Black smoke. As a lapsed (read that “ran like hell at the first opportunity) catholic, I can tell you that means that the world is safe for another 24 hours.
Denis Leary, the greatest LC of them all:
Making a key decision now for our kids, it’s religion decision time, you know…and I’m not bringing em up Catholic. I’ve made that decision. Boy, because I was raised Catholic, and NOO WAY! Uh-uh! Nope! Know what? I can’t bring up my kids in a church whose authority system is entirely based on the size of fucking hats, okay? That’s apparently how the Catholic church is run. The bigger the hat, the more important the guy, right? Priests have no hats, cardinals have those little red beanies, the pope has a collection of big hats…God must have a huge fucking sombrero up there in heaven! “Look at me, I’m GOD! Look at the size of my hat, who else would I be?” I don’t know, lead singer of Los Lobos?
Going to one of the outlying clinics today to work on their systems. So I get about four hours in the vehicle with no phone or email, and I’m getting paid for it. Yay, me!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I want Denis Leary to be my Speaker for the Dead.
max
Fixed. Los Lobos is a rock band, dude.
max
[‘Ahhhh….Boston.’]
Punchy
I think they shudda tweaked the smokes and used blah smoke if the blah cardy was picked, white smoke for any of the cracker cards, and fajita smoke had a Hispanic cardinal been chosen..
c u n d gulag
The new Pope’s a-comin’ soon, altar boys!
I know you can hardly wait.
Get those knee-pads ready, and make sure you have plenty of Vaseline!
The new Pope might be comin’ soon, for YOU!!!
I know you can hardly wait.
prufrock
In before the first person to complain that Dennis Leary stole all his best stuff from Bill Hicks.
We know. It’s still funny. Bill Hicks is dead. Get over it.
Baud
I’m surprisingly uninterested in the conclave. Maybe if they go with a surprise choice I’ll be interested. I’m just expecting more of the same.
JPL
@c u n d gulag: not sure that can be played by a mariachi band but worth a try.
maurinsky
I am more than lapsed, because I don’t even believe that there is such a thing as God, but I’m also a church musician, so I go to church more than anyone I know, including my Aunt Maureen who is a nun. I’m in it for the filthy lucre.
I do love Lent music, though. We get to sing a lot in Latin, Ubi Caritas, Sicut Cervus, some beautiful pieces.
mainmati
I’m an LC too from devout MA Irish folk. But they raised us up to be independent thinkers as well so 5 of the 6 of us kids end up as LCs. A hidebound, authoritarian, misogynist institution that squashed Liberation Theology (the only interesting variant in oh 2,000+ years)for my kids?
I don’t think so.
Cermet
So, will those sick, asswipe cardinals shit out another pile of crap or select a pope that considers child rape a crime … right; those child rapist elect a person of honor …ha ha ha!
A pity a low level priest wouldn’t be considered – a significant number of them are good people; that is, until they move up in the system and are taught the true path of the church.
gene108
I do wonder what kind of leverage Cardinals have over each other, in order to pick a Pope?
Life time appointments, with no one outranking the other…
I mean in the old days, the Cardinals just shut up and did what the Visigoths told them to do, because otherwise they’d all be killed…
but now…I don’t see how or why they should bother reaching a decision…
aimai
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Oddly I spent last night reading various critiques of Ender’s Game. I liked Ender’s Game when I read it. Couldn’t get into Speaker for the Dead. To me its like they were written by two different kinds of people although after reading all the analysis I see that OSC was laying the crazy moral groundwork in Ender’s Game.
Ash Can
@Baud:
@Cermet:
This. I’m not holding my breath for another John XXIII.
The Red Pen
And now, your non-Pope moment of zen:
Little Sticky Legs: Alien Abductee Portraits by Steven Hirsch
This site is at once weird, hilarious, and sad.
Betty Cracker
I ran like a scalded dog from the evangelical protestant church I was raised in, pretty much immediately after hitting puberty and have been a godless heathen ever since. I married a fellow godless heathen, and we’re raising a godless heathen child.
The only drawback I’ve noted so far is that our kiddo doesn’t immediately get religious motifs in literature and art. We’ve discussed the main themes of various world religions, of course, but it’s not the same as having it knocked into your skull every Sunday for years.
Comrade Jake
Caught Anderson Cooper’s show last night. I’m a little surprised nearly half was devoted to the Pope. Slow news week or what.?
Davis X. Machina
Cardinals actually do have sombreros.
One graces the coat of arms of each cardinal.
Feudalism Now!
Even Doc Holliday, near his end, explored the mysteries of the Church of Rome. There are some parish priests and Jesuits, who keep me from damning the whole lot as a dangerous cult, But they are the outcasts of catholicism. Who cares who is going to wear the funny hat? We are descending to the point where the papal decree is the “light” news bit at the end of the broadcast. ‘Crazy old man yells at cloud and birth control, says animals at the birth of Christ is a pagan typo. Have a good night!’
Cacti
Far more interesting than the men in red dresses…
Tonight on the Ed Show, the hero who recorded Romney’s “47 percent” speech will reveal himself.
JD
@prufrock:
Denis Leary’s stand-up career and Bill Hicks are dead. Funny, I think they died around the same time.
gbear
@max: That one jumped out at me too and I would have made the comment had you not gotten there first. Los Lobos was a really stupid choice (Great band, bad analogy).
Rosalita
As another LC, I’m convinced those bastards are playing poker in there in between votes.
handsmile
“…the world is safe for another 24 hours.”
Perhaps not. There will be another session of the conclave this afternoon (Rome time) with at least one more ballot scheduled, i.e, more smoke signals later today.
To be selected as Pope, a candidate must receive 77 votes of the 115 assembled cardinals. I would prefer if the method described by the American poet James Tate were to be adopted, “How the Pope is Chosen”:
http://aspenanomie.tumblr.com/post/241861939
Regrettably, the Guardian’s LiveBlog on the papal conclave (for those who just can’t get enough Popealooza from their televisions) isn’t up to its usual high standards of snark and cynicism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/papal-conclave-chooses-pope-day-two-live-coverage
But the current lead story at its website reports that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $10m to settle two child abuse cases from 1974-2000. Its former archbishop, Roger Mahoney, who was made aware of the molestations in the 1980s and did nothing, is one of those esteemed 115 gentlemen now voting for Joey Ratz’s successor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/sex-cases-conclave-cardinal-settled
Rosalita
moderation? I didn’t use a bad word… bastards?
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: I was raised UU and never got the religious themes or motifs in art and literature. It really started to hurt by high school and became a bit of a hindrance in college. I managed to catch up as much as a pagan child could (and now do better at recognizing these references than most of my Christian-raised friends). However, my parents said that, in retrospect, they should’ve spent more time on this with my sister and me.
John PM
I attended my first grader’s “Celebration of Love” program at our church last night. The woman running the program asked the children who was pope. Blank stares. She then asked if they knew what was happening with the pope. A child answered “He’s dying?” Of course, all the children attend public school, so they are not getting their daily dose of Catholic talking points. Finally, the woman running the program asks what the new pope will be praying very hard for. In my head, I answer “for the priests to stop raping children.
My wife and I decided to raise our sons Catholic until they all receive first communion, but I don’t know if we are going to make it.
Comrade Jake
@Cacti:
I read somewhere that Ed’s going to use the entire hour of his show to interview that guy. Seems a little overkill at this point.
shortstop
@John PM:
I think it’s more likely to be “for current parishioners and the former faithful to stop pointing out that priests are raping children.” You see the subtle difference.
Cacti
@Comrade Jake:
I hope he’s prepared for the raft of death threats he’s going to receive from loyal Republican boot lickers for the wealthy.
Honus
@Feudalism Now!: The local priests, the nuns who teach schools, the inner city basketball teams, the several million women who use birth control (including my 4 sisters) and still consider themselves catholic. That’s the church. Not those old men in Rome.
I’m a LC, but I did my time, on the altar, cooked hundreds of pounds of fish, four hour services on hot Good Friday afternoons, sewing those little cloth circles to make dolls to raise money for the Pagan Babies, snoring at Midnight Mass, so I put some emphasis on the “C” in LC and don’t take any shit from the Newt Gingrich types who don’t have clue what it means to be catholic.
eric
@shortstop: i taught undergrad philosophy for a few years in grad school and not only did the christian students not know anything about apologetics or the philosophical underpinnings of their faith, so I am not sure that participation in christianity leads to an understanding of christian motifs in art. This is particularly true when one needs a core understanding of the difference between the early church tradition that shunned earthly temporalitity, and thus shunned history and art and later church tradition that embraced art as a means to expressing religious themes by analogy.
Mandalay
@prufrock:
Interesting set of values you have there. You want to remind us that Hitler was fond of animals as well?
Getting your post in first changes nothing. Leary is a thieving slimebag and he knows it. He has to live with it for the rest of his life, but he has only himself to blame.
eric
@Honus: I take LC to stand for those people that deny the primacy of Peter and the Church as the bride of Christ and place primacy in the message of Christ and see the Church as the vehicle for expanding Christ’s vision of equality and peace. From my vantage point, most didnt lapse as catholics, the church lapsed.
Face
@Cacti: And by tomorrow, Malkin will be telling us what type of countertops he has.
Winston Smith
Dennis Leary stole all of… oh bloody hell.:
Winston Smith
@Mandalay:
Now I hate animals. Thanks for that.
Scamp Dog
@maurinsky: Sicut Cervus is one of my favorites. I’ve sung it for two Unitarian choirs and my brother’s Lutheran choir AND at the National Cathedral in 2005. They have outside choirs come and sing a prelude, and we were there for Colorado Month, IIRC.
As an atheist, I’m more of a reenactor, but that doesn’t stop me from loving it.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: Judging by the clip on Rachel’s show, he may not reveal himself. They showed from behind, in silhouette.
Walker
@aimai:
Enders’s Shadow reads like it was written by a third different person. I could handle the Ender revisionism. But the Bean revisionism undercut his role as foil in the first book.
RSR
So it looks like California is going to let private, for-profit education companies salve the self-inflicted wound the state caused its public higher education system.
What a surprise.
California Bill Seeks Campus Credit for Online Study
NotMax
What with all that tony footwear Benedict leaves behind, maybe they’ll just choose a la Cinderella.
eric
@eric: one last point….understanding the christian motif of a transcendental unifier is also important to understanding the movement in art in the 20th century away from unified visions and toward more abstract art tied to a particular moment as the result of the horrors of WWI and the manifestation of the death of god prefaced by Nietzsche in the Madman years earlier. For those not familiar with the famous aphorism, the Madman speaks not to the believers but to the deniers who fail to understand the true impact of a world without a unifying conception of good and truth. The aphorism is a play on God’s speech to Job regarding God’s responsibility for making the Sun and how this provides for God’s moral authority. So, if you wipe away the Sun…..
maurinsky
I went to church every Sunday as a child, and I didn’t know shit about religious allusions in literature or art. I remember reading The Hotel New Hampshire as a teenager, and the protagonists gay brother majored in religious study because he thought it was important to “know thine enemies”, and that inspired me to learn more about religion.
I’m pretty sure some studies have shown that atheists know more about the bible than the religious do.
Scamp Dog: Sicut Cervus is so gorgeous, I could sing it every day. I get an adrenaline rush from singing Vaughan Williams “Lord, Thou Hast Been My Redeemer”. There is so much wonderful sacred music, I don’t think you have to be a believer to savor and enjoy it. FSM knows I’m not a believer.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: My kid just started high school, but the Christian allegory in the Chronicles of Narnia went whooshing over her head a few years back, and it’s not exactly subtle. Didn’t stop her from enjoying the book though.
shortstop
@eric:
I certainly wouldn’t argue that it does. However, having a complete absence of instruction in Christian history, theology and literature put me at a definite disadvantage in my studies. I was far better versed in Buddhist, Hindu and Dao traditions, which is all fine, except that most of what I was learning in U.S. secondary schools (and my undergraduate and graduate institutions) was tied more closely to the western world.
I had to work harder to fill that hole than did Christian classmates who had an imperfect understanding of the history and evolution of their church, but at least possessed a passing familiarity with its symbols.
catclub
@Baud: “surprise choice”
Sinead O’Connor
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Ha! Someone had to explain that one to me, too. Actually, I think it was my mom…probably in tones of deepest disapproval.
Face
@Gin & Tonic: He’d be a fucking FOOL for revealing himself. The death threats would be epic. He’d have trouble getting jobs. Family harrassment.
He’s pissed off the peeps with really fucking big guns and lots of crazy money. He’d be on every wingtard “Wanted” poster west of the Atlantic Ocean.
maurinsky
I meant Vaughan Williams “Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge”
Getting my songs all mixed up.
Honus
@eric: Yeah, but then again it was Martin Luther who said you gotta love wine, women and song.
catclub
@Scamp Dog: “reenactor”
I think the faithful at holy communion are that, too.
(Or at least think they are.)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Walker: I thought Card did a good job with Ender’s Shadow. Yes, it showed that Ender wasn’t in complete control of his path through the academy. But then again, Ender’s Game showed that Ender wasn’t in control of his path through the academy. The only time he was in control was when he was floating on the lake not wanting to do anything.
David in NY
I’m hoping for Hadrian VII.
David in NY
@Honus: “Sin bravely!”
Cassidy
@Mandalay: Yup and all of Hicks’s material was completely original because comedians never take one another’s material.
Gex
In Colorado, the Church is thinking of stopping their adoption services because of civil unions. Which brings to mind two things:
1) They always say it is just about “marriage” but they fucking lie. That lie has been obvious this whole time, but yet people buy it.
2) It can’t be a bad thing to remove vulnerable children from the care of Father Diddlyhands.
karen marie
@Comrade Jake: Whatever show George Snuffalupagus is on every morning has been running breathless with pope. The 91-year-old I live with has it on every morning, so I hear snatches of their time-filling, inane, stream-of-consciosness as I go to and from the bathroom.
This morning one of the female idiots started to suggest that what’s going on at the conclave right now (!) is “just like the old smoke-filled rooms.” Ahh, yes, the good old days, when old white men gathered in private to decide the fate of the unwashed. I’m sure the viewing public is relieved to learn that tradition is still alive and well.
I can’t believe enough people watch this nonsense to pay the salaries these horrible people get.
Mr Stagger Lee
What I was not picked Vicar of Christ, but Karl Rove said I had it in the bag!!!! Dick Morris said I would overwhelmingly win!!!!
aimai
Years ago I gave a sample Seder for my christian sister-in-law and her bible study group. Interestingly enough the only person who grasped that there is something called “symbolism” in which things stand in for other things–colors, scents, lights, gestures–was the lone Catholic woman. The Christianity of the others had been stripped down to reading and studying the bible as more or less literal. Or rather, the interpretive work focused on very flat footed “fulfill the prophecies” kind of interpretation. The magical, mystical, symbolic, musical, punning, poetic kinds of allusions in a Seder were just totally foreign to them. Although they were very game.
Roger Moore
@maurinsky:
I suspect this is as much cause as effect. Large chunks of the Bible are really disturbing and wildly at odds with modern sensibilities. I can’t help but think that it’s hard to be modern, know and understand the whole Bible, and be a devout Christian. One of those three things has to give, so a lot of the people in the “atheist” camp are ones who gave up on the “devout Christian” part.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if that result varies a lot from country to country. There are probably plenty of unthinking atheists in places where that’s the dominant religious belief, and the minority who are religious take their religion really seriously.
Scott P.
No pope, radio.
catclub
@maurinsky: I remember reading about performances of Bach’s SMP and considerations of whether the conductor had a Christian background, in order to get all the emotional aspects. I think the conclusion would have to be that no one could tell.
It reminds me of blind performances of famous violins.
Listeners can tell the players apart, but not the instruments.
But the players seem to really prefer certain instruments that the listener cannot detect.
NotMax
A little more comes out on surreptitious FBI listening devices at Guantánamo.
As the base station for specific model mentioned includes an output capability for recording, thus far no info released on (a) where the base station was located, (b) by whom and under what authority it was operated/monitored, (c) who other than an operator may have been granted access to the base station facility for possible real-time surveillance, and (d) the existence or non-existence of any recordings and/or records of recording having been authorized.
Roger Moore
@aimai:
Were they fundamentalists, because that sounds like a very fundamentalist attitude. They simply don’t want to think about complexity like symbolism, problems with finding an authoritative text for the Bible, or really anything that would interfere with a black and white view of the world.
Gin & Tonic
@Scott P.: Brilliant!
Roger Moore
Does Popeyes Chicken have to temporarily change their name to Popeno until the Conclave is over?
catclub
@Roger Moore: I bet you have read “The Chosen” and “The Promise” by Chaim Potok.
On the one hand there is a vast amount of commentary in the Talmud, but some interpretations are not allowed to be considered by the ultra-orthodox. Similar but different to Christian fundamentalism.
Trakker
Who really gives a flying fark about who gets to be the new pope? It’s Pope/smoke 24/7 and I’m sick of it. Even my wife who is Catholic (kinda) asked me why all the news sources are spending so much time on this subject.
She even mentioned how silly all those old white men look in their “dresses” and red beanies.
Pococurante
@aimai: Once you’ve read Card’s “Worthington Saga” you realize he’s been writing the same damn two stories for years.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Roger Moore: If it ain’t the King James, it is not the Bible. None of that NIV, NSRV, Darby or whatever. To the Fundy, it is King James or nothing. I know people like that. Speaking OF the King James, there was a great book I wish I new the title, telling the story of how the King James Bible was produced, and the politics behind it.
catclub
@aimai: “The Christianity of the others had been stripped down to reading and studying the bible as more or less literal. Or rather, the interpretive work focused on very flat footed “fulfill the prophecies” kind of interpretation. The magical, mystical, symbolic, musical, punning, poetic kinds of allusions”
This is what is just crazy making for me. Jesus spoke in parables, and allegories. It is my view that when he said ‘The kingdom of God is at hand,’ (never mind that there was probably not a reporter with a good quality tape recorder there, at the time.) he was serious and laughing at the same time.
catclub
As abit a of counterpoint on the evils of the RCC, here is a somewhat long quote.
Just saw it at Prospect.org
>>>
In Los Angeles, where I live, sheltering the homeless inside a church has been done before. In his book, Tattoos on the Heart—which recounts the story of creating Homeboy Industries, one of the most effective gang-intervention programs in the nation—another wise Jesuit, Father Gregory Boyle, tells about his early days as the pastor of Dolores Mission. In 1987, the mission, in the heart of L.A.’s Pico-Aliso barrio, declared itself a sanctuary for the undocumented. “Men from Mexico and Central America would sleep each night in the church,” Father Boyle writes, “and women and children in the convent. … Once the homeless began to sleep in the church, there was always the faintest evidence that they had. Come Sunday morning, we’d foo foo the place as best we could. We would sprinkle I Love My Carpet on the rugs and vacuum like crazy. We’d strategically place potpourri and Air Wick around the church to combat this lingering, pervasive reminder that nearly 50 (and later up to 100) men had spent the night. … Still, try as we might, the smell remained.”
Some parishioners protested. They talked of “churching” elsewhere. But to Father Boyle, ministry is not about maintaining the institution. It is about what he calls “the power of boundless compassion.” One Sunday, during a sermon in his malodorous sanctuary, he confronted the congregation. Father Boyle tells it best:
“Homilies were often dialogic in those days, so I begin with, ‘What’s the church smell like?’
“People are mortified, eye contact ceases …
Advertisement
“‘Come on, now,’ I throw back at them, ‘what’s the church smell like?’
“‘Huele a patas (smells like feet),’ Don Rafael booms out. He was old and never cared what people thought.
“‘Excellent. But why does it smell like feet?’
“‘Cuz many homeless men slept here last night?’ says a woman.
“‘Well, why do we let that happen here?’
“‘Es nuestro compromiso (it’s what we’ve committed to do),’ says another.
“‘Well, why would anyone commit to do that?’
“‘Porque es lo qu haría Jesus (it’s what Jesus would do).’
“‘Well, then … what’s the church smell like now?’
“A man stands and bellows, ‘Huele a nuestro compromiso (it smells like commitment).’
“The place cheers.”
>>>
I seem to have something in my eye.
prufrock
@Mandalay: Mmm…this one is a little small. Back into the water with you! I’m sure you’ll be big enough for Bassmaster in a few more seasons.
maurinsky
When I went to Catholic school and had to take Religion as a class, I remember hearing the word “allegory” a lot when referring to bible stories.
catclub: I sang Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott in SMP. I think you can conjure up the emotion from the music if not the inspiration for the music.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: I felt kinda guilty about it for a moment, but I figure the benefits of avoiding indoctrination into a shame-based, patriarchal organization that peddles superstitious claptrap outweighs the occasional missed motif. If she follows in my footsteps and majors in English (dog forbid!), she can always catch up later, as you did.
maya
Well, actually, they do, DL. They’re round, black, about 6″ high and have 3 stiff dividers which are T shaped. The open half-side of the T is usually worn to the left, or, it could be to the right (depending on which way the priest “dresses”, I guess). They also sport a little tuft of black fuzz in the middle of the intersecting T. Very debonair and don’t forget the capes. Those are a study unto themselves.
canuckistani
George Carlin is greater than Bill Hicks and Denis Leary put together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjVLJKR6g7U
ricky
Just because you put Lapsed before Catholic doesn’t mean the
HMC doesn’t still have a powerful hold on your sense of self definition. Keep smokin em if they gotta you.
catclub
@maurinsky: I am suitably impressed. He really loved the Alto in SMP.
I feel like a genius to have discovered that Bach was not only a master technician (Art of Fugue, Well Tempered Clavier) but even more a master of emotion.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Oh, hell, to be clear, I was never suggesting indoctrination. I just wish I’d had a, how shall I say this, impassive introduction to some of these concepts a little earlier.
I don’t blame my folks, by the way; they both escaped oppressively religious upbringings and were drunk with the freedom of telling organized religion to fuck off. They were doing what they needed to do. It was also a different time, just before the Great Fundie Renaissance of the Reagan years that led to the horrifying polarization of public policy on partly (largely) religious grounds. So there wasn’t the sense of “stand up for your side and be counted” that we’ve come to now, and it was easier to present all this stuff in a disinterested manner.
Schlemizel
The papal crown which is the bee hive looking thing with two tails you see depicted? Yeah, it is designed with three crowns. If you ever get a good look at it there are 3 separate crowns in a wedding cake stack on it.
Biggest hat indeed.
Gex
@catclub: Catholic Charities is almost 70% taxpayer funded. We could pay anyone else to do that work too.
And perhaps we should pay some other organization to do it. Not one with official policies that shield child rapists in order to protect the church’s reputation. And not one that will refuse to do their charitable work if gays get equal rights.
In jurisdiction after jurisdiction, if gays get rights, these lovely charitable Catholics pack up and tell the poor and the needy to go fuck themselves.
Any random individual can be good. That’s what your tale points out. The people he was ministering to didn’t even share his charity. He’s solo on this.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: Your parents sound interesting! I’m sorry if it sounded as if I were accusing you of suggesting that I should indoctrinate my kid — I didn’t mean it that at all. I’m just interested in your experience and was explaining my thought process, in a tongue-in-cheek way. I’ve actually become less reductive about religion than my prior comment would suggest, at least most of the time, and in real life.
Cacti
Also, too Paul Ryan accidentally tells the truth about the GOP’s desire to repeal Obamacare…
“This is something we will not give up on because we’re not going to give up on destroying the healthcare system for the American people.”
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: No worries. It’s an interesting topic with plenty of humor in it.
My parents really are interesting. As I mentioned in a thread the other day, they were UUs and Republicans at the same time when I was a kid. They tried their best to make it all work within a unifying laissez faire philosophy, but as the GOP became more socially conservative and more obviously uninterested in actual fiscal responsibility, my folks had to give up and become staunch Democrats. They say they feel much better now.
ThresherK
“Lapsed Catholic”? The title I claim is “recovering Catholic”, thank you.
Cassidy
@Scott P.: No Coke, Pepsi.
handsmile
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Could that book have been either:
The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011 (2011), Melvyn Bragg
God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (2005), Adam Nicholson
I’m familiar with these only because 2011 was the 400th anniversary of the publication of the KJV. In commemoration, the literary scholar Harold Bloom wrote about its influence on Western literature (The Shadow of a Great Rock), and these two non-specialist works provided a useful historical context for me.
EEH
@maya: Yep, they’re called birettas.
burnspbesq
@max:
Typical of Leary. I’ve never been quite sure whether he is a parody of the ignorant, bigoted outer-boroughs working-class Irish boyo, or the genuine article.
catclub
@Gex: He’s solo on this.
I disagree. If the crowd cheers, and continues doing it, he is not solo.
maurinsky
@Gex:
I think we should pay someone else. I had a run-in with them when I was 18 years old and pregnant and contemplating adoption. I felt incredibly pressured by them after meeting with them once, and when I decided to keep the baby, the woman I spoke to got incredibly nasty with me, telling me I was going to ruin my baby’s life.
(Said baby is almost 24, a teacher/roller derby girl who graduated summa cum laude and is getting married to a neuro-biologist later this year. Decidedly not ruined.)
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Fr. Boyle is also the founder of Homeboy Industries, which helps gang members (both men and women) get the help, education, and training they need to get out of gang life. He’s definitely one of the good guys.
If you live in Southern California, you can do a little slacktivism by buying their chips and salsa at Ralphs supermarkets. They’re really good!
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
Ironically, Fr. Boyle is exactly the kind of priest that Tweety was saying Catholics want back in their churches — the inner-city priest doing important work with the impoverished and downtrodden. But IIRC Boyle is pretty much operating outside of the church with very little (if any) support from the Archdiocese. As you said, he’s pretty much on his own as far as the official church is concerned.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
I read “The Chosen” many years ago, but that’s not where my ideas about this come from. A few years ago, I decided to try reading the Bible cover to cover. Since I didn’t want to slog through the KJV, I wound up reading a more modern translation that had all the footnotes about textual analysis and translation problems. I got interested enough to go back and read Robert Alter’s translation of the Pentateuch, which goes into even more detail; I think it has more discussion and footnote than text.
All of that convinced me that the fundamentalist attitude of trying to read the Bible and interpret it yourself is impossible. It’s a fantastically difficult book to translate, meaning that a huge amount of the meaning that you get out of any translation depends on the translator’s decisions. Even if you teach yourself archaic Hebrew so you can read the original, you run into the problem of finding an authoritative text. If Biblical scholars can’t agree on the exact meaning of critical parts of the thing, the idea that every layperson can and should do it for himself is delusional. When you see how the fundamentalists ignore these issues or dismiss them with ridiculous counter-arguments, it’s hard to come away with any respect for their ideas.
vagabundoloco
In the immortal words of the immortal Black Sabbath:
Would you like to see the pope on the end of a rope?/
Do you think he’s a fool?
Yes, and yes.
Roger Moore
@maurinsky:
Is she a devout Catholic? Because if the answer is no, she’s ruined in the minds of the people who were telling you that. They do not necessarily share your worldview.
maurinsky
If that’s the criteria we’re using, then yes, in their eyes, she is ruined.
Scamp Dog
@Roger Moore: Which translation was it? Every so often I get the notion to read the Bible without the mental constraints I had as a believer, and a good translation with notes, etc., would be the way to go.
Heliopause
So I get up this morning here on the left coast and what do I discover on our information media but Chimney Cam. That’s right, in a world with the internet, 800 TV channels, and every pop-schlock song ever recorded available at a mouse click there apparently is some quantity of people who desire to stare at a chimney.
There is no hope for this species. Please, human race, stop reproducing. Please, asteroid, make a direct hit. Please, Borg, assimilate this race of idiot apes.
Roger Moore
@Scamp Dog:
I read a few books from the NIV and then switched to the New Jerusalem Bible. For the Pentateuch, though, I would strongly recommend Alter’s translation. The notes are extensive and informative, and the translation focuses heavily on preserving the Hebrew as much as possible, including a lot of literal translations of Hebrew idioms. I found it very edifying.
Trollhattan
Justice, Montana-style.
Probation and time-served? That’s it? You are fucking kidding me, give this menace a decade in the slam.
Also, too, please suppress your shock that he’s a gun-fondler.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2020547295_apuswaterboardingchildren.html
Betty Cracker
@Trollhattan: If he’d have confined his torture activities solely to his own children, he’d have gotten away with it. Where he fucked up was waterboarding the neighbor kids.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
Suspended sentence — WTF? It’s not even clear from that article if the guy lost custody of his kids or not. Because, yeah, if I was the mother of those kids, no way in hell he is ever getting unsupervised visits with them again.
I really feel sorry for the girlfriend in the story since he apparently felt it so necessary to “teach” his kids about waterboarding that he broke her fingers and wrist when she tried to stop him.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, that’s the other thing — if you’re the parent of those neighbor kids, do you ever let them go to that guy’s house again?
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
FTFY. He was just giving them the same training that any SEAL would get, so what’s the big deal?
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
It might explain the body armor. He’s not the only dude in Montana with weaponry.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Would love to see the home-schooling study guide for that course.
We are a profoundly messed up society.
muddy
@Mandalay: Always so judgy.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
If he hasn’t, it should only be a matter of time. If guilty pleas to four counts of endangering the welfare of a child aren’t enough to lose custody, something is very wrong indeed.
scav
“Spare the waterboard, spoil the child”, MT translation of Proverbs 13:24
muddy
@ricky:
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to take the Catholic out of the kid. I recently gave a good friend a rosary that I had gotten in Jerusalem 40 years ago. Made of olive pits from the Garden of Gethsemene. She is really religious (altho not Catholic) and she was thrilled by it. To me it was a souvenir, I didn’t think it was any big deal, aside from pleasing her, I am atheist and have been for decades.
Then she hung it on the rearview mirror in her car, and I flipped out momentarily: “It’s not Mardi Gras beads for the Christ’s sake!!!” Then I came to my senses and said I hoped it made her commute feel more safe.
cckids
@maurinsky:
25-ish years ago, when I was in college, my best friend got pregnant. Since she (Episcopalian) and her boyfriend (Catholic) were engaged, they decided to just move the wedding up. Their RC priest told them they couldn’t; they had to have the baby, GIVE IT UP to the RC adoption agency, go through counseling, get married, then go through the regular adoption screening process & MAYBE, if they were deemed worthy, they’d get their own child back. For the $10,000 fee, of course.
They called the local Episcopalian church, got married within the month, had their kid & never looked back. Still married, 2 more kids, still not catholic.
Heliopause
Breaking: World’s Oldest Dictatorship has a new maximum leader.
PurpleGirl
@The Red Pen: How did you find that site? It’s incredible. Didn’t have to read than a few stories but, man, oh man, are there some weird people out there. Maybe the stories are true… still weird though.
Ruckus
@maurinsky:
I’m pretty sure some studies have shown that atheists know more about the bible than the religious do.
Most atheists have actually read the stupid thing so they know, shit is fucked up. In my case mom wanted the kids to attend church so we’d have a good upbringing. First, it didn’t work. Second, the only one of us who seemed to like it, joined a cult so that’s strike two. Strike three was the hypocrisy that I understood even at a young age, so it was as blatant then as now. Actually it always has been, it was just harder to see without mass communication.
Librarian
@maya: And cardinals certainly do wear the big hats, which are called miters.