The Tower: Nathan Nelson has been posting on-target comments around town for a while, and his own site deserves a visit.
In Ecumenical Insanity, “Athanasius” notices the genetics researchers’ latest manifestation of hubris: synthetic viruses. (His hardlinks aren’t working, so look in the archives for Sunday, Nov. 16, 2003.)
Make that three. An M.I.C. brother posts a link to a cool rap video by Fr. Stan Fortuna.
Month: November 2003
Sicko of Wacko Jacko
On the third day of the “surprising” criminal proceedings against Michael Jackson, I am officially tired of hearing about it. On the television news, on the radio, in the newspaper…enough. The guy isn’t a head of state, and he isn’t even an important celebrity anymore (is “important celebrity” an oxymoronic phrase?) If he’s convicted for sex abuse, there will be no societal consequences.
Greedy retirees are poised to extort $40 billion a year from working American families, using the government as the muscle man. That’s a story. Radical Islamist terrorists are murdering innocent people in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iraq. That’s a story. Yet what do the watchdogs in the press think is the most important story right now? A freakish pop star is going to be arrested for being a pervert.
If Jackson is innocent, I hope he goes free. If he’s guilty, I hope he goes to jail and repents his sins. Either way, I don’t want to hear about it.
Jesus lookalike still on the road
I’ve been wondering where this guy was. He first attracted attention at churches in PA a few years ago, but now he’s around Fayetteville.
Good Orthodox smackdown
One thing I like about the Orthodox Eastern Churches: they have bishops who don’t fool around with being polite about the weird heresies that come from sexual confusion.
In October, after some Russian priest performed a wedding ceremony for two guys, not only did his bishop defrock him, he had the chapel razed. I’m not saying I approve of doing that, but it does demand respect.
After the Robinson consecration in November the Russian Orthodox Church told PECUSA officially there wasn’t any point in talking any more.
the ‘consecration’ of a gay priest has made any communications with him and with those who consecrated him impossible. We shall not be able to cooperate with these people not only in the theological dialogue, but also in the humanitarian and religious and pubic spheres. We have no right to allow even a particle of agreement with their position, which we consider to be profoundly antiChritian and blasphemous.
[Don’t blame me for those two typos, folks: they’re verbatim. Besides, we might get some search-engine hits out of ’em.]
The arrogant “progressives” don’t hesitate to preach their false gospel even to venerable prelates, and sometimes the prelates give ’em a good smackdown. Hawk-eyed Lee Penn quotes Episcopalian bishop William Swing on his attempt to instruct the Ecumenical Patriarch:
I mentioned that I have ordained more women than any other bishop in the history of the Church and would be glad to talk about my experience. He said, ‘I don’t want to know your experience.’ That was that.
God grant the Ecumenical Patriarch many years.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches (Armenian Apostolic, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox) have told the Episcopalians to go “reflect upon” the consecration of their gay bishop, and when the phone don’t ring, you’ll know it’s us.
Who’s left for the PECUSA to collaborate with? Just liberal Protestantism.
Thanks to Dom for posting Lee’s article.
Music and ‘Master and Commander’
I saw the movie “Master and Commander” last Friday, and I give it my warm recommendation. The climax wasn’t disappointing, exactly, but it was less than one might hope; still, watching Russell Crowe is always enjoyable. Despite his penchant for rough behavior and womanizing, I’ll take his unapologetic masculinity over the Men Without Chests such as Keanu Reeves, Ethan Hawke, and the other vacant male leads who wander around movie sets in southern California.
One thing that stuck out was the music on the soundtrack. Of the recurring themes, two of them weren’t contemporary to the time in which the movie was set (1805). The first was “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Normally, I require my composers to be dead prior to 1900 in order to give them a listen, but Vaughn Williams is one of the few moderns I can stomach. His “Fantasia” is a deeply profound interpretation of Tallis, and one of my favorite works ever — but it’s a 20th-century take on a turn-of-the-17th-century piece.
Likewise, the third movement of Corelli’s Christmas Concerto in G minor gets a lot of eartime, and with good reason: it’s got a sumptuous, rich emotional texture, but it is 1) a Christmas piece; and 2) composed well over a century before the fictional events in the movie. Which is like playing, say, ragtime in a modern-day movie: it’s not wrong, but it is incongruous.
Nevertheless, the music did mesh well with the movie itself, and I seriously doubt very many people had a problem with the music.
(You can download an excerpt from the third movement of Corelli’s concerto. I don’t think I’m violating the Fair Use Doctrine by excerpting this wonderful CD by I Musici, especially when I’m telling everyone to hunt down this CD for Christmas — it’s a refreshing break from saccharine secular songs and wonderful but overplayed hymns.)