Friday, July 30, 2021
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.
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