Another article brought to our attention by Ken Shepherd, whom we love: “Catholic Bishops Eye Possible Crackdown of Pro-Abortion Pols.”
I’m not for driving off the confused and the under-catechized, but I am wholeheartedly in favor of contending in public for the Faith. Identify those who publicly oppose their own Church, lament their betrayal, and do penance on their behalf. In the end, though, if they do not repent, then recognize that they have cut themselves off from the living waters of the sacraments, and impose the proper penalty.
The time has long passed for convincing. The time has come for driving the wolves away from the sheep — which is what the pointy end of the crozier is for, after all. Sure, the media will go nuts, but Jesus will love the bishops for it, and so (much less importantly) will faithful Catholics. Nobody ever died of embarrassment, and anyone ashamed to uphold the Gospel of Christ won’t make it to heaven anyway. It’s a couple of decades past due, but it’s never too late to defend the faith. Do it!
Month: November 2003
Life as a chorus member
Well, we survived our concert Saturday night, but it did provide a new “war story”.
A few years ago, when I belonged to a 100-voice choir in Boston, the conductor told the group that we should know the piece we were singing well enough, and have a good enough sense of its rhythm, that if she were to fall off the stage, we should just keep going.
She’d even seem to test us sometimes during dress rehearsals by walking to the far end of the hall to check the sound while we continued the piece; and the group was often enough able to do so without a noticeable loss in the piece’s execution.
I’m out in the suburbs now, in a different group with a different choral conductor, but finally it’s happened for real. On Saturday, we were standing in the Episcopal parish’s sanctuary — and, by the way, have you noticed? they apparently still have altar rails, even in contemporary churches — doing the last of four variations on Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, when all of a sudden our maestra tumbled off the two wooden boxes that comprised the podium. (The top one had suffered a partial structural failure.) She made a staggering one-foot landing as her music stand went over, and she bravely continued. Alas, the shock disrupted us too much, and she had to restart the movement.
The recording engineer said after the performance, “That one’s going onto my blooper reel.”
Couldn’t resist
The church sign generator referred by Fr. Bryce is a hoot.
Math Instruction in the U.S.
1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?
1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80.
What is his profit?
1970:
A logger exchanges a set “L” of lumber for a set “M” of money. The cardinality of set “M” is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set “M.” The set “C”, the cost of production, contains 20 fewer points than set “M.” Represent the set “C” as the subset of set M and answer this question: What is the cardinality of the set “P” of profits?
1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels “feel” as the logger cuts down the trees? There are no wrong answers.
2000:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?
He shall be as a god
Some men become rich and try to improve the lives of those who aren’t; others become drunk on their wealth and think themselves petty gods. One of these vile creatures is George Soros, who wants to depose the president.
Now, if you don’t think President Bush has been doing a good job, and if you disagree with his policies, then by all means try to remove him. Politicians should be removed often — for incompetence, foolishness, their hair color, whatever. No man is indispensible in a democracy, and a higher turnover rate would encourage politicians to look to the common good instead of self-promotion. Let them strive for peace and prosperity, and let that be their legacy instead of wielding power.
That being said, doesn’t it seem a little anti-democratic for a plutocrat to use his billions of dollars to remove a democratically elected president? And what makes people like Soros, Ross Perot, and the Rockefellers think they are modern-day Gracchi, defending us little people against the predations of other powerful, influential people? At least the patrons of the Roman senatorial class doled out money and favors directly to the poor; they had contact with the demos that extended beyond having its members serve their food and wash their clothes.
Soros became rich through currency speculation: by betting that one species of money would advance or decline relative to other species. Say what you want about the robber barons of the 19th century, they at least built their vast wealth by creating industries that brought material improvements in people’s lives. Men like Soros provide no useful service commensurate with their vast wealth.
In the Third World, he supports what could be called “hard” family-planning (how I hate that euphemism!), including sterilization and abortion. He has (supposedly) spent billions on democracy overseas, particularly in Russia, and has done such a good job that there are no more independent major news media left in that country, and the economy is based on the admirable model of the mob families portrayed in “The Sopranos.”
All of this success has left Soros with a keen sense of what’s best for the world. He complains that Bush is “leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence.” Leave aside the sheer banality of his insights for a moment — weren’t we already in a “circle” (he means “cycle”) of violence before January 2001? The terrorists kept hitting us, beginning in Beruit in 1983, and we kept ineffectually responding. The difference now is that we have a president who is dismantling the terrorists’ infrastructures and killing the terrorists themselves. You can’t have a “circle” if one side of the circle disappears, and Bush seems committed to making that happen.
Capitalism is the greatest system for ensuring material prosperity. If only we could get rid of most capitalists, it would be darn near perfect.