CWF Log, Part III: Sunday, September 15th

A word of advisement: this is by far the longest post I have ever ‘blogged. It’s likely the longest post I ever will ‘blog. For that reason I encourage you to read it. If you would prefer, you may divide the reading of this post up into more manageable sections by stopping at each division marked thusly: ***. If you choose not to read the whole thing: hey! – no skin off my nose!

Up at 8am for Mass at Franciscan University's campus chapel. Very nice Mass (can't remember the last time I've seen six concelebrants) though the choir of young women should be advised that, while Bernadette Peters doesn't do it a great deal, it is indeed all right to pronounce your "r"s while you're singing. Other than that they sang beautifully and the sermon on forgiveness undoubtedly, though not in any sort of obvious and redundant way, contributed to my spiritual conversion later that day.

After Mass it was back to Damon's (at the hotel) for Brunch served by a hyperactive trio of the elderly (apparently Brunch is a dish best served by those over sixty). They earned their tip. The only conference attendee I noticed immediately was the lady with the rose-colored glasses, a publisher though I never learned her name nor for whom she published. After brunch I checked out of the hotel and made it back up the hill to hear Dr. Kazimierz Braun deliver his talk on covenant and the artist, complete with slides of the rainbow in art. It was a very good talk and I hope to see it published some day so I can enjoy it again. It was an amazing presentation and I cannot do it justice here -- even if my memory were not so faulty. The understanding, though, that I took away from it is that just as God forms covenants with His people, each with their own physical sign, so too does the artist form a covenant with their reader (or viewer) with the work of art itself as a sign. In this sense, as I understand it, the artist has a responsibility to and for the well-being of those who read (or view) their art. Dr. Scott Hahn had a brief reply to Dr. Braun's paper basically saying, as we all felt, "Wow." Someone asked the question, then, in the open-question period: what to do when secular institutions or groups co-opt Christian religious imagery. If Dr. Braun had been aware of the current meaning of "rainbow" he may've had something to say on this point, but he was not familiar with that particular case of symbol co-option. (It was, however, very cute to see that the aging playwright had brought his wife with him to the conference and she could be seen, during each of his presentations, camera in hand snapping photographs of her husband).

After this, though, was the presentation of Dr. Braun's play "Tamara L." I have to say here, without going off on another boring tangent, just how important an art form to me, personally, is drama (the theatre). I was involved with the theatre group at Hillsdale College and I do believe that it's the most authentic, deeply and satisfyingly meaningful, and immediately apprehensible of all the arts. All of them. Beacuse it's REAL PEOPLE you're watching. Embodiment. Like the priest at Mass (though the Mass, is most certainly not drama). Dr. Braun did not disappoint.

***

The play, while fictional, was based nonetheless on a real historical figure: early 20th-century Polish artist and Art Deco figurehead Tamara de Lempicka. The play centers around this painting of Lempicka's, Mother Superior which stands out from among the vast majority of Lempicka's paintings as the character a) is not clearly a lesbian with visible nipples and b) does not have vacant, listless eyes. Tamara L. has come to an Itialian monastery in the late 1930s to paint the Mother Superior, but also as she is feeling full and well the meaningless in her life. The Mother Superior, we come to learn, is well aware of Tamara's work (and lifestyle) as she had earned a doctorate in Modern Art before her own retreat to the Monastery. This does not become the cloying "180-degree conversion story" you'd think it might become, were you not familiar with Polish drama. What it was was a fair, deeply poignant, deeply conflicted dialogue brilliantly acted by the young Franciscan actor playing Tamara L (seriously, her performance blew my mind -- that I should see a performance of this calibre at Franciscan University!). Anyway, the production brought tears to my eyes -- twice. Immediately apprehended was the pain of the artist who takes on all the ugliness of the world, tries to tame it, to make it beautiful, to make it meaningful, only to fall victim to that same ugliness, that same nihilism. The tears of the Mother Superior in the painting are not the Mother Superior's tears, but Tamara's own, shed for her own lost soul. This, of course, strikes Tamara as repugnant, loathesome, and a sign of her own weakness and reliance on something greater than herself and her endless quest to seek gratification in the arms of whatever man, woman, drug, or bottle in which she can find it.

But -- souls can be regained. And the play ends on an up beat as the Mother Superior insists (after persuading Tamara not to destroy the painting) that it is the "rule" that the Mother Superior should walk the guest to the gate. Over Tamara's objections, the old Mother Superior further helps the artist with her heavy art supplies and as the two women walk off the stage towards the audience Tamara asks, implying the whole conflicted long dark night of the soul the two women have survived together, though referring to the simple act of kindness on the part of the old nun in helping her carry her gear, "And is this also the rule?" "No," replies the old Mother Superior. "This is the Gospel."

I really hope the one-act play is published and performed by other drama groups around the country. Trust me: I've seen good theatre and I've seen bad theatre and this was seriously good theatre.

After the play was over there was a panel discussion with Dr. Braun, Barbara Nicolosi, playwright Buzz McLaughlin, and Regis Martin (I believe). This was by far the most interesting part of the entire festival as you had the screenwriter and Hollywood insider (Nicolosi), popular playwright (McLaughlin), old-school playwright (Dr. Braun), and Catholic writer (Martin, I believe) hash out their differences (with the audience, too!) and what came out of that discussion really brought into focus, for me, what we, as Catholics, are to be doing with our work, our writing, our art.

***

Essentially, I came away from the discussion with the impression, not hopefully unique to myself, that there was something quintessentially Christ-like in the suffering of the Tamara character in the play. Sure, she’d lived a life a Christian would have to consider to be “immoral” but one wonders that if she didn’t have to do it, another artist might have. Again, it has been suggested that all of the ugliness of a culture is thrust upon the artist with the injunctive to make something beautiful of it, no matter the internal torment this may cause the artist. As such, the artist suffers for the sickness of the culture. In fact, further, it is because the artist is quite so often sick herself that she is able to so accurately understand the illness of the culture. Is this inner torment, this sickness integral to the artist? I certainly hoped not. But if it was? We are all, in that we are not Christ, sick to varying degrees. I thought about this as I said my goodbyes to the other attendees at the conference and pointed the car towards home.

What would be my role, then? Could I ever feel truly satisfied, truly worthy by not writing? Certainly the culture needs healing and people, artists, to make sense out of its ugliness. Since the culture’s ugliness to some degree resides within me, I can understand it. And since, also, Christ resides within me, I know the cure for the ugliness. But how to best lead people to the cure – or to even make them aware that they are sick? Surely this is where fiction comes in: the novel, the screenplay. Would I ever be able to help people in some small shadow of the way Walker Percy’s novels saved me those five years ago?

These thoughts guided me for the first 200 miles, or so, of my journey homeward. It was not until I reached Ann Arbor, one town from home, when the full impact hit me and a veil was torn away.

If the artist becomes sick and suffers and if even the most seemingly healthy of Catholics can become an artist… what then? If there is something Christ-like in the hedonist, drug-addled, bi-sexual character of Tamara L. what does this mean for the rest of the people on this planet? In an instant I found myself shaking (though keeping the car solidly on the road, I should add). Suddenly it all became perfectly clear:

There are no terrorists. There are no gays. There are no criminal executives at work bankrupting their employees and investors. There are no corrupt politicians. There are no Arabs, no Iraqis, no abortionists, no Americans, no Catholics, no Protestants, no pedophile priests, no mealy-mouthed Bishops, no victims. There is only Jesus. Jesus suffering. Jesus in need of our help. People sick and suffering and desperately miserable to various degrees who need Jesus, though they may not even realize that He is what they need or even that they are sick at all. In an instant I felt twenty years of anger, twenty years of bitter frustration towards all of the people I thought I resented fall away from me. I had been accomplishing nothing with my anger and yet I thought I needed it. I thought I needed it to sustain me, to keep my going, to give me something to fight for. In fact, it had only clouded my vision. Tears began to pour down my face. “Thank you, Jesus,” I cried – as He had just removed perhaps the heaviest of my burdens, the one keeping me most from Him and from giving myself completely to those around me.

I was crying too, though, because everything had suddenly become perfectly clear. I didn’t need to save the world. I didn’t need to set my jaw resolutely and to angrily do battle with the hordes of Vandals at the gate. That’s not my job. My job isn’t even to chastise or mock or ridicule them. My job is only to help diagnose their illness and hopefully, perhaps though my writing (?), to help them understand how sick they really are – how sick we all are. And then to merely indicate in which direction lies the Cure. Jesus will do the rest.

I tried to regain my composure the best I could before I pulled into our driveway. I’d been away for almost three days and Jackie would surely wonder if I pulled-up in tears. As I entered the house she noticed my puffy red eyes and commented that I looked as though I’d just been in a fight. I told her everything immediately for, indeed, I just had.

Since then, since Sunday (the relevance of this week’s Gospel is not lost on me, for I believe it, and the Eucharist, to be the Keys which unlocked my experience) I have been thinking: what does this mean for the Church? What does it mean to truly forgive? To realize that the people we call monsters, those who plowed four planes into the buildings and into the ground last September weren’t monsters at all: they were people, God’s creatures, suffering as we all suffer – as Christ suffered. They were sick in exactly the same way we all are sick when we do not have Christ living within us – sick with anger, with avarice, with spite, misery, hatred, malice, jealousy, sloth, greed, lust, pride: evil – I’ve had at one time or another a bad case of them all. But what do we as Christians do then, one we realize this? How do we bring others to Christ? How do we help Him cure them? How do we help Him cure ourselves?

I don’t know how long this new insight will last. Likely it will fade and be forgotten in time and I’ll either turn my attention towards writing – towards culture diagnosis and towards showing people their, our, my own illness and the Cure – or I won’t. For now, though, I take comfort in the realization that for now I’ve lost my anger – and, Lord, I never thought I’d be so happy to be rid of it. Thank you, Jesus.

South Africa's Sesame Street Gets HIV Muppet

"We can't continue to have HIV positive children isolated, demonized, victimized. We want to make all of our children feel comfortable," [Education Minister Kader Asmal] said.

I think this is actually pretty wonderful. But it does raise one physiological (and disturbingly so) question: does this mean that Muppets bleed?

Here's a 'blog I'd never read before (until I did a google search on my own name -- c'mon, everyone does it -- and found it): E-Pression

Very nice 'blogging by a member of my own generation (the Cartoon Network Generation) -- though I must admit I'm much more of a Moltar guy myself.

At least WorldCom's fraudulent practices were more or less legitimate... You know, leasing company jets to executives for $1 a year, transferring line costs to cap-ex... that sort of thing.

But now there's news that Tyco has uncovered $100 million in fraudulent employee bonuses, including a $6,000 shower curtain for the CEO's apartment and $1 million for his wife's birthday party last year which included -- this is the best -- "an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David with vodka streaming from his penis into crystal glasses."

Now, since I am half-Flemish and since we did give the world manniken pis I can tell you that there are ways of doing the whole "peeing sculpture" thing tastefully -- but not with Michelangelo's David. Why? Well, I simply don't have time to explain to you right now why this is so wrong.

Though if you have to have an ice-sculpture pee anything, alcohol is probably the best option since its evaporation temperature is so much less than water's, it wouldn't erode the tracts of the scupture through convection.

You've really got to hand it to some people for staying cool in a situation like this. Most of us would've just gone to pieces and that would've been the end of it.

Thanks to Greg Popcak, we have a link to The Lord's Prayer in Klingon. I didn't know that The Lord's Prayer translated into Klingon but I guess that's what the little bat'leth illustration is for.

And for those uninitiated among you who do not know what a bat'leth is... here you go.

Back at work now I find not only 300 emails to munge through but also that my Fantasy Football team, Robot Team #1, is first in our league! There are 10 teams in our league all managed by die-hard football fans, so that's pretty cool. Jimmy Smith doesn't play this weekend, though, so I don't expect to do too well.

CWF Log, Part II: Saturday, September 14, 2002

I awoke somewhat reluctantly at 7:52am. So much for 8am Mass (daily Mass -- which includes Saturday -- is the custom at FSU for students and faculty and apparently conference goers as well). Breakfast was coffee courtesy of the ready-to-brew filter packets in the hotel room (I have come to LOVE in-room coffee.. whoever thought of that is a genius). I showered, shaved and drove the 300 feet (straight up) from the hotel to FSU. It was also around this time that I learned that (apparently) Franciscan University of Steubenville has, on or immediately near to its property, real life government project housing. I imagine this enhances the whole ministry aspect of the college but to me the arrangement seems less than ideal.

I did manage to snag a dougnut, thanks to the conference which provided them and met, all too briefly, the winsome Emily Stimpson who soon disappeared to, herself, grab a doughnut. My own doughtut (filled with strawberry jelly as that seemed the healthiest option availble to this non-doughnut eater) had seemingly been powdered with confectioner's sugar some time after the glaze had solidified such that one bite sent white inconvenience showering down over my shirt and shoes. I dusted myself off, however, and made it to the first session on time. Sandwiched between Barbara Nicolosi's two presentations (which were superb, which were what I'd come all that way to see, and which I will carry with me forever -- at least until such a time as I can attend one of the Act One programs she offers), there was a talk by some Polish playwright named Dr. Kazimierz Braun. Dr. Braun has three PhDs, countless plays, at least one novel in English (and 24 other books), and many many years of teaching to his credit. He also participated in Karol Wojtyla's theatre workshops while Wojtyla was Archbishop of Krakow. I enjoyed very much his talk on prayer and craft in the writer's life. I also learned a great deal more than I'd known (which was nothing) about Polish poets and playwrights. It was not until the next day, Sunday, however, that I learned what a truly brilliant playwright Dr. Braun is. The one-act drama presented then contributed to my genuine conversion on the ride home. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After lunch, which was provided though I somehow sat at one of two seats in the entire place which didn't get served before the lunches ran out -- though the dining hall staff was gracious enough to heat something up in a microwave which I scarfed down, it was time again to listen to Ron Hansen who told a humorous and as-yet-unpublished story about disposing of a dead dog's corpse and took questions from the audience. He mentioned that when he does not write he feels physically ill. I haven't written any music in a long time and I think that's why I've been so sick (though not necessarily physically) lately. We'll see about that. Ron Hansen then said that he feels ill even when he is writing, and I can appreciate that too. Since Barbara Nicolosi had mentioned it at dinner the day before, I asked Ron about the movie adaptation of Mariette In Ecstacy. He humorously related that movie's unforunate development and merciful demise -- though complete it will never (and I think we can all be thankful for this, from what I've heard) never again see the light of bulb.

The last presentation that day was delivered by an overall-clad Marcus Grodi who'd just published his first novel. The thing I admire most about Marcus Grodi is his genuine and unaffected manner of speaking. He used his recent farming experiences and tribulations as a metaphor for the new novelist's struggle -- and did so very effectively. I rather enjoyed it. And after this talk it was time for dinner, for which Mrs. Kathryn Lively was gracious enough to leave her station at the FrancisIsadore E-Press table to join me for a discussion about Star Trek, rewrites, and how to pace one's self while writing a novel. After dinner it was back up the hill for the writer's roundtable with the most eminent participant being Ralph McInerny -- the conference's only smoker -- he is a true writer and philosophy professor -- and also at the same time its eldest participant (from what I could see). I also learned from Bud McFarlane, Jr., that the best way to get your book into the hands of hundreds of thousands of readers is to have Michael O'Brien help you with the rewrite and also to give it away. Also -- of course -- to write a good book to begin with. I've started reading the first of his novels and I don't know yet if it falls into the CATHOLIC FICTION trap (which is, of course, that it screams "I AM CATHOLIC FICTION!!!" before it screams "I AM A GREAT STORY!" but I'm only on page three).

After the roundtable I headed upstairs to listen to a group of kids who seemed to range in age from about six to thirteen playing traditional American and Irish music while a bunch of children (we're talking pre-High School age here) squaredanced and many many small children ran around. This was weird to see on a college campus (made more so by the lack of actual college students) even considering my matriculation at Hillsdale. I think I would've gone nuts at FUS. Or I would've become holy. Or both. But probably gone nuts first.

I did finally meet up with the second of the two of the conference's attendees who had actually written screenplays (eight of them). A FUS grad named John W. who did join me for a drink at the hotel bar to discuss movies and writing in general, shared some insight on the actual screenwriting process which was invaluable. After this, and another phone call to Jackie, it was time for bed. Mass was at 9am and counting the long drive, I did have a long day ahead of me.

But I had absolutely no idea how sublime a day it would turn out to be and how it would change my life forever. Indeed, I still do not know how my life has changed. I'm now grasping for the few remaining memories of that vision, that insight -- to retain them and hopefully to allow them to grow.

CWF Log, Part I: Friday, September 13, 2002

All right, this isn't so much a log as a retelling of the events of the past weekend. I left Plymouth, MI, at around 11:15am MapBlast directions in hand with the intent of making it to The Franciscan University of Steubenville by 7pm at the very latest (when Ron Hansen was scheduled to deliver his keynote address). I made one stop on the Ohio Turnpike (it was at one of the nice service plazas: it had a Starbucks and a Panera Bread) and made it through the mountains to Steubenville by a quarter of five. I checked in at the hotel and then drove up the hill (the University is built on a series of small hills on top of a really big hill) to register. It was sunny and hot and the campus was teeming with really healthy-looking students (no anemic or mawkish and moping goths here!) and I was nearly mistaken for one of them by the conference's director. After registering I wandered around the college for a bit so I'd know where everything was. The atmosphere was not unlike Hillsdale in that it was very quiet and very clean. What is unlike Hillsdale, though, is the Catholic nature of the University -- including an adoration chapel on-campus. As I walked by it I noticed a couple of dozen backpacks and shoes by the door and many students inside in Eucharistic adoration. At the beginning the wood-chip-lined path which led past the stations of the cross I noticed more sandals indicating that some folks were walking it barefoot. I thought I'd check it out but it was very hot. And since I didn't want to be accidentally struck by any low-flying levitating Franciscan students, I went back to the hotel.

The Holiday Inn in Steubenville, Ohio, has a Damon's Rib joint built right into it which is cool so I went there for dinner. I had a yummy salad and a couple of cups of coffee. As I finished the second cup of coffee I noticed Ron Hansen seated at a table nearby with some old folks. He must be staying in the hotel, I thought. Then I noticed Barbara Nicolosi, who runs the annual month-long Act One program for Christian screenwriters, seated alone at a nearby table. Since her two sessions were pretty much the main reason I'd come all that way to the conference, after I finished my coffee and paid for my meal I wandered over and introduced myself saying that I had seen her on EWTN and read all the books she recommended on that program. She invited me to sit down and have a cup of coffee (she'd not yet received her meal) but the chip in my head said to me "Coffee? You just had two cups. You don't want to overdo it." so I said no thanks and left.

Once outside I called Jackie and said "You'll never believe who I jut ran in to! Barbara Nicolosi! She asked me if I wanted to have a cup of coffee with her!" "Uh, why are you talking to me?" Jackie said. "Get back in there!!!" So I went back in and sat down and ordered some dessert (and another cup of coffee) and had a nice conversation (I thought) with Miss Nicolosi about the conference, movies, and Walker Percy (she'd just read "Love in the Ruins" and was nonplussed by it, wondering why Catholics would claim Percy as a "catholic writer". I was stunned -- given Nicolosi's public and often-stated affinity for Flannery O'Connor -- but then realised that "Love in the Ruins" is really a "guy" book. Percy is really, thinking about it now, a writer for "guys" (not necessarly for men or for males). I recommended, "The Second Coming" as that book tends to be more accessible for folks not of the guy persuasion. Anyway, I helped out with the tip and gave her a ride up the hill (none of the maps mention that the 200 feet from which the hotel is away from the University is 200 feet STRAIGHT UP) and she offered to give me a copy of her book on screenwriting which she was selling for $15 -- and it's the most concise book yet on dos/don'ts, formatting, etc, I've seen) -- in exchange. So that was neat. She asked what I was hoping to get out of the conference and I decided right then that it was to discern whether or not I should spend any more of my precious free time writing. Also to meet all the St. 'Bloggers who'd be there. We both read Eve Tushnet's 'blog, it turns out (even though it makes my head hurt).

Then it was time for Ron Hansen's keynote address. The entire address was an example of what Hansen does best: storytelling. He told the story about two 19th Century English poets who were friends: Gerard Hopkins and Robert Bridges. Of the two Hopkins was the better poet but as he was a Jesuit Priest he would never get anything published in his lifetime. He sent his poems to Bridges, who later became England's Poet Laureate, who denigrated them. Nowadays, of course, it is Hopkins' poems which everyone knows about (except me, it seems). The unstated moral of the address was that if you're doing something well, keep on doing it until you die -- even if (or especially if?) your audience is just one unappreciative S.O.B. A lot of people didn't get the moral of this, the world's longest koan, and so I think some may've been disappointed with the keynote.

Afterwards, however, I got to meet the St. 'Bloggers: Sean Gallagher, Kathryn Lively, Tim Drake, James Mallon (I didn't actually introduce myself, though, because he was always talking to other folks), some other folks (like Brother Peter from St. Paul, another aspiring screenwriter -- though he's actually written screenplays), and then Greg Popcak and Mark Shea. I was surprised to learn that some folks like Bert Ghezzi (allegedly) had read my 'blog. I was also surprised to see that many of the young guy writers had brought along their wives and small children. This had never occurred to me.

Even with all this excitement, there wasn't really a party going on there, on-campus. Everyone must be back at the hotel, in the bar, I thought. This being a CATHOLIC WRITERS festival there surely must be much drinking and merry-making and deep discussions going on SOMEPLACE. So I went back to the hotel to call Jackie. As it was 10pm and there was a new episode of Monk on, I watched that -- any party would only be picking up speed by 11pm, I thought. So at 11pm I went across the parking lot of the hotel into Damon's (which has a bar).

There were two old men sitting at the bar. And that was it. No writers, no Algonquin Roundtable. Lame. So I left and watched cartoons on the Cartoon Network until I thought I was sleepy enough to sleep but as I was still jazzed from all the coffee and excited about what the next day might bring sleep did not come quickly.

WWW.LIBEL.COM: Bloggers beware

Yes, I'm linking to a piece on National Review Online. But only because it's by Dreher and he actually knows what's going on in the whole Rose contra mundum dealie-o. It's a very nice piece, not just for those interested in the whole Michael Rose situation but also for all 'bloggers everywhere who post some what spuriously and off-the-cuff (note: the word "allegedy" or the phrase "it seems that" are a 'blogger's best friends). One tip, though, to Dreher's editors at NRO (hahahahahaha): "blog" is not a word. "Weblog" is a word and it is abbreviated "'blog". (Howma doin' Nihil?).

Also: It seems that Mark Shea is really tall. You might not pick up on that from his 'blog, but I met him on Friday night and he allegedy is.

I apologize for my latency in 'blogging this morning. I'm still decompressing (so to speak) from the weekend. There was a lot to mull over (or ruminate, as they say) and I'm still processing a lot of it. Never fear -- there will be a concise yet witty (if not entirely proofread) summary of the weekend up here by this evening in case you want to know what happens when 200 Catholic writers decend upon Steubenville for the weekend (note: one thing they do not do, from my experience, is drink hard or smoke hard and that was a colossal disappointment).

I did just now "win" a new, sealed copy of the Steve Taylor 2-CD boxed set "Now The Truth Can Be Told" on eBay (which has been out of print for 8 years) for $15.

I am back! Back home, alive after a five hour drive. Some pretty incredible (yet subtle and humble, in keeping with the Franciscan way) things happened this weekend at the Catholic Writers Festival in Steubenville, Ohio (my first trip there). Some even more incredible things happened on the ride home, thanks to the seeds planted there -- today. I wasn't sure even when I arrived what I hoped to get out of the experience (though by Friday night I knew why I was there), but I never would've expected what I got. I didn't think I deserved all the Grace I'd received up until this point (something along the lines that I thought one needed to be pure or worthy of it before one could receive it)... so receiving a fistful of it unexpectedly (espeically at 78mph -- tears, contact lenses, and speeding automobiles do not mix) on the interstate was a bit overwhelming. But I finally get it now. I get all of it. And it is overwhelming. But now I know why and what to do about it. And that gives me hope.

More on this tomorrow if I don't convince myself by then that it was just my imagination even as I am certain at this moment that it was not.

Time to saddle up.

Well, it's that time. I've put it off as long as I can but if I'm going to make Ron Hansen's keynote speech I'm going to have to leave now. I doubt I'll be able to 'blog this weekend (I'm not as wired as some folks -- no WAP laptops, no cellular modems), so you may just want to check back on Monday for a report of the CWF festivities. But you never know. I may find an unlocked computer with web access someplace.

Thanks for your prayers! Keep it real until I get back.

Still left to do tonight:

1. Put boxes of VHS tapes into crawlspace
2. Get box of CDs out of crawlspace
3. Hang drapery rods, brackets, and drapes in family room
4. Take down shelf brackets and rails in office
5. Pack
6. Get plenty of rest

It's only 9pm now so it should be no problem to get this all done. UPDATE: All done!

Well I've finished all of the errands in preparation of this weekend's trip down to Stuebenville, OH, for the Catholic Writers' Festival. Now I just need to prep the car for the trip (and then burn some toonage, pack, plan a route -- though I have an Ohio map so I may grab my shades, hop in the car, drop the pedal and go... go... go! etc.). The entire affair, however, is still in the air: Jackie seems to have come down with some variation of the cold from which myself and 'Xander are now almost fully recovered. If she's not much improved by tomorrow morning I may not be going. Or else I'll be going -- but truly feeling awful about going.

This is pretty low, even for Viacom.

And thank goodness for John Stossel.

Amazon.com Freebies

Over at HMS 'Blog, Greg Popcak is looking for names for his new peahen and peacock. I suggested Flannery for the peahen (as did Amy Welborn) with Walker being, then, the only suitable name for the peacock. The notion to name the peahen "Flannery" of course comes from Flannery O'Connor's essay "The King of Birds" which is found within her posthumously published collection of essays and talks Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. Well, the thing is that now that Amazon.com is doing that new "look inside" feature where they print the first few pages of the book, it turns out that the entire first essay which begins that book -- which happens to be "The King of Birds" -- can be read online for free over at Amazon.com. As it's certainly one of the finer non-fiction pieces that O'Connor has written (in my estimation) and since it's free, it's definitely worth heading over there for the read.

It also brings to mind the fact that you can hear each and every one (with one exception) of They Might Be Giants' "Fingertips" off of their Apollo 18 CD over at CDNOW.com. The "Fingertips" tracks (tracks 17 through 37 on their Apollo 18 album, their finest album in my opinion) are each one (with one exception) well under 30 seconds -- which is the standard length of the CDNOW.com audio sample. So by simply clicking on each track you can hear it (for free) in its entirety (though only in Windows Media Monopoly format).

So there are a couple more freebies for you if you're tired of listening to ApologetiX's "The Real SinSavior" (see post below). Thank you, Obidos!

So much to 'blog, so little time. I heard recently that the Michael Rose situation has been inaccurately portrayed as of late and that he's really not going all William Randolph Hearst on everyone, which is a big relief -- it means I have one less thing to be disappointed and sad about (and it also means that I can read the rest of this month's New Oxford Review without feeling compromised). As they say, it will all come out in the wash. But that's it on that for now. I'll be back tomorrow morning.

I'm leaving for Catholic Writers' Festival Friday morning and crud if I don't have a lot of stuff to do. Starting with taking out the trash right now.

Christian Music Parodies

No, not parodies of Christian Music, rather Christian-Music parodies of popular songs.

We start with a look at Nick Alexander's site. He's billed as the Catholic Weird Al and his parodies are smart and well done. There are many audio samples to be found at his site. Hopefully someday I will be able to buy one of his CDs. My favorites are "Get Canonized A Saint" (a parody of "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz) and "Therese of Lisieux" (a parody of "Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant).

Nick Alexander's Home Page

The other group we're featuring in this post is ApologetiX. They've got a lot of fire in their bellies and the worst pop-up window anywhere. They have complete songs for you to download including a hilarious tune "Smooth Grandmama" (a parody of "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson) and "The Real SinSavior" (a parody of "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem -- and they had to have listened to the original A LOT to nail this parody as well as they did).

ApologetiX homepage

Apparently they've been around for a while -- they have many fan sites (and many albums). This one even lists all the tracks off of all their albums.

Now never say I never give you nuthin'.

Or maybe Silly Putty isn't your thing. Maybe you want a tasteful object to put on your desk. One which reminds you of that wild night out with the Kennedys.

CrashBonsai

Buy your Silly Putty by the pound! Just like these folks!

Here's the latest word on Joss Whedon's new show Firefly which will primiere Friday, September 20, on FOX.

Joss was the creative brilliance behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and we here have high expectations for his new show -- it had better not start to suck after four years!

Anyway, one of the characters is a priest. You can read his little character write up on that page I have linked -- and he actually appears to be a sympathetic character. And while Joss will publicly state in interviews (and has done) that he has no deep and overwhelming respect for conventional or organized religion, one hopes he'll at least do right by the characters he's created (which he did until about season four or five of Buffy) and that we'll be spared any "Book the priest meets Inara the space-hooker" episodes anytime soon. We'll keep you posted though. The show already looks pretty interesting -- enough to give Andromeda a run for its money? Unless Andromeda brings back Rev Bem (a priest-like character who was treated with reverence), it certainly looks that way. Stay tuned.

My apologies in advance to anyone who came here looking for September 11th answers or meaning because I got nothing. Amy Welborn, on the other hand, does. Check out her blogpost beginning "How could they do it?" (archives aren't working properly at the moment).

Okay, so I've been trying to find a copy of one of the new Sam Adams Light "Shockingly Good Taste" print ads in order to fulfill a request for a friend of 'blog and so I'm doing a google search on "Sam Adams Light print ad". And you know what I'm finding? I'm finding that Sam Adams has had shockingly bad taste when it's come to advertising for at least the past nine months.

Check out this editorial from the Washington Blade where the writer applauds Sam Adams for running an ad where a man is coerced into having sex with a transgendered "female" when s/he offers him a beer (he quickly forgets that s/he was once -- how to put this delicately -- "packing" and resumes tonsil-hockey).

Then there's this story where the writer applauds Sam Adams for pulling an ad where cops reply to some loud music and when they knock on the door all the underage kids whoopin' it up hide their brewskis. Of course Sam Adams only pulled this ad after the outcry over the whole Opie and Andy thing caused some pretty intense scrutiny to come their way.

One could ask how these commercials ever made it past the board over there at Sam Adams, but that's just the point.

Woohoo! Special thanks to loyal reader Alison S. who made a pledge to Ave Maria Radio (see comments below). She wins the calendar, if she wants it (I'm beginning to suspect that no one wants a calendar of lessons in character from the Reagan Ranch which is really sad). Don't worry: AMR is not ballooning into a Pat Robertson sort of thing anytime soon: the commercials they run are mainly for Discount Paint (along the lines of "buy a five-gallon drum of name-brand paint for $30!") and My Handyman handyman service.

We also have a request for any Catholic Radio listeners in the St. Louis area to contact Tony Holman, president of St Louis Catholic Radio, and ask them to carry Heart Mind & Strength live every day instead of just an "encore" presentation once a week. I can say that this show is very entertaining and helpful. Greg does a great job keeping it together, helping the callers who call in, but then there is also the cadre of guests (most of whom contribute to the HMS 'Blog) who always have something interesting to talk about. I haven't had a chance to listen much, though, since the moved the show from 9am to 2pm. This works better for the guests on the West Coast, of course (Mark Shea doesn't have to wax culture of life-ic at 6am anymore), but it's right when I'm working.

In much happier news, my Fantasy Football team, Robot Team #1, narrowly scraped by to victory this past weekend with 61 points. I expected more from my starting wide-receiver, Jimmy Smith, but because he sat out most of the pre-season, it's probably taking him a while longer to get up to speed. At least that's what the guys at work said. Not knowing anything about football (I actually drafted my kicker in the second round -- whee!) I just picked him because my favorite Hammond B-3 organ player is named Jimmy Smith (and he was still available by round 4 because no one else expected him to play this season). Just don't ask me how I picked my QB (that means QuarterBack), Donovan McNabb.

So it's September 11th and they're reading the names of all the victims on all the news stations and there certainly are a lot of names. In the comments sections below folks have begun to recall what they were doing when they first heard the news. As for myself, I was 'blogging -- believe it or not -- hitting the news sites for interesting things to 'blog (and you can check my archives and see this) and then I saw a link on the BBC website for a story with a headline something like "Planes attack US," and I thought "Hm! I wonder where our planes are attacking this time?" and then I clicked on the link and nothing came up. Then the phone rang and it was my sister. She said "Aren't you watching the news? They're crashing planes into New York!" and this was about 9:30. So we turned on the news just in time to see the replays of the two planes and the first tower and then the second tower fell and we had no idea what was going on, there was no linearity. On the news the people were still speculating whether or not it could've been domestic terrorists and I shouted at the screen "No, you morons! It's that Oosma Bin Landis guy!!!" I checked in at work and people there were pretty crazy, too. We work for a large networking company with a large Operations Center in Northern Virginia, right near DC, and folks there were calling our much-smaller Operations Center in Michigan to tell is that if they "got hit" it'd all be up to us to keep the network running. I went in to work and things were really quiet and strange. It was not for a few days after that, though, before our Canadian employee was actually able to make it back into the country to work.

PS. It's still September 10th as far as I'm concerned. If I do any 9/11 'blogging it'll be tomorrow morning.

I got an email from Greg McIntosh today out of the blue and my wig literally flipped! Well, all right... so I ain't got a wig. Still, I was totally stoked because he wanted to buy one of my CDs! Why is this so remarkable? Because Greg is a real musician! How real? Well, he's 1/6 of The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love and two of his tunes made it onto their most recent H.O.M.E.S. Vol 1 (those of you who live in Michigan will dig that title, and the disc itself as it's probably the clearest voice the state of Michigan has had, musically, for a while -- and I'm not even considering Da Yoopers in that). Two very good tunes, at that. Dig this from "Winter Coat Romancing":

Programmed to feel love bloom in the Spring / When the buds bring sneezing
And all the folks will shed their coats / And commence romancing
But a Northern Boy am I / And to my chagrin, I love to see the ladies with
All their goods behind fake fur hoods / And keen on romancing

Yeah, all you guys from Michigan and the Great Lake States (and maybe even up-state New York) know what that's about. That's the thing about this album, though. It's probably the most exuberantly romantic album (aside from the "Foreman of the Mill" song) I've heard since Stevie Wonder's 1971 record "Music of My Mind" (which every guy who's 19 and in love should have to listen to). But more than that, H.O.M.E.S. vol 1 continues to be one of the most cohesive albums I've ever heard. You have to listen to the whole thing all the way through to get the whole picture -- and it's a pretty exhausting listen, I must say. The melodies and chord changes are unpredictable but when they get where they're going it all makes sense and you can't imagine them resolving any other way. It's definitely pull-up-by-the-fireplace-kids-and-listen kind of music and most certainly not rush-hour drive-time music at all -- it is a CD which demands to be listened to. That said, you can still sing along to it -- and will catch yourself doing so more often than not. Check it out.

Another press-release from the inbox. This one references the Michigan Catholic Conference's Election 2002 Guide (which is in .pdf format, so watch out!).

Catholics Applaud Conference's Abortion Clarity, Call Granholm to Abandon 'Catholic' Posturing

PLYMOUTH, MI - Participants in the movement to refute gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm's "pro-choice Catholicism" today praised the Michigan Catholic Conference's "Election 2002" guide, which calls opposition to abortion "pre-eminent" for Catholic voters and candidates.

"Without naming Granholm, the Michigan Catholic Conference exposed her 'pro-choice Catholicism' as utterly untruthful," said Matt Bowman, a participant in the weekly demonstrations outside Granholm's parish in Plymouth. "Granholm must conform to Church teaching or end her 'Catholic' charade. This guide should help parishes refute her double-speak."

The Conference's "A Catholic View to Election 2002," sent to 804 parishes in every part of Michigan, declares: "Abortion is the pre-eminent threat to human dignity." Sister Monica Kostielney, president of the Conference, explained that "Catholics - and candidates - are called upon to be consistent in their defense of life, from the first moment of conception."

Granholm defended herself in the September 10 Detroit News saying, "I believe what Catholics believe on abortion. is it right for government to force Catholic beliefs on every other faith?" "What a crock!" answered Bowman. "Granholm would impose taxpayer funded abortion in every Michigan county, but not measures to protect even partially born children. Granholm campaigns for all kinds of legal changes but she ducks behind the Supreme Court on abortion."

Bowman called Granholm the true "protestor," while pro-lifers outside her parish are in accord with the Church. "Our message is the church's official message - Catholic politicians can't be pro-abortion. The Conference's guide says it, the U.S. Bishops have said it - in a document Cardinal Maida boasts that he helped write. Cardinal Maida even appointed Bishop Britt to correct Granholm's 'pro-choice' parish priest. And since then, priests all over Michigan have condemned the Catholic 'pro-choice' position. St. Hugo's in Bloomfield Hills called it a 'skillful deception.' St. Albert's in Dearborn Heights said it 'sanctions murder.' Assumption Grotto in Detroit called for a "one-strike-and-out" policy against pro-choice priests. The St. John Center in Plymouth warned that it threatens human dignity. Granholm's crusade is a big fat lie."

Bowman explained the demonstrators' goals, "Jennifer Granholm should conform to the Church's teaching or else refrain from posturing as a Catholic in good standing at her parish as a lector or in receiving the sacraments (except, of course, the sacrament of Reconciliation)."

Ah, here's what I was looking for...

The AKOR TV BOY

It's a palm-sized Atari 2600 clone, completely self-contained, which broadcasts to your television set (via channel 13) 126 different Atari 2600 games.

Pretty nifty, I'd say.

Though I'm still holding out for a Sega NOMAD. Too bad they're going for around $100 on eBay. Why I didn't buy one new when they were down around $30 in the store, I'll never know. I must've been more interested in girls or philosophy or something at the time. Well, I'm paying for that now. Stupid.

AAlgar Electronics - iTari

A joke. Not what I was looking for.

Greg Popcak confirms in the comments section below that Ave Maria Radio is indeed a non-profit organization so your donations will be tax-deductable.

So what are you waiting for? Get on over there and pledge!

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Seeing as how the next-cooler thing compared to Robots are Air Pirates (pirates in airplanes or flying ships) and the next cooler thing compared to Air Pirates are real Pirates and the next cooler thing compared to that is talking like a real pirate, all that makes this a pretty cool idea!

Regarding the post below: I don't know if AMR is non-profit or not. I would imagine not as they do sell commercials, so consider that as you will. Since I'm not sure if I, myself, am a non-profit organization or not I probably shouldn't offer the calendar as enticement to pledge, but anyone who still wants the calendar is welcome to it. :)

Worthy Cause Alert!

If you haven't already this week, get virtual butt over to Ave Maria Radio and contribute to their first-ever pledge drive. This is an awesome Catholic Radio network and they really need your help to continue to bring you all the great shows you can hear on the radio or on the internet (like Heart Mind & Strength, Al Kresta, The Doctor Is In, and the Catholic Heritage Program starring Joanna Bogle, of whose British accent I can not hear nearly enough). Follow the above Ave Maria Radio link to pledge.

If you do pledge, drop me an email and the first person to do so will receive, free of charge, their very own "The Reagan Ranch: Lessons In Character From A Great American Leader 2003 Calendar" featuring 12 months of Gipper wisdom and photographs. I am not in any way affiliated with Ave Maria Radio, WDEO, Al Kresta, frequencies whose amplitudes modulate at 990 Hz, or anything like that, mind you, I just have this calendar to get rid of. Not that I dislike Ronald Reagan, but I have a feeling some of you might like him more than I do.

I will also trade the Reagan calendar for a Joanna Bogle calendar (or any book by Joanna Bogle) if anyone happens to have either of those.

WWJPIID?

Most honored and highly-esteemed guest Greg Popcak, leader of the merry band of 'bloggers at HMS 'Blog stops by et cetera (in the comments section of the Blame Iraq post below) and directs us to this Zenit.com story: Attack on Iraq Is for U.N. to Decide, Says Vatican Official.

Somehow I did not think that the Vatican would [mixed metaphor alert! --ed] just sign-off carte blanche and give the green-light to a US invasion of Iraq, this time, without some corroboratin' evidence and/or support from the global community at large. You see, the world is like a really big boat which everyone has to ride on....

What was I doing a year ago today, two days before September 11th? I was naively waxing nostalgic on some of my favorite Star Trek characters and actors.

What am I doing today, 362 days after September 11th? Pretty much the same thing.

What does this all mean? I have no idea.

This place is Ossu-ome!

The Ossuary in Sedlec

Not only that, but people are just dying to get in! Ha. Okay, just figured you all could use some light-hearted ribbing. Hoo! Seriously, it takes a lot of skull to make artwork as detailed as this -- no bones about it! Hee! Alright, just let me make a femur bad puns and then I'll stop. OH! There I go again! Anyway, I think we can all agree it takes a real calling tibia bone artist... and that's no fibula!. But I wonder how they get the bones all the way up to the top of the stacks. Do you think they cranium?

Thanks to RC (who's probably giving me a sternum look right now) for passing along this link!

Blame Iraq!!!

The effort now, it seems is to blame the Iraqi government -- in part -- for the Oklahoma City bombing (there may've indeed been government involvement, but one doubts it was the Iraqi government). Nevertheless, soon it will not be long before we find the trail of apocryphal and unseen evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Iraq makes oil, Japanese planes run on oil), the sinking of the Lucitania in 1915 (German U-boats operate best in water, Iraq is near a lot of water), and the burning of the White House during the war of 1812 (haven't figured this one out yet, but don't worry!). You can't fool us! There's cause for a just war here somewhere, we just need to keep looking!

This showed up in my inbox. The Plymouth Fall Festival, where the Pancake Breakfast mentioned here happened this past Saturday. I was sick in bed at the time (where I'm headed now, incidentally) so I missed all the excitement happening just three blocks away from my house. Here's the press release, however.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 9, 2002 Students Heed Maida, Challenge Granholm on Abortion Plymouth, Michigan – September 7, 2002 – About fifty pro-lifers showed up early Saturday morning - some to eat pancakes served up by partial-birth abortion advocate and gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm. Their goal was to meet Granholm face to face and challenge her strong support for what the Catholic Church calls murder. At least five Catholic law students say they were inspired to attend by Cardinal Adam Maida’s recent declaration that “Catholic lawyers must be always ready to speak and act in such a way that the dignity of life is promoted and defended on every level.” [Cardinal's Homily] While Granholm’s opponent, Dick Posthumus, shook hands and discussed issues with hundreds of voters, Granholm left the event after her brief turn at the griddle – breaking protocol for candidates who attend this annual event. Students Cindy Kalar and Ian Northon asked her why she postures as a Catholic while advocating partial-birth abortion as good public policy. According to the students, Granholm offered a short, impersonal, response as her entourage hastily shuffled her away. Granholm’s reaction to these attractive young students was understandable: Kalar’s shirt bore the message “Granholm: Catholic? Pro-abortion-murder? Which is she?” and Northon’s shirt asked “If Granholm lies about her religion, how can we trust her as Governor?” According to Kalar, “Granholm needs to know that bright, young, Catholic women find her position indefensible and disingenuous. Why is she afraid to talk to law students about such an important issue?” Northon noted that the group deliberately used no graphic signs, but some people attending the breakfast were still upset by the peaceful crowd of protesters Granholm attracted. Meanwhile, these self-styled “defenders of life” say they were pleased to get their message out to the large crowd of families attending the Kiwanis pancake breakfast, part of the Plymouth Fall Festival. [Pancake Breakfast] Students Suzanne Housey and Krista Van Amerongen said they were heeding Cardinal Maida’s call to “promote and defend the dignity of life.” This is a reference to a homily delivered by the Cardinal last week (on August 30) at the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, where the women study. In his prepared address the Cardinal made it clear that “a Catholic lawyer” must “know the…teachings of the Church and be ready to proudly defend them.” Even though he did not mention her by name, these students see Maida’s remarks as a clear rebuke of Granholm’s extreme abortion advocacy and an obvious acknowledgement that she is not a Catholic in good standing. Housey was pleased that amidst the controversy over Granholm’s 100% pro-abortion stance, the Cardinal reiterated that “the first and greatest of [God’s] gifts is the gift of life itself.” According to Housey, “Vatican II rightly called abortion ‘an unspeakable crime.’ [Gaudium et Spes para. 51] We ask Granholm to either stop masquerading as a Catholic, or stop advocating this unspeakable crime as good public policy.” When asked how she can make such a serious charge against Granholm, Housey noted that she is only repeating the official teaching of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding abortion: “No public official, especially one claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can responsibly advocate for or actively support direct attacks on innocent human life.” [US Bishops' Statement para. 32]

Here's an idea for a TV-show: ILLUMI-DATE.

The idea being that you take a couple (young, attractive people) who've never seen each other before and the goal is that they have to convince each other of their respective belief systems by the end of the "date". The "date" ends when either a) they both realize they don't hold any sort of rationally-consistent beliefs or b) one of them gets a migraine and whacks the other with a broken wineglass.

Well, the media shelves are finished and painted. Here's what they looked like about two weeks ago after I finished building them:



And here's what they look like now. Note the decorative crown and face molding. Jackie did all of the molding and painting. Yeah the pictures are a little dark, but we don't have a "real" digital camera -- the kind with a "flash" and so I had to hold up our worklight for illumination.



The bottom eight shelves hold 100 CDs a piece for a total of 800 CDs. Kind of ashamed to admit it, but those shelves are filled. We don't know how many DVDs the top shelves will hold yet.

Will the real Matt Galant please stand up?

One minute you can catch him on the all-gaming channel G4TV's Game On program talking about babes and then dressed up as a mime (his gamer lost that particular episode, so he lost the show's bet) on the Vegas strip for the show's "Mime Ho" sketch (which was actually pretty funny, I admit) and the next minute he's on Animal Planet's as the host of The Planet's Funniest Animals doing squeaky-clean intros to videos of dogs who can backflip. We won't know for sure until his homepage, MattGalant.com, is actually brought online.

If you're highly bored, go to the official Game On homepage and read some of what the "fans" of the show have to say about it. With fans like these, no show would ever need critics. The truly hilarious thing, though, is that every G4TV program has pretty much the same sort of feedback. Except for maybe Portal which is a very weird and humorous (at least to me) show about MMRPGs (which, aside from HeroMUD a dozen years ago, is one vice with which I've had the sense never to experiment).

Hey there. I'm still alive, more or less, though not much up for any deep thoughts at the moment. Trading Spaces, incidentally, takes on a whole new dramatic twist when you're hopped up on cold medication. Does Paige really have a thing for Frank? And will Doug ever find and defeat his archnemesis -- the evil Designer X, who murdered his mentor and then wrapped his body in batting and made him into an ottoman which he then gave to Doug for his 18th birthday?

Some of you may not want to think about such things, however. If that's the case, then check out Kairos 'blog. JB, that Kairos Guy, has a post up in response to my crrrrrazy "put up or shut up" post which you can find here, a few posts down. His reponse if very chartible and considered and frames the challenge in just the opposite terms. It's a very good, thoughtul, and personal post and I encourage you to pop on over there to read it.

Of course, all this begs the question: does one believe that a standing military is, as the founders envisioned things, a just and good thing to have -- or not? On the one hand -- DUH! Of course it is! And on the other hand -- if the founders envisioned a standing federal military from the get-go, what's all that nonsense in the 2nd Amendment about a citizens' militia really about?

And Sherman's Lagoon is pretty cute. Thanks, RC!
But what are they supposed to be? Fishes?

Uh, oh. New episode of Trading Spaces is on. Gotta dash.

Does this seem like a really really bad idea to anyone else besides me?

Newspaper Delivery -- on a CD!

Let me get this straight: the internet (news sites on the web and 'blogs -- not mine, necessarily) is running conventional print news into the ground and the best print news can do is to lash back with an attack on -- radio?

Kooky.

Okay, now this one is funny.

Ampersand takes my fevered criticism very well (see comments below) and directs me to one of his comics which most folks who don't think he's funny this is funny. And I would have to say that this one is funny. And also very artfully done ;). So I'm going to check out more of his comics and would encourage you to do the same.

[And you, Victor Lams, you need to remember from time to time that this 'blog exists in the world outside your own head! -ed]

Got it. But still, there can be no padonable excuse for this: Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet. Not only is it not artfully done, but it's pretty bitter and cynical too -- but not in a charming (and much better drawn) Bloom County way. And if you go through his comics on the site there you can find the episode where the heroine finally gets down with the bug-eyed Anthony Michael Hall (ca. 1988) boyfriend character. For those too lazy to page through all of the comics yourself, this (or at least one interation of it) happens in Strip #389: "Two Time's No Harm". If I want to acknowledge that cartoon characters have reproductive organs, I shall do so in a far more artfully-done venue. And, okay: another thing -- what sort of cartoonist gives each of his or her daily strips its own episode name? Er, and then writes a paragraph about it explaining the joke? And when did profanity become acceptible in newspaper comics? Compared to "Helen, Bane of the Internet" I'll take Ampersand's comics any day. In fact, today I just might.

It raises the question, though: how many cartoonists does the world really need? Could we get away with just running Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes reruns in the newspapers -- spicing things up occasionally with a new Arlo and Janis (who are, incidentally, pretty much the only two characters who are allowed to have sex, in-frame, in the newspaper funnies, in my opinion)? Mothers: if your sons and daughters pick up a pen or marker and start to doodle harmlessly on little pieces of paper, take heed: when they start to add little word balloons, please do the charitable thing and break their fingers.

Now it's time to dope up and gargle with some more salt water.

A link on Eve Tushnet's blog led me to &'s (Amptoon's) blog and a discussion on why Peanuts is a better comic than Garfield (unless you're in kindergarden, of course -- then Garfield is much funnier than Peanuts, if I recall. I moved, however, fairly rapidly from Garfield to Lil' Abner and then, in the second grade, to Pogo). That page led me to &'s (nee B. Deutsch's) own archive of comics: ZNET Toons. Now, while I've only looked at a few of these comics and while I can appreciate where the cartoonist is coming from (in wanting to make the word a better place through cartooning -- whatever! And what's up with posting a graph of your political leanings right there on your 'blog?) and while the strips appear to be fairly artfully done, can someone please find one for me which is actually funny? I gave up after reading about four of them. Not that this cartoonist's problem is unique... I would say about 99% of the comics you find on the web are not funny (particularly the myriad of User Friendly geek-humor wannabes. Note to posers: User Friendly only scores about once every eight or nine strips and most of Scott Adams' tired old Dilbert ideas are phoned in by readers. Some web toons are, indeed, funny though, and I'll try to look some of them up -- or post your own suggestions below!

Anyway, if I wanted unfunny comics, I'd draw them myself.

Sorry I've been so blogging light tonight. I think my virus has mutated, once again. I can feel it coursing through my system, gaining strength with each new vital subroutine it overwhelms. Either that or I've poisoned myself by ingesting too much zinc. I can't be sure which. So I don't want to stop snorting the zinc because it will fight the virus, if there is one. But, on the other hand, if that's what's making my throat hurt... yaaaarg. Garlic is safe, though. Must eat more garlic.

America's Funniest Home Videos finally did something right for a change (besides dumping Bob Saget). They gave the $100,000 grand prize to a family with quadruplets who all, at about six months or so, all laughed in perfect unison when their daddy did something funny. Yay! I don't see that particular video here, but the Super Scooper video, another finalist, is pretty funny.

I must say that I detest that show but can't help but find myself laughing at it sometimes. That link also takes you to "No Head Room" (another finalist) in which some poor yokel gets his head stuck in his car window (when his wife rolls it up on him and then breaks the fuse). Ha!

So I guess here's your declaration?

You didn't know me when...

Here's something interesting. My parents found this picture when they were cleaning up one of the bedrooms at their house. It's a picture drawn of me in 1995 by Taru Sterling. This was probably drawn early in the morning, say one or two AM, and was drawn, if I'm not mistaken, during one of my space-out solo-keyboard sessions at Not Another Cafe on South University St. in Ann Arbor, Michigan (it was a really cool place. Just show up, get your coffee and your kiwi-Tang and play. But don't bother looking for it, it's not there anymore). I had completely forgotten about this picture and it took me like 10 minutes to figure out who drew it.

Taru was a guy who was in my Elementary, Jr. High, and High Schools (at Wines Elementary we would all sing "Ta-ru, Ta-ru, Ta-ru is on fire!" instead of, you know, "The Roof is on fire!"). He was -- still is, I hope -- a phenomenal artist. Even in Elementary school he drew these outstanding pictures of Darth Vader and all things Star Wars. Star Wars everywhere. In High School people would pay him to spraypaint Star Wars characters and ships on their leather jackets (and other things too). He was a truly talented artist, and you can't say that about many folks. I tried doing a Google search on Taru just now and just about all I came up with was this page over at the BBC where Taru (and many others) remember fondly Sir Alec Guinness, Taru thanking him for playing Obi Wan Kenobi -- a guiding force in his (Taru's) life. Oh, you can also find a pretty cool picture of Willem Dafoe if you look hard enough. I apologize for the picture being so big here, but it's really detailed. You can click on it for a bigger version.

Anyway, this was drawn while I was in my George Duke/Keith Jarrett/Stevie Wonder phase -- hence the blue robes and mustache. I was also a lot skinnier then and my glasses were bigger.



Hopefully someone will find this page and let me know what Taru's up to.

GCS, The Baddest Group from East to West – Part I

Bought a CD last week. But first, some background…

Long before I fully knew what funk music was or began my great ascendancy to the Funk, I knew that there was one kind of electric bass playing that I really liked. And that was when one of the guys in our jazz combo in High School would start slapping the strings of his bass with his thumb, making them pop, and then walking those pops up and down in chaotic intervals. I really dug that. For me, it was that sound along with the disruptive syncopation of the clavinet and the synchronized horn sections of the great funk bands which led me to first acknowledge my unquenchable thirst for this music and, ultimately, towards the fullness of my appreciation for the funk.

But being a funk-music fan in the early ‘90s wasn’t always easy. This was back before the great Old Skool Renaissance and so most R&B stations were still playing Lionel Richie and Babyface pretty much exclusively. This meant you had to buy everything yourself, and while there were CD re-issues of pretty much all of the great funk bands’ LPs from the ‘70s, but these were not cheap and the re-mastering done on them (if in fact they’d been re-mastered at all) was pretty crummy, sounding not much better than a cassette tape might. And that was even if you knew which albums to buy: this was before the WWW really took off (way, way waaaay before Napster) so any research had to be done off-line and you were largely buying CDs based on word-of-mouth. And yeah, there were compilations out you could buy but these were the most miserable option of all: they basically just took the most popular cuts off each record, chopped them into 3-to-4-minute-long tracks and put maybe 10 or 12 of these on a CD and called it a definitive compilation of in some cases over 20 years of musical output (anyone who has that early-‘90s Parliament compo “The Bomb” knows exactly what I’m talking about – it was pretty sad). And don’t even get me started on the “genre-compilations” available at the time… egads. So you’d pretty much grab some bands you liked and bought their output, nevermind that there could be whole, huge reservoirs of the Funk out there, just waiting someday to be discovered by the Gen-X crowd.

And then, perhaps due to the alignment of the Rhino and Warner Bros. Records labels, good, solid compilations started to be released on CD. Often in packages of 2 or more CDs, these compos were artistically re-mastered to sound like the original LPs and contained the FULL LEGTH versions of the tracks – and even some live and unreleased tracks you hadn’t heard before. Excellent.

I don’t know why, however, it took Warner Bros. Records nearly five years to get around to releasing The Jam, their compilation of Robert Graham and Graham Central Station, which they finally did in 2001. And man, this is THE funk-band compilation to own. Sure, I’d come across GCS on various crappy funk genre-compilations but they never did the group justice (cutting the group’s signature track “The Jam” down to three minutes is a travesty. It’s wrong). I’d gotten the impression that they, like The Gap Band and Cameo were just another P-Funk knock-off (a “Clone of Dr. Funkenstein,” if you prefer) – nuh-uh! Robert Graham is 100% original and in Part II of this post, I will tell you why.

Yo, yo, yo! I meant to post last night that my comments section on my anti-war post was off the hook but I couldn't because Blogger was buggin' yall. Anyway, just reminding folks to keep it real, a'ight?

Hmmm... This Spike Lee lexicon I got is pretty fly. Too bad it hasn't been updated since 1992.

Well, I'm beginning to feel a little bit better, so (knock on wood) it's just a little baby cold I caught. I've been sucking on zinc lozenges and squirting zinc gel up into my nose to make my mucous membranes inhospitable to the rhinovirus.

Right now, in fact, I am so full of zinc that if I sat on the chipped-up hood of our old Neon, I would actually start to rust. Get it? Because I'd be providing cathodic protection to the steel in the car hood?

Tough room.

Ugh. Well, I definitely think I've been bitten by the baby's bug. I'm going to try and drag my sick butt to work. I should be fine as long as I keep drinking water and keep eating the pills. I'll make it through some of the comments boxes there, hopefully, along the way.

Hmm. I guess one could get the impression from my "war" post, two posts down, that my definition of a Just War is any war which I, myself, would go and fight in. I guess that just about sums it up.

Been Away from Yahweh Ben Yahweh?

Now might be the perfect time to come back. Thanks to a loyal reader, I present to you the link to his brand new site, tastefully done, and if that wasn't reason enough to come back, he also has a cool computer-generated Throne Room of Revelation, which requires Windows Media Player to enter and looks like it belongs in Myst's Dunny age.

So who is Yahweh Ben Yahweh? Born in Oklahoma in 1935, he moved to Miami and quickly amassed a $250,000,000 fortune. He seems committed to some pretty nifty things like chastity and justice and right living, but alas, disaster was in the cards for the followers of Yahweh Ben Yahweh when, in 1990, the (pre-Clinton!) FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid against Yahweh Ben Yahweh's followers in New Orleans and what followed shouldn't be all that surprising for fans of the FBI and US Justice Department (including, but not limited to, M-16 rifles being pointed at his vital organs and imprisonment).

Anyway, through it all Yahweh Ben Yahweh persevered and now can bring you "The Universe of Yahweh" every week on your local cable station. Don't have Yahwehvision? You can hear his weekly message (complete with computer animation and sound-effects) here. It's pretty cool (I think it looks a lot like that old Earth, Wind, and Fire CD-ROM game, ISIS, but I'm not sure because it was never released in this country) but probably not worth ditching your present religion for.

Friend Only to the Undertaker

Perhaps the most distressing thing about those clamoring for the latest war d'jour is the rather aloof and detached attitude with which they discuss it. As if they are meteorologists discussing an inevitable force of nature or a doctor describing and operation. Very rarely will you hear the actual realities of wars discussed. For example, no one begins their piece "While it is true that many innocent women and children expired horrifically in the last war, and we expect many to do so this time around, we still feel this is necessary to bring about a regime change." And it's not just the horrors of war to which they are detached, at least in their writing (and if they acknowledge such horrors in their minds but not in their writings -- shame on them). They also seem to asign no culpability to the US for anything. How far goes their blind nationalism? Towards excusing the atomic bombs dropped on both Hiroshima and -- even more inexcusably -- Nagasaki? Beyond?

Much talk is made of Saddam Hussein participating in a genocide of the Kurds living in Iraq? But how many US politicians favor abortion -- a genocide of much greater proportions, targeting largely our poor and minority populations. Much talk is made of Saddam Hussein perhaps (or perhaps not) possessing or working towards possessing or thinking about how much he'd like to possess weapons of mass destruction. But name me the only country in the world to actually use such weapons and, even more, that country still (if I'm not mistaken) possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction on the planet ("Oh, no, Victor. That's all right, see, because they're our weapons of mass destruction."). Much talk is also made of Saddam Hussein's supposed but undocumented insanity. If he were really a madman and possessed even one weapon of mass destruction don't you think he'd have used it by now? Lastly, much talk is made of Saddam Hussein sponsoring "terror" whether in general or in the particular. Of course, our own country cannot claim to have its hands clean here, if one defines "terror" as an act of agression, outside of a declared war, which is intended to cause fear and misery and kills or harms civilians (of course the attack on the USS Cole did not, in fact, target civilians but this is somehow considered a terrorist act and not an act of war against an occupying force). How much misery and terror has the US sponsored from Central America to Palestine? Some may even regard the strict sanctions against Iraq as a form of terrorism as they do, undeniably, cause fear and misery among its civilian populations. ("Oh, no, Victor. That's all right, see, because they're our sanctions against them."). Did I not get the memo? Did the Iraqi people -- or even their military for that matter -- suddenly cease to be human beings or something?

Oh, and the one thing I have not read on anyone's 'blog is anything approaching this: "I, [insert your name here], think that the war against Iraq is such a great and noble enterprise that I, myself, immediately will go out upon completing this post and enlist in our Armed Forces. [Or if you, yourself are too old to enlist, perhaps you would like to volunteer your sons and your daughters?] In fact, I will request -- no demand -- that upon completion of basic training I am transferred without haste to the Iraqi theatre (of war)."

Put up or shut up, folks.

If one takes themselves out of their "US = Democracy = Good" prejudices (or puts down their copy of NR) for even a moment and tries to see the situation in the way that an outside observer with a uncompromised moral attitude like, say, the Pope, one quickly sees the question of war to be far more complex than just a simple matter of crushing a small man who doesn't like us. In essence: before we go mandating regime changes in foreign lands, maybe we should clean up our own backyard first.

Not sure how much blogging I'm going to get done today. 'Xander was up last night with his first cold, coughing, and sneezing, and gurgling, and all parties were pretty miserable. Anyway, while I can appreciate that babies need to build up their immune system, illness has got to be just about the least fun way of doing that for them.

I found this personal-website/'blog by accident. I think I was searching for "Ann Arbor Japanese Steakhouse" or something on Google. I dig the writing, though. It's got the right sort of perspective for a personal site (or journal) and is not too self-aware or too self-pitying.

Once upon a time, in a far-away land, there lived a girl. Her name was Shawna Sweeney. You worry and wonder about the fate of the girl, always asking questions like, "What price penumbras? Can you provide accurate directions to Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania? Is it terrible to want to wear women's undergarments?"

(I have no idea what the site is actually called).

Ann Coulter -- You're Fired!

Ooohhh.... did the big mean lady with her column make the poow widdle newspapew editow mad???

Riddle me this: I have no great love for Ann Coulter (though that letter gives me some pretty compelling reasons why I should), but how "hateful" is it to fire someone and then turn around and PUBLISH THE FIRING LETTER?

1-2-3-4, We Don't Want No F'in' War!

Big talk in 'Blog Town about the Impending War with Iraq. Greg Popcak lists the criteria for a Just War over on HMS 'Blog. I've done as much in these (virtual) pages, as well.

For what it's worth, let me state openly and publicly and redundantly again that under these criteria, these principles, of what makes a just war, I am completely opposed to what looks as though will be a wholly US-initiated war against Iraq. In fact, it's hard to imagine a realistic set of circumstances underwhich a war against Iraq could meet such Just War criteria (which I consider even to be rather liberal with quite a bit of wiggle-room).

But I'm not one-eighth the philosopher and pundit or even faithful Catholic that Joe Sobran is. Check out any (or all) of his columns for the month of August to gain a finer appreciation for why this coming war is just a really sucky idea.

In fact, if you read only one column this week, you could do a lot worse than to chuck all the scribblings of those war-crazed noodleheads over at NRO out the car window and read Sobran's War on Wogs column for some much-needed moral clarity.

As for me, I'd rather just work on another cartoon.

Well, that was a little weird. The local Catholic Radio station here, WDEO just ran a commercial for Creflo Dollar's new book (or tape, I didn't clearly hear which). I mean, I guess it's cool. I've enjoyed watching Creflo's program in the past. He talks about the Burden Lifting Yoke Removing Power of God, and starts off his sermons talking quiet and then gets louder... it's pretty cool. Just weird to hear him advertised on a Catholic-with-a-capital-C Radio station.

VOTF™, Inc.

As you've probably heard by now, Voice of the Faithful is now Voice of the Faithful™,Inc. Their slogan, "Keep the Faith, Change the Church™" is also trademarked so whatever you do, David Alexander don't you dare think of coming up with any variations of your own... no "Keep the Faith, Change Your Oil Every 3,000 Miles," or "Keep the Faith, Lose the 'Tude, Man!" Those are strictly forbidden now.

Telling is what they put in their meta tags -- to read these go to their page and "show (or view) source" (usually in your 'view' pull-down menu) and then look between the head and /head tags. The keywords are enlightening enough, but I'll let you find those for yourself. The description of their page (and by implication of their organization) in their meta-tags reads as follows: "Voice of the Faithful is a Boston-based group formed in response to the crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston, and the broader difficulties afflicting the Catholic Church throughout the world. The group seeks to aid Catholic growth by providing a voice for the people of the church."

"Broader difficulties afflicting the Catholic Church throughout the world"? You mean like how the Catholic Church is illegal in China? Will VOTF™, Inc. help with that? How about the thousands of Christians killed in Sudan each year? Is that the sort of "broader difficulty" to which VOTF™, Inc. wants to respond?

Somehow I doubt it.

No, an example of the "broader difficulties afflicting the Catholic Church" is that the RC isn't "adult" enough. To that end VOTF™, Inc.'s Young Adults page states their intention to indoctrinate youngsters into building "a Church that is interesting, adult, and real, that serves the world and feeds the soul."

I don't know at which Catholic Church the VOTF™, Inc. board members have been smoking their wacky-tobaccy but the RC, of course, was plenty interesting, adult, and real before VOTF™, Inc. came along. While they have made things more interesting, I get the impression that their mission decidely keeps things a lot less real.

VOTF™, Inc. is like the Lionel Richie of Organized Religion: they take something really funky and good (like The Commodores) and just totally dilute it, wreck it, and make it completely white-bread.

They're once, twice, three times a-crappy.

I'm still attempting to locate the local area (Plymouth/Metro-Detroit, MI) Catholic School where, according to a caller to the Heart Mind & Strength Radio program, an 8th-grade class recently attempted to find their animal spirit guides (mine is Pikachu, by the way). While it is true that Our Lady of Good Council Catholic School here in Plymouth does have a 1-8 grade program, judging from their newsletters, their science program seems pretty solid (stuff I would've loved to have learned about in greater detail in public school). So I'm leaning away from them.

To read more about this story, golly -- tons of links. Try these first. And if you happen to know which school this was, drop me an email!

At HMS Weblog: here, here, here, and here. Mark Shea also 'blogs 'bout it here. Hopefully I'll be able to do some snooping of my own after the busy workweek.

A few more reader submissions...

The Feast of St. Therese - Sponsored by 1-800-FLOWERS (much cooler than FTD)
The Feast of the North American Martyrs - Sponsored by Red Man Chewing Tobacco
The Feast of Edith Stein - Sponsored by Jews For Jesus

Love the Baba, Worship the Baba, Beware the Baba

Thanks to a loyal reader, I can now offer you a link to the International Sai Organization.

This site just gives me the willies. That's probably not a very tolerant thing for me to say. But check out their devotional songs. Anyone care to wager how long it'll be before some of those start showing up at Mass? (Speaking of which, last week we reached new lows with a piano-intro to "Gather Us In" which would've made Billy "Pianoman" Joel wretch... but I digress).

I don't know about this, but they've also picked up a crucifix somewhere along the way. This seems to have kept the Baba from pulling his lingam (???) out of his mouth every year: "In respect to the oval, eggshaped lingam which Baba produces from within his body on Mahasivaratri night, he says, 'It is not possible for you to understand the divine purpose and gauge its potential, or to know the significance of its manifestation.'" (That quote by the way comes from a book entitled My Baba and I, not be confused with either Baba, Like Me or Baba, The Elephant).

Anyway, the Baba is probably the most powerful guy (still living) who still has his afro (except for maybe Carrottop). And if we are to believe what he says, he is only the second of a triple incarnation, which means that the afro he has the next time 'round can be only greater. I can not wait.

Now watch my car blow up tomorrow morning when I go to start it....

My sincerest apologies: Dominico Bettinelli started it, not Amy Welborn.

In regards to a comment in the post below: yeah, these are over the line. That's kind of the point: how corporations will do something so soul-less as to take these Holy men and women and use them as mere marketing shills. The best way to exaggerate that is to illustrate, to the extreme -- without making it too obtuse or unbelievable -- how this might actually happen.

Ah, Comedy. Thou art truly a mysterious and fickle mistress and yet we still court thee.

A reader submits the following to the ongoing Saints' Sponsorships fun (see post directly below). Hey -- don't look at me! Amy Welborn started it!

The Feast of St. Elmo - Sponsored by Ex-Lax
The Feast of St. Maria Goretti - Sponsored by Victorinox Swiss Army Knives
The Feast of St. Joseph of Cupertino - Sponsored by Delta Airlines
The Feast of St. Bartholomew - Sponsored by Nutraderm Skin Lotion

The fun starts with this post over at Amy Welborn's blog. The news is that some cheese company is sponsoring a festival in honor of the Feast of San Gennaro. This leads to a discussion of what coporations would sponsor the feast days of other notable Saints? While the contributions in Amy's comment box are funny enough, I humbly submit my own (which I may or may not have had help in writing).

The Feast of St. Boniface - Sponsored by Craftsman
The Feast of St. Gabriel Possenti - Sponsored by Smith & Wesson
The Feast of St. Juan Diego - Sponsored by New Cheer! With Color Guard
The Feast of St. Januarius - Sponsored by Castrol GTX (or any synthetic motor oil)
The Feast of St. Peter - Sponsored by Hang-Ups, maker of fine Inversion Tables

Okay, now you think of some.

The single album of 2001 and 2002 that you must listen to.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but it was only recently that I picked up The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love's most recent album, H.O.M.E.S., Vol. 1. Over the next week, I'll be commenting a bit more about this landmark album, but suffice it to say for now that this is the best album of 2001 (when it was released) and it looks like 2002 as well, that I have heard. The degree of acoustic musicianship on this album is excellent, and the songwriting is both direct and poetic -- the sort of songwriting you really don't find anymore, though the genre has been freshly reinterpreted here. It's outstanding music and at the same time probably unlike just about anything else you've heard. Also, it's great to see the Great Lakes and their state get their due beyond just "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Very good music.

Finding the Mythic (?) in the Mundane

Superfriend Britain directs us to notice, of all things, the URLs in the location bar of your browser as you browse through Amazon.com. For example, click here and you'll notice the first part of the URL is "http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos".

But who, we wonder, is "Obidos"?

Fortunately Britain provides one possible explanation (which, he assures us, will make us envision a "pointy-hatted sprite dashing
about fetching books/music/consumer electronics" -- I know it has done so for me), that Obidos is a mis-transliteration of "Oblios", the complete story of which can be found here.

Ben Curtis (aka The Dell Guy) has got it made.

Monday Mission

I don't usually do these sorts of things but, hey...

1. What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you on a date?
Okay, there is absolutely no way -- NO WAY -- I would ever discuss this on my 'blog, okay? Maybe someday I'll tell a priest, but ... anyway ... good times ... on to question #2.

2. Do you eat your veggies?
What are you? My mother? For your information, Mr. Smartyknickers, I eat more veggies than Coolio's got rhymes. And he has got a lot of rhymes.

3. Most people are comfortable going to the bathroom in front of at least one person. Has anyone ever used the restroom in front of you that you wish wouldn't have? What happened and how bad was it?
Can't say that this has ever happened to me. Nope. Not ever. Well, there was that one time with that Australian guy in Belgium... nah. You wouldn't want to hear about that.

4. Have you ever had a bad online transaction? You know, the item wasn't what you thought it would be, you got totally ripped-off, no refunds, it just plain sucked? What's the story there?
I have always been satsified with every product I've purchased online. So much so that I don't go to stores anymore. Or leave the house.

5. Ever have a current love find any old love letters (or similar item) you kept that probably should have been thrown away? How did that turn out?
I keep every letter that everyone has ever written to me -- and time was I was a big letter writer, so I've got a few. None of them are too bad, though. Most are embarassing only in where they seem to indicate I was coming from, spiritually speaking, at the time (and there was that whole African tribal hippy phase... ugh).

6. A secretary at work was telling me about a trip she took to Mardi Gras. [...blah blah blah... boooooring....] I was shocked, I had no idea this quiet gal had a wild side. Was there ever a time when you did something totally outrageous because you knew no one would know who you were, or maybe didn't care even if they did?
I've never let the people I'm around stop me from doing totally outrageous things... one time I chugged a whole can of Mountain Dew in under six seconds -- and this was before they had those wide-mouthed openings!

7. Hey, what happened to you last night? I waited forever!
Well, you know. I was with people.

BONUS: I know I could break you down, but what good would it do?
You would learn all my secrets. Not that you would know what to do with them.

Cool Robot!

Jeff Miller of Atheist to a Theist 'blog passes along this link (and I've finally added you to the big list o' links!).

Does 'ROBONAUT' Have the Right Stuff?
(If you're having difficulties watching the movie, check out the official NASA Robonaut page. Actually, check out the NASA page anyway. It's really cool).

Very cool Robot (or, more accurately, "Android"). It's not as cute as Honda's ASIMO Robot (aka. the creepy demented-kid-with-a-backpack-looking Robot), but it looks like it'll be doing more and doing it more quickly than Honda's Robot -- in space, no less. Still, I'm not sure why they felt they had to make it look like a person, though (well -- actually, I do: for those government-type bucks. "Shake hands with Mr. Robot, Senator!"). For this sort of purpose, something looking more like a spider would probably be better suited. But then, most Robots would be more functional if they looked more like spiders. (Though again, "Let this 200lb Robot spider climb all over you, Senator!" lacks that certain appeal).

Amy Welborn, probably the only 'blog you really need to read, has this to say about the recent interview in Oprah magazine with Phil Donahue where he desrcibes an abortion he filmed for his show and showed to a room of folks. He calles the unborn child who is vacuumed out and utterly rendered and destroyed the "birth matter in the jar." I've always considered Phil Donahue to be the worst kind of "post-lower intestinal matter," bound by his own actions for that place where all matter is more or less atomized by the heat, but -- what the heck -- I'll say a half-assed prayer for his salvation. There. Done.

James Akin, the younger elder-statesman of Catholic Apologetics (not to be confused with Jim Aikin, Senior Editor of Keyboard Magazine) has his own 'blog! He's using it pretty much as a tool for a book he's working about how not to write apologetics (apologetically?). Anyway, he has a very nice post here about those neophyte or otherwise inexperienced or unskilled writers who feel that each and every sentence which they write on their computers needs to be filled to the rim with every conceivable sort of adverbial or adjectival modifier.

I agree.

I can't tell you how far I've thrown some books in which the author seems to be attempting to be crafty with all sorts of modifiers and meanwhile I'm all just like "Hey, just get to the point, okay? What happened?" and they're all like "No, I'm going to tell you exactly HOW she took the piece of paper away from him in excruciating detail right down to the way he thought the paper smelled as it left her fingertips and you're going to just sit back and TAKE it because if you don't read every single word you'll miss something really good like right here where she sticks her tongue in his ear! See? If you had skipped over the end of this paragraph you would've missed that," only there's no way I could've missed that because there's like four sentences about her "serpentine" tongue and his "deep, mysterious, and receiving" ear canal.

Ugh.

Writers. Who needs 'em?

So, for the past two or three days (inbetween everything else) I've been playing through a bit of the just-released Super Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo GameCube. It's awesome. I think it's probably the only game I've played in recent memory where I'd be perfectly happy doing nothing but playing the game until I beat it. A large part of this is due to the non-linear structure of the game. The game is made up of about 80 or so different "episodes," and the game is structured so that an any given moment you have at least four or five of these from which to choose. If one becomes frustrating, you just move on to a different one. Of course, none of this would matter if the game wasn't any fun -- but this game is fun. As I figure it, Mr. Miyamoto has introduced about a dozen different play mechanics into the gaming canon with this title... he really is a creative genius. His work is very popular, though, so its easy to overlook that.

Also it doesn't hurt that the game takes place entirely on a tropical island and captures the look of the pure blue water, the heat which makes distant object shimmer, and the white, blinding sunshine perfectly (the island actually starts off overcast and gets more and more bright the more shines Mario is able to collect). Then there's the buildings which look totally Dutch colonial and the sand... it's all yum. It's obvious that a large portion of the development team spent some time in the islands capturing their feel for this title. Since it doesn't seem that Jackie and I will be making it back to St. John anytime soon, this is a nice little reminder of that trip -- though, admittedly, no game can truly capture the sensuous thump, thump, thumping of The Jam Band playing in the town square until 7 or 8 in the morning (we arrived on July 3rd -- the islands' independence/emancipation day, and St. John, as it turns out, is where everyone from the other islands go to party).

Fun stuff, though.

Who's the cutest baby in all the land?



(And please don't give me any lectures about over-exposure. Or about bad puns).