I got to bed after midnight Saturday night after drinking too much Oberon beer. Johnny Cash sang to me Sunday morning (lyrics), but I couldn’t sleep past 6:00 a.m., so I got up, popped a 600 mg Motrin, checked my fantasy football lineup, took a bath, then went back to bed. I stumbled up in time for 8:30 Mass (had to get there early b/c Jack was serving). I was feeling pretty good, and then, before the final blessing, they started the saccharine 9/11 tape. Loyal readers know how I feel about it. This is the sixth time the Powers That Be in our parish have forced us to listen to it. SIX TIMES! I DON’T FEEL GREAT! PLEASE, STOP! Actually, I didn’t say a word. I just walked out as discretely as possible.
Here’s the thing: Someone obviously thinks that tape is one of the greatest things ever made (and truth be told, it has a nice message; I didn’t mind it the first time I heard it). But if it’s so great, make the announcement that you’re going to play it after Mass, then everyone who thinks it’s great, will stick around. If you announced, “After Mass, Chuck Berry will be performing,” I’d stay.
But of course, they know it ain’t that hot, so they cram it down our throats by playing it before the final blessing, when they have a captive audience. But if it’s not that hot, why play it SIX times (actually more; six is just the number of times they’ve caught me)? If it’s great, people will stay. If it’s not great, don’t spring it on the same congregation six or more times. If you want to hear it, click the link above and listen to it on your own over and over. Listen to it in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, in a plane or on a train. You have that freedom. It’s America. You can cry all you want . . . just don’t jackboot me and insist that I participate in your lust for emotional upheaval.
Anyway, despite the rant, I encourage everyone this week to pray for the souls of those killed on 9/11 and remember the brave firemen that entered the towers. It’s still a tragedy that we should all remember in our own way.
Youth football returns. Weekend blogging will be lighter than normal. Three things:
1. I saw Muhammed Ali’s son catch a touchdown pass and a two-point conversion at the local high school football game last night. I was told Ali was probably in the visitor stands, but I–and pretty much everyone else, it would appear–decided it best to leave him alone.
2. I guess Mark Steyn was in my back yard recently and I missed it. His speech can be found here. Great stuff, including this killer:
The assumption that you can hop on the Sharia Express and just ride a couple of stops is one almighty leap of faith. More to the point, who are you relying on to “hold the line”? Influential figures like the Archbishop of Canterbury? The politically correct bureaucrats at Canada’s Human Rights Commissions? The geniuses who run Harvard, and who’ve just introduced gender-segregated swimming and gym sessions at the behest of Harvard’s Islamic Society? (Would they have done that for Amish or Mennonite students?) The Western world is not run by fellows noted for their line-holding: Look at what they’re conceding now and then try to figure out what they’ll be conceding in five years’ time. The idea that the West’s multicultural establishment can hold the line would be more plausible if it was clear they had any idea where the line is, or even gave any indication of believing in one.
I could use some brews. Work is piling on me like media hounds on Palin’s daughter. It’s a good thing, of course. It ain’t getting any cheaper to feed the Seven. No one told me they eat more as they get bigger. I look forward to the day that they’re old enough to drink my beer, but I wonder how expensive that’ll be.
The Catholic Beer Reviewer tells us he is making rhubarb wine. I’d never heard of it, but I’ve come to realize you can make wine out of anything that ferments, even dandelions (a fact I learned from the title of Bradbury’s book). No doubt the self-loathing goth types have contemplated perfectly disgusting wine possibilities. I’ll let you use your imagination.
Those are attractive, but I’m having troubles with the name for the one designed for pilsners: “the tulip glass.” Can’t we come up with something manlier? The other two are the “open mouth” and the “half-liter,” which are of course perfectly virile. I realize “tulip glass” is a generic name for glasses with that shape (e.g.), but geeez, for a beer glass? Can’t we call it something like, “The Hammer,” “The Lady Leg,” or “The Gus”? Or just use the name I’ve heard in the past: The Pilsner. It fits perfectly.
No time for blogging today, but want to take a moment to say I’m stunned at the increasing lack of neutrality among the mainstream press in this election year. The mainstream press has always been ensconced in left, but they used to be clandestine in their approach. Not anymore. Consider this story from this morning’s AP. Opening paragraph:
John McCain touts Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a force in the his battle against earmarks and entrenched power brokers, but under her leadership the state this year asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from one of McCain’s top adversaries: indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
First day of school. I’ll continue a piece of sadism my father started: Singing School Days at full pitch as I turn on the overhead lights. The kids, especially teenagers, hate it. It’s great.
School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
You wrote on my slate, “I Love You, Joe”
When we were a couple o’ kids
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There was a time when I would’ve received advanced notice and a sample copy: The Young Chesterton Chronicles. It came out in March, but I just read about it in Faith & Family this past weekend. F&F gives it high marks. I’m curious, however, to know why I didn’t see it mentioned in Gilbert Magazine. Maybe I missed it?
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Speaking of Faith & Family, I neglected to mention that they started a mothers’ blog a little while ago. It’s not really my thing (I ain’t a woman . . . PUT THOSE PICTURES AWAY, JOHNNY! I WAS DRUNK!), for mothers, I hear it’s pretty good.
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I took my third vacation of the summer. This time, a quick 3 day/4 night trip to Alpena, Michigan. It’s an annual jaunt, blogged about here last summer. We normally go for a week, but I simply couldn’t spare that much time off work. Plus, all the kids’ sports and band have started up already, so it would’ve hurt them to miss that much time. Regular blogging (hopefully) resumes tomorrow.
The Los Mochis Area Business Owners’ Association blasted the Minerva Brewery in Guadalajara, Mexico, for naming Malverde Beer after Jesus Malverde, a legendary figure from the late 1800s and early 1900s who is said to have robbed from the rich and given to the poor during the reign of Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz, The Arizona Republic reported Tuesday.
Roy was sitting on the front porch, reading books by some obscure writers from early twentieth century England. Laughing and making notes in the margins. Patrick was tending to the little garden that occupied the entire side yard. It was Saturday, and both were feeling splendid.
The newspaper boy rode up the driveway and gave Roy his newspaper.
“What’s in the news, Bobby?” Roy asked.
“I dunno,” the boy said.
“Well, you’re the newsboy, aren’t you?” Roy said, laughing. “Aren’t you supposed to know what’s in the newspaper?”
“I just deliver ‘em; I don’t much read ‘em. There’s a story about some preacher coming to town, though. That’s kinda different.”
Roy looked down at the paper. The front story caught his attention like it had the delivery boy’s: “Famous Preacher Coming to Town.”
Hmmmm, Roy thought to himself, walking slowly over to Patrick as he glanced through the story.
“Patrick, are we living in the early twentieth century South?”
“Not last I knew,” Patrick said.
“Early nineteenth century New England?”
“Nope; pretty sure no.”
“Then why would a preacher coming to town make the front page of our local newspaper?”
He handed the newspaper to Patrick, who quickly read it.
“It says the preacher’s name is Paul Ivywood,” Patrick said, looking at his uncle like the name might sound familiar.
“Yes, I noticed that,” Roy said, thinking. “Paul Ivywood. A preacher with a PR machine, apparently. Last names are easily changed. Come on, Patrick, to the Beer Room!”
The two walked to the backyard and approached the locked cellar doors. Roy reached to the ground and picked up a corroded can of Schlitz that was buried, half crushed and tilted, in the dirt next to the doors. From the bottom of the can, who took a small key, which he used to open the cellar doors. He and Patrick walked to the bottom of the stairs, to an iron door, which Roy opened, using his regular house-key.
They walked into a big room that stretched the entire length of Roy’s backyard. It was filled with library of about four thousand books, three computers, and an assortment of gadgets. The south wall contained hundreds of pictures of villans, past and present: Carry Nation, Frances Willard, Omar Khayyam.
“Patrick, check the cams to see if there’s any activity at the Temples. I’ll go through archives.”
Patrick walked to the west wall. It housed over a dozen monitors, all of which turned un with one switch. The monitors immediately started presenting live footage from the town’s array of taverns and bars. Three monitors alone focused on the Houndsditch, a seedy area of town with more bars per square foot than any other area in the state.
Patrick watched them intently while Roy started submitting queries and bringing up information from a vast newspaper and magazine database with articles going back as far as 100 years.
After about five minutes, Roy called to Patrick. “Found some stuff on Paul Ivywood. Pretty much says the same things that our newspaper said. He’s a preacher, been around for many years, talks about salvation and, wait a second.”
Roy read for a few minutes, then said, “Patrick, listen to this. It’s from a John Waddles, some guy writing for an alternative newspaper in New York.”
Roy then read the following out loud:
Paul Ivywood is a puritan in dignified wire frame glasses and an academic air. Those who have met or listened to Ivywood no doubt would scoff at me. “A puritan with condoms in his pockets! Come on, John!” But I’m telling you, everything about him breathes puritanism. His words, his props, his views on sexuality, those things aren’t puritan, but he is.
You see, puritanism isn’t about things, really. Physical things change, issues of the day change, but the intellectual and metaphysical, those things are permanent.
If puritanism—either as a term of derision or a coherent form of social thought—is to have any relevance, there must be a worldview, a philosophical stance, underlying it. Once you understand that worldview, you can then apply it to almost anything: booze, tobacco, sex are the obvious ones, but also music, sports, gardening, or sitting on your porch doing nothing.
Puritanism as a worldview is fundamentally a denial of the goodness of creation, finding the source of evil in material things of pleasure (as tobacco, alcohol, art, and so on) rather than in the disordered human will to misuse the good things nature affords us. The Puritans’ fondness for legal prohibitions or requirements, as well as their presumption of their own moral superiority have given religion a bad name in America.
“Holy Wisdom!” Patrick said, getting out of his chair and walking over to Roy. “Someone actually wrote that and got it published? That’s amazing.”
“Listen to the rest,” Roy said, smiling.
In Paul Ivywood, puritanism breathes. On tobacco, he is relentless and uncompromising. If given the opportunity, he would deny the fundamental joy that many men find in a pipe or cigar, emphasizing the adverse future health effects. On alcohol, he understands the ridiculousness (not to mention unpopularity) of the Volstead Act, so he doesn’t attack it directly. Rather, his attacks are on the peripherals: drunk driving, the need to restrict the number of bars, alcoholism as a disease that requires 100% abstinence.
On sex, things are a little trickier. He emphasizes safe sex and only nods to abstinence because it is, undeniably, the most effective way to prevent teenage pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases.
And believe it or not, it’s in his acknowledgment of sexual abstinenance’s effectiveness that Paul Ivywood shows himself at his most puritan.
You see, there’s one other aspect about puritanism that I didn’t mention earlier. In seventeenth century New England, puritanism was about gaining the heavenly kingdom. In twenty-first century America, it’s about the same thing, but now it’s the heaven-on-earth kingdom.
Progress, progress, progress. Puritanism is about effectiveness and advancement. The progressive isn’t always a puritan (far from it), but the puritan is always a progressive. I hope we’re all progressives, but not of the puritan sort—militant and uncompromising and relegating everything to the future and progress.
And that’s Paul Ivywood: Militant on advancement, suspicious of creation’s goodness. When the two elements conflict—as they do on sex due to its prevalence in our culture—advancement always wins in the puritan’s world because the puritan’s world is always fixed on the future, what will be. The idea of enjoying something now, because it is good and fun, wholly escapes him.
“Wow,” Patrick said. “That’s remarkable. It sounds exactly like Puritan Paul.”
“I think it is Puritan Paul,” Roy said.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Look at the picture. This Paul Ivywood is a little heavier than Puritan Paul and the hair lighter, but that’s probably just graying with age. Ivywood has a light beard, but that obviously could be grown, and the glasses are new.”
“But Puritan Paul was sent to Laughingstock Jail, with no reasonable possibility of parole. I thought he was a lifer, like Dan Quayle.”
“So did I, but apparently he escaped and changed his last name.”
“But wouldn’t he have changed his first name, too?”
“Probably should have, but apparently kept it, probably figuring Paul is a pretty common name.”
“Boy, if he saw this Waddle guy’s article, he was probably really bumming. Paul and puritanism; puritanism and Paul. With this article, a lot of people will make the connection.”
“Yeah, if a lot of people saw it. Apparently this isn’t one of New York’s better-circulated alternative papers. The article was published two months ago. This is the first I’d seen it.”
They stood there for a few minutes, reading back over the article and looking at the pictures.
Roy said, “Take a look at some of these other pictures I found of Paul Ivywood. There’s definitely a similarity with Puritan Paul. There are other similarities. Puritan Paul had no children but was a big advocate of the rights of children. Ivywood likewise has no children and is always talking about the evils of child abuse and the need for children’s rights, according to this piece I found in The Sphere. Puritan Paul was for gun control; so is Ivywood, according to this piece in The Planet. Puritan Paul was from the East coast; so is Ivywood. The similarities keep piling up, I’m convinced it’s him.”
A beeping noise went off. Patrick walked quickly over to the monitors. “There’s some sort of disturbance in the Houndsditch, Roy.”
Roy leaped over and looked. “A big brawl in the street, almost looks like patrons from two different establishments fighting each other.”
They watched for a few minutes, then Patrick exclaimed, “Hey, that’s Puritan Paul! Right there, in the lower right corner of the screen!”
“You’re right, Twothree. To the Beer Mobile!
They quickly ran out of the Beer Room, to the garage, Twothree laughing. Beer Man always cracked him up with the “To the Beer Mobile” bit.
Leno on the DNC: “At the Democratic Convention in Denver, both Bill and Hillary Clinton will be speaking . . . not to each other, of course . . .”
Letterman: “Joe Biden is Barack Obama’s running mate. Nothing says change like a guy who’s been in the Senate for 35 years.”
O’Brien: “This week, Barack Obama is going to give his acceptance speech, and reportedly, it will include performances by Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen . . . and they say Obama isn’t black enough.”
It has been said that the last of the great Stoics, the good and virtuous Marcus Aurelius, did not have the god he deserved. His philosophy gave way at the logical end to a resigned, and sad, nihilism: “A little while and thou wilt have forgotten everything, a little while and every thing will have forgotten thee.” He never heard of Christ’s redemption and didn’t know about the beatific vision—the vision the good Christian awaits patiently, with Stoic detachment and resignation.
This sad story reminds me of a high school incident. One of my good friends (a senior) was drinking with a bunch of younger kids. He drank way too much and passed out. The younger kids panicked and called an ambulance. He woke up in the hospital later with a catheter and wondering, “What the heck happened?” He said the incident wasn’t too bad, until a burly nurse (”Genghis,” I think he called her) came in, grabbed Him with one hand, and harshly jerked the catheter out with the other. He said it was the most painful thing he’d ever felt, and the hangover didn’t help matters.
China wins: 223-220. We finished just two dropped batons behind.
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One of the most knowledgeable writers I’ve ever met sent the following story from The Associated Press. Boys and girls, study close the italicized phrases as great examples of what to avoid (”Hey, Scheske, we get enough such lessons reading TDE!”):
Tropical Storm Fay’s path Saturday crossing the Florida Panhandle vaulted the stubborn weather system into the record books.
The tropical storm crossed over the central Florida Panhandle at 5 a.m., the first in recorded history to hit the state with such intensity four different times.
George Sweat, 46, searches for his valuables after a large pine tree fell on his home, as girlfriend Peggy Mash, 53, played on her couch with her two cats, at right, during Tropical Storm Fay Friday in Hawthorne, Fla. Residents of the Ranch Motel RV Park and Campground rushed to save the woman, comforting her until rescue crews arrived.
The center of the storm was reported to be over the Florida panhandle about 15 miles north-northeast of Apalachicola, Fla., according to the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center.
Fay was expected to be near or over the western Florida Panhandle’s coast Saturday and near or over the coast of Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday, the center said.
Though Fay never materialized into a hurricane, its zigzagging downpours have been plenty punishing.
At least six people in Florida were dead from the storm, state officials said, and two more deaths reported Friday were believed to be Fay-related. The state attributed an additional death, before the storm hit, to hurricane preparedness after a man testing generators died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
‘’The damage from Fay is a reminder that a tropical storm does not have to reach a hurricane level to be dangerous and cause significant damage,'’ said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who toured flooded communities this week.
Crist on Friday asked the White House to elevate the disaster declaration President Bush issued to a major disaster declaration. Crist said the storm damaged 1,572 homes in Brevard County alone, dropping 25 inches of rain in Melbourne.
Counties in the Panhandle — including Bay, Escambia and Walton — opened their emergency operations centers Friday in preparation for the storm’s expected arrival there. To Florida’s relief, forecasters expect Fay to weaken over the weekend and finally blow away before losing steam in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
In Steinhatchee, just south of Florida’s Big Bend, bartender Dana Watson said she was bracing for a possible drenching. ‘’It’s moving real slow. We’re waiting. We’re just waiting.'’
In an area that can flood badly when high tide rolls in during a bad storm, she said most people remain prepared. ‘’We’ve all got our generators filled up with gas and oil and our nonperishable food,'’ Watson said.
At 5 a.m. Saturday, the center of the storm was moving west near 7 mph with sustained winds near 45 mph. The storm was expected to keep its strength and remain a tropical storm into Sunday.
Meanwhile, heavy rain in Fay’s wake were causing widespread flooding across the Jacksonville area, near the storm’s third landfall. Forecasters said some areas of Duval County had received up to 20 inches, and authorities reported an unknown number of homes and businesses flooded.
Farther south in Florida, some of the hardest-hit areas got an encouraging sign as the floods receded. Days earlier, 4 feet of water made roads look like rivers in Melbourne.
‘’This is a welcome sight,'’ said Ron Salvatore, 69, who stood in his driveway Friday morning boiling coffee on a propane grill and surveyed a dry street. Salvatore and his wife Terry, 59, had been stuck in the house since Tuesday because water surrounded their home.
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said so far nearly 4,000 flood claims from Fay had been filed. Fay has been an unusual storm, even by Florida standards. It set sights on the state last Sunday and first made landfall in the Florida Keys on Monday. The storm then headed out over open water again before hitting a second time near Naples on the southwest coast. It limped across the state, popped back out into the Atlantic Ocean and struck again near Flagler Beach on the central coast. It was the first storm in almost 50 years to make three landfalls in the state, as most hit and exit within a day or two.
My friend added to his email: “Note: I can’t supply a link to this because someone at AP rewrote this masterpiece fixing most (not all) of the clunkers. Dang!” He later found the link and sent it to me, along with the unexpurgated version, but the link had already been disabled by the time I was able to try it.
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Two days left: China 205, USA 201. We’re playing for gold in water polo and male/female basketball and volleyball, plus I’m optimistic they can hold onto the baton in the 400-meter relay. China will win gold in ping pong. Of course, there are lots of other medals coming out these two days, and I have no idea who’s favored (Taekwondo, canoe, synchronized swimming, etc.).
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Absolutely brutal couple of days at the office. I’ll be back there today, researching an issue that will probably get a small blurb in the national press (I’ll blog more about it when it’s no longer confidential), and then I’ll be relaxing with some friends and beers.
Note: Blogging will be light next week, for a variety of reasons.
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Remember to use the Amazon button to the right when ordering books. Please tell your college-age students, too. I could rake in serious petty cash (oxymoron?) with fall-book buying coming up. If you don’t use my button, use someone’s.
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* The painter who hasn’t lifted a brush in seven years, who works as a tour guide, and introduces herself as “an artist.”
* The opera singer who never made it past the chorus, who flounced offstage complaining about “misogyny.” She’s now a “former diva.”
* The conservative journalist whose refusal to work lost him, over time, several primo apartments (they expected him to pay rent!) and most of his front teeth. He has planned for some 25 years to personally re-found the Jesuits.
* The Irish-American violent alcoholic who fancies himself a Sinn Fein “freedom fighter”—which is easier since he has never been to Ireland.
* The chef who got booted from kitchen to kitchen—and explained that her cuisine was simply too sophisticated for New York City. While working as a maid, she would tell people, privately, she was one of the four best chefs on earth.
* The therapist who plans to form a private Catholic army (made up of his male patients) who will fight for the Church around the world, and “subdue the global sex slave trade” using martial arts.
* The museum employee who dresses for Sunday Mass as Cardinal Richelieu—complete with a real, live goatee. Bless her heart!
* The Bronx kid who lived in Ireland in his 20s for 18 months—and has talked with a full-on brogue ever since.
