Bill McKibben has a fantastic essay posted at grist on the materialistic yuletide nightmare in which many of us find ourselves this time of year. Timely observations on a year-round problem. An excerpt:
The problem with Christmas is not the batteries. The problem isn't even really the stuff. The problem with Christmas is that no one much likes it anymore.
If you poll Americans this time of year, far more of them regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. It has long since become too busy, too expensive, too centered around acquiring that which we do not need. In fact, it's the perfect crystallization of the American economy -- the American consumer experience squeezed into a manic week, a week that people find themselves hoping will soon end so that on Jan. 2 they can return to the mere routine hecticity of their lives.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Duh
A couple of weeks ago, the folks in the apartment above us had some bathroom issues. A pipe-problem of some kind was resulting in water cascading down through the wall and into the bathroom below ours (it's a mystery why the water skipped our bathroom--all three bathrooms are "stacked"). A plumber was summoned, who commenced to tearing into the floor of the upstairs bathroom and dismantling the offending pipes. While the original problem caused us no apparent harm, the effort to repair it did. Water drip-dripped from the ceiling right onto the seat of our toilet.
I had performed a thorough cleaning of the bathroom not a week prior and was, understandably, deeply distressed. The water came faster and faster and the mess spread. The building manager wasn't home and I didn't have her number, but I remembered that the management company had a sign on the outside of the building advertising an apartment for rent. So I strode indignantly out the front door, down the steps, and punched the numbers--indignantly--into my phone. I got a recording. The recording, however, did have the cell number for our on site manager, so I gave her a call and, having gotten through to someone--finally!--I vented my frustration. She promised to call the plumber in question and let him know what was going on. I promised to be offended and put-upon that my nice clean bathroom was at that moment being flooded with water and god-knows-what.
It was in one of my many pacings-by the bathroom that a solution--not to the dripping, but to the flooding--hit me. I could lift the lid to the toilet and let the water, etc., drip into the toilet instead of on it and the floor. Simple, yes, and I was surprised that I, being usually fairly adept at solving such problems, had overlooked such an obvious solution.
As I stood there looking at the soggy bathroom, it occurred to me that it was my haste to find an object for my wrath, an individual on which to pin the blame for the injustice of a sullied bathroom, and, on some level, a need to make the violation as dramatic as possible that led me to miss the opportunity to minimize the damage done. It would cheapen the moral of the story to pontificate here on the broader implications of this little revelation, so I'll refrain, and leave that to you, gentle reader. Assuming, of course, that anyone reads this.
I had performed a thorough cleaning of the bathroom not a week prior and was, understandably, deeply distressed. The water came faster and faster and the mess spread. The building manager wasn't home and I didn't have her number, but I remembered that the management company had a sign on the outside of the building advertising an apartment for rent. So I strode indignantly out the front door, down the steps, and punched the numbers--indignantly--into my phone. I got a recording. The recording, however, did have the cell number for our on site manager, so I gave her a call and, having gotten through to someone--finally!--I vented my frustration. She promised to call the plumber in question and let him know what was going on. I promised to be offended and put-upon that my nice clean bathroom was at that moment being flooded with water and god-knows-what.
It was in one of my many pacings-by the bathroom that a solution--not to the dripping, but to the flooding--hit me. I could lift the lid to the toilet and let the water, etc., drip into the toilet instead of on it and the floor. Simple, yes, and I was surprised that I, being usually fairly adept at solving such problems, had overlooked such an obvious solution.
As I stood there looking at the soggy bathroom, it occurred to me that it was my haste to find an object for my wrath, an individual on which to pin the blame for the injustice of a sullied bathroom, and, on some level, a need to make the violation as dramatic as possible that led me to miss the opportunity to minimize the damage done. It would cheapen the moral of the story to pontificate here on the broader implications of this little revelation, so I'll refrain, and leave that to you, gentle reader. Assuming, of course, that anyone reads this.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Pat Boone tells it like it is
Over at worldnetdaily Pat Boone (yes, THAT Pat Boone) serves up a health dose of conservative whupass on the liberal media for their virtual coronation of Hillary Clinton as the next President and what he believes is a concerted effort to ignore the Republican contenders. The actual commentary needs to be read to be believed. Well, not so much believed as marveled at.
Perhaps, in fact, the reason that more people are capable of naming a Democrat than a Republican in the race for president has nothing to do with the much-ballyhooed "liberal bias" of the media and everything to do with the public's quite astute observation that the top-tier Republican candidates are almost as ignorant as certain neocon, has-been, aging pop stars shilling for them.
And whom does Boone (my, wouldn't great-granddaddy be proud!) hold up as paragons of journalistic integrity? Why, "Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham and a host of other articulate and informed talk-show hosts...", of course! And just what is it that they they're doing to warn the ignorant, liberal-media-brainwashed masses of the danger to all that is good and godly? They're calling Hillary "Bill Clinton in a pantsuit", confusing "Obama with Osama", and marveling that "that little kid Johnny Edwards is trying to be president of the United States!"
Boone confuses a childlike penchant for discernment with childish commentary and applauds the conservative punditry for the latter. Perhaps he should stick to singing. Wait, on second thought...
In case you don't know who Pat Boone is/was, here's a picture from the 1995 Grammy awards
Yes, this man is lecturing the American public on propriety and political discourse.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Just because...
Bobbie Gentry sings "Ode to Billy Joe" on the Smothers Brothers Hour. One of the greatest ballads ever recorded and a stellar, haunting performance.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
ENDA Passes House, 235-184
A must see/read from Barney Frank, via AmericaBlog . Particularly interesting is his acknowledgment that, due to his social status, he is not as vulnerable to discrimination as many in the LGBT community, but that he nonetheless must use his position to further the cause of equality.
An excerpt, then the video:
Rep. Frank: “I want to address the motion to delay. Mr. Speaker, we say here that we don't take things personally, and usually that’s true. Members, Mr. Speaker, will have to forgive me — I take it personally. 35 years ago, I filed a bill that tried to get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation. As we sit here today, there are millions of Americans in states where this is not the law. By the way, 19 states have such a law. In no case has it led to that decision. The Massachusetts law passed in 1989, that did not lead to the decision in 2004, unrelated. But here’s the deal: I used to be someone subject to this prejudice. And through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot. I’m now above that prejudice. But I feel an obligation, to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people they’ll lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get, to help them. And I want to ask my colleagues here, Mr. Speaker, on a personal basis, please don’t fall for this sham. Don’t send me out of here having failed to help those people.”
An excerpt, then the video:
Rep. Frank: “I want to address the motion to delay. Mr. Speaker, we say here that we don't take things personally, and usually that’s true. Members, Mr. Speaker, will have to forgive me — I take it personally. 35 years ago, I filed a bill that tried to get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation. As we sit here today, there are millions of Americans in states where this is not the law. By the way, 19 states have such a law. In no case has it led to that decision. The Massachusetts law passed in 1989, that did not lead to the decision in 2004, unrelated. But here’s the deal: I used to be someone subject to this prejudice. And through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot. I’m now above that prejudice. But I feel an obligation, to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people they’ll lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get, to help them. And I want to ask my colleagues here, Mr. Speaker, on a personal basis, please don’t fall for this sham. Don’t send me out of here having failed to help those people.”
"It's a typically hierarchical form of intimidation, and we will not be intimidated"
Two St. Louis face excommunication for planned Womenpriests ordination ceremony next Sunday.
Archbishop Burke warns against women's ordination
By CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press Writer
Advertisement
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has warned two Roman Catholic women that they will be excommunicated if they proceed with a planned ordination Sunday.
The two women - Rose Marie Dunn Hudson of Festus and Elsie Hainz McGrath of St. Louis - are set to be ordained as part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement that began in 2002.
Only men are ordained priests and deacons in the Catholic Church. The Womenpriests and the advocacy group, the Women's Ordination Conference, are among Catholics pressing to change that tradition.
Both women said they will ignore Burke's warning.
"It's a typically hierarchical form of intimidation, and we will not be intimidated," McGrath said.
In letters delivered by courier to the women's homes Monday evening, Burke warned the women they would be committing a "grave error" and "act of schism" by trying to receive priestly ordination.
He reminded them that the pope has stated infallibly that only men can receive a valid ordination.
"Should you refuse to comply ... in order to protect the faithful from grave spiritual deception ... you will incur automatically ... the censure of excommunication," wrote Burke, who is also a church lawyer.
He said "additional disciplinary measures will also have to be imposed."
The archdiocese declined to comment about the letters.
"What is he going to do, burn us at the stake or what?" Hudson asked. "We're going to just totally ignore it. This is not unexpected. We wondered why it took so long."
Both women have graduate degrees in theology or pastoral studies and have been active in ministry for years.
McGrath, 69, is the widow of a Roman Catholic deacon. She has worked for the archdiocese, for the theology department at Saint Louis University, has been a campus minister and edited for a religious publisher. She and her late husband were part of a national leadership team for marriage preparation and enrichment programs.
Hudson, 67, is a retired teacher who has been active in parish life. She's done prison ministry for the last 15 years.
Of the roughly 100 women who have been ordained as priests or deacons worldwide in the Womenpriests movement, including 37 in the U.S., only the first seven were officially excommunicated by the Vatican, said spokeswoman Bridget Mary Meehan. Others have received letters from their bishop like that sent by Burke, she said.
"It means you are no longer a Catholic in good standing, that by your very own decision you have chosen to separate yourself from the church," Meehan said. "But we are disobeying an unjust law that discriminates against women.
"Baptism makes us full members of the church for life."
McGrath also was penalized by the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, a Roman Catholic graduate school and seminary founded by the Dominican order.
The school said she was asked to withdraw from a class she was auditing for "taking part in ordination, which "undermines and shows disrespect for Catholic Church teaching and practice."
The service is taking place at Central Reform Congregation, a synagogue in St. Louis. In response, the archdiocese said on its Web site it would no longer partner with the congregation on any interfaith activities.
Rabbi Susan Talve said she and the congregation's board agreed to allow the ordination in their sacred space. She said hospitality and providing sanctuary are among their core values.
--
On the Net:
Archdiocese of St. Louis: http://www.archstl.org/
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Central Reform Congregation: http://www.centralreform.org/
Archbishop Burke warns against women's ordination
By CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press Writer
Advertisement
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has warned two Roman Catholic women that they will be excommunicated if they proceed with a planned ordination Sunday.
The two women - Rose Marie Dunn Hudson of Festus and Elsie Hainz McGrath of St. Louis - are set to be ordained as part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement that began in 2002.
Only men are ordained priests and deacons in the Catholic Church. The Womenpriests and the advocacy group, the Women's Ordination Conference, are among Catholics pressing to change that tradition.
Both women said they will ignore Burke's warning.
"It's a typically hierarchical form of intimidation, and we will not be intimidated," McGrath said.
In letters delivered by courier to the women's homes Monday evening, Burke warned the women they would be committing a "grave error" and "act of schism" by trying to receive priestly ordination.
He reminded them that the pope has stated infallibly that only men can receive a valid ordination.
"Should you refuse to comply ... in order to protect the faithful from grave spiritual deception ... you will incur automatically ... the censure of excommunication," wrote Burke, who is also a church lawyer.
He said "additional disciplinary measures will also have to be imposed."
The archdiocese declined to comment about the letters.
"What is he going to do, burn us at the stake or what?" Hudson asked. "We're going to just totally ignore it. This is not unexpected. We wondered why it took so long."
Both women have graduate degrees in theology or pastoral studies and have been active in ministry for years.
McGrath, 69, is the widow of a Roman Catholic deacon. She has worked for the archdiocese, for the theology department at Saint Louis University, has been a campus minister and edited for a religious publisher. She and her late husband were part of a national leadership team for marriage preparation and enrichment programs.
Hudson, 67, is a retired teacher who has been active in parish life. She's done prison ministry for the last 15 years.
Of the roughly 100 women who have been ordained as priests or deacons worldwide in the Womenpriests movement, including 37 in the U.S., only the first seven were officially excommunicated by the Vatican, said spokeswoman Bridget Mary Meehan. Others have received letters from their bishop like that sent by Burke, she said.
"It means you are no longer a Catholic in good standing, that by your very own decision you have chosen to separate yourself from the church," Meehan said. "But we are disobeying an unjust law that discriminates against women.
"Baptism makes us full members of the church for life."
McGrath also was penalized by the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, a Roman Catholic graduate school and seminary founded by the Dominican order.
The school said she was asked to withdraw from a class she was auditing for "taking part in ordination, which "undermines and shows disrespect for Catholic Church teaching and practice."
The service is taking place at Central Reform Congregation, a synagogue in St. Louis. In response, the archdiocese said on its Web site it would no longer partner with the congregation on any interfaith activities.
Rabbi Susan Talve said she and the congregation's board agreed to allow the ordination in their sacred space. She said hospitality and providing sanctuary are among their core values.
--
On the Net:
Archdiocese of St. Louis: http://www.archstl.org/
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Central Reform Congregation: http://www.centralreform.org/
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