Monday is usually my Lansing day, but this week it was Tuesday. Ate lunch with some economists (story planning), at which I learned that economists know the proper plural to “equilibrium” (equilibria).
With the lunch, and the commute, and all the rest of it, it made for a 12-hour day, however, after which all I really wanted to do was pour a glass of wine, grill hot dogs for me and the kid, then have another glass of wine and watch “Top of the Lake.”
However, I have some bloggage you might like:
I’ve been neglecting the work plugs, so please, click and give ’em some love — Bridge had a nice package on guns in Michigan today. You can start with the mainbar here, and click through to the sidebars. Don’t miss this one, though, about a gun-shop owner who’s found himself a frequent theft target.
Also, I’m now the editor of a new sub-section of Bridge, a Sunday commentary section we’re calling Brunch with Bridge. The first two are on the state’s most precious natural resource, H2O.
When you’re done helping keep me employed, you might enjoy this David Simon yarn about an old joke from “The Wire,” featuring a Baltimore Orioles pitcher recently lost to us.
Sorry Michigan didn’t make it in Monday night’s championship game. I did my part, by ignoring it entirely; any interest in my part in any sporting team is the kiss of death.
I hear the game was pretty good, though. Maybe next year.
Have a good Wednesday, all.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 6:55 am
Guns baffle me. The number out there right now, the vitality of the business around them, and the ubiquity of them in video games as the primary tool of interaction with the world for gamers. I stopped a neighbor kid months ago, who was running around of an evening with a realistic looking .38 with an orange plug affixed to the muzzle, invisible when it was tucked into pants pockets. He and his buddies said, not untruthfully, that they were filming a video of a story, a techy cops-and-robbers game for middle schoolers. I explained that as night falls, and with their running between houses and hiding behind cars and jumping out and around, if an elderly resident called the police, and a nervous cop showed up and saw you with this black precise outline drawing it out in silhouette, they might just react as if it were a weapon, and not a prop, and that they should stop.
His parents, committed to progressive causes in the area, called me the next day, asking why I’d given their 6th grade son a scare, talking about juvenile court and shooting and police. I asked if they’d seen the gun from the video game console their son was using in the movie they were filming, and had seen it in the evening from two lawns away. Dad called out to his son while we were on the phone, and I could hear the catch in his voice when apparently the object in question was held up from across the room. He said “Sorry to have bothered you; thanks for talking to the kids.” I just said “Cops often mean well, but are human like the rest of us, but with real guns.”
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alex said on April 10, 2013 at 7:35 am
I may have mentioned it here before, but in Fort Wayne a few years ago a Burmese immigrant carrying a power drill was gunned down by a cop.
I had my own scare one time at the Chicago police station in Lakeview on Halsted and Addison. I can’t remember why I was there — filling out paperwork regarding a theft from my vehicle, I think — and when I reached into my vest pocket for my wallet, the cops flipped out on me. They thought I might be reaching for a gun. I was incredulous. It seemed to me that context should count for something. Do they really think someone would walk into a room full of cops and whip out a gun and start shooting? Couldn’t a gunman just as easily carry a gun in his pants pocket? How are you supposed to get your ID when asked for it?
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beb said on April 10, 2013 at 8:02 am
A short while ago Congress passed one of their “must-pass” bills. In it were several amendments that restricted what the ATF can do about gun sales regulation. One of the restrictions was that the ATF could not require gun shops to inventory their stock, and report and stolen guns to the bureau. I don’t understand how this could ever be an issue with the gun-rights advocates. You would think the gun dealers would want to report any thefts to the police. And the police in turn would want to know about any illegal guns floating about in the neighborhood. There’s just a huge disconnect between sense and logic among the Gun-Nuts.
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Mark P said on April 10, 2013 at 8:32 am
My uncle has had a gun shop for years. He has lots of handguns in glass display cases. Every night he gathers them up and puts every one of them into a huge safe. Then he rolls down the security cover all the way across the front of his shop. He has never had a break-in, much less a gun theft. I guess you could say he sells guns responsibly.
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Deggjr said on April 10, 2013 at 9:48 am
Alex, the answer to the question “Do they really think …” is sometimes yes http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2010382767_webfourdead29m.html
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Julie Robinson said on April 10, 2013 at 10:15 am
I dunno, after the second or third robbery I’d consider relocating. Of course, they’ll be throwing snowballs in hell before I’ll own a gun shop.
Alex, I’ve always wondered about that. In the entirety of my 40+ years of driving, I’ve never been pulled over. I’d have to dig my license out of my purse and the registration from the drawer beneath the front passenger seat, and wouldn’t that make them nervous? Of course, I’m an un-hip-middle-age lady driving a minivan, so maybe not. I sail through airport security too.
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Joe K said on April 10, 2013 at 10:16 am
The police have a saying.
I would rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.
Pilot Joe
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Mark P said on April 10, 2013 at 10:42 am
Julie, a friend used put his wallet under the front seat of his car. One night a cop pulled him over. When he started to take his wallet from beneath the seat, the cop freaked, which included drawing his gun. The cop told him to never, never do that (reach beneath the seat).
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 11:00 am
NEVER reach beneath the seat. No cop is going to get in trouble for almost anything they do if the dashcam shows you reaching down that way. All of which goes back to: all the elements of this discussion are stuck on the fact that there are just so dang many handguns out there right now. What cops on patrol and court staff do on home visits are conditioned by the not unreasonable assumption that in any average American home, no matter how low income or tumbledown, or even more so there, you can count on there being not less than one loaded handgun within a single lunge of every adult in the room.
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Dorothy said on April 10, 2013 at 11:02 am
Not that I have experience with this (because I don’t), but I’ve had conversations with my husband about it. It is NEVER advisable to reach for anything – a purse, paper napkin, map, wallet, etc. when you are pulled over by a cop. If you need to reach for something, you ask for permission/tell them first what you are doing. It’s just a general good idea to always keep your hands where they can see them. Thinking about it from the officer’s perspective makes everything pretty clear.
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Dorothy said on April 10, 2013 at 11:03 am
Hey Jeff: JINX
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brian stouder said on April 10, 2013 at 11:04 am
It’s been busy busy here – a good thing, indeed – and I took a quick dip into Nancy’s Bridge Brunch, and immediately became immersed in the piece about the lowering levels of Lake Huron. An excerpt:
You’ve heard the stats: As of February, Lakes Huron and Michigan were 29 inches below their long-term averages, and had dropped 17 inches in 2012 alone. In January, the lakes reached their lowest point since 1918, when record-keeping began.
I pondered that sentence, because it seemed contradictory; but upon further review, it is consistent once you accept the (unstated) theme of the piece, which is that fairly drastic changes in Lake Huron’s level are the norm.
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Catherine said on April 10, 2013 at 11:17 am
I have been thinking about what all these guns cost us economically (leaving aside the cost in lives, health, and well-being, which are of course significant). NPR had a piece this morning about LAUSD’s push to hire new school security guards. They didn’t do the math, but I did: If we’re talking one/school, and assuming a safety officer costs about $32K annually, that’s over $24 million a year.
…I can think of so many better ways to spend that, the most obvious being early childhood education.
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 11:53 am
The constant refrain from NRA types is background checks “will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-aides-bipartisan-deal-reached-on-gun-background-checks/2013/04/10/fa4fe9a6-a1db-11e2-be47-b44febada3a8_story.html?wprss=rss_story-congress-NW3&tid=pp_widget
How exactly do they know this for certain? Sounds like “true believer” bullshit to me. And even if it’s generally true, is that a rational argument for not doing background checks? NFW. If too many guns are stolen, nullifying the effect of a comprehensive background check system, I’d say that is an argument in favor of strong background checks, so that the original gun owners are more responsible citizens that prevent their weapons from being stolen in the first place. I’m just as sure that many alleged gun thefts are fabrications, to cover up bad behavior, and I’d bet that large-scale ripoffs of gunshops are more than likely perpetrated by militia types. Obviously I don’t know that’s true, but it certainly seems likely.
Catherine, you are forgetting the exorbitant cost of that safety officer’s health care and pension negotiated by her venal union representatives. The total is probably twice your $24million. The next logical step in the argument for arming schools is to privatize education and give security contracts to Erik Prince and Xe.
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 12:02 pm
Kirk Cameron thinks he has a better grasp of science than Stephen Hawking does. How stupid must a person be to not realize when he’s the unarmed combatant in a battle of wits?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 12:03 pm
I owe you a soda.
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Jeff Borden said on April 10, 2013 at 12:12 pm
The ongoing changes to the gun demographic must be giving the NRA as much pause as the GOP. More and more young people are not embracing shooting sports including hunting. Despite the mountains of weaponry, fewer households have guns now than 30 years ago. The big change –illuminated by David Edelstein in a video essay on the use of firepower in movies– is that the vast majority of gun owners now have them for “protection” rather than sport. This is a huge flip in just the past couple of decades.
With fewer young people following their parents into the hunting fields, what choice does the gun industry have but to oversell to their more zealous followers by invoking fears of race wars, government crackdowns, invasions of illegal immigrants, etc.? The NRA sells dystopia. . .while Ruger, Colt, Mosberg, Smith & Wesson, Bushmaster, Beretta, et.al. get richer and richer.
It’s sick shit.
Do these sad sacks honestly believe that if the U.S. government wanted them dead, they could protect themselves? From drones? From well-trained and physically fit troops? The hubris is thick.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 12:31 pm
On reflection from yesterday, a long comment on yesterday’s discussion of religion and personal history:
Back here about a month ago, I was part of a day of programs related to our 2,000 year old Native American earthworks. I’ve worked with our center on the local campus since it started, and have been a peripheral figure in the Ohio archaeological scene for going on over twenty years; we do four to six of these events with archaeologists and such every year.
We had a scholar in on campus in Newark who has some publications on the Hopewell period, and with whom I’ve worked from time to time over those years. He’s not resident in central Ohio, and tends to work on a different aspect of the field work than me, so our interactions have largely been at conferences and paper presentations, and that he knows I work with the state archaeologist fairly often and have co-published with him, so he sees me not entirely erroneously as a fellow archaeologist. Which makes his relative ignorance understandable in that during the end of the lunch presentation, as most of the guests left and only a half dozen or so of us were around the tables, he reacted as if he’d been clubbed when another participant leaned over and said “So, Jeff, how’s it been going now that you’re back in full time ministry?”
The Guest of Honor stared at me in undisguised horror, and said before I could answer the questioner, to me an incredulous “You’re a minister? A Christian minister?” He got a certain amount of deserved teasing from the others (historians and archaeologists and NEC/OSU staff) of a “c’mon, you didn’t know Jeff was a minister?” sort. When that died down, he turned back to me and said “So, let me get this straight. You believe you communicate by mental telepathy
with a giant invisible friend who grants you occasional wishes in return for your admiration and groveling?” The conversation continued largely in this vein, with the usual forays into “burned witches,” “started Crusades,” “real cause of the Holocaust.” I attempted to respond with good cheer and courtesy until the center director came back into the room and said he had to get the GoH to a class. “This isn’t over, Gill!” he said as they left.
The center associate director, to whom I semi-report, apologized for Dr. GoH’s behavior, and I assured her it left no visible scars and I’d heard worse on my own church steps. We left it at that, and I went on about other business.
A few hours later was the large lecture event of the evening. I got there and perched in my usual spot for these (ready to feed the director dates for upcoming events; a good historian, he’s utterly dyslexic on numbers and days of the week). The group that had taken the GoH out to dinner came in, and the room was filling nicely.
GoH saw me in the front row, turned after they clipped his mic on, a few minutes before the stated start time. They had him test the mic, which he did perfunctorily, then turned to me and said again, in a strong, carrying voice for the benefit of the back row “So, let me get this straight. You believe you communicate by mental telepathy with a giant invisible friend who grants you occasional wishes in return for your admiration and groveling?” At this point, I felt the best response was “Bill, we covered this already. From your point of view, the answer is yes. What’s your question?”
The director, who apparently hadn’t heard about the earlier exchange, and who’s distinguished professor of American and religious history, turned with his eyes bulging out, but GoH turned back to his powerpoint. The director looked pained in my direction, and then went on with the introduction. The talk was engaging and insightful, as GoH’s always are, and three or four times, he would say something like, when an aerial landscape shot was on screen, “This is the
view from above that the Hopewell couldn’t have had; only Jeff’s invisible friend could have seen it then from that angle.” They were all odd asides that meant nothing to anyone who had no idea where it was all coming from. At the end, as folks left, GoH brushed past me saying, with a piercing look, “I’m very, very disappointed.”
I got a long, entirely unnecessary apology from the director the next week, and just this week one from our regional campus dean and director, himself a vocal atheist and friend of James Randi. I gather the HR Dept. has told them they need to, even though I’ve repeatedly insisted it’s really no big deal, it’s just that I’m more used to hearing this kind of thing from atheist family members at funerals in the parking lot after, or while doing Bible studies at the county jail. And I’m happy to respond as far as I’m invited to do so.
The reason I retell this story here is that I find out GoH grew up Catholic, and had four years in seminary (HS or after or some combo I’m not sure). What baffles me as a non-Catholic is that these sorts of scenes are almost without exception from ex-Catholics. I know there are ex-Lutherans and ex-Presbyterians and I’ve got ex-Disciples-of-Christ in my own family . . . but they don’t seem to find it so necessary to be offended by the existence of the Roman institution, or religious institutions altogether, while so many ex-Catholics are. And I’d be hard pressed to agree that the One True (as so many of y’all like to call Holy Mother Church etc.) has so much more of a pedophilia problem than any other tradition, or any other organization with lots of youth participation. I wish it were so; I’m on my own denomination’s commission on ministry, and sadly it ain’t just the celibates who go off the rails.
So I had no intention to rile so many former fish-on-Friday folk, but now that I seem to have, may I ask: what is it about growing up Catholic that creates such a powerful counter-reaction later in life for so many? Minnesota Lutherans and Southern Southern Baptists fall away, but just don’t tend to fall with such a splash, even though there’s a ton of culture and tradition with those faith communities, too.
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Poopy-pants Ted Nugent at it again.
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Heather said on April 10, 2013 at 1:31 pm
Jeff tmmo, that guy’s a massive a-hole. Whether it has to do with his former Catholicism or not, I couldn’t say.
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Judybusy said on April 10, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Jeff, the GoH’s behavior is so over-the-top, it’s clearly about him, not you. I’m glad you got that pretty quickly. Haivng been raised Lutheran and now atheist, I can’t give you any insight, except to speculate he could be a molestation survivor. Hard to imagine what would set such a fire within him to act so bizarrely. I have no great love of organized religions, but jeez, what a lost opportunity to get inside the head of someone–you–who would have really smart things to say about faith and science. If you were so inclined to have that conversation.
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alex said on April 10, 2013 at 1:33 pm
A local story for shits & giggles about gun ownership.
Wow, mild-mannered Jeff, now that’s an atheist who gives our kind a bad name, as if it could be any worse. It sounds like he has one huge axe to grind.
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 1:40 pm
A terrific piece on the anniversary of Shock and Awe and Occupation from Driftglass, focused on one of the unbound and unabashed media cheerleaders, Michael Kelly, who died in a ditch in Iraq for his efforts in support of Shrubco. Of course, Kelly also bought Phillip Glass, hook, line and sinker, with less tragic result.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 1:40 pm
The cool outcome of that odd series of events is that some of the archaeology folk & Native persons present said “we’re going to have to figure out how to have conversations between science and spirituality, because NAGPRA (federal legislation on graves & funerary remains) doesn’t solve all our issues around how to handle, curate, display, and/or repatriate funerary materials, let alone sacred sites & their management.”
And it’s happening, so I’m actually rather pleased at how it all turned out. More to come!
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brian stouder said on April 10, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Good God Alex – you weren’t kidding about shits and giggles.
That dumbshit’s existence is reducible to the article’s closing:
Police report that the victim’s girlfriend offered a succinct explanation. One officer wrote that she “stated the victim recently bought a new handgun and was (messing) around with it.” The officer wrote that the victim’s girlfriend explained that “the victim has had one previous accidental discharge but did not shoot anyone that time.”
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Peter said on April 10, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Well Jeff, I see where your GoH has kept one proud Catholic tradition: being a sanctimonious holier than thou buttmunch. You know how deep a bench we have when some players just walk out and we don’t even notice.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Pros, I think you meant Stephen Glass, the disgraced journalist, not Philip Glass, the composer.
Jeff(tmmo), I’m not sure that fallen away Catholics are subject to any stronger a counter reaction than anybody else; you may just encounter more fallen away Catholics. I know plenty of ex-Southern Baptists and other evangelical types with pretty strong counter reactions, but I know more of those than I know ex-Catholics, having grown up in an area where there were many more evangelicals than Catholics.
I suspect that any religion that promotes the idea that everybody outside that religion is going to hell is going to inspire a counter reaction in people who reject it, and the stronger they believed in it to begin with, the stronger the counter reaction will be. Fred Clark talks a lot about this from an evangelical point of view on his blog, the Slactivist.
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Dexter said on April 10, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Thanks for the Simon piece on the Gus Triandos joke. It was a pretty funny joke to those of us who saw Triandos play. You would laugh to see that giant catcher’s mitt Triandos and all the Baltimore catchers used to catch knuckleballer Wilhelm. It looked like a giant pancake, as big around as a bushel basket.
It was designed by baseball genius-legend Paul Richards, another name I can guarantee 99% of readers won’t recognize.
Triandos was slow on the run, yes, but he was no roly-poly fat dude…he was 6′ 3″ and weighed just 215.
http://cdn.wl.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/gus-triandos-orioles-card-the-wire-650×420.jpg
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 4:30 pm
I pretty much skipped that yesterday discussion, because y’all have made fun of my Continuing Catholicism and also my devotion to Teillhard. I challenge each of you to read even snatches from Teillhard. I’ll explain them. Why I believe in God? “Whatever you do to the least of my brethren” doen’s come from human DNA, does it? So there is a greater intelligence informing creation. Makes perfectly good sense. and what the biologist Teillhard says about Christogenesis, makes sense from a redshift point of view.
Dexter. I’m the 1% on Paul Richards. In my MLB universe, there is Branch Rickey and everybody else. Triandos was a good player that I admired in his prime. I always thought he was menacing at the plate. But, y’know, not like Marichal, who might beat you over the head with a bat and not go to jail. And that is for Shrri and other Gint fans. How was that shitheel not locked up?
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 4:33 pm
Have any of the tiny dancers that want to claim the Lord, ever expressed any concern for the least of His Children? No? Thank You. They do not give a shit.
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LAMary said on April 10, 2013 at 4:40 pm
“Pros, I think you meant Stephen Glass, the disgraced journalist, not Philip Glass, the composer.”
Thanks for figuring that out, Sherri. I was baffled.
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Deborah said on April 10, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Jeff (tmmo) that’s quite a story, how odd.
I just arrived back in Chicago. Ugh, 24 hours on an Amtrak train. I had some wine last night so I slept ok. What I didn’t know though, during the night my cash worked its way out of my back pocket and when I got up to go to the bathroom my seat mate helped herself to 3 twenties. She left me some ones and fives at least. I have no proof of course, I looked all around in between the seat back and bottom and on the floor. I suppose someone else could have grabbed it while walking down the aisle but I had the window seat. There were a bunch of empty seats all around so why she even sat there is maddening.
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paddyo' said on April 10, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Jeff TMMO — I’m with Heather, JudyB, et al. GoH’s ax grinding isn’t about you. Whether his venom rises from dark, dark baggage of his Roman Catholic youth, or rare but unspeakable abuse in the seminary, or none of the above, we may never know — and frankly, who would want to.
But for what it’s worth, on behalf of every other fallen-away Roman Catholic ex-seminarian that I know(I had five years with the Salesian order myself, high school and novitiate year), none of us is that twisted and torqued, nor intolerant. I’d also offer that you didn’t “rile” most of us former papists so much as give us an excuse to discuss further. That’s no bad thing.
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MichaelG said on April 10, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Characterizing all ex-Catholics as having whatever attitude reminds me of those who felt that all Vietnam vets were luny ticking time bombs.
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brian stouder said on April 10, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Fort Wayne alert! Pam made the local news, when the reporter came to the school parking lot before the buses arrived, and began asking parents there whether they supported the idea of armed guards in every schoolhouse.
And, Pam’s altogether intelligent response was the first one in the loop, which went on to two other parents (Pam said the reporter spoke with a dozen or more people)
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JWfromNJ said on April 10, 2013 at 6:21 pm
I was an inmate for Catholic elementary and middle schools, and served two years at Bergen Catholic HS, an insanely expensive school run by the Christian brothers. I finished high school in public school, but I still wore a shirt and tie each day, in case a brother was lurking around to corner to smack me with a latin textbook.
I am impressed with Pope Francis and we may go to services. We have an amazing and inspring pastor at the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, but just like I root for the Yankees as if they were ever the underdogs, I feel compelled to invest my trust in our new pope, who seems to be a simple, down to earth man, and no doubt the bain of the existence of the Swiss Guards and his security detail.
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Charlotte said on April 10, 2013 at 7:01 pm
Prospero — my knowledge of Teillhard is entirely filtered through Flannery O’Connor’s letters, well, that and Merton — but I figure those are pretty good filters. I love much of the theology, and I still use the concept of sin as a way to talk about the habits we use against ourselves and others — but I just can’t go back to Mass. Which makes me sad. So then I read some Flannery O’Connor and feel better.
And despite myself, I’m liking this new Pope — he’s even getting an electric-assist Popemobile that is considerably more swanky than the Organic Transit one I want for myself: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/04/pedal-powered-popemobile-pope-francis/5214/
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Catherine said on April 10, 2013 at 8:27 pm
Anybody else read this whole thing yet? I’m still bogged down in the middle: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/anthony-weiner-and-huma-abedins-post-scandal-playbook.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Fair enough. It may be that there are more former Catholic scientists than there are former Southern Baptist scientists, although that leans dangerously close to stereotype, too. It probably is my Chicago-Ohio-West Virginia personal history, that just makes it most likely the opinionatedly former religious anythings are former Catholics.
Anyhow, my read is that God tends to be dangerously indiscriminate as to who enters into glory, and often contemplates just throwing the gates of the golden bus open to anyone who’s willing to come along for the eternal road trip. And I’m happy to debate the texts that appear to say otherwise (few who enter, hard to get it) as specific and outlying statements in a prevailing tide of radical inclusivity. But anything I say will just be glosses on C.S. Lewis, anyhow. I hope for heaven just to get a seat at the Everlasting Eagle & Child anywhere near the booth where Jack, Tollers, and Charles are discussing the weight of glory with Teilhard.
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alex said on April 10, 2013 at 9:30 pm
The idea of an afterlife where I’m still consciously who I am strikes me as the same kind of wishful thinking about a God that gives a rat’s ass whether I win the lottery or don’t get busted driving home drunk. Asking for eternal life seems a bit much, but if I could bring smiles to people’s faces for a few years after I’m gone, or a tear of joy to someone I’ve touched deeply, that would be plenty enough of an afterlife for me.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2013 at 9:34 pm
Charlotte, I read the whole thing. Here’s my summary:
-Twitter made him do it
-He’s going to run for mayor, even though he’ll lose, because he’s got $1.5 million of matching funds that he’ll lose if he doesn’t use this year, and because he wants to get the scandal thing out of the way in a losing election so it will be old news when he runs the next election.
-Oh, and he’s changed now; he was a jerk before, but now, he’s a nice guy. Really.
Always nice when you can get the NYTimes to help you rewrite your image.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Sorry, I meant Catherine, not Charlotte.
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Prospero said on April 10, 2013 at 10:07 pm
With regards to Weiner, he has a spectacular wife, not some Evita Ho that hiked the Appalachian Trail with him on the yaxpayer’s dime. Seems like a large difference, or a vas deferens, to me. I mean, Sanford is parading Evita around. Good Lord.
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brian stouder said on April 10, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Forget Evita, and even Mr Weiner’s beautiful future-ex-wife*;
Here, in this link, just after the 1:40 mark on the video, you will see the most beautiful woman** I’ve ever known
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/FWCS-Security-Expert-React-to-Proposed-School-Security-Bill-202411861.html
*Weiner’s wife may well be a key part of SecState Clinton’s political/presidential future
**Although admittedly, and despite her loveliness and her otherwise impeccable intelligence, she apparently has very common tastes when it comes to men…
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Jolene said on April 10, 2013 at 10:32 pm
If there’s any truth to the idea that lapsed Catholics are more critical of/cynical about their former faith than lapsed Protestants, it may be because Catholicism seeps into their pores to a greater extent than do the teachings and practices of other denominations. There are rules for every purpose, for every occasion: when to sit, stand, kneel, and genuflect; when to make the sign of the cross; what to eat on various days of the week; how to categorize various kinds of sins; whom to have sex with, what position to have it in, and what to do about the possibility of pregnancy. And, as I’ve discussed before, there are the captivating rites and rituals, along with the sense that you are part of the one true church. And the schools: Catholic schools have, historically, been much more common than other religious schools, and they provide a forum for daily inculcation of Catholic doctrine and Catholic practices among those to young to have any other experience of the world.
Compared to all that, Protestantism is pretty thin gruel, at least as practiced by many of its adherents.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 10, 2013 at 10:36 pm
Hey . . . 😉
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