Saturday, July 31, 2021
Together at last …
… “All My Life I Kept on Spinning”: Igor Avtamonov and Edwin Arlington Robinson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Twitter deception …
… Update On Big Tech Censorship Post | Fanatic Cook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He literally quoted results from Pfizer’s study, a study in the public domain. How is this justification for being banned? There is a lot less truth on Twitter.
The decline of scholarship …
… The Forged Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sabar hits on something very important, the corruption and dishonesty of postmodern scholarship, the deforming of fact and history to serve ideologies and beliefs. King is a product of a collective of liberal, postmodern theologians known as the Jesus Seminar, which routinely sacrificed serious scholarship to advance a liberal interpretation of the Christian gospels, making them no different from the owners of the Hobby Lobby. The group dismisses most of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels as invented, writes off the entire Gospel of John as fiction and does not believe in miracles or the resurrection. But to advance the cause of feminism, it twisted itself into contortions to assert that the scene at the end of the Gospel of John, where Mary witnesses the resurrected Jesus, is a real-life version of an actual historical event.
Something to think on …
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
— Milton Friedman, born on this date in 1912
Friday, July 30, 2021
Hear, hear …
… David Bidstrup guest post. Psychological manipulation and the greatest medical screwup in history. | Catallaxy Files.
We seem to have forgotten that no one is safe. You have never been safe and you never will be. Nor will I. In the blind global panic of an epidemic we have forgotten how to analyse risk. If you don’t accept that you will die one day, that you can never be safe, then you are a sitting duck for authoritarian policies which purport to be for your safety. If too many individuals immolate their liberty for safety we risk a bonfire of freedoms.
Well, there seem to plenty of such people around these days.
Prophecy come true …
… Archbishop Sheen’s Warning of a Crisis in Christendom. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
“The Lord brought a sword. It’s not the sword that’s thrust outward against the enemy. It’s a sword that’s thrust against ourselves, cutting out the seven pallbearers of the soul: pride and covetousness and lust and anger, envy, gluttony and sloth. And we’ve given up the sword — someone else has taken it up, and we have to restore it! Then we’ll get peace! And peace is never corporate — it’s never social — until it’s first individual.
Blogging note …
I will take shortly to meet my blog partner Jesse Freedman for coffee in Center City. After that I'm going for a much-needed haircut. Blogging will resume when I get back.
Lockdown days …
… zmkc: Normally Madame.
Then on 23 June, to my amazement, normality did return - at least it did in Hungary. No masks, no vaccine checkers, everything open to full capacity, no two-metre distances, just the return of common sense. And then, wonder of wonders, the European Union got its act together and set up a Europe-wide vaccination certificate. As soon as we received ours, we packed our bags and headed back into the world.
Something to think on …
No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date.
— C. Northcote Parkinson. Born on this date in 1909
Thursday, July 29, 2021
In case you wondered …
… What Did Vatican II Actually Say about the Mass?
What the Second Vatican Council said about liturgy, what it didn’t say about liturgy, and the central intent of the Council concerning the liturgy.
Appreciation …
… Silent All These Years: On Annie Dillard - The Millions. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.).)
By Lopate's definition,there’s no better essayist than Annie Dillard. Her thoughts go places no one else can see. Following in her path, you can sip the cold fire of eternity, cheat death in a stunt plane, or trace God’s name in sand, salt, or cloud. She didn’t invent the essay. Her most famous work isn’t classified as an essay. But in the cosmos of essayists, there’s Annie Dillard, and there’s everyone else.
Montaigne's pretty good, too.
Hmm …
…Maverick Philosopher: On the Fear of Death.
In August 2017, I spent the night in Jefferson University Hospital’s emergency room. The next morning a physician came to me and said in a most matter-of-fact way, “You have a life-threatening condition and must be operated on immediately.” What I found most unnerving about this was that it elicited in me no affect whatever. He could have told me it was going to rain that afternoon. Well, getting all bent out of shape certainly wouldn’t have done any good.
By the way, isn’t the German saying, Heute rot, morgen tot?
Maybe praying for the dead, as I do every night for an increasing number of people, helps ease the fear of death’s eventuality.
Our health bureaucrats at work …
…CDC justified new mask guidance based on vaccine study listed as failing peer review | Just The News.
The "reject" status and review notes were removed by mid-morning and replaced with "posted," suggesting Nature had approved the paper without revisions, which drew controversy on Twitter. The notes were quickly restored and status changed to "revise," bearing the same date — July 9 — as the original "reject" status.
I just learned of this …
… About the Ignatian Year | Ignatian Year.
I am product of Jesuit education, thoughI have been dismayed by the wokeness on display at Georgetown, Marquette, and Boston College. I also find our Jesuit Pope underwhelming.
Dealing with rejection …
… Giving Up on Giving Up | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.
Rejection, it turns out, is tiered. The difference between a standard rejection and a tiered rejection is encouragement.
Many, many years ago, I submitted a poem to the New Yorker. I got a rejection slip. Oddly, there was a short hand-written addition: the word Sorry. I took it to be an example of New Yorker humor. I used to carry it in my wallet. Decades later I learned that it was probably a word of encouragement.
Something to think on …
He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds.
— Dag Hammarskjöld, born on this date in 1905
Well, who exactly gets it now?
… Ancient Gilgamesh tablet seized from Hobby Lobby by US authorities | Manuscripts and letters | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I guess the Iraqi government, though this story gives no indication as to what they plan to do with it. This seems to me to be something that should be left to civil courts. Why my tax dollars should be spent on it eludes me.
Poet and cook …
… Sold: Sylvia Plath's Rolling Pin and Recipes - Gastro Obscura. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Indeed …
… Calm down about the Delta variant - The Spectator World:.
It’s Rahm Emanuel time now and forever: never let a good crisis go waste, he advised, and rest assured, they — the alphabet-soup pod-people who we put in charge of our lives — they have run with it big time. A couple of days ago, the White House (how long before they change the insulting name of that edifice) announced that because of the ‘Delta variant’ they would not be lifting travel restrictions ‘at this point’. They hope, of course, that they can maintain, and perhaps stiffen, the restriction indefinitely, maybe forever. After all, as the White House press secretary demanded a week or two back, ‘Why do you need to have that information?’
Addressing the important …
… Study calls for end to 'rough fish' pejorative and the paradigm that created it.
Somebody needs to tell these clowns that the rest of us don’t really give a damn.
Standing his ground …
… Nebraska regent stands behind resolution opposing CRT as professors, chancellors balk | The College Fix.
“This resolution opposes policies, standards and graduation requirements that would compel students to study Critical Race Theory or adopt a CRT framework in their chosen course of study,” he said via email.
“If a student chooses to study CRT, this resolution won’t stop them from learning about it or professors from teaching it on an elective basis.”
Hmm …
… Here Comes the Baltimore Sun | The American Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
…as more and more once-affluent magazines and newspapers are going belly up or seeking other ways to finance themselves, I am feeling pretty good about how I decided to finance The American Spectator when I was still a graduate student at Indiana University decades ago. The latest group to go the nonprofit route is the legendary Baltimore Sun. Yes, that 184-year-old newspaper, the fabled home of H. L. Mencken and a dozen or so lesser giants of journalism, will now be owned by the nonprofit Sunlight for All Institute.
Well, The Inquirer has been owned by a nonprofit since 2014, the last year it won a Pulitzer Prize.
Sounds good …
… BooksForKidsBlog: Sleep In, Mr. Sandman! The Nice Dream Truck by Beth Ferry.
In her latest, The Nice Dream Truck (Harper, 2021), best-selling author Beth Ferry likens going to sleep to meeting an ice cream truck with delicious sweet dreams for any taste, all done up in tasty rhyming text and inviting light and airy illustrations that float across delish double-page spreads by artist Brigette Barrager.
There’s gold in them thar scare stories …
… Climate ‘Scare Story’ Began With Far-Left Ideology: Greenpeace Co-Founder.
Contrary to what climate alarmists claim, Moore says, “carbon dioxide is the basis of all life on Earth.”
“It makes the oceans less alkaline, thus making it suitable for life,” and “on land, CO2 makes the greening of the Earth plus it makes plants more efficient with water.”
In April 2016, an article published in Nature funded in part by NASA found that CO2 fertilization has had significant impact on the greening of the planet.
Pondering a catchphrase …
… I Just Didn’t Fall in Love.
I have always wondered when this phrase – I just didn’t fall in love – became a standard well-accepted way of politely rejecting querying writers? Why evoke such a crazy intense, intimate and emotional scenario when a more cool and objective one would suffice?
Something to think on …
To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give Him glory, too. God is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean that they should.
— Gerard Manley Hopkons, born on this date in 1844
Yes, the past has value …
… Save everything: Digitizing a lifetime's worth of VHS tapes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
The ways of baseball …
… No-No & Adios - BallNine.
A few days later, Hamels and left-handed reliever Jake Diekman were traded to the Texas Rangers for six players (one was a salary dump), and is believed to be the first time in MLB history a pitcher was traded immediately after throwing a no-hitter.
My sentiments exactly …
… Americans, Choose Freedom and Take Off the Mask.
The collapse of personal autonomy and individual agency in the face of an onslaught of punitive, soul-corroding COVID-19 restrictions has been perhaps the most frightening and depressing development in modern American history. Given its minuscule—barely a blip above normal—death toll, COVID-19 is as close to a hoax as can be imagined. Advertised relentlessly as the second coming of the Black Death, it is instead the New Coke of viral diseases.
Want to wear a mask? Go right ahead. Just don’t bother me.
Listen in …
… The History of English Podcast | The Spoken History of a Global Language. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.) thank
Something to think on …
It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated.— Hilaire Belloc, born on this date in 1870
Monday, July 26, 2021
Well, good for them …
…Disillusioned journalists form alliance against censorship of alternative coronavirus viewpoints.
It comprises mostly UK-based journalists working at newspapers, broadcasters, and PR companies as staffers or freelancers.The members were interviewed by Press Gazette, with most preferring to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from their employers.
Of course, if you’re one of those — and it seems there are many — predisposed to kiss the government’s behind, you will not sympathize with these people. I sympathize with them because I am a journalist of the old school, given to questioning the government at every opportunity, since it is not to be reflexively trusted.
Anniversary …
… Fifty Years On, How Frederick Forsyth’s Assassination Classic 'The Day of the Jackal' Transformed Thrillers Forever.
I thought Edward Fox was wonderful in the movie.
Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit …
… Gifts From We Know Not Where ~ The Imaginative Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Called or not called, the god will be there.
As well he ought …
… Writer questions literary Cancel Culture | THE JOHN UPDIKE SOCIETY. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What needs to be canceled is Cancel Culture.
Our untrustworthy government …
… Here we go again - by Alex Berenson - Unreported Truths. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The truth is that if we were treating vaccines like other drugs, we would include the “partially” vaccinated cases in the “vaccinated” category because they have occurred AFTER treatment has begun.
The United States does the opposite. When it reports statistics on vaccine hospitalizations or deaths, it ignores partly vaccinated people. They are lumped with those who have never received a dose as “unvaccinated.”
This trick is particularly galling now that the vaccine companies and the government have acknowledged the fact that the mRNA shots begin to lose their protective effect in a matter of months and that many people will need boosters soon.
Something to think on …
Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.
— Carl Jung, born on this date in 1875
Sunday, July 25, 2021
Methinks I’ll like this …
… REVIEW: ‘Pig’ — A movie to be savored. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I happen to be a pretty good cook. This seems to be right down my alley.
Your tax dollars at work …
… $3 Million Government Study Finds Link Between Excessive Drinking and Aggressive Nightclub Behavior | Intellectual Takeout.
I am sure there are people who will now really believe it because the government told them it’s so.
The world we live in …
… Snow leopard at San Diego zoo catches coronavirus | Animals | The Guardian.
Notice that lede: “ An unvaccinated snow leopard at the San Diego zoo has contracted Covid-19.”
Now why was he unvaccinated. Doesn’t he read the papers? Did he choose not to get vaccinated? He seems to have had a pretty mild case. Maybe he even caught it from a human? Call him irresponsible.
Our charming ancestors …
… Last Meal of History's Most Famous 'Bog Body' Hints at Human Sacrifice.
Of course, these days why try to figure out what really happened centuries ago, when some half-assed theory will satisfy so many politically committed morons?
These times could use a man like this …
… IN PRAISE OF GILBERT HIGHET BY LINDSAY JOHNS - The Oldie. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The study of Classics endures to this day quite simply because the eternal verities at the heart of the human condition have not changed one iota since the days of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Catullus, et al. To be sure, the way we live now has changed immeasurably over the last 2500 years, what with jet planes, the internet and iPhones, but the fundamental nuts and bolts of the thorny existential conundrum that is our brief terrestrial sojourn have not.
Something to think on …
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
— Eric Hoffer, born on this date in 1902
Saturday, July 24, 2021
This could turn out to be very big …
… Is Consciousness Bound by Quantum Physics? We're Getting Closer to Finding Out.
This new knowledge of quantum fractals could provide the foundations for scientists to experimentally test the theory of quantum consciousness. If quantum measurements are one day taken from the human brain, they could be compared against our results to definitely decide whether consciousness is a classical or a quantum phenomenon.
Vintage appreciation …
… The Poetry of Elizabeth Daryush by Donald Davie. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To have the poet-laureate for one’s father is a grievous disadvantage for any poet to labour under. And there can be no doubt that the shadow which has eclipsed Elizabeth Daryush is the shadow of Robert Bridges.
The teacher should be fired …
… Minnesota Student Says Teacher Told Her to Hide ‘Equity Survey’ Questions From Parents.
“Being asked to hide this from my mom made me very uncomfortable, like I was doing something wrong,” she told the school board.
Much in what she says
… Feminism Must Have Been Invented by a Diabolical Man.
… this mad megalomaniac convinced women that sexual morality was hurting them. Women were told if they just gave men all the sex they desired, without consequences, women would be “liberated” in becoming just like men. Brilliant! Suddenly men got all the nookie they wanted and women were left alone and heartbroken.
Sill with us after all thse years …
… Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use. Robert B. Shaw . Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007. Pp. xi 305. | Modern Philology: Vol 108, No 1. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Shaw's technique of scansion is minimal and flexible (he often provides alternate ways a line could be scanned), consisting of “x” for an unstressed syllable, “/” for a stressed one, with “\” for an “intermediate” degree of stress (xi). But he knows, as does anyone with an ear, that one da-DUM is different from another da-DUM—that, in another good formulation, “not all iambs are created equal” (16). His opening chapter, “The Sounds of Blank Verse,” usefully distinguishes the form from both rhyming verse and free verse, also from prose. The last distinction is an important one since the notion is still around that blank verse is a “blood-relative” to prose (11). One recalls that when Frost published North of Boston (1914), some of his critics thought the blank verse of many of the poems “free” enough so that it was indistinguishable from prose, from conversational talk. And any teacher of college students will find many of them cheerfully calling blank verse “free verse,” while at other times speaking of blank verse as “prose.”
A child’s eye view …
… Nigeness: Runge and Sendak.
… the lives these children are living are no sentimental idyll; they do not radiate the bliss of innocence. They are playing, but they are deadly serious.
Something to think on …
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
— Robert Graves, born on this date in 1885
Hmm …
… Vaccinated People Are Getting Sick. CDC, White House Say “Vaccinated People Don’t Get Sick”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m not saying anything here about how effective the vaccines are. What I’m saying is that this administration, and the many media outlets that are catering to it, and not being truthful.
On display …
… William Kennedy’s long-ago Smith Corona.
This particular typewriter came from his mother, and Kennedy wrote the first five novels of his renowned Albany cycle on it. In particular, he wrote Ironweed on it, and that’s the book that brought him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. The photo with the typewriter was taken in 1950, when he would have been 22 – only two years older than the typewriter – and a budding reporter at the Albany Times Union.
Friday, July 23, 2021
Happy birthday, Raymond Chandler …
… Revisiting Raymond Chandler’s most iconic lines. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good for him …
… Archbishop to Pelosi: Devout Catholics Do Not Support Abortion.
I studied sacred theology for four years. So I think I know what the church teaches
Sounds cool …
… Coffee with Coleen - The Spectator World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
First-timers don’t quite believe what they’re seeing. It’s as if they’ve gone to a baseball game and the same guy is pitching, catching, batting and taking tickets.
Why is this guy teaching?
… Campus Reform | Prof blames 'every single' future COVID death on the GOP.
I suspect that slugs are better informed and have more intellectual rigor than this clown.
Another Papal misstep …
… Pope Francis, the Latin Mass and My Family - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Today many young priests celebrate the traditional Mass daily. Ancient taped-up pamphlet missals have been replaced with expensive leatherbound volumes. Austere half-hour celebrations have given way in some parishes to regular solemn Masses that require a master of ceremonies, priest, deacon and subdeacon. The liturgical standards in some parishes now may be higher than they were before the Second Vatican Council.
My own parish celebrated the Latin Mass for several years. That changed after the pastor was reassigned. So then I had to walk quite a distance to another church. Then it moved far enough away that I had to hitch a ride with someone. Finally, it was too far for me to go to. The English Mass is hopelessly pedestrian. They should have adapted the Anglican Mass. It has some style. As for Pope Francis, the less said of him the better.
Something to think on …
Liberty of thought means liberty to communicate one's thought.
— Salvador de Madariaga, born on tis date in 1886
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Not good …
… Would-be teachers fail licensing tests.
Exam takers have the hardest time with tests of content knowledge, such as English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
Seems like a good idea …
… since the point of studying history is learn from the past, not to revise and edit it (which is pointless): Hillsdale College Launches ‘1776 Curriculum,’ Promoting ‘Honest History’ in K-12 Classrooms.
A dubious distinction …
… Paul Davis On Crime: The Walking Dead: My Philadelphia Weekly 'Crime Beat' Column On Kensington, The Largest Open-Air Drug Market On The East Coast.
When I was a kid my family shopped along Kensington Avenue. In a Woolworth’s there I got my first Classics Illustrated. Looks like the neighborhood has turned into a shit hole.
Learning from vampires …
… What Journalists Can Learn from The Night Stalker | www.splicetoday.com.
Like Glenn Greenwald or Tucker Carlson, Kolchak has been fired from several places, “all presumably for trying to get the truth past his editors.” Kolchak, who is “hell bent on getting the last laugh and coming back in style,” is “a charismatic grab bag full of contradictions, panache, [and] bad taste.” He doesn’t like authority but has “an all-American love for the goddam capital-T Truth.”
Something to think on …
Books are not men and yet they are alive. They are man's memory and his aspiration, the link between his present and his past, the tools he builds with.
— Stephen Vincent Benét, born on this date in 1898
Strange …
…The Writer's Almanac for Sunday, July 18, 2021 — Jane | Garrison Keillor.(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Literary lineage …
… The Heretical Origins of the Sonnet | JSTOR Daily. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Kleinhenz writes: “For centuries the sonnet has remained the most popular and the most difficult poetic form in Western literature,” with few canonical poets since the Renaissance completely avoiding them. The endurance of the fourteen lines is startling, though a return to its complex origins almost a millennium ago provides a fuller understanding of its appeal. The sonnet, as it turns out, is many things; not least of which is a lesson in the complexity of societies and souls.
Robert Graves
I, Claudius is one of those books I'd wanted to read for a long time, and now that I have, I can safely say: it does not disappoint.
For mastery of Roman genealogy alone, Robert Graves is to have been celebrated: this novel of the Imperial family -- from Augustus, to Tiberius, and Caligula -- is, if nothing else, a detailed rendering of Roman lineage, of how marriages were made, and how rival claimants related to one another. For Graves not only to have mastered this lineage, but to have imagined the lives of its characters is a tremendous achievement. It would be hard to overstate just how complex this family tree is, and just how successful Graves is in bringing his characters to life.
So this is a novel about Roman lineage, and about political machinations; but is also, equally, a novel about history. Surely, Graves has created a work of fiction, of historical fiction. And yet, by calling it that, we shy away from a more profound question which Graves seems to ask: namely whether a work like I, Claudius is as a effective as a traditional work of history when it comes to illuminating the past, to uncovering not only events, but the factors and forces which led to them.
I recognize, of course, that Graves's novel is different from academic history, and that the latter has a different set of objectives and responsibilities. That said, reading I, Claudius alongside a traditional work of history may provide a more holistic understanding of Rome: one highlights the events, and the reasons for them; the other focuses on temperament, emotion, jealousy. True, academic history may evaluate behavior and ascribe meaning to it. But not in the same way, and not with the same intensity, as Graves.
This is a foundational novel: it established a new set of standards for what historical fiction could do, and, in turn, a new set of intellectual expectations of its authors. Graves was a novelist, of course, but he was a historian, too. And that, I think, is what sets this novel apart: his profound -- seemingly insatiable -- appetite for the past. In a way, the effect of I, Claudius is like reading a detailed work of history, composed by a gifted novelist. This is high praise, indeed.
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Hmm …
It's as if America is moving toward "1984," George Orwell's novel, in which government controls people's thoughts by creating a new language, Newspeak.
Pretty rugged looking …
… 'Unloved Children Of The Kuzbass': Life And Death In A Siberian Village. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Svetlana Likhanova was born in Yurga, a town in the northwest of the Kuzbass. For the past seven years, she has not parted with her camera. The main focus of her photography is the disappearing Russian countryside -- specifically, the villages of the Kuzbass.
Another cause for concern …
… Pedestrian Fatalities, Sidewalks, Race | by Rus Bowden | Jul, 2021 | Medium.
Well, I started life in North Philly and my family drummed into me how important it was to be careful when crossing the street. I noticed that when my daughter Jennifer's two sons were younger and would meet me in Center City (they live outside the city) that they didn't even look at traffic lights. I have also noticed that one must be especially careful these days, what with drivers gabbing on their phones and sometimes even texting while driving. A couple of years ago, I was crossing the street not far from where I live and a guy making a turn didn't even notice me until the person sitting next to him alerted him. More people should be ticketed for blocking crosswalks. I could go one, but I think everybody will get the idea,
Cause for concern …
… Goodbye Atticus Finch, hello ‘Antiracist Baby.’ #DisruptTexts is coming to a classroom near you.
For concerned parents, Kinnett says the most important way they can push back on movements like #DisruptTexts is not advocacy. It’s engaging with kids at home.
#DisruptTexts may want your kids to skip reading Orwell, but judging by their website, they sure have mastered doublethink.
Catching up …
… Backstories: “The Chosen”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Simon (or Peter, as we know he’ll become – played by Shahar Isaac) tells Jesus that the calling of the tax collector Matthew (Paras Patel) is bad idea. Jesus replies: “You thought it was wrong when I called you!” Simon says: “This is different.” Jesus says: “Get used to different,” which is a good guide for watching the series.
Indeed …
… Don't Take It Personally - The Reading Experience. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If you believe literature can make a difference in people's lives, the evidence from one's own life seems an obvious place to turn. But at some point such exercises become simply personal essays rather than literary criticism, and again my own history of both writing and reading critical essays tells me it is entirely possible to convey personality and perspective without crossing this line. Close reading or analysis does not require a turgid prose style, nor does it necessarily entail endless quotations and an eye-glazing analytic detachment. The goal should be to be communicate the critic's most concentrated experience of the work, and this ought to motivate his/her most discerning and dynamic writing, not the most pedantic.
Something to think on …
There is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to hinder, as prayer.
— Philip Neri, born on this date in 1515
Tuesday, July 20, 2021
And they’re not all bad…
… Signs of the Times by R. R. Reno | Articles | First Things.
I don’t wish to be over-optimistic. All is not well. A great deal is broken. We’re stumbling, not striding; limping, not marching. But society’s total mobilization against the coronavirus—which I opposed as unwise and damaging—has accelerated existing trends and started new ones. We saw as much in June 2020, when cities were aflame with protests. No doubt our churches and our souls have been affected as well, perhaps for the better. Something is stirring.
Hmm …
… I once fell in love with the Latin Mass—which is why I understand why Pope Francis restricted it.
[The Latin Mass] made me bitter and arrogant. It made me think I had the more ancient, therefore holier, therefore better way to practice my faith. I would make jokes about the “Novus Ordo” and speculate about the day the church might even do away with vernacular liturgy, considering it a failed experiment.
The Latin Mass didn't make you do anything. You chose to feel as you did. I grew up with the Latin Mass. It happens to be better crafted than the Novus Ordo, which is as pedestrian as it gets. If they wanted the Mass in English, well it was translated in plenty of missals. And "It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation" is a hell of lot better than "It is right and just."
Copyright dispute …
… Who Owns Mike Disfarmer’s Photographs? (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
In 1976, an overhaul of the Copyright Act enshrined stronger protections. Today, artists generally receive copyrights to their works by default; after they die, the protections pass to their heirs for seventy years. During that period, whether you’ve purchased a negative for pennies at an estate sale or a print for millions at Christie’s, simply owning a physical image does not entitle you to reproduce it in any form.
Voicing dissent …
…Ishmael Reed was NOT happy about Jill Biden’s choice of inaugural poet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
It is better to will the good than to know the truth.
— Petrarch, born on this date in 1304
Monday, July 19, 2021
Poetry unto death …
… Yesterday Never Existed by Sophie Pinkham | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In Black Earth, Peter France has made all the right choices. He wisely declined to attempt to precisely reproduce Mandelstam’s use of rhyme and meter—a near-certain road to disaster for those translating Russian poetry into English, even poetry much less complex and supersaturated with metaphor than Mandelstam’s.
Faith and art …
… Stirring the Embers of Faith | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Critics can continue to fight over the question of whether Greene was a Catholic writer or rather what he called himself: an author who “happened to be Catholic.” Some of his characters were good Catholics; many were not. And as Richard Greene reminds us, Graham had a lot of trouble practicing the faith he never quite abandoned. The late Polish poet Adam Zagajewski once said about himself, “I am a failed Catholic, but still a Catholic.” Greene could have said the same thing.
I fear that the only Catholics — including myself — who are not failed Catholics are the saints. Hence our faith in “the strangeness of the mercy of God.”
Cute …
… The Writer's Almanac for Saturday, July 10, 2021: Midrash on a Sacred Encounter | Garrison Keillor. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something to think on…
A human life is a schooling for eternity.
— Gottfried Keller, born on this date in 1819
Some things you should know …
… Do drug trials underestimate side effects? - Sebastian Rushworth M.D.
When drug companies have gotten a drug approved, and move on to market the drug, they will studiously avoid mentioning the fact that large segments of the population were excluded from the trials. When drug reps show their flashy powerpoints to gatherings of doctors, say for a new drug to lower blood pressure, they will always present impressive looking graphs of benefit, and they will of course point out how safe their drug was shown to be in the trials. Not once will they mention that the groups of patients the doctors will primarily be prescribing the drug to weren’t even included in the trials.
I am by no means an anti-vaxxer. I thought I didn’t need a shingles shot because I had never had chicken pox. I was wrong. I got the shot.
Sunday, July 18, 2021
That's the way it ia …
… Models Only Say What They’re Told to Say — The Paper! (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
You cannot run the model, wait for the output, run to your Governor and say “The latest model says social distancing works.” If your Governor had any sense he would say, “Didn’t you write the model code? And didn’t the code say somewhere that social distancing worked?”