John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 144

Tolkien Spotting (The TIMELINE game)

So, at NorWesCon back in April I watched some people play an interesting new game called TIMELINE, which looked intriguing enough that I picked up a copy about two weeks ago and finally had a chance to play it last night.

The rules are simple: each card in your hand represents an invention or discovery or significant event. Your goal is to play your cards into correct chronological position with the cards already in play. Thus if the cards in play are, say, THE INVENTION OF THE WINCHESTER RIFLE [1866] and THE INVENTION OF BLUE JEANS [1873], and you want to play THE INVENTION OF THE TYPEWRITER, you have to decide whether this comes before both events, between both events, or after both events.*  If you guess right, your card joins the timeline, and placing the next card just got that much more difficult. If you're wrong, your card gets discarded and you have to draw another. Since the goal is to be the first to run out of cards, the more cards you place correctly the better you're doing. Cards can range from modern (the computer mouse, the ball-point pen) to ancient (fire, agriculture) to just about anything in-between (corks, crossbows).

But the card that really got my attention when it came up last night was "LORD OF THE RINGS PUBLISHED (FIRST VOLUME)", accompanied by a picture of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS. They even got the right dust jacket for the first edition Allen & Unwin hardcover and, of course, the date [1954].  Nice to see Tolkien's book ranked with things like THE DISCOVERY OF THE ASTEROIDS and INVENTION OF THE LIGHT BULB.

Here's an image of the card:



I can see that if you play this game a lot, you'll eventually learn the right dates to a lot of things. And it's for this reason, I assume, that the people who make it have put out four or five supplements (Discoveries, Diversity, Historical Events, Music & Cinema), each I assume with another deck of similar but new cards, to keep things challenging. I know one is themed towards the arts (music, literature, the theatre), which I'll probably be picking up.

Since noticing this at a number of booths in the dealers' room at NorWesCon I've seen it at a game store (The Fantasium), at one of the area Barnes & Nobles (the one in Federal Way) but not at another (the one near SouthCenter), as well as available online from Amazon.com and, of course, from the folks who actually make it: Asmodee (this being a French game translated into English).

http://us.asmodee.com/ressources/jeux_versions/timeline_3.php

I see there's an Ipad version but haven't seen or played that yet.

--John R.

current reading: IN SEARCH OF J. D. SALINGER by Ian Hamilton [1988]


P.S.I shd note that, to my delight, the set includes not just Tolkien but also the invention of rpgs [1974] 

*The correct answer, according to the game, is in this case "before both" [1714], which is much earlier than I wd have guessed

Three (or four) More Points about Paton Walsh

So, there were a few more points I ought to make about Jill Paton Walsh's new Peter-and-Harriet novel, THE LOST SCHOLAR.

(1) I think this was much the best of the four books she's written so far featuring Sayer's characters: I enjoyed reading it, and will probably be getting a hard copy in addition to the Kindle version. I don't know how much is judgment is affected by the fact that this is an Oxford novel, and I'm disposed to think well of books set in Oxford, and how much it's her finally making the characters her own.

(2) It's disconcerting to find that all the novels published by Sayers in the real world (e.g. THE NINE TAILORS, STRONG POISON, GAUDY NIGHT) also exist in the fictional world Peter and Harriet inhabit, except that there they're "Harriet Vane" novels rather than "Dorothy L. Sayers" novels, with titles such as "MURDER BY DEGREES" (= GAUDY NIGHT, I suppose) and "TWIXT WIND AND WATER" (= ?HAVE HIS CARCASE). The only difference seems to be that in Harriet's novels, the mysteries are solved not by Lord Peter Wimsey but by her series detective, Robert Templeton. We're told that the plots of these follow the events of Peter's actual cases very closely, even including having a Harriet Vane analogue (whose name I don't think is ever mentioned). All this seems rather strange, especially when it becomes a plot-point, with a prospective murderer lifting plots from Harriet Vane books as templates for his own attempted murders. That last point is an interesting idea, but Van Gulik did it better (in the last Judge Dee book, MURDER IN CANTON).

(3) I was startled by Paton Walsh's depiction of Peter Wimsey as an atheist ("most of the time").  I can't think of any passage in the original Sayers books to support that characterization, and it struck me as very unlike Sayers.

(4)  Finally, there was an odd scene where a student hoping to become a medievalist explains to Wimsey his course of study: Old English, Middle English, and literature up through Milton, only to have Lord Peter incredulous that anyone would submit to a course of study that failed to include a single Romantic poet. That seems in line with what students like Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis and John Betjeman felt, yet Sayer herself was deeply interested in the medieval, and seems to have had far more interest in Dante and ROLAND and Donne than Wordsworth or Shelly.

So, an entertaining book, but not to be taken as a guide to the personalities or actualities of the time and place. This is a fictional Oxford, where the descriptions of buildings are more true to life than those of the people.

--John R.

Jill Paton Walsh disses Tolkien

So, I hadn't known that the fourth of Jill Paton Walsh's Peter-and-Harriett faux-Sayers series of mysteries was out (or even that a fourth one was coming out, given that the third ended with what seemed a good place to wrap up the series)* until I saw a mention of it on the MythSoc list (thanks to Joe Christopher, who posted a capsule review)**

I got this one on the Kindle because I was troubled by something Joe mentioned, about the way Walsh describes Tolkien. And now, having just read it for myself, I can see that it's even worse than I thought: Walsh explicitly calls Tolkien a misogynist.

Or, to be more accurate, she has Lord Peter Wimsey do it, referring to JRRT as  "this misogynist professor". Here's the passage in full:


[HARRIET:] 'Well, do you know that the Merton Professor of English here will not take women pupils for tutorials? With one exception, that is -- he will tute girls sent to him by Miss [Elaine] Griffiths.'
[LORD PETER:] 'Have I heard of this misogynist professor?'
[HARRIET:] 'Didn't you read The Hobbit to the boys during an air-raid?'
[LORD PETER:] 'Yes, I remember that.'
[HARRIET:] 'That's him -- the Merton Professor is Tolkien'

Tolkien never appears in the book, though he's referred to twice more: once as being one of several medieval scholars at Oxford -- Lewis and Tolkien and Wren*** -- who tried (unsuccessfully) to find out who wrote a damning review in the TLS, and once near the end when a new term begins and life goes on, signalled by mention of new lecture series by Lewis, Bowra, and one J. L. Austin.

So, where did Walsh get the idea that Tolkien was a misogynist?  Certainly it means she doesn't know much about Tolkien, who was well-known at Oxford from his earliest days as a tutor for being unusually welcoming of women as students**** (the exact opposite being the case with CSL, whom she treats more favorably). I suspect the truth is that Tolkien famously once expressed criticism of Sayer's novels, saying that he was thoroughly tired of both Peter and Harriet by the time of GAUDY NIGHT (a sentiment Sayer herself seems to have shared, since she only wrote one more novel in the series after that point), and that Paton Walsh is gratuitously blackening his name as a belated revenge.

By contrast, Lewis is on record saying some good things about DLS, which I think here translates into a warmer depiction, despite the fact that Lewis had some real issues with women as students. It turns out Wimsey's brother-in-law, Inspector Parker, is a SCREWTAPE and NARNIA fan who, when in Oxford, asks to visit the Eagle & Child so he can see the great man go by -- not to meet or talk to or anything like that, but just to see in the flesh. This reminded me of Cripsin's famous "There goes C. S. Lewis -- it must be Tuesday". Perhaps there's now a tradition of characters in mysteries seeing CSL coming or going to that pub (if two examples seventy years apart can form a 'tradition').

As for Elaine Griffiths, it's nice to see a fictional portrayal of someone who played a key role in THE HOBBIT reaching a publisher, even if Walsh's apparent desire to honor an old friend does lead her to present Griffiths as the pre-eminant Old English scholar in all of Oxford, which one very much suspects was simply not the case.

As for Paton Walsh's portrayal of JRRT, technically you can't libel a dead man, so we need to come up for a new word for posthumous blackening someone's reputation with falsehoods. 

--John R.
current reading: THE LATE SCHOLAR by Jill Paton Walsh (2014) [just finished]
IN SEARCH OF J. D. SALINGER by Ian Hamilton (1988)



*spoiler alert:
Duke's Denver catches fire, Peter's brother the duke dies of a heart attack while trying to save it, and Peter inherits the dukedom and family home, or what's left of it.

**https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mythsoc/conversations/messages/25364


***sic; presumably she means Tolkien's successor as Rawlinson-Bosworth Professor, fellow Inkling C. L. Wrenn

****for the evidence of this, see my forthcoming essay "The Missing Women", which I delivered at Kalamazoo last year.

Visiting a Shinto Shrine

So, Sunday I took a badly needed day off away from my desk and the almost-finished job of proofing and final revisions that's kept me busy for so many weeks* and joined Janice, Anne, and Sigfried (hi Anne. hi Sigfried) for a trip to a Shinto shrine.

We'd heard about the Tsubaki Shrine up north of here for a while now and have wanted to go to their big ceremony held about this time each year, which is open to visitors, but one thing or another has come up. This time we made it, and it was well worth the trip. I was somewhat hindered by not being able to see or hear the head priest very well from where I was sitting, and of course from not speaking Japanese, but aside from unfamiliar details it wasn't really that different from other times I've attended a religious ceremony of a faith or denomination I don't practice** And I do know a little about Shinto from my reading, and rather to my surprise did recognize a lot of elements from my familiarity with anime and manga, which turn out to reproduce the costumes and ceremonial accouterments with great fidelity. Here's a link to their website:

http://www.tsubakishrine.com/home.html

We were rather surprised, last night, to find that some pictures of the event have been posted to the Shrine's Facebook page that include both of us among the crowd. So if like me you're not on Facebook, here are a few of those photos of the two of us very much out of our natural element but being made to feel very welcome.








Pictures! Of these three photos, the first shows the Shinto priest, the second shows the back of my head in the foreground, and the third shows us both stepping through the CHI-NO-WA, or big green woven circle; Sig and Anne can be seen in the background through the circle.

Also have to say that they picked a beautiful spot for their shrine: near Granite Falls and right alongside a wide, shallow, fast-flowing river (the Stillaguamish, I think) into which they threw the KATASHIRO (paper meeples) we'd each written our names on.

All in all, a memorable occasion, and in a good way. I'd gladly go back there again.

--John R.
currently reading THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER [1999] by Stephen Chboski

*now finished, as of about 1 a.m. this morning, so that now I've moved on to Indexing

**e.g., I've been to Catholic Mass a few times when living in Milwaukee, either at Marquette's Gesu or at the downtown Cathedral, seen a Buddhist Temple in Hawaii, gone through a Hindu Temple on the outskirts of London, and visited a Druid stone circle down at Trout Lake (but not while a ceremony was in progress).  We'd also gotten to see a small Shinto shrine in Hawaii, but nothing to match to a shrine complex like this one. And we'd tried to visit the Taoist temple, but turns out they restrict their holy places to adherents of the faith: no tourists. Fair enough.

Tolkien Spotting (COINAGE MAGAZINE)

So, in the long-ago I was a coin collector (I still carry my favorite coin, which my father bought for me when I was in second grade, in my pocket every day*). So of course I was interested when I heard of a stash of old gold coins found out in California last year, but the few news reports I saw were more speculative than informative. So when I saw that the June issue of COINAGE magazine had not one but two features on what they're now calling 'The Saddle Ridge Hoard", it seemed a good enough reason to pick up the magazine and see what coin collecting's like these days (when it seems more about bullion value than anything else).

The articles were both quite interesting, both in their detailed accounts about the finding of the hoard and also details about the coins themselves. But what wound up interesting me most was an unexpected Tolkien reference right in the middle of the first piece, "Gold Is Where You Find It: The Saddle Ridge Hoard" by Tom DeLorey.

After recounting how the finders discovered the hoard, how the coins were stashed, and how much they were worth, the author explains how


The finders prudently wish to remain anonymous, lest would-be plunderers with their own metal detectors descend upon their property in the manner that certain inhabitants of Hobbiton descended upon Bag End at the start of "The Lord of the Rings" This is a very wise precaution on the couple's part, for as J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: "legendary gold (mysteriously obtained, if not positively ill-gotten) is, as every one knows, any one's for the finding -- unless the search is interrupted.   (p. 11)

I was delighted by how apt the citation was, and pleased that it derives entirely from the book, as no such scene appears in the movie.

--John R.



*I also usually carry three more in my back pocket: a 1907 Indian Head Penny, a 2001 Sacajawea, and whatever's the latest presidential dollar (I'm working on having the only circulated set anywhere) -- though I'm lagging behind, my current coin being Wilson -- probably from a reluctance to carry around a coin devoted to a president as bad as Harding.

Tolkienian Music

So, thanks to Janice for this link to a beautiful acoustic performance of some of the music from Peter Jackson THE HOBBIT. I've never seen a guitar like this, and was quite surprised to find it's a bass (given how high the pitch is of some of the notes); the 'e-bow' he uses around the mid-way point is also new to me.

Even the best instrument needs material to work on and talent to show it at its best. I think this arrangement and performance shows both.

Here's the link:

http://muldersworld.com/watch.asp?v=xtVkxXOu_Mo


--JDR
current reading: CATCHER IN THE RYE (Salinger), THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST (Le Guin)

Lithe

So, a few days ago it was my grandmother's birthday, the first day of summer and longest day of the year. By chance I happened to see a piece about pagan celebrations of the solstice* which (a) made me envy the pagans for just one thing: they get to go up close to Stonehenge on these special occasions, which we Presbyterians do not, and (b) included the following passage which caught my eye:


Some refer to the summer solstice as "Litha," a term that may derive from 8th century monk Bede's The Reckoning of Time.  Bede names "Litha" as the Latin name for both June and July in ancient times.
I'd just been working my way through proofing of the 1960 HOBBIT's section on phases of the moon, in which Tolkien uses the Shire Calendar's reckoning of Midsummer, in which June 30th is followed by Lithe ('the June Lithe'), then Midsummer's Day, then Lithe ('the July Lithe'), so that June 30th and July 1st are four days apart, not one as in our modern calendar. But I'd always just assumed the word 'Lithe' was his own invention. So when I saw this I thought so that's where he got it from. A little checking revealed this was well-known to NeoPagans (most of whom cd probably have told the writer of the article cited above that Bede was giving the Old English names of the months, not the Latin ones.

So, another little example of Tolkien reviving a bit of old medieval lore and unobtrusively working it in to his own fictions.

--JDR.
just finished: VERY FAR AWAY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE, by Le Guin
just started: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, by Salinger

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/21/summer-solstice-2014_n_5515946.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Books Neither Coming Nor Going

So, in addition to the two dozen or so books mentioned in my previous post which are on their way out the door, there are also ten or so whose status is currently uncertain; I've pulled them from the shelves because I'm not sure I want to keep them, but I'm not altogether sure I want to get rid of them yet either. So they've been set aside to read before making that decision. Some I've read before, a long time ago, while others have been patiently waiting their turn just as long. Here's the list of this second category of possible non-keepers, in no particular order:

GRAY LENSMAN by E. E. 'Doc' Smith. One of my friends at TSR and WotC (hi, Rich!)  rather liked the once-famous Lensman series and recommended it to me at one point, so sometime later I picked up this volume cheaply at random. Suspect I won't be keeping it, but time I at least tried reading it first.

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS by L. Frank Baum. I know Baum has his supporters and admirers, but while I've read a fair amount of his work I really only liked the first OZ book.* So again suspect this will be a read and then pass-it-along book.

THE DEVIL'S CHILDREN by Peter Dickinson. Picked this one up on impulse, thinking to try something new, then never have read it. Time to remedy that omission.

MERLIN'S BOOKE by Jane Yolen. Frankly bought this one for the cover, a gorgeous piece of work by my favorite fantasy author, Thomas Canty. So why am I so reluctant to actually read the book?

GLORY ROAD by Heinlein. Read this once and found it forgetable, but don't want Heinlein's attempt at heroic fantasy to pass from my hands without giving it one more try, if only to leave it with a clearer memory of what's in it.

THE MASK OF CIRCE by Henry Kuttner. I'm a great admirer of Kuttner's short stories but haven't heard much good of his novels; I'll let this one be a test case of whether I shd seek out more or stop while I'm ahead.

THE CARNELIAN CUBE by Pratt & de Camp. I remember this only as the last and least of their collaborations. And while I like their stuff, I've really only been keeping this one just for the sake of completism. So I'll re-read it and then judge whether it's good enough to keep on its own merits.

THE WELL OF THE UNICORN by Fletcher Pratt. Oddly enough, as much as I liked the team of de Camp and Pratt, I've never read either of Pratt's two solo novels. Odder still, given the Dunsany connection with this one. In any case, now that I've picked up a hardcover, I don't really need this old paperback anymore, thought I'm a little reluctant to part with it, given that it was a gift from a friend (hi, Charles!).

THE BEGINNING PLACE
VERY FAR AWAY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE
THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST
--all by Le Guin. Back in the seventies and early eighties, when you found a good fantasy author you picked up everything you could find by her. Thus these minor Le Guins, which I'm thinking I cd part with now, though it behooves me to read or re-read them first. Just finished reading ROCANNON'S WORLD, her first book (half an Ace Double), which I'd never read before and will be keeping; now well into THE BEGINNING PLACE, which I'm pretty sure I won't. I also need to read THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, but that can wait for another day, lest I get Le Guin'd out.**

Then of course there's the hardcover of EREGON, which I'm all but certain I won't be keeping but haven't made up my mind as to whether I shd read it first before it goes out the door.

--John R.
current reading: THE BEGINNING PLACE by Ursula K. Le Guin [1980/81]


*I actually fell asleep once while reading an OZ book. Out loud. Though I do admit he comes up with some interesting characters in the later books in the series, like the Hungry Tiger and Tik-Tok Man.

**If I can keep going, I still need to see if I can make myself read ALWAYS COMING HOME, and there are three science fiction novels I shd probably give a try as well: PLANET OF EXILE, CITY OF ILLUSION, and esp. THE DISPOSSESSED, none of which I've ever read.

Books Exiting the System

So, once again I've been going through the shelves and pulling off some books to get rid of. For the most part, these fall into one of two categories. Either they're books I read long ago and don't see myself re-reading, or they're books I bought on impulse years ago and am finally admitting I probably won't ever get around to. As I get older, and being mindful that my eyesight isn't good and won't get better, I find myself starting to think that there's a finite number of books I'll get to read from here on out, and maybe I shd start being a little more selective . . .
Anyway, here's a listing of the latest batch, with some thoughts on each book:
PETER PAN (the novel) by J. M. Barrie. I was never particularly a fan, but thought I shd have a copy handy for reference in case I ever needed to. Doesn't look like that'll be the case, and it's readily available if that shd ever change.
THE FAIRY OF KU-SHE by M. Lucie Chin. I picked this up when I was seeking out everything that reminded me of THE BRIDGE OF BIRDS. I see I bought this one at the late lamented Turning Page in Milwaukee more than twenty years ago and haven't cracked the cover yet, so think this is an impulse buy whose time has passed.
THE FALLIBLE FIEND by de Camp.  Extremely minor de Camp. I'd rather keep the good stuff and let this one go.
THE DREAM YEARS by Lisa Goldstein. An interesting enough read, but find I don't particularly want to re-read it, so it can go.
THE RED MAGICIAN by Lisa Goldstein. I think this was the one that made me decide Goldstein was pursuing a direction in fantasy that didn't particularly appeal to me, despite being well-written.
STRANGE DEVICES OF THE SUN AND MOON by Lisa Goldstein. Bought this when I thought I was going on a Lisa Goldstein kick, but turned out I was wrong about that.
HAWK & FISHER: WINNER TAKES ALL by Simon R. Green. Think I picked this one up off a freebie table at work, so it's not even an impulse buy. The impulse to actually read it never having arrived, it can go.
TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD by Barbara Hambly. The sequel to THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT, which I found an interesting take on vampirism (she posits it's a virus). Picked up this sequel a few years later but never read it, and recently realized it's because for me that first book was sufficient: I don't want to know more about those characters; I want to leave them where they were at the close of the previous novel. So, this one can go. 
STARSHIP TROOPER by Heinlein. Read this one for book group soon after we moved out here. Didn't particularly like it. Didn't like the film supposedly based on it. Don't foresee any need to ever re-read it -- and if one arises, replacement copies will be readily available.*
AT AMBERLEAF FAIR by Phyllis Ann Karr. Picking up this one apparently seemed like a good idea at the time, but never having read it have to admit I'm never likely to in future, so it can go.
FROSTFLOWER AND THORN by Phyllis Ann Karr.  Unpleasantly kinky.
THE IDYLLS OF THE QUEEN by Phyllis Ann Karr. A murder mystery set in Camelot, with Sir Kay as her detective.**
JINX HIGH by Mercedes Lackey. The only Lackey I've read, one of the 'Diana Tregarde' series. If it'd been better, I might have read more, or indeed want to keep this one.
AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND by Geo. MacDonald. The only one of MacD's fantasies I'd never gotten to, now that I've read it I definitely don't want to keep it. When Phillip Pullman accuses C. S. Lewis (a huge fan of MacD's) of celebrating 'a culture of death', this is the kind of thing he's talking about.***
THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH, AND EVERYTHING by John D. MacDonald. Once you have the idea behind the story, you don't really need the story itself (which hardly does justice to it). Bought this one at X-Con many years ago (in fact, at the last X-Con I ever went to, right before Taum died). Amusingly, has a Pam Dauber movie tie-in cover.
DREAM SNAKE by Vonda McIntyre. A really good short story turned into a disappointing novel. I'm keeping the short story and letting the novel go.
NEVER THE TWAIN by Kirk Mitchell. Sounded like a clever premise -- a descendent of Bret Harte goes back in time to try to convince Sam Clemens not to take up writing so that his own ancestor will be more famous. But I've never been moved to read it in the more than quarter century since I spotted it on the shelf and picked it up, so think its window has closed for me. 
PARSIVAL by Richard Monaco. This one was recommended to me by a friend (Jim P., I think), but for whatever reason I've never gotten around to it, so now it's falling prey to my 'make some room' mood. Besides, having read Wolfram and Chretien, I don't really need to read a modern novelization of the story.
THE JADE ENCHANTRESS by E. Hoffmann Price. Having read this more than a decade ago and not remembering a single thing about it, and given how much I disliked the other Price I recently re-read, can't face the thought of re-reading this one too. Off it goes to hopefully a more appreciative home.****
RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson. Another I read for book group. I rather liked this one --KSR has some interesting ideas, and is good in presenting them --  but never moved on to the second and third in the series, and don't feel any particular desire to re-read this one, so it can go.
THE FALL OF HYPERION by Dan Simmons. Interesting book, also read for book group.  I admire Simmons's ambition for drawing upon some of Keats' lesser known work for his inspiration, but I was fine with just reading the first book and not pressing on to the second and third of the series. And now fourteen years later realize I have no particular desire to re-read the one either. So it can go.
A WIND IN CAIRO by Judith Tarr. I enjoyed some of Tarr's work, but not this one (about a rapist redeeming himself after being transformed into a stallion). If I were to get in a Tarr-reading mood, I'd rather re-read ALAMUT, her best work (of the half-dozen or so I've read).
AGENT OF BYZANTIUM by Harry Turtledove. Enjoyable enough, but not memorable.
THE CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP by Harry Turtledove. Faux-hardboiled detective story, read for book group. From what little I remember of it, kind of like Turtledove's equivalent to CAST A DEADLY SPELL or Hambley's BRIDE OF THE RAT-GOD.
THE OLD GODS WAKEN by Manley Wade Wellman. A 'Silver John' novel. The short story collection was great, but the novel's terrible: a dull, overlong mess.
DARKER THAN YOU THINK by Jack Williamson. Recently read, after having it on the shelf for years. Awful. Originally published in UNKNOWN; I can only assume the magazine version was shorter and therefore better.

*my notes say I bought this on my first ever visit to Borders in Tukwila, the same month I moved out to this area from Wisconsin**she does a good job with Kay, Gawain, and Mordred, but a terrible job with Arthur, Lancelot, Gareth, and especially Merlin; her Guinever is essentially invisible***a library discard from the Milwaukee public library, just to give some idea how long I carried this one with me through move after move before finally getting to it and finding out how bad it was.****bought this one on a rare trip to in interesting old bookstore in Auburn with Dale D. (Hi Dale!)

Politics (III)

So, to cap off their week of the General Assembly meeting, the Presbyterians voted to recognize gay marriage as Xian union, and to authorize pastors who live in areas where it's legal to preside at such services. The first of these still needs to be ratified (we Presbyterians have a thoroughly democratic church structure) by the Presbyteries and Synods, but the first apparently takes effect right away.

According to the article linked to below, about four percent of congregations felt the church had gone too far when the Assembly voted to ordain gay ministers three years back and left the church; probably a similar number will leave now and go join a more conservative branch of the church, of which there are several. But looks like the main body is going ahead with this major change.

Here's the link:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/presbyterian-church-leaders-declare-gay-marriage-christian-n136256

--John R.