Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1339
April 14, 2011
Why Lost still Matters
I'm with Tony Rossi, for all its flaws, untied up narrative threads and highly problematic ending, it was still a very engaging piece of storytelling that took themes like sin, redemption, mystery and faith seriously. I'm richer for having seen it.
Back When Eugenics Was Fun
Mike Flynn has an amazing little piece of cultural archaeology up on his site from the days before Eugenics was actually put into practice on a national charnel house scale. What's fascinating to me is how the media played it as the Scientific Wave of the Future for the highbrows, while selling it as goofy whacky vaudeville schlock for the lowbrows. What's even more amazing is how, even after the Third Reich, so many of our highbrows go on believing in it. The lowbrows, having seen what the highbrows wanted to do to them, aren't quite so easily sold these days. But the Elite is still very much eager to try it again. They just *love* culling the herd and telling other people what to do.
Lasers vs. Pirates
Who wouldn't pay money to see that? I think there is a George Lucas/Gore Verbinski franchise in the offing.
If a Catholic star starts entertaining delusions that he is a bishop
as, for instance, Michael Voris apparently does, then you should give him a wide berth.
That includes me, by the way, if you are one of those deluded souls who thinks that some loudmouth like me with a gift of the gab is somehow more to be relied upon for delivering you the Catholic faith than Holy Mother Church. When I get mail from some deluded fan who imagines something that I wrote makes me a more reliable guide to the faith than the bishops, it makes me shudder. Because sooner or later, I know I will get another letter from somebody saying, "I used to believe in you, but then you let me down. I don't know if I'm Catholic anymore!" I'm tempted to say, "Yeah? Well, get used to it, cuz I ain't your personal Lord and savior. I'm not even a bishop, fercryinoutloud. Stop with the perpetual celebrity anointings and fanboyism and grow up into the Catholic faith."
The cult of celebrity is poison. People need to stop hoisting aloft every internet chatterer who thinks God has given him the power of excommunication against those who don't happen to know their suffocating small constellation of shibboleths.
Read and heed. We internet loudmouths are not to be obeyed like bishops. When one of us pops off about Earth Day and stupidly declares, pronounces and defines that "if the priest even so much as breathes a word about Earth Day, throw nothing in the collection plate, finish your Sunday obligation and resign from that parish on Monday", that does not constitute a de fide teaching of the Church. This sort of blind Pavlovian stupidity which teaches the faithful to respond to acoustic cues ("He mentioned Earth Day! Abandon ship!") is a reflection, not of an intelligent Catholic approach, but of the kind of culture warrior mobthought that so much of the blogosphere facilitates.
It is, in fact, a mirror image of the sort of cult of personality one sees in Fr. Pfleger's parish.
When I compare and contrast the audience reaction to this priest whipping the mob into a frenzy against the mean Church and Voris fanboys whipping the mob into a frenzy against the mean Church, the only difference I can see is that the combox crowd dislikes the politics of the former and not the latter. So the former is vilified and the latter lionized.
No doubt, if there were a combox full of Pfleger's groupies (I haven't checked the National Catholic Reporter), they would look like a mirror image of the Voris groupies, full of adoration and the certitude of victory for their hero and full of loathing for Voris for his sin of batting for the wrong tribe.
Moral: Democracy truly is that form of government that chooses Barabbas over Jesus.
Second moral: Don't put a mitre on the head of any loudmouth in the blogosphere or Catholic media, especially me. A gaggle of apologists and bigmouths like me is not the Magisterium
That includes me, by the way, if you are one of those deluded souls who thinks that some loudmouth like me with a gift of the gab is somehow more to be relied upon for delivering you the Catholic faith than Holy Mother Church. When I get mail from some deluded fan who imagines something that I wrote makes me a more reliable guide to the faith than the bishops, it makes me shudder. Because sooner or later, I know I will get another letter from somebody saying, "I used to believe in you, but then you let me down. I don't know if I'm Catholic anymore!" I'm tempted to say, "Yeah? Well, get used to it, cuz I ain't your personal Lord and savior. I'm not even a bishop, fercryinoutloud. Stop with the perpetual celebrity anointings and fanboyism and grow up into the Catholic faith."
The cult of celebrity is poison. People need to stop hoisting aloft every internet chatterer who thinks God has given him the power of excommunication against those who don't happen to know their suffocating small constellation of shibboleths.
Read and heed. We internet loudmouths are not to be obeyed like bishops. When one of us pops off about Earth Day and stupidly declares, pronounces and defines that "if the priest even so much as breathes a word about Earth Day, throw nothing in the collection plate, finish your Sunday obligation and resign from that parish on Monday", that does not constitute a de fide teaching of the Church. This sort of blind Pavlovian stupidity which teaches the faithful to respond to acoustic cues ("He mentioned Earth Day! Abandon ship!") is a reflection, not of an intelligent Catholic approach, but of the kind of culture warrior mobthought that so much of the blogosphere facilitates.
It is, in fact, a mirror image of the sort of cult of personality one sees in Fr. Pfleger's parish.
When I compare and contrast the audience reaction to this priest whipping the mob into a frenzy against the mean Church and Voris fanboys whipping the mob into a frenzy against the mean Church, the only difference I can see is that the combox crowd dislikes the politics of the former and not the latter. So the former is vilified and the latter lionized.
No doubt, if there were a combox full of Pfleger's groupies (I haven't checked the National Catholic Reporter), they would look like a mirror image of the Voris groupies, full of adoration and the certitude of victory for their hero and full of loathing for Voris for his sin of batting for the wrong tribe.
Moral: Democracy truly is that form of government that chooses Barabbas over Jesus.
Second moral: Don't put a mitre on the head of any loudmouth in the blogosphere or Catholic media, especially me. A gaggle of apologists and bigmouths like me is not the Magisterium
Congratulations Catholic Torture Defenders!
Your efforts at catechesis have not been in vain! 60% of American youth join you in your Cafeteria Catholicism and support the use of torture! In fact, they even endorse the torture of American prisoners of war and the murder of prisoners. You have achieved the same goal as Catholics for a Free Choice!
The Cafeteria is wide open for business and conservatives are lining up in droves!
What will be fun will be to watch the torture defenders waver between fist pumps about the triumph of their brutal species of realpolitik, and their attempts to say that we should ignore the story because it comes from the damned liberal Red Cross.
Funny how the culture of relativism so prized by the Left and culture of brutal paganism so prized by the Right meet and marry in our postmodern young who care about whales and don't see a big problem with murder and torture if it keeps the iTunes coming.
How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. One party goes to the mat to let draft dodgers commit war crimes in the name of courage and another party sheilds them from prosecution while expanding the powers of thexecutive to allow writs of murder to the President, should he feel like it.
It'll be great if we ever get a two party system.
The Cafeteria is wide open for business and conservatives are lining up in droves!
What will be fun will be to watch the torture defenders waver between fist pumps about the triumph of their brutal species of realpolitik, and their attempts to say that we should ignore the story because it comes from the damned liberal Red Cross.
Funny how the culture of relativism so prized by the Left and culture of brutal paganism so prized by the Right meet and marry in our postmodern young who care about whales and don't see a big problem with murder and torture if it keeps the iTunes coming.
How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. One party goes to the mat to let draft dodgers commit war crimes in the name of courage and another party sheilds them from prosecution while expanding the powers of thexecutive to allow writs of murder to the President, should he feel like it.
It'll be great if we ever get a two party system.
Gilbert Magazine Sallies Forth
to defend the honor of J.K. Rowling once again from incurably dumb attacks. Catholic Harry haters are going to look like dinosaurs someday. People will wonder how on earth they could square their Tolkien Love with their Harry Hatred. It's a good question and one which, at present, appears to be dealt with by the Ring Lardner Method: "'Shut up!', he explained."
Me: I think I might give 'em a re-read. It's been a few years.
Me: I think I might give 'em a re-read. It's been a few years.
April 13, 2011
Busy
Back tomorrow.
Beans. Noses. You know the drill.
Beans. Noses. You know the drill.
April 12, 2011
I don't know why...
...but this just cracks me up:
Good News on the YOUCAT front
CNA has an update on the YOUCAT translation fiasco
And the Ignatius Insight blog posted Questions 420 and 421, which illustrate the fidelity of YOUCAT to the Church's teachings on human sexuality.
Apologies to Cdl. Schoenborn for believing the CNA piece yesterday.
And the Ignatius Insight blog posted Questions 420 and 421, which illustrate the fidelity of YOUCAT to the Church's teachings on human sexuality.
Apologies to Cdl. Schoenborn for believing the CNA piece yesterday.
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