A little night music

Every time I start to think I know something about music, I hear a fugue and it reminds me I'm a rank amateur.  Even something as relatively simple as this "Little" Fugue in G Minor is a mystery to me in how Bach constructed it like a Swiss watch.  Compared with a piece like the "Kyrie" from Mozart's Requiem, even a wonderfully textured and inventive rock classic like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" is painfully basic, almost paint-by-numbers.

But rather than inflict a rather extended reflection on the electric soullessness of modern musicon you, let me simply put ol' Johann Sebastian on the speaker:

Just when you think our racist past is healed ...

Another reason Facebook needs a "Dislike" button.

... something like the Travon Williams shooting comes along and pulls the scab off.

These are all comments I took off of Facebook along with the picture on the left:

It took 2 F***ING WEEKS to arrest Travon's killer...but IF Travon was WHITE and his killer was BLACK...he would have the FBI, SWAT, LOCAL, STATE, the Coast Guard, the Army, Navy, Air Force AND Marines outside his door within an HOUR to HAUL his BLACK A$$ in! The ONLY REASON they even arrested that dude is because they didn't want us to RIOT!

it took 6 weeks dumba$$! Go ahead an riot and we can add you a spot on this gameboard..lmaooo U mutha f***as aint happy either way!! Justice or no Justice! Zimmerman was arrested on 2nd degree murder !! U happy yet b****????? Or U still wanna whine like lil' b****es???? FYM !! GO TO JAIL DUMBA$$ >>lmaooooooooooooooooooooo

In all reality alot of people might feel like they're talking about their life...it hits home...kind of true...police don't want to see alot of people passing go they want them to go straight to jail...it's really unheard of when you get more time for selling drugs than murder...in this crazy world...in my young jeezy voice..lol

What's white Monopoly look like? All Free Parking?

Dear God.  How long will it be before all the anger, the distrust and the hostility subside?

Questions that answer themselves

Catching up on my email this morning, I read a quick note from my old friend Steve, a cradle Catholic like myself, who sent me a link to the Slate story on the Vatican's attempt to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, along with the following cri de coeur:

No argument over whether the Vatican has the authority to do what they’re doing, but is this really worth the knocks the Church will take over this?  I mean, how many people outside the clergy really pay close attention to the groups being targeted for re-education?  Now I can pretty well guarantee they will get much more coverage than they ever would have absent this crackdown.  I’m not saying the Church should let it all slide, I’m just saying there has to be a better, more compassionate-looking way to address the issue.  Not very good for recruitment, either, if we’re even interested in the female vocations any more.

Well, there are several ways to address such a question, such as pointing out that the second orders represented by the LCWR have already done everything necessary to make themselves irrelevant and unattractive to faithful Catholic women, and that part of the reason for the reform is precisely because we're interested in the return of female vocations.  But the irrepressible Father Z has uncovered some information that truly illustrates the need for LCWR reform.

When motivational posters go over the top ....

"Too ... many ... jokes .... Must ... mock ... author ...."

I ask you to read the motivational poster to your left, and reflect on its pretentiousness.  This is the kind of thing you see on the Internet that just begs for smart-ass captions like, "Now quit your bitching, flap your arms and fly, dammit!"

I saw it on Facebook; a husband sent it to his wife, a friend of mine from high school, with the ever-so-sweet comment, "I saw this and I thought of you, baby."  And my friend is truly a risk-taker who is bringing a dream to successful fruition; she deserves recognition and support for her endeavors, and I freely, gladly give mine to her.  So on her Facebook status update I maintain a reverent silence on this overwritten tomfoolery.

Nevertheless, it is overwritten tomfoolery.  Impossible is a fact.  It can be easily discovered by people who want to build a house of cards by tossing the deck up into the wind during a hurricane.  It can be discovered by people who want to use a three-iron to make a mile-long golf shot in Earth gravity.  It can be discovered by people who want to suspend themselves in mid-air by holding on to their belt loops.

That's how we know a miracle when we see it: the natural universe, left to its ordinary workings, could not have produced the result.

I wish I'd passed this on to you earlier ...

When I was a child, Mom had a great way to deal with all the hard-boiled Easter eggs that had been colored, hidden and found:  Goldenrod Eggs for breakfast!

In concept, Goldenrod Eggs is fairly simple to make if you have a few basic skills.  The base is a simple bechamel or pan gravy; the latter is better for a more home-style flavor.  I can't give you a precise recipe, because (if you have little to no experience with gravy or sauces) everything is pretty much done by eye.

The first step is to shell and prepare the eggs — figure about 2½-3 eggs a person.  Separate the  yolks from the whites; using a food processor, chop up the yolks into a rough crumble.  Then chop the whites; you can either use a food processor or a chef's knife for bigger pieces.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

© 2007 angelfire7508.

There were solitudes beyond where none shall follow.  There were secrets in the inmost and invisible part of that drama that have no symbol in speech; or in any severance of a man from men.  Nor is it easy for any words less stark and single-minded than those of the naked narrative even to hint at the horror of exaltation that lifted itself above the hill.  Endless expositions have not come to the end of it, or even to the beginning.  And if there be any sound that can produce a silence, we may surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened up even in the unity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken of God.[1]

Saint Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:17-19).

And yet this moment, this terrible cry from the agony of the Savior, is a challenge to faith that precedes the Resurrection.  Indeed, if there were any truth to the claim that the Gospel’s records of miracles and signs were mere retrojected embellishments, then it’s amazing the synoptic authors took no care to excise this most paradoxical of Christ’s utterances.

A year's service for a philosophical question?

Bink stayed the night.  He found he rather liked the castle and its denizens; even the manticora was affable now that the Magician had given the word.  "I would not really have eaten you, though I admit to being tempted for a moment or three when you booted me in the ... tail," it told Bink.  "It is my job to scare off those who are not serious.  See, I am not confined."  It pushed against the bars, and the inner gate swung open.  "My year is almost up; I'll almost be sorry to have it end."

"What question did you bring?" Bink inquired somewhat nervously, trying not to brace himself too obviously for flight.  In an open space, he was no possible match for the manticora.

"I asked whether I have a soul," the monster said seriously.

Again Bink had to control his reaction.  A year's service for a philosophical question?  "What did he tell you?"

Atheists "celebrate" reason with sophomoric mockery of religion

On Sunday, 8,000-10,000 atheists showed up in Washington, DC at what was billed as "The Reason Rally" — a display of unity and strength meant to "Celebrate Living without God"!  And how did this remarkable collection of supremely bright, intellectually superior people trumpet the unquestionable, impregnable reason of atheism?

By obscenity-laced mockery of religion, of course.

From comedian(?) Eddie Izzard's jeering because "God never comes down [when He's called]" (and what was He supposed to do ... play banjo? juggle? make a few cutting remarks about idiots who don't believe in Him?)  to Tim Minchin's extremely creative musical refrain, "F*** the motherf***ing pope", to Richard Dawkins' trademark exaggerated incredulousness and calls to relentlessly mock religious people (atheism, my dear Dr. Dawkins, also makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiatiated), the whole thing apparently degenerated into a massive display of juvenile name-calling.

If you're gonna claim to be more rational, it would lend credibility if you acted more rational.

More gender silliness in Miami, Ohio

Wow ... two weeks without a word here! I apologize for the prolonged silence.

As soon as I saw the headline for the Creative Minority Report entry, I had to check it out: Transgender Student Files Complaint After [Being] Banned From All-Male Dorm!

Ms./Mr. Kaeden Kass

Kaeden Kass is genotypically and phenotypically female.  But in the alternate-universe thinking of "queer theory", that doesn't matter — she says she identifies as a male, and therefore must be treated as a male.  Confident that the world must bow to her self-identification, she applied to be a resident assistant at a male dorm at Miami (Ohio) University.

MU, oddly enough, paid no attention to her self-identification and rejected her application, offering her instead an RA berth at a female dorm.  “The problem is, I’m a male-identified person,” Kass told CBS Cleveland, who posted her story (and used masculine pronouns whenever the story referred to her). “As soon as I’m in a space that is all female, my identity gets erased.”  And so she has filed a complaint against MU ... with whom, the story doesn't mention (I presume some university board empowered to make changes in the name of diversity and inclusiveness).

Memento mori

Today would have been Bob's 44th birthday.

All told, it's been about six months since Bob passed, and the grief is mostly settled.  Mostly settled ... I had a memory of Bob at our niece's wedding, when we managed to turn David Lee Roth's cover of "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" into a reference to Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein; a memory that brought a grin only slightly touched by melancholy.

As I've said before, grief keeps its own schedule, and will be neither denied nor rushed.