computers. Instead of personalizing the ability to do digital computing, we're now able to digitize and personalize the ability to manufacture our own tools and machines.
As it currently exists, however, the technology imposes limits on what can be done. The fabrication machines used in the fab labs today can't produce anything larger than themselves. (The milling machine, for example, is the size of a printer.) The laser cutter cuts no longer than two feet. Nor can it cut very deeply: It would take a day for the laser to slice through an inch of plywood (they now use a saw when necessary).
What's particularly interesting is how even the very limited use of fab-labs so far show the different approaches that cultures bring to using technology. When Gershenfeld began teaching a course in the use of fab-labs at MIT:
...The students -- many of them artists, architects, or science students without a technical background -- "responded passionately to the tools," he says. Soon they stopped asking him for help. They worked alone and with each other to learn what they needed to build what they wanted -- things like a portable scream machine" that saves your screams and plays them back (a kind of high-tech stress release); an alarm clock that won't shut off unless you prove you're awake by winning a game against it; a bicycle that recharges batteries when you ride it.
Though Gershenfeld liked his students' designs, he says, "they were making things for a market of one." He began to wonder how the fabrication tools could make a difference outside of Boston...
Thus the following interesting results:
The labs also face other, social challenges depending on where they are. In Boston, it is sometimes difficult to keep kids interested in learning after they're told, for example, they can't yet build life-sized robots. In South Africa, whose government is considering starting a fab lab, the challenge is apathy. "People don't want to be scientists or engineers anymore," said Riaan Coetzee, an information officer at South Africa's government-backed Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, at the user meeting in Boston. He believes a fab lab might get people excited about technology...In Ghana, says Amy Sun, a grad student at the Center for Bits and Atoms who helped set up the fab lab there last summer, they ran an average of six classes a day for locals aged 4 to adult. She estimates that nearly 1,000 people came through the lab during her six-week stay.
The other encouraging sign is current lab users' desire to collaborate, even though they're in far-flung countries. Most of the labs, for example, want to build antennas for various communications purposes. Recently, the lab in Norway -- where farmers and engineers are collaborating to build a wireless radio network to track sheep and reindeer -- built an antenna and posted photos and instructions on the Web for the others to see.
Naturally there are plans for an upgrade:
Ultimately, Gershenfeld wants to build a machine that can make any machine -- one that can "print" 3-D objects that include all the circuitry and mechanisms they need to move around, heat up, make noise, connect to the Internet, or do whatever it is they're designed to do. Such a machine -- think of the "replicators" on "Star Trek" -- doesn't yet exist, but Gershenfeld and others say there will be a version of it in a decade.
I think this is very, very cool:
IF YOU ASK Neil Gershenfeld, there may come a day, perhaps not so far in the future, when we'll no longer need manufacturers to make our products for us. Gershenfeld, a physicist and computer scientist who runs the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, envisions a time when many of us will have a "fabrication center" in our homes. We'll be able to download a description of, say, a toaster -- perhaps one we designed ourselves -- to our computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a personal fabricator. At the push of a button, almost like hitting "print," the machine will spit it out.
Wuh? Huh? How's that work then?
... The fab labs -- which consist of about $25,000 worth of high-tech equipment and supplies, including a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter (normally for making signs but used here to cut copper for circuits), and a 3-D milling machine to make circuit boards, all connected to Linux-based computers loaded with open-source design and manufacturing software...
In other words, a machine shop in a box. Very nice. This turns out to be perfect for use in countries or areas without an industrial infrastructure.
The idea is that they can be empowering, especially in rural, developing communities, by giving people the ability to design and create the tools they want or need to solve local problems. In Ghana, users are trying to find an inexpensive way to build large solar energy collectors to turn the country's near-constant sunlight into power. In Pabal, India, a small community more than 100 miles outside of Mumbai, lab users developed diagnostic instruments to help fix tractor engines with timing troubles. And at the lab in Norway, users are working on GPS systems for boats and de-icing machines for windmills.
But wait, there's more:
Gershenfeld describes the shift from large-scale, expensive machine tools to personal fabrication as analogous to the evolution that began 40 years ago from room-sized mainframes to personal computers. Instead of personalizing the ability to do digital computing, we're now able to digitize and personalize the ability to manufacture our own tools and machines.
As it currently exists, however, the technology imposes limits on what can be done. The fabrication machines used in the fab labs today can't produce anything larger than themselves. (The milling machine, for example, is the size of a printer.) The laser cutter cuts no longer than two feet. Nor can it cut very deeply: It would take a day for the laser to slice through an inch of plywood (they now use a saw when necessary).
What's particularly interesting is how even the very limited use of fab-labs so far show the different approaches that cultures bring to using technology. When Gershenfeld began teaching a course in the use of fab-labs at MIT:
...The students -- many of them artists, architects, or science students without a technical background -- "responded passionately to the tools," he says. Soon they stopped asking him for help. They worked alone and with each other to learn what they needed to build what they wanted -- things like a portable scream machine" that saves your screams and plays them back (a kind of high-tech stress release); an alarm clock that won't shut off unless you prove you're awake by winning a game against it; a bicycle that recharges batteries when you ride it.
Though Gershenfeld liked his students' designs, he says, "they were making things for a market of one." He began to wonder how the fabrication tools could make a difference outside of Boston...
Thus the following interesting results:
The labs also face other, social challenges depending on where they are. In Boston, it is sometimes difficult to keep kids interested in learning after they're told, for example, they can't yet build life-sized robots. In South Africa, whose government is considering starting a fab lab, the challenge is apathy. "People don't want to be scientists or engineers anymore," said Riaan Coetzee, an information officer at South Africa's government-backed Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, at the user meeting in Boston. He believes a fab lab might get people excited about technology...In Ghana, says Amy Sun, a grad student at the Center for Bits and Atoms who helped set up the fab lab there last summer, they ran an average of six classes a day for locals aged 4 to adult. She estimates that nearly 1,000 people came through the lab during her six-week stay.
The other encouraging sign is current lab users' desire to collaborate, even though they're in far-flung countries. Most of the labs, for example, want to build antennas for various communications purposes. Recently, the lab in Norway -- where farmers and engineers are collaborating to build a wireless radio network to track sheep and reindeer -- built an antenna and posted photos and instructions on the Web for the others to see.
Naturally there are plans for an upgrade:
Ultimately, Gershenfeld wants to build a machine that can make any machine -- one that can "print" 3-D objects that include all the circuitry and mechanisms they need to move around, heat up, make noise, connect to the Internet, or do whatever it is they're designed to do. Such a machine -- think of the "replicators" on "Star Trek" -- doesn't yet exist, but Gershenfeld and others say there will be a version of it in a decade.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
President (Nancy) Reagan
Dr. Potomac wanted to take a moment out of a busy day saving the Republic to bring to readers' attention the CBS/Showtime production of The Reagans. Readers will recall that this had originally been intended for a CBS miniseries until an outcry among conservatives led to its exile on the Showtime network. Following the Hollywood adage that there's "no such thing as bad publicity" broadcast of The Reagans went on to lead that network to its highest ratings ever.
The Reagans is now available at your local Blockbuster Video Rental outlet for your viewing (dis)pleasure. At Dr. Potomac's Blockbuster on Capitol Hill, where one can stumble across a surprising number of very strange selections indeed, there was one copy of this video tucked in a very dusty corner. Because it is long (180 fun-loving minutes) it seemed a good choice for a snow day. As the Style Editor enjoys saying, "I seen my chance and I takes it!"
Despite its title, the movie is really about one Reagan -- and it isn't our former, beloved President. Pity the poor producer. He had no more idea about who Ronald Reagan was than, well, Edmund Morris. So, like Morris, he settled for a cartoon version of Ronald Reagan and turned to an easier subject, Nancy Reagan . Judy Davis' portrayal is enough to send any conflicted male directly to therapy. If Nancy Davis Reagan is anything like Judy Davis portrays her, Dr. Potomac would probably end up calling her "Mommy", too. Lover, Helpmate, Constant Customer of Astrologers and the Power Behind the Throne. A few scenes of note:
--Nancy's famous interview during Reagan's first term as governor with New York Times reporter, Joan Didion, or as Nancy calls her in the movie, "that bitch, Joan Didion." Nancy preens as the perfect mother and wife while a distracted, pre-adolescent Ron, Jr. turns up the classical music and begins pirouetting around the house setting the stage for years of family angst about whether Ron, Jr. was light in the loafers.
--Nancy tears into Jim Baker and Mike Deaver for not waking the President after Libyan jets attacked U.S. forces and then leaking the President's slumber to the media. "From now on," she growls from atop her heels, "if the media asks,'Does the President know about it?' the answer is, 'Yes, the President KNOWS about EVERYTHING."
--Nancy at the Geneva summit pouring tea while Raisa Gorbachev lectures her on the virtual servitude of American blacks and women and the absolute equality of women and minorities in the Soviet Union. To which Nancy replies, "Yes, there's total equality on the way to the Gulag" and then quickly to the interpreter, "Don't translate that!"
--Nancy at Patti Davis' wedding ceremony responding to Ron, Jr.'s inquiry, "Where's Michael [Reagan]?" To which, in her best "never-you-mind" tone, Nancy replies, "Oh, he didn't get his invitation in time." Huh. Wonder how that happened?
--Practically the best scene in the film has Nancy emasculating a quavering Don Regan, "I know you Don Regan. I see straight into your lying little heart." In the trade, this is known as the "Depends moment" as the chief of staff grapples to manage the full force of spousal fear and anxiety realizing that his next paycheck probably turns on the outcome.
All in all, a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed on a snowy afternoon. When it is over, your heart belongs to Mommy.
Dr. Potomac wanted to take a moment out of a busy day saving the Republic to bring to readers' attention the CBS/Showtime production of The Reagans. Readers will recall that this had originally been intended for a CBS miniseries until an outcry among conservatives led to its exile on the Showtime network. Following the Hollywood adage that there's "no such thing as bad publicity" broadcast of The Reagans went on to lead that network to its highest ratings ever.
The Reagans is now available at your local Blockbuster Video Rental outlet for your viewing (dis)pleasure. At Dr. Potomac's Blockbuster on Capitol Hill, where one can stumble across a surprising number of very strange selections indeed, there was one copy of this video tucked in a very dusty corner. Because it is long (180 fun-loving minutes) it seemed a good choice for a snow day. As the Style Editor enjoys saying, "I seen my chance and I takes it!"
Despite its title, the movie is really about one Reagan -- and it isn't our former, beloved President. Pity the poor producer. He had no more idea about who Ronald Reagan was than, well, Edmund Morris. So, like Morris, he settled for a cartoon version of Ronald Reagan and turned to an easier subject, Nancy Reagan . Judy Davis' portrayal is enough to send any conflicted male directly to therapy. If Nancy Davis Reagan is anything like Judy Davis portrays her, Dr. Potomac would probably end up calling her "Mommy", too. Lover, Helpmate, Constant Customer of Astrologers and the Power Behind the Throne. A few scenes of note:
--Nancy's famous interview during Reagan's first term as governor with New York Times reporter, Joan Didion, or as Nancy calls her in the movie, "that bitch, Joan Didion." Nancy preens as the perfect mother and wife while a distracted, pre-adolescent Ron, Jr. turns up the classical music and begins pirouetting around the house setting the stage for years of family angst about whether Ron, Jr. was light in the loafers.
--Nancy tears into Jim Baker and Mike Deaver for not waking the President after Libyan jets attacked U.S. forces and then leaking the President's slumber to the media. "From now on," she growls from atop her heels, "if the media asks,'Does the President know about it?' the answer is, 'Yes, the President KNOWS about EVERYTHING."
--Nancy at the Geneva summit pouring tea while Raisa Gorbachev lectures her on the virtual servitude of American blacks and women and the absolute equality of women and minorities in the Soviet Union. To which Nancy replies, "Yes, there's total equality on the way to the Gulag" and then quickly to the interpreter, "Don't translate that!"
--Nancy at Patti Davis' wedding ceremony responding to Ron, Jr.'s inquiry, "Where's Michael [Reagan]?" To which, in her best "never-you-mind" tone, Nancy replies, "Oh, he didn't get his invitation in time." Huh. Wonder how that happened?
--Practically the best scene in the film has Nancy emasculating a quavering Don Regan, "I know you Don Regan. I see straight into your lying little heart." In the trade, this is known as the "Depends moment" as the chief of staff grapples to manage the full force of spousal fear and anxiety realizing that his next paycheck probably turns on the outcome.
All in all, a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed on a snowy afternoon. When it is over, your heart belongs to Mommy.
Little did we know: Macbeth was a hellava king, and now Scottish MSPs want to change his public image. Shame on you, Bill Shakespeare. Poetic license indeed!
Minnesota legislature unhappy over Reagan birthday tribute. "A resolution honoring the former Republican president's birthday caused partisan friction in the state Senate. It passed only after being retooled to mention that he never won Minnesota." Had he followed his advisors and challenged the tallies (which many considered crooked), he may have done just that. Talk about petty.
Happy Birthday Walter Bagehot (1826-1877). "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."
Minnesota legislature unhappy over Reagan birthday tribute. "A resolution honoring the former Republican president's birthday caused partisan friction in the state Senate. It passed only after being retooled to mention that he never won Minnesota." Had he followed his advisors and challenged the tallies (which many considered crooked), he may have done just that. Talk about petty.
Happy Birthday Walter Bagehot (1826-1877). "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."
An Introduction (and Welcome)
Since no one else seems to be hanging about the place, I should introduce this blog to all the new readers who have shuffled over from Mere Comments. Mighty is the power of Touchstone magazine! Look on its works, ye Culturally-With-It-Trendy-Worship-Leaders, and despair!
Doctor Curmudgeon & Co. is a humble 990 square foot rowhouse in Blogopolis with a large bar, a well stocked library, a small but useful kitchen, and no bedrooms. We like it here. It began because the Ombudsman was tiring of continually forwarding the vituperations of Dr. Curmudgeon (an old school chum) to the Style Editor. Once the concept of "blog" and "to blog" was explained to the Doc, he was sold
Hence, our community. The Doc is a professor of history at a college somewhere in the vast American Midwest, to which he has come tentatively, warily, even suspiciously...for lo! He is of Yankee stock, and likes it best where people turn the "ar" into a dipthong. The Doc is married, and his mysterious wife and he have a child: one Scooter, a Welsh Corgi, whose life was shortened by about a year and a half during the American League Championship of 2004.
The Style Editor and the Ombudsman are related...they are, indeed, brother and sister. They come from a small village in the Mid-Atlantic, where there is a near-continual cry of waterfowl, mumuring of the tide race...and blam-blam-blam-blam of the citizenry proudly exercising their Second Amendment rights on aformentioned waterfowl. Thus, the Ombudsman and Style Editor share a love of the sea, stalwart yeomen, firearms, and any sports team connected with Philadelphia, particulary [ahem] the Philadelphia Eagles. Excuse me, I meant to write Phuldulphia Iggles.
Say it fast. It is a sort of prayer.
The Style Editor is legally trained, and works for an internationl Non Governmental Organization, NGO to the cogniscenti. The Ombudsman is a historian without licence, now in the throes of final combat with his doctoral dissertation, which as the Style Editor would point out to you has been a hell of a long time coming.
Dr. Potomac is a bosom friend of the Style Editor and the Ombudsman. He is one of the most sober and sensible people on the face of the earth. A politico of long-standing, he has traversed parties and ideologies until the current moment, in which he is a wonk and politico of no small standing in the serried ranks of the Washingtonian intelligentsia.
As is not unknown in the blogosphere, Dr. Curmudgeon has never met the Style Editor or Dr. Potomac. Great, no doubt, will be the shouting and consumption of cocktails when that happy event comes to pass. Or they might just hate each others guts. It's a tricky thing, blogging.
We remain anonymous, not because it gives us a frisson...well, it kind of does...but because we all inhabit a cold and cruel world. The Doc wishes to get tenure; the Ombudsman wishes to get a job; the Style Editor doesn't want to hack off any more NGOs than she does on a daily basis; Dr. Potomac does not want his views confused with that of the Bush Administration, and he does not want to get fired, for he has chilluns to feed. OK? Face it, we're wimps. If you want heroes, go some place else other than the internet.
Lutheran bloggers come here, thanks to our dear friend Bunnie Diehl. Yet only two of us (Style Editor and Ombudsman) are of the Lutheran persuasion. The Doc is a Catholic; and Dr. Potomac is a non-denominational Protestant. Even Bunnie has not rejected us because we form an interdemoninational community.
Thus we are liable to blab on about the Christian religion, given our effervescent interests. But we are also likely to babble about current politics, vituperate about academic affairs, drone on about 19th century history, enthuse about matters gastronomic, and obsess about matters British. For we have a strange interest in events in that island kingdom, such that some Brit bloggers confuse us as one of their own. But no, here be Americans only. Though the Ombudsman, it must be confessed, returned about a year or so ago from four years in that demiparadise; the Doc is strangely interested in it, for an Irish Catholic; and the Style Editor attributes her fascination to an early exposure to Masterpiece Theater. Dr. Potomac avers, meanwhile, that everything he learned in politics he could have learned by watching Yes, Minister at a younger age.
So...if you like some of what we say, you might not like the rest of it. Such is the way of the world. But remember, we are having fun. That is really our only purpose here.
Since no one else seems to be hanging about the place, I should introduce this blog to all the new readers who have shuffled over from Mere Comments. Mighty is the power of Touchstone magazine! Look on its works, ye Culturally-With-It-Trendy-Worship-Leaders, and despair!
Doctor Curmudgeon & Co. is a humble 990 square foot rowhouse in Blogopolis with a large bar, a well stocked library, a small but useful kitchen, and no bedrooms. We like it here. It began because the Ombudsman was tiring of continually forwarding the vituperations of Dr. Curmudgeon (an old school chum) to the Style Editor. Once the concept of "blog" and "to blog" was explained to the Doc, he was sold
Hence, our community. The Doc is a professor of history at a college somewhere in the vast American Midwest, to which he has come tentatively, warily, even suspiciously...for lo! He is of Yankee stock, and likes it best where people turn the "ar" into a dipthong. The Doc is married, and his mysterious wife and he have a child: one Scooter, a Welsh Corgi, whose life was shortened by about a year and a half during the American League Championship of 2004.
The Style Editor and the Ombudsman are related...they are, indeed, brother and sister. They come from a small village in the Mid-Atlantic, where there is a near-continual cry of waterfowl, mumuring of the tide race...and blam-blam-blam-blam of the citizenry proudly exercising their Second Amendment rights on aformentioned waterfowl. Thus, the Ombudsman and Style Editor share a love of the sea, stalwart yeomen, firearms, and any sports team connected with Philadelphia, particulary [ahem] the Philadelphia Eagles. Excuse me, I meant to write Phuldulphia Iggles.
Say it fast. It is a sort of prayer.
The Style Editor is legally trained, and works for an internationl Non Governmental Organization, NGO to the cogniscenti. The Ombudsman is a historian without licence, now in the throes of final combat with his doctoral dissertation, which as the Style Editor would point out to you has been a hell of a long time coming.
Dr. Potomac is a bosom friend of the Style Editor and the Ombudsman. He is one of the most sober and sensible people on the face of the earth. A politico of long-standing, he has traversed parties and ideologies until the current moment, in which he is a wonk and politico of no small standing in the serried ranks of the Washingtonian intelligentsia.
As is not unknown in the blogosphere, Dr. Curmudgeon has never met the Style Editor or Dr. Potomac. Great, no doubt, will be the shouting and consumption of cocktails when that happy event comes to pass. Or they might just hate each others guts. It's a tricky thing, blogging.
We remain anonymous, not because it gives us a frisson...well, it kind of does...but because we all inhabit a cold and cruel world. The Doc wishes to get tenure; the Ombudsman wishes to get a job; the Style Editor doesn't want to hack off any more NGOs than she does on a daily basis; Dr. Potomac does not want his views confused with that of the Bush Administration, and he does not want to get fired, for he has chilluns to feed. OK? Face it, we're wimps. If you want heroes, go some place else other than the internet.
Lutheran bloggers come here, thanks to our dear friend Bunnie Diehl. Yet only two of us (Style Editor and Ombudsman) are of the Lutheran persuasion. The Doc is a Catholic; and Dr. Potomac is a non-denominational Protestant. Even Bunnie has not rejected us because we form an interdemoninational community.
Thus we are liable to blab on about the Christian religion, given our effervescent interests. But we are also likely to babble about current politics, vituperate about academic affairs, drone on about 19th century history, enthuse about matters gastronomic, and obsess about matters British. For we have a strange interest in events in that island kingdom, such that some Brit bloggers confuse us as one of their own. But no, here be Americans only. Though the Ombudsman, it must be confessed, returned about a year or so ago from four years in that demiparadise; the Doc is strangely interested in it, for an Irish Catholic; and the Style Editor attributes her fascination to an early exposure to Masterpiece Theater. Dr. Potomac avers, meanwhile, that everything he learned in politics he could have learned by watching Yes, Minister at a younger age.
So...if you like some of what we say, you might not like the rest of it. Such is the way of the world. But remember, we are having fun. That is really our only purpose here.
Lileks on the State of the Union (or SOTU, as the hip bloggers say; or State of the Onion, as the policy wonks like to say):
I thought the Social Security section was strong, but whether it built up a head of steam to blast through the headwinds to come I can’t say. If the AARP puts out ads showing the spats-clad Monopoly man yanking checks from the hands of seniors and lighting rotund cheroots, what was said last night will make little difference. The challenge to Syria was nice, a public echo of what I suspect has been said in private. And hello, Egypt! Welcome to the Axis of Damn Well Better Get Your Act Together!
Go read it. Love it. Treasure it. And while you're at It [Ed.--Heavy use of the indefinite article there, eh, Mr. Ombudsman? Back off!], go down and check out Lileks' latest in his chronicle of the Adventures of Joe Ohio, Matchbook Salesman. I really am loving this little series, all inspired by a pile of matchbooks that Lileks acquired in his feverish pursuit of mid-century printed ephemera; it's a novel, it's a social history, it's both. It strikes me as a very creative way of doing social history, much the same as David Gelernter employed in his 1939: The Lost World of the the Fair.
Naturally, us'n historians would prefer to sneer rather than imitate; sneering so long and so hard, we have to use a fish-hook to keep our upper lip in the appropriate position.
Dang, but does that smart.
Oh, and yes, Style Editor, there is a Maustown, OH.
I thought the Social Security section was strong, but whether it built up a head of steam to blast through the headwinds to come I can’t say. If the AARP puts out ads showing the spats-clad Monopoly man yanking checks from the hands of seniors and lighting rotund cheroots, what was said last night will make little difference. The challenge to Syria was nice, a public echo of what I suspect has been said in private. And hello, Egypt! Welcome to the Axis of Damn Well Better Get Your Act Together!
Go read it. Love it. Treasure it. And while you're at It [Ed.--Heavy use of the indefinite article there, eh, Mr. Ombudsman? Back off!], go down and check out Lileks' latest in his chronicle of the Adventures of Joe Ohio, Matchbook Salesman. I really am loving this little series, all inspired by a pile of matchbooks that Lileks acquired in his feverish pursuit of mid-century printed ephemera; it's a novel, it's a social history, it's both. It strikes me as a very creative way of doing social history, much the same as David Gelernter employed in his 1939: The Lost World of the the Fair.
Naturally, us'n historians would prefer to sneer rather than imitate; sneering so long and so hard, we have to use a fish-hook to keep our upper lip in the appropriate position.
Dang, but does that smart.
Oh, and yes, Style Editor, there is a Maustown, OH.
Dr. Dean
Following Dr. Potomac's observations on Dr. Dean, (which the Ombusdsman must in all modesty point out were prompted by the Doc himself) the Ombudsman finds nothing to add other than the headline:
Dean Likely DNC Chief; Rove Denies Involvement
Yes, that is a Scrappleface headline; and yes, Walter Cronkite really does believe Karl Rove has that kind of mind-control power.
Karl Rove...did you know he can bend spoons with the power of his mind? It's a favourite trick in the Oval Office, these days.
Following Dr. Potomac's observations on Dr. Dean, (which the Ombusdsman must in all modesty point out were prompted by the Doc himself) the Ombudsman finds nothing to add other than the headline:
Dean Likely DNC Chief; Rove Denies Involvement
Yes, that is a Scrappleface headline; and yes, Walter Cronkite really does believe Karl Rove has that kind of mind-control power.
Karl Rove...did you know he can bend spoons with the power of his mind? It's a favourite trick in the Oval Office, these days.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Praising Dr. Dean
Dr. Potomac must thank the Ombudsman for raising the important point of Dr. Howard Dean, erstwhile presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, and soon to be Chairman of the oldest political party in human history. The reason for Dr. Potomac's silence on this topic is simply that he is of two minds.
In one mind, he's sees the logic of it perfectly. Dean is the closest thing that exists to a genuine populist figure in the Democratic Party -- if one can imagine a a popular base made up entirely of the academic, environmental and feminist elites of the country. He was able to raise $40 million dollars for his presidential bid (not since John Connally has so much political money been spent to so little political effect) through innovative use of Web-based campaigning. That is the kind of political entrepreneurship that has been entirely missing among the Democrats for 30 years or so and which was starkly missing in the John Kerry campaign. (John Kerry, true to his parsimonious New England heritage, managed to save $9 million of the funds he raised, and boy does he has some 'splainin to do.) From the rank-in-file standpoint, Howard Dean might not be a good candidate but he could very well be an excellent chairman.
The above explanation assumes, of course, that the Democratic party is still on the rails of reason. A second, more plausible, explanation is that they really are just batty. Dean, as he did on the campaign trail, is the chairman of those reduced to spittle-flecked rage by the Bush presidency. Peter Beinart's call to purge the Dean/Michael Moore wing of the party, brings to mind the famous Leninist formulation, "Kto, kovo?" Translated into our context this means roughly, "Just who's going to purge whom around here?" The reason Dean has waltzed into the chairmanship is that the Deniacs are the permanent Democratic party as opposed to the Democratic party that assembles quadrenially in the cold, Iowa night to launch a frontrunner. One expects the owner to mind the store. It is Howard Dean's party. Everyone else just has to live in it.
Dr. Potomac must thank the Ombudsman for raising the important point of Dr. Howard Dean, erstwhile presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, and soon to be Chairman of the oldest political party in human history. The reason for Dr. Potomac's silence on this topic is simply that he is of two minds.
In one mind, he's sees the logic of it perfectly. Dean is the closest thing that exists to a genuine populist figure in the Democratic Party -- if one can imagine a a popular base made up entirely of the academic, environmental and feminist elites of the country. He was able to raise $40 million dollars for his presidential bid (not since John Connally has so much political money been spent to so little political effect) through innovative use of Web-based campaigning. That is the kind of political entrepreneurship that has been entirely missing among the Democrats for 30 years or so and which was starkly missing in the John Kerry campaign. (John Kerry, true to his parsimonious New England heritage, managed to save $9 million of the funds he raised, and boy does he has some 'splainin to do.) From the rank-in-file standpoint, Howard Dean might not be a good candidate but he could very well be an excellent chairman.
The above explanation assumes, of course, that the Democratic party is still on the rails of reason. A second, more plausible, explanation is that they really are just batty. Dean, as he did on the campaign trail, is the chairman of those reduced to spittle-flecked rage by the Bush presidency. Peter Beinart's call to purge the Dean/Michael Moore wing of the party, brings to mind the famous Leninist formulation, "Kto, kovo?" Translated into our context this means roughly, "Just who's going to purge whom around here?" The reason Dean has waltzed into the chairmanship is that the Deniacs are the permanent Democratic party as opposed to the Democratic party that assembles quadrenially in the cold, Iowa night to launch a frontrunner. One expects the owner to mind the store. It is Howard Dean's party. Everyone else just has to live in it.
From the Far Abroad
Have we callooed and callayed about The Diplomad, yet? Certainly the Style Editor, Dr. Potomac and the Ombudsman, in our various run-in's around and about Our Nation's Capital, have chortled fiendishly as we recall what this underground network of Foreign Service diplomats have posted on their Most Excellent Blog.
But really, they go from strength to strength.
First there was their wonderful neologism of "High Priest Vulture Elite", something the Style Editor much enjoyed, given her frequent contact with the HPVE in her day job.
Then there was yesterday's post on "Comma-ism", which synced so well with the thoughts of our Dr. Potomac. Allow me to insert an extract:
There is one group of singularly anti-American types who just have had the hardest time imaginable praising the events of January 30. Who are these foul anti-Americans? Has The Diplomad taught you nothing? Why the leaders of the Democratic Party of the USA, of course! The party that has become the party of the Comma-ists. You know what we mean: the types who must always insert a comma after a ritual throw-away phrase. For example: “Of course the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were horrible [Here it comes! Listen for it!] [COMMA] but US policy in the Middle East . . ." “Of course the Iraqi elections were a good thing [COMMA] but they will not resolve the serious issue of severe income inequality in East St. Louis, or the growing gender disparity in the granting of scholarships to welding schools . . .”
And today we have "Supergeritolman vs Staypuffedmarshmellowbeings: Castro Creams the EU".
We read:
Well, dear readers, guess what? El Comandante apparently has the magic diplomatic formula for dealing with the EU -- we hope to see this formula taught at the US Foreign Service Institute. It seems that when dealing with the EU, it's best to be highly insincere, in other words tell them whatever they want to hear; then make them beg to give you money; take the money; then go back on whatever nonsense you told them originally; then insult them without mercy in the most vile language you can utter; and they'll come running back with even more to give you. You don't believe The Diplomad? You say no organization or group of countries would tolerate such behavior? Oh, pititful fools! Has The Diplomad taught you nothing? We're talking about the EU, for Heaven's sake!
Well, the Ombudsman finds no surprise whatsoever within his cerebral cortex at this. Nor is he surprised at the following:
The EU, also at the urging of Spain's government "recommended" that European embassies in Havana invite neither dissidents nor Cuban officials to its national day receptions. Well, fortunately, it seems not all the Europeans are going to buy off on that recommendation: so far, at least, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia have indicated that they will continue to invite and receive dissidents.
This is indeed a cruel, dark world, where the Ombudsman cannot be surprised by such foul EU cravenness. But there is a glimmer of hope, when nations who used to have to pretend El Commandante was their fraternal comrade in the socialist struggle can tell the EU where to put it.
As the old Scotsman would, after having hoisted the back of his kilt in the general direction of Brussels: "Aye, wheer's your soft power now, you narrow-chested nyaffs, ye
Have we callooed and callayed about The Diplomad, yet? Certainly the Style Editor, Dr. Potomac and the Ombudsman, in our various run-in's around and about Our Nation's Capital, have chortled fiendishly as we recall what this underground network of Foreign Service diplomats have posted on their Most Excellent Blog.
But really, they go from strength to strength.
First there was their wonderful neologism of "High Priest Vulture Elite", something the Style Editor much enjoyed, given her frequent contact with the HPVE in her day job.
Then there was yesterday's post on "Comma-ism", which synced so well with the thoughts of our Dr. Potomac. Allow me to insert an extract:
There is one group of singularly anti-American types who just have had the hardest time imaginable praising the events of January 30. Who are these foul anti-Americans? Has The Diplomad taught you nothing? Why the leaders of the Democratic Party of the USA, of course! The party that has become the party of the Comma-ists. You know what we mean: the types who must always insert a comma after a ritual throw-away phrase. For example: “Of course the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were horrible [Here it comes! Listen for it!] [COMMA] but US policy in the Middle East . . ." “Of course the Iraqi elections were a good thing [COMMA] but they will not resolve the serious issue of severe income inequality in East St. Louis, or the growing gender disparity in the granting of scholarships to welding schools . . .”
And today we have "Supergeritolman vs Staypuffedmarshmellowbeings: Castro Creams the EU".
We read:
Well, dear readers, guess what? El Comandante apparently has the magic diplomatic formula for dealing with the EU -- we hope to see this formula taught at the US Foreign Service Institute. It seems that when dealing with the EU, it's best to be highly insincere, in other words tell them whatever they want to hear; then make them beg to give you money; take the money; then go back on whatever nonsense you told them originally; then insult them without mercy in the most vile language you can utter; and they'll come running back with even more to give you. You don't believe The Diplomad? You say no organization or group of countries would tolerate such behavior? Oh, pititful fools! Has The Diplomad taught you nothing? We're talking about the EU, for Heaven's sake!
Well, the Ombudsman finds no surprise whatsoever within his cerebral cortex at this. Nor is he surprised at the following:
The EU, also at the urging of Spain's government "recommended" that European embassies in Havana invite neither dissidents nor Cuban officials to its national day receptions. Well, fortunately, it seems not all the Europeans are going to buy off on that recommendation: so far, at least, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia have indicated that they will continue to invite and receive dissidents.
This is indeed a cruel, dark world, where the Ombudsman cannot be surprised by such foul EU cravenness. But there is a glimmer of hope, when nations who used to have to pretend El Commandante was their fraternal comrade in the socialist struggle can tell the EU where to put it.
As the old Scotsman would, after having hoisted the back of his kilt in the general direction of Brussels: "Aye, wheer's your soft power now, you narrow-chested nyaffs, ye
Goodness! It is lovely to see our full slate of bloggers back and blogging strong in February.
Dr. Potomac: How about some inside commentary on the (I think rather laughable) success of Governor Dean's DNC bid? Somehow I don't see Dean Dems taking Mark Shields' advice. And speaking of Dean, secession from his homestate proceeds apace -- Killington, VT is still anxious to become Killington, NH. My favorite quote from a NH rep: "My big fantasy is that New Hampshire state liquor store over there," Currier said. "We could generate a ton of money."
Ombundsman: Where have you been, my dear sir? Can I say D. Phil. yet? And you are right to anticipate my horror at the J. F. Stephen search.
The man who works from himself outwards, whose conduct is governed by ordinary motives, and who acts with a view to his own advantage and the advantage of those who are connected with himself in definite, assignable ways, produces in the ordinary course of things much more happiness to others (if that is the great object of life) than a moral Don Quixote who is always liable to sacrifice himself and his neighbours. When you have to deal with a man who expects pay and allowances, and is willing to give a fair day's work for it as long as the arrangement suits him, you know where you are. Deal with such a man fairly and in particular cases, if he is a man of spirit and courage, he will deal with you not only fairly but generously. Earn his gratitude by kindness and justice, and he will in many cases give you what no money could buy or pay for. On the other hand, a man who has a disinterested love for the human race--that is to say, who has got a fixed idea about some way of providing for the management of the concerns of mankind--is an unaccountable person with whom it is difficult to deal upon any well known and recognized principles, and who is capable of making his love for men in general the ground of all sorts of violence against men in particular.
Insane, my foot.
Style Editor: Your religious commentary here is most welcome. We have become distinctly popular with Lutheran sites, due in large part to your efforts. I tip my miter and welcome everyone. R.I.P. Pope Clement XIII, who died this day in 1769:
It remains, Venerable Brothers, that We advise you concerning the fortitude and strength of spirit needed to oppose those things which are against the orthodox faith, which harm piety or which damage the integrity of moral living. Let us be strong in the spirit of the Lord, in good judgment, and in courage. We should not be like dumb watchdogs unable to bark, allowing our flocks to fall prey to looting and our sheep to be devoured by every wild animal in the field. Nor should anything deter us from throwing ourselves into battle for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls: "Think of the way he endured such opposition from sinners." If we are afraid of the audacity of worthless men, it affects the strength of the episcopacy and its sublime and divine power to govern the Church. Nor can we Christians endure or exist any longer-if it has come to that-if we become overly frightened by the snares or threats of the damned. Therefore, trusting not in ourselves but in the God who raises the dead to life, we despise human affairs and cry out to the Lord: You are my hope in the day of disaster. Let us never be exhausted in body or in spirit, for we are fellow workers with God. The Lord Jesus is with us always even to the end of time. Therefore let us not be weakened by scandal or persecution, lest we seem ungrateful for God's favor, since his assistance is as strong as His promises are true.
Dr. Potomac: How about some inside commentary on the (I think rather laughable) success of Governor Dean's DNC bid? Somehow I don't see Dean Dems taking Mark Shields' advice. And speaking of Dean, secession from his homestate proceeds apace -- Killington, VT is still anxious to become Killington, NH. My favorite quote from a NH rep: "My big fantasy is that New Hampshire state liquor store over there," Currier said. "We could generate a ton of money."
Ombundsman: Where have you been, my dear sir? Can I say D. Phil. yet? And you are right to anticipate my horror at the J. F. Stephen search.
The man who works from himself outwards, whose conduct is governed by ordinary motives, and who acts with a view to his own advantage and the advantage of those who are connected with himself in definite, assignable ways, produces in the ordinary course of things much more happiness to others (if that is the great object of life) than a moral Don Quixote who is always liable to sacrifice himself and his neighbours. When you have to deal with a man who expects pay and allowances, and is willing to give a fair day's work for it as long as the arrangement suits him, you know where you are. Deal with such a man fairly and in particular cases, if he is a man of spirit and courage, he will deal with you not only fairly but generously. Earn his gratitude by kindness and justice, and he will in many cases give you what no money could buy or pay for. On the other hand, a man who has a disinterested love for the human race--that is to say, who has got a fixed idea about some way of providing for the management of the concerns of mankind--is an unaccountable person with whom it is difficult to deal upon any well known and recognized principles, and who is capable of making his love for men in general the ground of all sorts of violence against men in particular.
Insane, my foot.
Style Editor: Your religious commentary here is most welcome. We have become distinctly popular with Lutheran sites, due in large part to your efforts. I tip my miter and welcome everyone. R.I.P. Pope Clement XIII, who died this day in 1769:
It remains, Venerable Brothers, that We advise you concerning the fortitude and strength of spirit needed to oppose those things which are against the orthodox faith, which harm piety or which damage the integrity of moral living. Let us be strong in the spirit of the Lord, in good judgment, and in courage. We should not be like dumb watchdogs unable to bark, allowing our flocks to fall prey to looting and our sheep to be devoured by every wild animal in the field. Nor should anything deter us from throwing ourselves into battle for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls: "Think of the way he endured such opposition from sinners." If we are afraid of the audacity of worthless men, it affects the strength of the episcopacy and its sublime and divine power to govern the Church. Nor can we Christians endure or exist any longer-if it has come to that-if we become overly frightened by the snares or threats of the damned. Therefore, trusting not in ourselves but in the God who raises the dead to life, we despise human affairs and cry out to the Lord: You are my hope in the day of disaster. Let us never be exhausted in body or in spirit, for we are fellow workers with God. The Lord Jesus is with us always even to the end of time. Therefore let us not be weakened by scandal or persecution, lest we seem ungrateful for God's favor, since his assistance is as strong as His promises are true.
If the Los Angeles Times Says So...
Dr. Potomac wishes to update an undocumented assertion he made in "The Plantation Strikes Back" relating to the African-American vote in Ohio last November. Nationwide, the President received 11 percent of the African-American vote. In Ohio, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times, George W. Bush received 16 percent of the African-American vote which was quite possibly the difference between winning outright and getting a recount in your Christmas stocking.
Dr. Potomac wishes to update an undocumented assertion he made in "The Plantation Strikes Back" relating to the African-American vote in Ohio last November. Nationwide, the President received 11 percent of the African-American vote. In Ohio, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times, George W. Bush received 16 percent of the African-American vote which was quite possibly the difference between winning outright and getting a recount in your Christmas stocking.
Candlemas
It was on Candlemas Day,
And all in the morning,
They visited the Temple
With our heavenly King.
And was not this a joyful thing?
And sweet Jesus they called him by name.
-All in The Morning (Trad. Carol from Derbyshire, England)
Judging from decorating patterns and tree disposal habits, a great debate permeates modern American society: when does Christmas end? Some people opt for Dec. 26; still others are decorating their now brown wreaths with hearts on St Valentine’s Day.
Before we giggle too much at this however, we should consider that the various branches of Christianity do not speak with one voice on the Christian year either. Nowadays liturgical Protestants end Christmas on Ephiphany. Roman Catholics consider the Monday after the Baptism of Our Lord the end of Christmas. The Orthodox also consider the Baptism of Jesus, the Theophany, the end of Christmas, but when the date is depends on whether they’re sticking to their guns on that Julian calendar issue. Non-liturgical Protestants could care less, after all some might not even celebrate Christmas in the first place.
The pattern has been fluid, however--no matter what the Catholics might tell you--because it was not unusual in the Medieval and post Medieval church for the people to consider today, Candlemas Day, the official end of Christmas.
What is Candlemas? It is the celebration of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Jewish law commanded that first born sons be consecrated to God in the Temple. The Eastern Church generally continues to consider Candlemas a celebration of Jesus. (There are some exceptions.) The Western church however, gradually made it a day commemorating Mary, because under Jewish law a woman was considered unclean after she gave birth. 40 days after the birth of a son (80 if it was a daughter) she was to present herself in the temple and to present a sacrifice for her purification, a lamb for the burnt offering and a dove or young pigeon for the sin offering. If the woman was poor she could offer two doves or pigeons instead. Candlemas, then, was Mary's purification day.
While fulfilling their duties in the Temple, the Holy Family encountered two remarkable people, Simeon and Anna. Both were prophets and both upon seeing Jesus spoke of him as the redemption of Israel. Simeon, who had been promised by God that he would not die until he has seen the Messiah, had particularly moving words that are often incorporated into liturgies as the Nunc dimittis: “ O Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to Thy Word. For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Thy people Israel."
Candlemas gets its name from procession of candles into the church at the beginning of the service accompanied by the singing of the Nunc dimittis. The procession signifies the entry of the Light of the World into the Temple. In the eleventh century of so the custom was added that people would bring the candles they intend to use throughout the year to be blessed by the priest.
As well as some religious sources, some secular sources also assert that Candlemas is the end of Christmas, most famously Robert Herrick’s poem “Candlemas Eve", a sort of guide for the liturgical decorator. And for the liturgical gastronome, crepes are de riguer eating on Candlemas.
So, you, yes you with the brown wreaths and tree teetering on the edge of spontaneous combustion, go ahead and take them down.
It was on Candlemas Day,
And all in the morning,
They visited the Temple
With our heavenly King.
And was not this a joyful thing?
And sweet Jesus they called him by name.
-All in The Morning (Trad. Carol from Derbyshire, England)
Judging from decorating patterns and tree disposal habits, a great debate permeates modern American society: when does Christmas end? Some people opt for Dec. 26; still others are decorating their now brown wreaths with hearts on St Valentine’s Day.
Before we giggle too much at this however, we should consider that the various branches of Christianity do not speak with one voice on the Christian year either. Nowadays liturgical Protestants end Christmas on Ephiphany. Roman Catholics consider the Monday after the Baptism of Our Lord the end of Christmas. The Orthodox also consider the Baptism of Jesus, the Theophany, the end of Christmas, but when the date is depends on whether they’re sticking to their guns on that Julian calendar issue. Non-liturgical Protestants could care less, after all some might not even celebrate Christmas in the first place.
The pattern has been fluid, however--no matter what the Catholics might tell you--because it was not unusual in the Medieval and post Medieval church for the people to consider today, Candlemas Day, the official end of Christmas.
What is Candlemas? It is the celebration of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Jewish law commanded that first born sons be consecrated to God in the Temple. The Eastern Church generally continues to consider Candlemas a celebration of Jesus. (There are some exceptions.) The Western church however, gradually made it a day commemorating Mary, because under Jewish law a woman was considered unclean after she gave birth. 40 days after the birth of a son (80 if it was a daughter) she was to present herself in the temple and to present a sacrifice for her purification, a lamb for the burnt offering and a dove or young pigeon for the sin offering. If the woman was poor she could offer two doves or pigeons instead. Candlemas, then, was Mary's purification day.
While fulfilling their duties in the Temple, the Holy Family encountered two remarkable people, Simeon and Anna. Both were prophets and both upon seeing Jesus spoke of him as the redemption of Israel. Simeon, who had been promised by God that he would not die until he has seen the Messiah, had particularly moving words that are often incorporated into liturgies as the Nunc dimittis: “ O Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to Thy Word. For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Thy people Israel."
Candlemas gets its name from procession of candles into the church at the beginning of the service accompanied by the singing of the Nunc dimittis. The procession signifies the entry of the Light of the World into the Temple. In the eleventh century of so the custom was added that people would bring the candles they intend to use throughout the year to be blessed by the priest.
As well as some religious sources, some secular sources also assert that Candlemas is the end of Christmas, most famously Robert Herrick’s poem “Candlemas Eve", a sort of guide for the liturgical decorator. And for the liturgical gastronome, crepes are de riguer eating on Candlemas.
So, you, yes you with the brown wreaths and tree teetering on the edge of spontaneous combustion, go ahead and take them down.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
As the Ombudsman here at Doctor Curmudgeon & Co., I believe it's time for a little tidying-up around the joint.
This occurred to me when I was viewing our "referrals", and noted that one Gentle Reader had found Doctor Curmudgeon & Co. by typing into Google the following words: "James Fitzjames Stephen Insane".
[Hushed, shocked intake of breath. Straightening of the back.]
This is not the sort of Google search regarding the estimable Mr. Stephen with which any of us here at Doctor Curmudgeon & Co.--those of us who have actually read his work--would care to associate ourselves. Certainly not the Doc, who has been known to give out James Fitzjames Stephen's treatises for Christmas, Yom Kippur, Bar Mitzvahs, Pentecost, Flag Day, and any other holiday that suggests itself to his veritably Stephenesque mind.
Let that be noted for the record.
This occurred to me when I was viewing our "referrals", and noted that one Gentle Reader had found Doctor Curmudgeon & Co. by typing into Google the following words: "James Fitzjames Stephen Insane".
[Hushed, shocked intake of breath. Straightening of the back.]
This is not the sort of Google search regarding the estimable Mr. Stephen with which any of us here at Doctor Curmudgeon & Co.--those of us who have actually read his work--would care to associate ourselves. Certainly not the Doc, who has been known to give out James Fitzjames Stephen's treatises for Christmas, Yom Kippur, Bar Mitzvahs, Pentecost, Flag Day, and any other holiday that suggests itself to his veritably Stephenesque mind.
Let that be noted for the record.
Funny thing, but just the other day some nut by the name of "Bill Moyers" (imagine Homer Simpson air quotes there, please) wrote a column in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Believe it or not, this "Bill Moyers" was talking about at least three of us here at Dr. Curmudgeon & Co.
Wuh? No, no, not directly. But he was attacking--bravely attacking!--right wing Protestant Fundamentalist Nutjobs. And given that his net is very, very big, at least three of us fit into it. The Doc himself, as is well-known, falls into the category of right wing Roman Catholic Traditionalist Nutjobs. He has to put up with Garry Wills. That's enough work of anyone, OK? So leave him out of this.
Anyway, this "Bill Moyers" claims to be quite the expert on right wing Protestant Fundamentalist Nutjobs, because he was apparently a Baptist preacher for six months before he became, in turns, a PR Hack, Presidential Attack Dog, Acolyte Journalist, Seeker of Bliss, and...when the hell did this happen...Courageous Repository of Solomonic Wisdom for our Age.
Well, he's certainly four of those things.
Anyway, he starts out this way:
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Well, sure. Glad to know you're not going to sugar coat it there, "Bill". Thanks for setting things up to allow for a reasonable, balanced, Solomonic exchange of opinions. No one out here but us Delusionals.
Frankly, the Ombudsman does not have time to Fisk all of this. The Ombudsman, he is the man of much business, as our dear friend the super fantastic Manolo would say. There are other things of greater concern to the Ombudsman, like the heat of his coffee, the state of the weather, or the strange thing on the sole of his Allan Edmonds cap-toe loafer, than the "musings" of the "Bill Moyers".
So it's a good thing that James Lileks is out there! Strangely enough, he too receives a salary from the Star-Tribune. [Ed.-- Perhaps they've forgotten about him?] But on his own blog, James has this (among many other things) to say:
"Sunday was the day when Americans were watching the Iraqi election, of course. What do you think the Strib’s editorial page had for this weighty day? Well, a lengthy editorial on Ethanol, for those who rise Sunday morn with a healthy appetite for flapjacks, sausages, orange juice and 2000 words on corn subsidies. ('Bold gesture, missed options.' Was ever a more perfect headline for an editorial ever printed?) But the main page had this at the top:
'For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power. What that means for the environment is frightening.'
Well, it depends on your perspective. We all remember how 270,000 people were killed in a day when the environment demonstrated that it had a monopoly of power over plate tectonics.
Below the words, a picture of cracked parched earth, which had once no doubt been green & verdant farmland before the Right Rev. Bush got out his joystick and sent his 900 foot tall Jesus robot to blast the crops with his death-beam laser eyes.
Did I mention that the shadow of a cross falls across the parched land?
You look down the page to see what this might be titled – Meek gesture, seized options? Bold & spicy options, savory gestures? Get this:
THERE IS NO TOMORROW.
We’re on a roll! Ecological catastrophe brought on by 'ideology and theology,' with another dull DONG of the catastrophe bell that’s been tolling ever since the Indian cried a famous lone tear over phosphates in the laundry soap. Then comes the cherry on the sundae:
'By Bill Moyers.'
All rise..."
It continues from there. Read, as they like to say in the blogosphere, the whole thing.
That 900 foot Jesus robot sounds cool. Maybe Dr. Potomac could get us one. Can we use it to scare Teddy Kennedy sober?
No, probably need the Second Coming for that job.
Wuh? No, no, not directly. But he was attacking--bravely attacking!--right wing Protestant Fundamentalist Nutjobs. And given that his net is very, very big, at least three of us fit into it. The Doc himself, as is well-known, falls into the category of right wing Roman Catholic Traditionalist Nutjobs. He has to put up with Garry Wills. That's enough work of anyone, OK? So leave him out of this.
Anyway, this "Bill Moyers" claims to be quite the expert on right wing Protestant Fundamentalist Nutjobs, because he was apparently a Baptist preacher for six months before he became, in turns, a PR Hack, Presidential Attack Dog, Acolyte Journalist, Seeker of Bliss, and...when the hell did this happen...Courageous Repository of Solomonic Wisdom for our Age.
Well, he's certainly four of those things.
Anyway, he starts out this way:
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Well, sure. Glad to know you're not going to sugar coat it there, "Bill". Thanks for setting things up to allow for a reasonable, balanced, Solomonic exchange of opinions. No one out here but us Delusionals.
Frankly, the Ombudsman does not have time to Fisk all of this. The Ombudsman, he is the man of much business, as our dear friend the super fantastic Manolo would say. There are other things of greater concern to the Ombudsman, like the heat of his coffee, the state of the weather, or the strange thing on the sole of his Allan Edmonds cap-toe loafer, than the "musings" of the "Bill Moyers".
So it's a good thing that James Lileks is out there! Strangely enough, he too receives a salary from the Star-Tribune. [Ed.-- Perhaps they've forgotten about him?] But on his own blog, James has this (among many other things) to say:
"Sunday was the day when Americans were watching the Iraqi election, of course. What do you think the Strib’s editorial page had for this weighty day? Well, a lengthy editorial on Ethanol, for those who rise Sunday morn with a healthy appetite for flapjacks, sausages, orange juice and 2000 words on corn subsidies. ('Bold gesture, missed options.' Was ever a more perfect headline for an editorial ever printed?) But the main page had this at the top:
'For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power. What that means for the environment is frightening.'
Well, it depends on your perspective. We all remember how 270,000 people were killed in a day when the environment demonstrated that it had a monopoly of power over plate tectonics.
Below the words, a picture of cracked parched earth, which had once no doubt been green & verdant farmland before the Right Rev. Bush got out his joystick and sent his 900 foot tall Jesus robot to blast the crops with his death-beam laser eyes.
Did I mention that the shadow of a cross falls across the parched land?
You look down the page to see what this might be titled – Meek gesture, seized options? Bold & spicy options, savory gestures? Get this:
THERE IS NO TOMORROW.
We’re on a roll! Ecological catastrophe brought on by 'ideology and theology,' with another dull DONG of the catastrophe bell that’s been tolling ever since the Indian cried a famous lone tear over phosphates in the laundry soap. Then comes the cherry on the sundae:
'By Bill Moyers.'
All rise..."
It continues from there. Read, as they like to say in the blogosphere, the whole thing.
That 900 foot Jesus robot sounds cool. Maybe Dr. Potomac could get us one. Can we use it to scare Teddy Kennedy sober?
No, probably need the Second Coming for that job.
Rice 2008
At least two of us--that would be the Ombudsman and the Style Editor--have agreed that if Condi did run for President in 2008, we would drop whatever we are doing and run off to help the campaign. Quite frankly, December 2007 in New Hampshire looks like a good deal, as far as we are concerned, as long as we can do advance work for Madame Secretary.
It's hard to imagine that this is going to happen, but you can dream...which is just what Draft Condi is doing. Here are some of my favorite reasons for President Rice:
5. ...the first President who has proclaimed herself "a Second Amendment absolutist," repudiating everything including registration. Her father didn't hunt ducks -- he hunted Klansmen. (No proof that he got one, but Kerry never proved he got that duck, either).
6. She would also be the first unmarried President in over a century. All the supermarket mags could speculate as to whom she's dating now. (Okay, they could do it with Bill Clinton, too, but this would have a lot more decorum). Stolen glances at Prince Charles? Why did she appoint a 27 year old as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Paparazzi could pursue her as she sneaked away with a Marine guard. The Secret Service could detain the paparazi and "accidentally" drop them off the 14th Street Bridge. This gets better by the minute.
7. If she does get married, we'll have to figure out what the First Man of the U.S. does. Gets up on the White House roof to adjust the antenna? Trims the grass? Serves as the representative to NASCAR? (Takes out the garbage is a given).
8. Since the election of 2008 would end with her nomination, she would have no need to barter the usual political favors (this group gets a cabinet official, this donor gets a nice ambassadorship) and could run her Administration as she pleased. (Probably first time that's happened since the election of 1796). The British might actually get a competent ambassador for once. The Democrats would also benefit, since they would save the expenses of a convention, campaign, and inauguration.
You might also check out Rice 2008--which is, I hasten to add, highly unofficial.
At least two of us--that would be the Ombudsman and the Style Editor--have agreed that if Condi did run for President in 2008, we would drop whatever we are doing and run off to help the campaign. Quite frankly, December 2007 in New Hampshire looks like a good deal, as far as we are concerned, as long as we can do advance work for Madame Secretary.
It's hard to imagine that this is going to happen, but you can dream...which is just what Draft Condi is doing. Here are some of my favorite reasons for President Rice:
5. ...the first President who has proclaimed herself "a Second Amendment absolutist," repudiating everything including registration. Her father didn't hunt ducks -- he hunted Klansmen. (No proof that he got one, but Kerry never proved he got that duck, either).
6. She would also be the first unmarried President in over a century. All the supermarket mags could speculate as to whom she's dating now. (Okay, they could do it with Bill Clinton, too, but this would have a lot more decorum). Stolen glances at Prince Charles? Why did she appoint a 27 year old as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Paparazzi could pursue her as she sneaked away with a Marine guard. The Secret Service could detain the paparazi and "accidentally" drop them off the 14th Street Bridge. This gets better by the minute.
7. If she does get married, we'll have to figure out what the First Man of the U.S. does. Gets up on the White House roof to adjust the antenna? Trims the grass? Serves as the representative to NASCAR? (Takes out the garbage is a given).
8. Since the election of 2008 would end with her nomination, she would have no need to barter the usual political favors (this group gets a cabinet official, this donor gets a nice ambassadorship) and could run her Administration as she pleased. (Probably first time that's happened since the election of 1796). The British might actually get a competent ambassador for once. The Democrats would also benefit, since they would save the expenses of a convention, campaign, and inauguration.
You might also check out Rice 2008--which is, I hasten to add, highly unofficial.
Monday, January 31, 2005
The Plantation Strikes Back
Dr. Potomac detects new signs of unease, jumpiness and anxiety among the Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (is there a more felicitous turn of phrase in the American political lexicon?) announced last week the formation of a taskforce to help Democrats learn how to communicate with the religious folk of the nation’s vast, red middle. And she chose to lead this effort –wait for it – Rep. Jim Clyburn. Now, Congressman Clyburn, is no doubt a very decent fellow. It is worth asking, however, if Clyburn is the answer, what was the question?
A la Karnac the Magnificent, Dr. Potomac holds the envelope to his forehead and sees..."How do we stop the seepage of older, culturally conservative African-Americans away from the Democratic party?" It has been noted that African-American voters converting to the GOP was an important factor in Ohio, the swingiest of swing states last year, where the President exceeded his already very respectable showing among African-Americans nationwide. Cultural questions are major factors here, with African-American pastors objecting strenuously to the gay marriage lobby’s efforts to coopt the African-American struggle for civil rights. People who faced down Bull Conner and were thrown out of segregated luncheon counters tend to be a little cranky with college-educated, dual-income same-sex yuppies drowning their resentments in double-skim lattes at the corner Starbucks. (Dr. Potomac further suspects that African-Americans will resist any effort to dilute the authority of their churches and pastors, long the only institutions and leaders that were fully “owned” by the community. As the sign on the African-American church in my neighborhood used to say -- before the neighborhood Blues objected and had the sign dismantled and removed over the pastor's objection -- “God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”)
One other factor may be at play here, and that’s the President's effort to open federal grant programs to faith-based and community organizations. After four years, increasing amounts of federal social services grant dollars are flowing into programs and projects directed toward small ministries many of which are headed by African-American clergy and community leaders. These organizations are gradually coming to understand the President really means it when he says he wants to help and wants to do it in a way that doesn't put their churches under a federal supervisor. Trust is slowly, incrementally being built between two social strata that haven't found much common cause to make over the past 40 years or so.
Dr. Potomac detects new signs of unease, jumpiness and anxiety among the Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (is there a more felicitous turn of phrase in the American political lexicon?) announced last week the formation of a taskforce to help Democrats learn how to communicate with the religious folk of the nation’s vast, red middle. And she chose to lead this effort –wait for it – Rep. Jim Clyburn. Now, Congressman Clyburn, is no doubt a very decent fellow. It is worth asking, however, if Clyburn is the answer, what was the question?
A la Karnac the Magnificent, Dr. Potomac holds the envelope to his forehead and sees..."How do we stop the seepage of older, culturally conservative African-Americans away from the Democratic party?" It has been noted that African-American voters converting to the GOP was an important factor in Ohio, the swingiest of swing states last year, where the President exceeded his already very respectable showing among African-Americans nationwide. Cultural questions are major factors here, with African-American pastors objecting strenuously to the gay marriage lobby’s efforts to coopt the African-American struggle for civil rights. People who faced down Bull Conner and were thrown out of segregated luncheon counters tend to be a little cranky with college-educated, dual-income same-sex yuppies drowning their resentments in double-skim lattes at the corner Starbucks. (Dr. Potomac further suspects that African-Americans will resist any effort to dilute the authority of their churches and pastors, long the only institutions and leaders that were fully “owned” by the community. As the sign on the African-American church in my neighborhood used to say -- before the neighborhood Blues objected and had the sign dismantled and removed over the pastor's objection -- “God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”)
One other factor may be at play here, and that’s the President's effort to open federal grant programs to faith-based and community organizations. After four years, increasing amounts of federal social services grant dollars are flowing into programs and projects directed toward small ministries many of which are headed by African-American clergy and community leaders. These organizations are gradually coming to understand the President really means it when he says he wants to help and wants to do it in a way that doesn't put their churches under a federal supervisor. Trust is slowly, incrementally being built between two social strata that haven't found much common cause to make over the past 40 years or so.
Sudden Thought
Have any of the libs come out with a storyline like, "Of course they voted in droves. Iraq has a history of compulsory elections and many feared retribution from the provisional government or the Americans"???
You heard it here first: someone with a serious case of Oppositionitis will do so before the week is out.
Have any of the libs come out with a storyline like, "Of course they voted in droves. Iraq has a history of compulsory elections and many feared retribution from the provisional government or the Americans"???
You heard it here first: someone with a serious case of Oppositionitis will do so before the week is out.
Oppositionitis: The Compassionate View of a Former Sufferer
First the election, then the inaugural festivities. Dr. Potomac finally feels in fit enough shape to ply the blogging trade once again.
He makes just one observation: the Democrats have finally entered the terminal phase of oppositionitis, a disease with which he is directly and personally familiar. It goes something like this: you belong to a political party that has been consigned to a marginal position for a prolonged period. In Dr. Potomac's case it was, how the Manolo would say, the Adminstration of the Clinton. One is so deeply disturbed by the continuous flow of disagreeable policy decisions (say, mandatory child safety seats for everyone under the age of 23) that a certain unhinging occurs. The next Democratic policy recommendation could be sainthood for Reagan or a commemorative resolution declaring apple pie delicious or, to update the phenomenon, a presidential address declaring that freedom is the natural condition of man. Couldn't make the slightest difference what the proposal is, the other guy made it up and it is simply and genetically WRONG and requires a hyperbolic denunciation. (Note: Barbara Boxer [Empty Suit, CA] is the Typhoid Mary of Democratic oppositionitis. When Saturday Night Live starts ridiculing a Democrat, he or she should know she's in deep trouble.)
Oppositionitis is an ugly and, worse, self-perpetuating problem. It leads one to say patently absurd things and cause the public to look away in embarrassment. It is extremism in 40-point font. President Bush presses on with democracy for Iraq with what looks like rather fulsome support of the overwhelming majority of Iraqi citizens: wrong. Nominates the superb Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State: wrong. Tries to pull the emergency brake on the upcoming Social Security trainwreck: wrong. Suggests that poor Americans might be better off owning rather than renting the American dream: wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, it has to be wrong because...George Bush said it.
The current state of Democratic politics is Newt Gingrich post-government shutdown. Bill Clinton's intricate, lying presidency drove the GOP into advanced oppositionitis and the public consigned the Republican majority in Congress to the loony bin. And now, dear, dear, Democrats, you've contracted the same disabling disease. Let's assume for the sake of argument that George Bush is a drooling idiot. Karl Rove, by consensus, is still the all-knowing, all-seeing superintendent of the asylum and not a word passes out of POTUS' mouth without having been thoroughly focus-grouped for maximum effect. Even under their own Bush-is-an-idiot construct, what are the odds that the Democrats can oppose EVERYTHING without making a political error on enough of these items to damage themselves seriously? Answer: not good. In fact, it probably means that GWB will slowly bury the opposition under a trickle of popular, common sense policy changes that are gradually reshaping American society.
Oppositionitis. You heard it hear first. It needs a disease group to advocate for research funding
First the election, then the inaugural festivities. Dr. Potomac finally feels in fit enough shape to ply the blogging trade once again.
He makes just one observation: the Democrats have finally entered the terminal phase of oppositionitis, a disease with which he is directly and personally familiar. It goes something like this: you belong to a political party that has been consigned to a marginal position for a prolonged period. In Dr. Potomac's case it was, how the Manolo would say, the Adminstration of the Clinton. One is so deeply disturbed by the continuous flow of disagreeable policy decisions (say, mandatory child safety seats for everyone under the age of 23) that a certain unhinging occurs. The next Democratic policy recommendation could be sainthood for Reagan or a commemorative resolution declaring apple pie delicious or, to update the phenomenon, a presidential address declaring that freedom is the natural condition of man. Couldn't make the slightest difference what the proposal is, the other guy made it up and it is simply and genetically WRONG and requires a hyperbolic denunciation. (Note: Barbara Boxer [Empty Suit, CA] is the Typhoid Mary of Democratic oppositionitis. When Saturday Night Live starts ridiculing a Democrat, he or she should know she's in deep trouble.)
Oppositionitis is an ugly and, worse, self-perpetuating problem. It leads one to say patently absurd things and cause the public to look away in embarrassment. It is extremism in 40-point font. President Bush presses on with democracy for Iraq with what looks like rather fulsome support of the overwhelming majority of Iraqi citizens: wrong. Nominates the superb Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State: wrong. Tries to pull the emergency brake on the upcoming Social Security trainwreck: wrong. Suggests that poor Americans might be better off owning rather than renting the American dream: wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, it has to be wrong because...George Bush said it.
The current state of Democratic politics is Newt Gingrich post-government shutdown. Bill Clinton's intricate, lying presidency drove the GOP into advanced oppositionitis and the public consigned the Republican majority in Congress to the loony bin. And now, dear, dear, Democrats, you've contracted the same disabling disease. Let's assume for the sake of argument that George Bush is a drooling idiot. Karl Rove, by consensus, is still the all-knowing, all-seeing superintendent of the asylum and not a word passes out of POTUS' mouth without having been thoroughly focus-grouped for maximum effect. Even under their own Bush-is-an-idiot construct, what are the odds that the Democrats can oppose EVERYTHING without making a political error on enough of these items to damage themselves seriously? Answer: not good. In fact, it probably means that GWB will slowly bury the opposition under a trickle of popular, common sense policy changes that are gradually reshaping American society.
Oppositionitis. You heard it hear first. It needs a disease group to advocate for research funding
Monday, January 24, 2005
So the great Dr. Curmudgeon Super Bowl War began. For two weeks the Style Editor and the Ombudsman will be locked in an epic struggle for football bragging rights with Doc and the Scooter. As much as it pains me to take a position against the Scooter, I am here to tell him crawl into the farthest corner of the house right now, little doggie, before the big, bad Eagles get you.
And I have this to say to the Doc, where's your all civilizing influence of classical music now?
And I have this to say to the Doc, where's your all civilizing influence of classical music now?
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Hats off to the oldest altar boy in Britain and perhaps the world. He's been serving for 82 of his 89 years. Amazing.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Interesting yet unsurprising article in the Leader today. A Rochester, NH Espiscopal parish closes its doors after most of its parishoners leave en masse. Apparently the exodus has been going on for years. First they lost people because the Book of Common Prayer was changed. Then they lost more because of the introduction of female priests. Now the final nail in the coffin came with the Bishop Robinson consecration. Funny how we've all been told that these three things are signs of inclusion, positive change, and making the church relevant to modern life. Yet with "liberalization" entire clumps of people are alienated and find other churches. Midwest Conservative Journal is also on the case.
Interesting note via Relapsed Catholic ( via Metaphilm and the New York Times) about the odd but promising popularity of G. K. Chesterton with young people. Apparently the Chesterton show on EWTN, the Catholic cable station, is one of their big hits with kids. I dearly hope it is true.
I love (read: loathe) the language used in this story. Apparently one British school is abolishing homework for its 12 year old students.
Dr Hazlewood says he wants to make schooling more "relevant to life in the 21st century".
He wants to "get away from the imposition of homework, a product of 20th century education" and allow children to embrace their 21st century "learning journey".
Weeeeeeee! I'm on a learning journey!
They've also obliterated "subject learning" for something called "crosscurricular subjects."
But this one is the clincher:
Dr Hazlewood's radical approach is based on a scheme devised by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), which rejects the notion that a teacher's job is to transmit a body of knowledge to pupils.
Teachers are not there to transmit knowledge, only to facilitate the students on their learning journey. Wake me up. I'm in a nightmare.
In other news, the inmates are now in charge of the asylum, and the foxes have taken over the hen house.
Interesting note via Relapsed Catholic ( via Metaphilm and the New York Times) about the odd but promising popularity of G. K. Chesterton with young people. Apparently the Chesterton show on EWTN, the Catholic cable station, is one of their big hits with kids. I dearly hope it is true.
I love (read: loathe) the language used in this story. Apparently one British school is abolishing homework for its 12 year old students.
Dr Hazlewood says he wants to make schooling more "relevant to life in the 21st century".
He wants to "get away from the imposition of homework, a product of 20th century education" and allow children to embrace their 21st century "learning journey".
Weeeeeeee! I'm on a learning journey!
They've also obliterated "subject learning" for something called "crosscurricular subjects."
But this one is the clincher:
Dr Hazlewood's radical approach is based on a scheme devised by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), which rejects the notion that a teacher's job is to transmit a body of knowledge to pupils.
Teachers are not there to transmit knowledge, only to facilitate the students on their learning journey. Wake me up. I'm in a nightmare.
In other news, the inmates are now in charge of the asylum, and the foxes have taken over the hen house.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
In today's Boston Globe, Matthew Gilbert complains that the Fox TV show "American Idol," which auditions thousands of people to become the next big pop singer, is cruel and exploitative. I suppose by answering this charge, and denying it to be true, I am admitting that I actually watch the show. But so be it. I have.
Says Gilbert:
As the judges laugh in the faces of vulnerable kids with clumped hair and pockmarked skin, they re-create the "Carrie"-esque nightmare of every freshman geek ever accused of having cooties. They are the rich and famous shaking their heads over the great unwashed, the haves chuckling about the have-nots.
But the "cooties" were imaginary; these people really have zero singing talent. They may be "have-nots," but that lack was delivered to them by nature, not by the "haves" who cruelly took it away from them.
I'm not sure "American Idol" can take responsibility for every dreamer who flocks to its cattle calls like pilgrims on a religious trek. And, in our high-gloss TV atmosphere, there is something quite welcome about Cowell's scathing honesty, even if the truth can hurt. But setting up clueless and desperate people for public shaming isn't the truth; it's exploitation. There's a line between taking cruel advantage of someone's feeble delusion and enjoying their foibles; in some cases, it's a fine line, but one that's clear to anyone with a heart.
If these thousands of contestants, who have watched the show for three years and clearly understand what happens, sign up for this task, how can we claim they are being exploited? Doesn't exploitation imply lack of knowledge or lack of alternatives? These people are willing customers, people often so self-deluded by confidence in their singing abilities (who are these tone-deaf friends and family who say they have talent?), that they are willing to take the risk of public humiliation to confirm it. When that dream pops with a Simon Cowell dismissal, you can't help but think, "they asked for it."
Is it heartless? I guess that depends how you view pretentious people. Americans tend to hate pretention, thinking you are something you are not and "taking on airs." This is probably why Idol is so popular. What's the difference between someone who thinks themselves superior because of birth, wealth, or lineage, and someone who thinks themselves supremely talented, uniquely gifted above the riff-raff? Both, when taken past their normal limits, strike most as unbecoming. Pride is excusable when combined with a degree of humility, thankfulness, and context. But when it becomes hubris and, when critiqued before the crowd, shown to be nonsense, it falls to the ground.
We shouldn't let our embarrassing national obesession with "self-esteem" get in the way of correcting pretention and false hope. Are they poor saps who deserve our pity (would they want that?), or poor saps who deserve a bracing splash of cold water to snap them out of their hubris. In my view, they need the splash: You are fooling yourself, you have no talent, and the longer you delude yourself the more painful the unfulfilled dreams will become. Thought of this way, the Cowell denial is an act of charity more than cruelty. Hard landings wake people up.
Sometimes.
Says Gilbert:
As the judges laugh in the faces of vulnerable kids with clumped hair and pockmarked skin, they re-create the "Carrie"-esque nightmare of every freshman geek ever accused of having cooties. They are the rich and famous shaking their heads over the great unwashed, the haves chuckling about the have-nots.
But the "cooties" were imaginary; these people really have zero singing talent. They may be "have-nots," but that lack was delivered to them by nature, not by the "haves" who cruelly took it away from them.
I'm not sure "American Idol" can take responsibility for every dreamer who flocks to its cattle calls like pilgrims on a religious trek. And, in our high-gloss TV atmosphere, there is something quite welcome about Cowell's scathing honesty, even if the truth can hurt. But setting up clueless and desperate people for public shaming isn't the truth; it's exploitation. There's a line between taking cruel advantage of someone's feeble delusion and enjoying their foibles; in some cases, it's a fine line, but one that's clear to anyone with a heart.
If these thousands of contestants, who have watched the show for three years and clearly understand what happens, sign up for this task, how can we claim they are being exploited? Doesn't exploitation imply lack of knowledge or lack of alternatives? These people are willing customers, people often so self-deluded by confidence in their singing abilities (who are these tone-deaf friends and family who say they have talent?), that they are willing to take the risk of public humiliation to confirm it. When that dream pops with a Simon Cowell dismissal, you can't help but think, "they asked for it."
Is it heartless? I guess that depends how you view pretentious people. Americans tend to hate pretention, thinking you are something you are not and "taking on airs." This is probably why Idol is so popular. What's the difference between someone who thinks themselves superior because of birth, wealth, or lineage, and someone who thinks themselves supremely talented, uniquely gifted above the riff-raff? Both, when taken past their normal limits, strike most as unbecoming. Pride is excusable when combined with a degree of humility, thankfulness, and context. But when it becomes hubris and, when critiqued before the crowd, shown to be nonsense, it falls to the ground.
We shouldn't let our embarrassing national obesession with "self-esteem" get in the way of correcting pretention and false hope. Are they poor saps who deserve our pity (would they want that?), or poor saps who deserve a bracing splash of cold water to snap them out of their hubris. In my view, they need the splash: You are fooling yourself, you have no talent, and the longer you delude yourself the more painful the unfulfilled dreams will become. Thought of this way, the Cowell denial is an act of charity more than cruelty. Hard landings wake people up.
Sometimes.
Super Fantastic
Some have described the Manolo as an "an Italian flavored Damon Runyon of the fashion world,", or to use the Manolo's own idiom, the Manolo, he is super fantastic.
Some have described the Manolo as an "an Italian flavored Damon Runyon of the fashion world,", or to use the Manolo's own idiom, the Manolo, he is super fantastic.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Now this is good social policy: Classical music is being piped into London Underground stations, and "yobbish behavior" has decreased by a third. Now correlation does not equal casuation, but I say push ahead and pipe it into the whole system. It is a civilizing enterprise.
But apparently it only plays at the ticket counters and waiting rooms, not the platforms. Says one LU manager, "We won't be linking this to platform speakers though - that's a captive audience and not everyone likes classical music."
To which I reply, too damn bad. Play it anyway.
But apparently it only plays at the ticket counters and waiting rooms, not the platforms. Says one LU manager, "We won't be linking this to platform speakers though - that's a captive audience and not everyone likes classical music."
To which I reply, too damn bad. Play it anyway.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
This story is fantastic: In 1914, a boy throws a tennis ball off the walls of Lincoln Cathedral and it sticks in a crevice. It is still there, and his family visits the Cathedral every year to point it out. Now, worried that it will be dislodged by cleaners, they'd like it back. The ball (which was completely unnoticed by Cathedral keepers) may be one of the oldest tennis balls in the UK.
Since when is donning a particular outfit at a fancy dress party (read: costume party) equated with actually advocating the ideas or lifestyle of the outfit? So if I wear a Viking costume, I am advocating the pillaging of monastaries in villages around the North Sea? If I dress as Henry VIII, I am advocating the "stripping of the altars" (with apologies to the Style Editor, our very own Henry VIII)? If I dress as Louis XIV, I am an advocate of divine right monarchy? Something tells me the "Harry as Nazi" controversy has little to do with the costume, and much to do with dislike of the British monarchy. As Blithering Bunny rightly adds: Wear a Che T-shirt and you're cool. Wear a Hitler T-shirt and you're a fascist.
One to make the eyes roll: California 8th graders are told strip-tease is a great career option.
Since when is donning a particular outfit at a fancy dress party (read: costume party) equated with actually advocating the ideas or lifestyle of the outfit? So if I wear a Viking costume, I am advocating the pillaging of monastaries in villages around the North Sea? If I dress as Henry VIII, I am advocating the "stripping of the altars" (with apologies to the Style Editor, our very own Henry VIII)? If I dress as Louis XIV, I am an advocate of divine right monarchy? Something tells me the "Harry as Nazi" controversy has little to do with the costume, and much to do with dislike of the British monarchy. As Blithering Bunny rightly adds: Wear a Che T-shirt and you're cool. Wear a Hitler T-shirt and you're a fascist.
One to make the eyes roll: California 8th graders are told strip-tease is a great career option.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Hah! And Hah! again! The Ombudsman has awakened from a long winter's nap to find that he rocks!
Edward IV
You are loyal and down to earth. More than that, you are a hard-headed realist. You take the facts, and you go with them. You don't try to change what is, just like Edward IV, who never lost a battle, even when greatly outnumbered. You excel on your own mind and on your own heart. Keep your level head, and keep being aware. You rock!
Thank you, thank you, thank you verra much.
Edward IV
You are loyal and down to earth. More than that, you are a hard-headed realist. You take the facts, and you go with them. You don't try to change what is, just like Edward IV, who never lost a battle, even when greatly outnumbered. You excel on your own mind and on your own heart. Keep your level head, and keep being aware. You rock!
Thank you, thank you, thank you verra much.
The Style Editor is distressed to learn she is Henry VIII. This is obviously a horrible and inaccurate quiz that discriminates against Protestants who think Tombstone is a rotten movie.
And really the monarchs they choose: Richard I, Edward IV, Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V. This is all the best they could do? I wouldn't take any of them home to meet the parents. They couldn't find any better ones?
At any rate as Henry VIII (I am, I am):
Henry VIII
You are impuslive (sic), temperamental, and autocratic. You make strong decisions based on your gut reactions. You are true to you friends, but if they betray you in the slightest way, then they're OUT. You like being in a monogamous relationship, but if you feel betrayed, you will tear apart the peson (sic) that hurt you. You are brilliant! But impulsive. Work on the impulsive streak, and continue being brilliant!
As evidence of my brilliance, I know how to use Spell Check. (Yes, yes, I'm also petty, but I did write a few lovely tunes.)
And really the monarchs they choose: Richard I, Edward IV, Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V. This is all the best they could do? I wouldn't take any of them home to meet the parents. They couldn't find any better ones?
At any rate as Henry VIII (I am, I am):
Henry VIII
You are impuslive (sic), temperamental, and autocratic. You make strong decisions based on your gut reactions. You are true to you friends, but if they betray you in the slightest way, then they're OUT. You like being in a monogamous relationship, but if you feel betrayed, you will tear apart the peson (sic) that hurt you. You are brilliant! But impulsive. Work on the impulsive streak, and continue being brilliant!
As evidence of my brilliance, I know how to use Spell Check. (Yes, yes, I'm also petty, but I did write a few lovely tunes.)
Have you taken the What Monarch are you quiz? Well, apparently I am King Charles V:
You are a mastermind. Sinister? No. Disconnected from humanity at times? Occasionally. But, you look out for you and yours by making alliances and by keeping quiet and striking when it's time. Try and be more humane. Don't dumb yourself down, but be sure and employ the empathy emotion more often so that you don't lose touch.
Humane? Empathy? Why don't you buzz off.
You are a mastermind. Sinister? No. Disconnected from humanity at times? Occasionally. But, you look out for you and yours by making alliances and by keeping quiet and striking when it's time. Try and be more humane. Don't dumb yourself down, but be sure and employ the empathy emotion more often so that you don't lose touch.
Humane? Empathy? Why don't you buzz off.
Lovely stinging article about "dressing down" in the latest Spectator. Makes me feel a bit guilty for even owning a pair of jeans and polo shirts.
There used to be such a thing as a sense of occasion, and those participating in the occasion — whether it be a night at the opera or an invitation to dinner or to a religious ceremony — would avoid insulting their hosts or diminishing the event itself by not turning up for it dressed as if for an afternoon in the garden or at the dog track. That now seems to have gone by the board. Formality at recreational occasions is regarded as utterly absurd; and, indeed, conservatism of dress in the workplace is now increasingly frowned upon, as indicating a range of unsavoury attitudes including a hidebound mentality, political incorrectness and class-consciousness.
If it means I'll be frowned upon, then I'll definitely begin dressing up. Life's all about making the right enemies, isn't it?
There used to be such a thing as a sense of occasion, and those participating in the occasion — whether it be a night at the opera or an invitation to dinner or to a religious ceremony — would avoid insulting their hosts or diminishing the event itself by not turning up for it dressed as if for an afternoon in the garden or at the dog track. That now seems to have gone by the board. Formality at recreational occasions is regarded as utterly absurd; and, indeed, conservatism of dress in the workplace is now increasingly frowned upon, as indicating a range of unsavoury attitudes including a hidebound mentality, political incorrectness and class-consciousness.
If it means I'll be frowned upon, then I'll definitely begin dressing up. Life's all about making the right enemies, isn't it?
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Because our eyes occasionally hop to matters across the Pond or perhaps because we're Wodehouse fans, kind readers occasionally designate Dr. Curmudgeon and Company as a "mid Atlantic" blog. We've slipped a bit lately in this rating, so I turn my eye to the other side of the Atlantic and I see not the current Blair/Brown brouhaha, or the sad decline of Marks and Spencer, but..yes.. the Eglu.
In France, they wanted a chicken in every pot. In England, they want a chicken in every yard. But chicken housing has gotten very high tech these days. The Eglu is the iMac of chicken housing. Colorful, stylish and modular, it makes one think well of chickens, which is a new experience for Style Editor who has always viewed chickens as utilitarian embodiments of evil.
I urge The Countryside Alliance to push along the Eglu in any way they can. The more chickens kept in suburban yards, the more chickens killed by foxes, the more people realize perhaps that foxes are in fact a problem. It's hard for an eight year old to love a fox when it has killed Mrs. Clucky.
And for those of us over here, do not despair. The Eglu is coming to America.
In France, they wanted a chicken in every pot. In England, they want a chicken in every yard. But chicken housing has gotten very high tech these days. The Eglu is the iMac of chicken housing. Colorful, stylish and modular, it makes one think well of chickens, which is a new experience for Style Editor who has always viewed chickens as utilitarian embodiments of evil.
I urge The Countryside Alliance to push along the Eglu in any way they can. The more chickens kept in suburban yards, the more chickens killed by foxes, the more people realize perhaps that foxes are in fact a problem. It's hard for an eight year old to love a fox when it has killed Mrs. Clucky.
And for those of us over here, do not despair. The Eglu is coming to America.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Suffering through Living? Avoid the Netherlands
Weblog over at Christianity Today has a chilling story on the whacked out progress of euthanasia in the Netherlands. Besides the mere expected monumental abuses, like euthanizing infants, the Dutch have also decided that:
"Doctors can help patients who ask for help to die even though they may not be ill but 'suffering through living,' concludes a three year inquiry commissioned by the Royal Dutch Medical Association," the British Medical Journal reports today.
The report comes a year after physician Philip Sutorius had his criminal conviction appeal rejected by the Dutch Supreme Court. In 1998 Sutorius performed an "assisted suicide" on politician Edward Brongersma, who had no major disease other than feeling his existence was "pointless and empty." Being "tired of life" is no grounds for death, Dutch courts said, but Sutorius was not punished since he showed "concern for his patient."
The current situation, then, is murky. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that patients must have a "classifiable physical or mental condition" to be killed, but the country's euthanasia law only says the person must be "suffering hopelessly and unbearably."
Jos Dijkhuis, who led the Royal Dutch Medical Association inquiry, says patients merely "tired of life" shouldn't be granted physician-assisted suicide, but that doctors alone should be allowed to decide whether patients' "suffering through living" is severe enough for death.
As Weblog wittily notes: Slippery-slope arguments are often faulty, but the Royal Dutch Medical Association seems to be going out of its way to demonstrate that such slopes really do exist.
What will pose a particular morbid fascination for the Style Editor is to see how this all goes down in this era of separate realities/truths. Having lost any belief in or adherence to an absolute truth, the case will soon arise when a doctor sees a patient as “suffering through living” but the patient doesn’t.
Well, such would have been interesting case if the Dutch Supreme Court were a court of law rather than a court of feeling. After all I’m sure the murdering doctor will have shown “concern” for the patient, if only in the witness box, which seems to be the only factor about which the Dutch Supreme Court really cares. Yes indeed, if you care that what ever you do must be good, because the heart of course can never lie. Strewth. And people thought the Twinkie defense was an all time low in defense strategies.
I counsel all Dr. Curmudgeon readers who happen to be visiting the Netherlands to cast off their usual curmudgeonly aspect and to appear downright jovial lest someone decide you're suffering through living.
But before we become too cocky about the Dutch, 80% of the people in Vermont think euthanasia is just peachy too.
Weblog over at Christianity Today has a chilling story on the whacked out progress of euthanasia in the Netherlands. Besides the mere expected monumental abuses, like euthanizing infants, the Dutch have also decided that:
"Doctors can help patients who ask for help to die even though they may not be ill but 'suffering through living,' concludes a three year inquiry commissioned by the Royal Dutch Medical Association," the British Medical Journal reports today.
The report comes a year after physician Philip Sutorius had his criminal conviction appeal rejected by the Dutch Supreme Court. In 1998 Sutorius performed an "assisted suicide" on politician Edward Brongersma, who had no major disease other than feeling his existence was "pointless and empty." Being "tired of life" is no grounds for death, Dutch courts said, but Sutorius was not punished since he showed "concern for his patient."
The current situation, then, is murky. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that patients must have a "classifiable physical or mental condition" to be killed, but the country's euthanasia law only says the person must be "suffering hopelessly and unbearably."
Jos Dijkhuis, who led the Royal Dutch Medical Association inquiry, says patients merely "tired of life" shouldn't be granted physician-assisted suicide, but that doctors alone should be allowed to decide whether patients' "suffering through living" is severe enough for death.
As Weblog wittily notes: Slippery-slope arguments are often faulty, but the Royal Dutch Medical Association seems to be going out of its way to demonstrate that such slopes really do exist.
What will pose a particular morbid fascination for the Style Editor is to see how this all goes down in this era of separate realities/truths. Having lost any belief in or adherence to an absolute truth, the case will soon arise when a doctor sees a patient as “suffering through living” but the patient doesn’t.
Well, such would have been interesting case if the Dutch Supreme Court were a court of law rather than a court of feeling. After all I’m sure the murdering doctor will have shown “concern” for the patient, if only in the witness box, which seems to be the only factor about which the Dutch Supreme Court really cares. Yes indeed, if you care that what ever you do must be good, because the heart of course can never lie. Strewth. And people thought the Twinkie defense was an all time low in defense strategies.
I counsel all Dr. Curmudgeon readers who happen to be visiting the Netherlands to cast off their usual curmudgeonly aspect and to appear downright jovial lest someone decide you're suffering through living.
But before we become too cocky about the Dutch, 80% of the people in Vermont think euthanasia is just peachy too.
Monday, January 10, 2005
I thank the Style Editor profusely for her consistent posting this last month. Traveling about western New York and New Hampshire, I did not have easy access to a computer.
Check out this scathing review, complete with charges of plagiarism, of the latest Abe Lincoln book. Seems our departed President was not the homosexual some had hoped. Then again, as I said in detail a couple of years ago, neither was his illustrious and oft' abused predecessor.
Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was beheaded on this day in 1645. I am sure the Society of King Charles the Martyr will be having a service somewhere.
Also on this day in 1776, Thomas Paine's screed Common Sense was first published, one of the more ironic titles of a book.
Happy Birthday Lord Acton, born on this day in 1834.
Check out this scathing review, complete with charges of plagiarism, of the latest Abe Lincoln book. Seems our departed President was not the homosexual some had hoped. Then again, as I said in detail a couple of years ago, neither was his illustrious and oft' abused predecessor.
Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was beheaded on this day in 1645. I am sure the Society of King Charles the Martyr will be having a service somewhere.
Also on this day in 1776, Thomas Paine's screed Common Sense was first published, one of the more ironic titles of a book.
Happy Birthday Lord Acton, born on this day in 1834.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Surf's Up at Surf Aid
I haven't said anything about the tsunami because what really can I say beyond the obvious? But I do want to give a shoutout to a fantastic organization, Surf Aid . Founded by surfers to give back to the islands where they find so much pleasure, for the past several years Surf Aid has been working in the Mentawai Islands to better the health of the islanders. The Style Editor has had the pleasure of having some communication with the group in her professional capacity, and although I don't agree with all of their decisions (Stop faffing around, lads, and add IRS with DDT to your malaria control efforts instanter. Look! Even the New York Times thinks you should! ), I have been impressed with their dedication and ground operation. Surf Aid is now assisting with relief efforts on Nias and is doing a bang up job keeping people informed about what they are doing. (I can think of SEVERAL organizations that should learn from Surf Aid's excellent accountability measures. Hello, UN, are you paying attention? Hello?) Although it is highly unlikely that the Style Editor would ever be seen attempting to balance on a fiberglass board or would ever be able to properly use the word "stoked" in a sentence, her tsunami donations have gone to Surf Aid, because if Surf Aid gets extra money, I know it won't be wasted. Surf Aid. It's not just for surfers anymore.
I haven't said anything about the tsunami because what really can I say beyond the obvious? But I do want to give a shoutout to a fantastic organization, Surf Aid . Founded by surfers to give back to the islands where they find so much pleasure, for the past several years Surf Aid has been working in the Mentawai Islands to better the health of the islanders. The Style Editor has had the pleasure of having some communication with the group in her professional capacity, and although I don't agree with all of their decisions (Stop faffing around, lads, and add IRS with DDT to your malaria control efforts instanter. Look! Even the New York Times thinks you should! ), I have been impressed with their dedication and ground operation. Surf Aid is now assisting with relief efforts on Nias and is doing a bang up job keeping people informed about what they are doing. (I can think of SEVERAL organizations that should learn from Surf Aid's excellent accountability measures. Hello, UN, are you paying attention? Hello?) Although it is highly unlikely that the Style Editor would ever be seen attempting to balance on a fiberglass board or would ever be able to properly use the word "stoked" in a sentence, her tsunami donations have gone to Surf Aid, because if Surf Aid gets extra money, I know it won't be wasted. Surf Aid. It's not just for surfers anymore.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
January 6, The Feast of the Epiphany
The Wisemen have finally made it, and as a local Anglo-Catholic rector puts it, "the reality of the Incarnation blossoms into the staggering Truth that this is for everyone, including you and me! "
So, fellow goyim, celebrate the Epiphany (the "to make known") by munching on some Galette des Rois while grooving to the jaunty Provencal number The March of the 3 Kings (La Marche des Rois Mages)
In the morn we met the proud array
Of three great kings, the mighty wise men,
In the morn we met the proud array
Of three great kings upon the broad highway.
The men-at-arms with the youths and pages,
In jewelled robes they followed the sages,
And we were askèd to join with them
To find the Holy Child in Bethlehem.
Banners flew, outstanding in the breeze,
The trumpets blew, the drums were beating,
Banners flew, outstanding in the breeze,
The village people fell upon their knees.
And over them in heav'nly glory
Led on the star with its beaming light holy,
And we were askèd to join with them
To find the Holy Child in Bethlehem.
The Wisemen have finally made it, and as a local Anglo-Catholic rector puts it, "the reality of the Incarnation blossoms into the staggering Truth that this is for everyone, including you and me! "
So, fellow goyim, celebrate the Epiphany (the "to make known") by munching on some Galette des Rois while grooving to the jaunty Provencal number The March of the 3 Kings (La Marche des Rois Mages)
In the morn we met the proud array
Of three great kings, the mighty wise men,
In the morn we met the proud array
Of three great kings upon the broad highway.
The men-at-arms with the youths and pages,
In jewelled robes they followed the sages,
And we were askèd to join with them
To find the Holy Child in Bethlehem.
Banners flew, outstanding in the breeze,
The trumpets blew, the drums were beating,
Banners flew, outstanding in the breeze,
The village people fell upon their knees.
And over them in heav'nly glory
Led on the star with its beaming light holy,
And we were askèd to join with them
To find the Holy Child in Bethlehem.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
January 5th, The Twelfth Day of Christmas (Twelfth Night)
PLEASE TO SEE THE KING
Joy, health, love, and peace be all here in this place
By your leave, we will sing concerning our King
Our King is well dressed, in silks of the best
In ribbons so rare, no king can compare
We have traveled many miles, over hedges and stiles
In search of our King, unto you we bring
Old Christmas is past, Twelfth Night is the last
And we bid you adieu, great joy to the new
Ah Twelfth Night, the end of Christmas and a wild and rollocking time it used to be too. There's no reason why it still shouldn't be: party down and sing all your favorite Christmas carols!
PLEASE TO SEE THE KING
Joy, health, love, and peace be all here in this place
By your leave, we will sing concerning our King
Our King is well dressed, in silks of the best
In ribbons so rare, no king can compare
We have traveled many miles, over hedges and stiles
In search of our King, unto you we bring
Old Christmas is past, Twelfth Night is the last
And we bid you adieu, great joy to the new
Ah Twelfth Night, the end of Christmas and a wild and rollocking time it used to be too. There's no reason why it still shouldn't be: party down and sing all your favorite Christmas carols!
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
January 4, The 11th day of Christmas
The wisemen are closing in, so we're going to take a peak at their progress with the carol, "King Herod and the Cock". It apparently hails from the West Midlands our thereabouts according to a West Midlands carol site, but the words are also found in the longer "Carnal and the Crane".
There was a star in David's land,
In David's land appeared,
And in King Herod's chamber
So bright it did shine there.
The wise men they soon spied it
And told the king anigh,
That a Prince's Babe was born that night
No king shall e'er destroy.
If this be the truth, King Herod said,
That thou hast told to me,
The roasted cock that lies in the dish
Shall crow full senses three.
Oh, the cock soon thrusten'd and feather'd well
By the works of God's own hand,
And he did crow full senses three
In the dish where he did stand.
The wisemen are closing in, so we're going to take a peak at their progress with the carol, "King Herod and the Cock". It apparently hails from the West Midlands our thereabouts according to a West Midlands carol site, but the words are also found in the longer "Carnal and the Crane".
There was a star in David's land,
In David's land appeared,
And in King Herod's chamber
So bright it did shine there.
The wise men they soon spied it
And told the king anigh,
That a Prince's Babe was born that night
No king shall e'er destroy.
If this be the truth, King Herod said,
That thou hast told to me,
The roasted cock that lies in the dish
Shall crow full senses three.
Oh, the cock soon thrusten'd and feather'd well
By the works of God's own hand,
And he did crow full senses three
In the dish where he did stand.
Monday, January 03, 2005
January 3, The 10th Day of Christmas
Okay so yesterday's selection was a hymn and not a carol. Today's selection however is a carol and a rather sprightly one for the leaping lords. It's French, but it's delightful:Il Est Ne, le Divin Enfant. (He is Born, Holy Child Divine). (For those who want to hear the music, the MIDI file at the top of the linked page usually has an approximation of the tune, as much as MIDI can be said to approximate music. )
Okay so yesterday's selection was a hymn and not a carol. Today's selection however is a carol and a rather sprightly one for the leaping lords. It's French, but it's delightful:Il Est Ne, le Divin Enfant. (He is Born, Holy Child Divine). (For those who want to hear the music, the MIDI file at the top of the linked page usually has an approximation of the tune, as much as MIDI can be said to approximate music. )
Sunday, January 02, 2005
January 2, The 9th Day of Christmas
It had to happen sometime. As we ease into the New Year, today's featured carol is Martin Luther's great "Von Himmel Hoch da kom ich her", in the Catherine Winkworth translation. And yes, you should sing all 15 verses thank you very much.
It had to happen sometime. As we ease into the New Year, today's featured carol is Martin Luther's great "Von Himmel Hoch da kom ich her", in the Catherine Winkworth translation. And yes, you should sing all 15 verses thank you very much.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
January 1, The Circumcision of Our Lord (The Holy Name), New Year's Day
The Ombudsman thinks I need to explain circumcision. You can watch "Meet The Fockers" to get the technical bits, but of course circumcision is more than just that. Circumcision designates a Jewish male as descended from Abraham and his entering in to the original Covenant with God. At this time the child would also receive his name. Although not bound by the law, Christ fulfilled the law and so was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke, ii, 21), and received his name Jesus, meaning "He saves". He was, as St. Paul says, "made under the law", i.e. and submitted to the original Covenant, "that he might redeem them who were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal., iv, 4, 5). I'm sure there was some medieval carol that covered all this, but I don't know it, so I'm going to choose the beautiful "Lullay my liking, my dear son" because I imagine a baby would need some lulling after being circumcised.
As for New Year's Day, the early church spent a while trying to pin down a date for the New Year. January 1st was the Roman choice for the day as it was the Feast of Janus, the god who looks both ways. The Church disapproved of the immense revelry that traditionally surrounded this day, and for a while attempts were made to celebrate the New Year in Spring, eventually though January 1st won and so...Happy New Year! You can party down with the rousing "Gloucestshire Wassail". or you can solemnly ponder the cycle of the year with the carol "Green Grow'th the Holly". Henry VIII apparently composed the haunting tune, but I try not to hold that against it.
Green Grow'th the Holly
Green grow'th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
Though winter blasts blow ne'er so high,
Green grow'th the holly.
Gay are the flowers,
Hedgerows and ploughlands;
The days grow longer in the sun,
Soft fall the showers.
Full gold the harvest,
Grain for thy labour;
With God must work for daily bread,
Else, man, thou starvest.
Fast fall the shed leaves,
Russet and yellow;
But resting-buds are snug and safe
Where swing the dead leaves.
Green grow'th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
The God of life can never die.
Hope! saith the holly.
The Ombudsman thinks I need to explain circumcision. You can watch "Meet The Fockers" to get the technical bits, but of course circumcision is more than just that. Circumcision designates a Jewish male as descended from Abraham and his entering in to the original Covenant with God. At this time the child would also receive his name. Although not bound by the law, Christ fulfilled the law and so was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke, ii, 21), and received his name Jesus, meaning "He saves". He was, as St. Paul says, "made under the law", i.e. and submitted to the original Covenant, "that he might redeem them who were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal., iv, 4, 5). I'm sure there was some medieval carol that covered all this, but I don't know it, so I'm going to choose the beautiful "Lullay my liking, my dear son" because I imagine a baby would need some lulling after being circumcised.
As for New Year's Day, the early church spent a while trying to pin down a date for the New Year. January 1st was the Roman choice for the day as it was the Feast of Janus, the god who looks both ways. The Church disapproved of the immense revelry that traditionally surrounded this day, and for a while attempts were made to celebrate the New Year in Spring, eventually though January 1st won and so...Happy New Year! You can party down with the rousing "Gloucestshire Wassail". or you can solemnly ponder the cycle of the year with the carol "Green Grow'th the Holly". Henry VIII apparently composed the haunting tune, but I try not to hold that against it.
Green Grow'th the Holly
Green grow'th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
Though winter blasts blow ne'er so high,
Green grow'th the holly.
Gay are the flowers,
Hedgerows and ploughlands;
The days grow longer in the sun,
Soft fall the showers.
Full gold the harvest,
Grain for thy labour;
With God must work for daily bread,
Else, man, thou starvest.
Fast fall the shed leaves,
Russet and yellow;
But resting-buds are snug and safe
Where swing the dead leaves.
Green grow'th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
The God of life can never die.
Hope! saith the holly.
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