POETRY CORNER
Seven Long Years Was Jacob Herding
Sheep
Seven long years was Jacob tending sheep
For Laban, lovely Rachel's grim old father.
It was not for that mean old man, but rather
For her, he worked -- the prize he longed to reap.
Days passed in expectation of one day.
That day of days became his sole idea.
But the old father swindled him with Leah
And gave him the wrong girl, with whom he lay.
The disillusioned shepherd, thus denied,
As if he'd never merited his bride,
Began another seven years' indenture.
Seven years more he laboured, staunch and strong,
Saying "A longer contract I would endure --
But life's too short to serve a love so long."
-- Luís de Camões, adapted by Roy
Campbell
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.45 pm, 30 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Most of today's politicians
lack the sense of honour and regard for public life that
distinguished their predecessors. They go into politics
not to serve but to get a job. They need the salary
because they are otherwise unemployable.
-- Simon
Heffer
Kevin
Michael Grace, 7.49 pm, 30 April 2006►
TOLERANCE IS A TWO-WAY STREET
That Algonquin Round Table known as The
Shotgun is enlivened, if that is the
right word, by the presence known as RightGirl,
wittily dubbed "a
force beyond hyperbole" by Chris
Selley. Here is a typical yelp, as
contained within a
25 April post on Holocaust Remembrance Day:
We know it can
happen again, and it scares many of us into submission.
But submission isn't going to help anyone. Turning a blind
eye -- like Europe, America, Britain under Chamberlain,
and the Vatican did in the years leading up to the
extermination of 6 million Jews -- is likely to bring an
end to civilization as we know it.
Now, RightGirl couldn't cover a gum
wrapper with what she knows about Neville Chamberlain, the
Vatican or the Second World War. But that's not the point.
The Western Standard is, as I understand it,
committed to the noble goal of Christian-Jewish tolerance,
and RightGirls's perpetuation of the "Hitler's
Pope" libel not only poisons her own well but -- in
the absence of official rebuke -- the Standard's as
well.
It is always possible, however, that the Western
Standard Brains Trust is ignorant of the facts. If
that is the case, Kevin Libin and the "Skipper"
might find the following of interest.
Libelling A Dead Pope
An Orthodox rabbi assails Jews who accuse Pius XII of
being a Nazi accomplice
Kevin Michael Grace
The Report
8 November 1999
The Vatican revealed last month it had
halted proceedings leading to the beatification of Pope
Pius XII (1939-1958). Media reports
indicated Rome's decision was in response to protests by
Jewish organizations worldwide, which indicated they would
regard beatification (the first step to canonization) as a
provocation and affront. Pius, they claimed, had been,
if not a war criminal, at least an accessory to the
Holocaust. But the Jews once held a very different opinion
of the man now called "Hitler's Pope."
On 9 October 1958, Golda
Meir, then foreign minister of Israel (and
later prime minister), sent this message to the
Vatican:
We share in the
grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness Pius
XII. In a generation afflicted by war and discords, he
upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When
fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi
terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims.
The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out
on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily
conduct. We mourn a great servant of peace.
Similar condolences were sent by the Chief
Rabbi of Israel and the president of the World Jewish
Congress. At a concert of the New York Philharmonic,
conductor Leonard Bernstein called for a minute of silence
"for the passing of a very great man." And, as
Pinchas Lapide recounts in his book Three
Popes and the Jews, open letters in the
Israeli press suggested "that a 'Pope Pius XII
Forest' be planted in the hills of Judea 'in order to
perpetuate fittingly the humane services rendered by the
late pontiff to European Jewry.'"
Meir: Soft on Nazi sympathizers?
But somehow Pius XII has devolved in two
generations from righteous gentile to handmaiden of the
Devil. This re-evaluation is not based on new evidence but
on a new anti-Christian militancy among secular Jews, a
development obviously fraught with grave consequences for
religious comity.
The revisionist view of Pius XII was first
insinuated into the popular consciousness by the German
author Rolf
Hochhuth's 1963 play The
Deputy. It enjoyed great success in
many countries and portrays Pius as a petty and venal man
who displays no concern even as Jews are rounded up in
front of his eyes. The play is supposedly based on a
secret conversation between Hochhuth and an anti-Nazi
German who infiltrated the SS.
Historians denounced The Deputy as
scurrilous. Others, however, were persuaded by its
argument that Pius's refusal as Pope to condemn explicitly
Nazi war crimes was equivalent to acquiescence. Several
books since then have made similar claims, but none with
the force of Hitler's
Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII,
published last month. Its author John Cornwell, a
Cambridge University scholar and a Catholic, claims he has
had access to recently revealed Vatican archives, but this
has been disproved. Prof. Cornwell's allegation that Pius
was anti-Semitic is anecdotal, based on derogatory
comments he made about some Jews that were among the
revolver-wielding Communist revolutionaries that in 1919
invaded the Papal Nunciature in Munich and threatened his
life.
Pius XII was personally responsible for
saving tens of thousands of Italian Jews from the death
camps; this is attested to by those he sheltered and by
Allied diplomats. His animus against Hitler is well known;
he co-authored Mit
Brennender Sorge ("With Deep
Anxiety"), an anti-Nazi encyclical Pius XI ordered
read from all German pulpits in 1937. Hitler's animus
against Pius XII is also a matter of record. As Anthony
Rhodes reports in his scrupulously documented The
Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945,
"Hitler planned at one point to kidnap the Pope and
imprison him" in Germany. He would have been shot if
he tried to escape. Hitler declared in September
1943,
After the war
we'll have no more attempts by the Church interfering in
matters of State... The time is coming when I'll settle my
account with the Pope.
Pius XII: Of blessed memory
The question remains: why did Pope Pius
XII never condemn Nazi crimes explicitly and publicly? The
Pope explained to an Italian priest, "After much
praying and many tears, I realize[d] my condemnation would
not only fail to help the Jews, it might even worsen their
situation." His foreboding was proved correct when
the Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht did speak out in July
1942. The Nazi response was to arrest all baptized
Catholic Jews in Holland and ship them to their deaths.
The most famous victim was the Carmelite philosopher Edith
Stein.
Edith Stein was canonized in 1998, an
action condemned by some Jews as a provocation. Despite
this, the Vatican also apologized last year for its
failures in protecting the Jews, and has not ceased its
attempt to foster better Catholic-Jewish relations. Two
weeks ago, Rome announced that a scholarly team of both
faiths will study Vatican archives of the Second World
War, a move already denounced by some Jews as trivial. And
in 2000, which Pope John Paul II has designated a year of
atonement, the Church will issue a blanket apology for two
millennia of sins.
To which Rabbi
Daniel Lapin replies, "Enough with the
apologies, already." The president of the religious
foundation Toward
Tradition is the author of America's
Real War, which argues that
"Christianity is vital to America's survival"
and that "'anti-Semitism' is more of a political
bludgeon to silence conservatives than a real threat to
Jews today." His response to Jewish anti-Catholicism
is, "Most Jewish organizations are no more
representative of Jews than the National Organization of
Women is representative of women."
Rabbi Lapin declares the "Hitler's
Pope" idea a "heinous slur" and says that
Catholics have only themselves to blame for its
reiteration. "It's about time," he says,
"that Catholics realize that timidity is not the way
to deal with a bully. Catholics must fight back against
these slanders."
Rabbi Lapin: Enough with the apologies, already
Rabbi Lapin worries that an anti-Jewish
backlash is possible. Yet he cautions it is crucial for
Christians to remember that "Orthodox Jews are
horrified by the antics of secular Jews" -- whom he
labels "liberals masquerading as Jews." The
sales of his book, over 50,000 in the first six months of
publication, encourages him in his belief that increasing
numbers have come to realize that Orthodox Jews must stand
together with Christians against those "who are
willing to use any weapons in their war against America's
religious renaissance."
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.27 pm, 28 April 2006►
PENSÉE
The cry of the masses throughout the ages: "Give us
Barabbas!"
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.49 am, 28 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
When Hollywood stars played
themselves on I Love Lucy, they weren't catering to
cynicism about celebrity and autographing it with their
own smirk; they presented genial versions of themselves. I
prefer those antics to the hip jadedness that's become de
rigueur today and winks at the audience as it winks
back. All that winking has degenerated into a spastic tic.
-- James
Wolcott
Kevin Michael Grace,
10.41 am, 28 April 2006►
HAVE WIG, WILL TRAVEL
A reviewing of Fred Zinnemann's masterpiece The
Day Of The Jackal led to an enjoyable
hour following the links at IMDB.
Zinnemann
was an American (by way of Vienna), but his taste in
character actors of the British Isles was impeccable:
Maurice Denham, Barrie Ingham, Derek Jacobi, Timothy West,
the great Cyril
Cusack. (And Rohmer
fans will recognize an uncredited
Féodor
Atkine as one of the failed assassins.)
Best of all is Ronald
Pickup, deliciously louche as a
greedy forger. A versatile and ubiquitous historical
player is our Mr Pickup: Lord Randolph Churchill,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Pitt the Younger, Giuseppe Verdi,
Thomas Cranmer, Igor Stravinsky, Sir Edward Carson
(twice!), Marshal Tukhachevsky, Sir Walter Raleigh, Ernst
Hanfstaengl and Montezuma(!) Is this a record?
Pickup in The Day Of The Jackal: Mr Dressup
Kevin Michael Grace,
3.31 am, 27 April 2006►
A GRAMMAR OF DESCENT
The title of David Zeiger's
documentary about resistance to the Vietnam War from
within the armed forces -- Sir!
No Sir! -- comes without what
schoolchildren used to be taught to call a vocative comma
after "No." Perhaps this is another gesture of
1960s-style rebellion against The Man and the intolerable
oppression of his rules of punctuation.
-- James
Bowman
And 9/11 Disorder* claims
another victim. One can only imagine what prodigies of
sedition Bowman could unearth in this.
*One of the
saddest things about the world after September 11 is that
a great many intelligent journalists appear to have gone
insane. Their transformation was instantaneous. One minute
they were lucid, the next, barking. Garden-variety nutters
prattle on about aliens, the CIA, the Rockefellers, the
Royal Family, the Federal Reserve, the Jews. The
post-September 11 batch prattles on about "the Axis
of Evil," "the War on Terror," "Islamofascism,"
"the American Imperium," "the Lessons of
Munich." The schizophrenic normally threatens only
himself and his family. He may think himself Napoleon, but
the victim of 9/11 Disorder wants to act like Napoleon and
lay waste a whole continent. He dreams of B-52s and
cluster bombs, of Warthogs and tactical nuclear weapons.
The name "Rummy" makes him smile; the name
Powell makes him shriek. The initial W has an
unpredictable effect: sometimes it prompts approbation, on
other occasions, censure. The focus of his obsession
shifts constantly: from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, from Iran to
North Korea, from Pakistan to Iraq again. (KMG, "The
Booby-Hatchery," Eclectica, The Report,
10 June 2002.)
Kevin Michael Grace,
2.21 am, 27 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Men cannot fulfill themselves
save through a diversity of interests and ideas.
Multiplicity is essential to life, and man to be truly
human must be social.
-- Hilaire Belloc, An
Essay On The Restoration Of Property
Kevin Michael Grace,
1.22 am, 27 April 2006►
POETRY CORNER (SPECIAL HI
DEBORAH! EDITION)
From Aurora Leigh, Ninth Book
"That if Heaven itself should
stoop,
Remit the lots, and give me another chance,
I'd say, 'No other!' -- I'd record my blank.
Aurora never should be wife of mine."
-- Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
Kevin Michael Grace,
12.48 am, 27 April 2006►
NOT ALL CHICKS,
APPARENTLY
All I can say is, Jack
White is my hero.
On the stereo, Sparks, Hello
Young Lovers, "Metaphor":
A metaphor is a glorious thing
A diamond ring, the first day of summer
A metaphor is breath of fresh air
A turn on, an aphrodisiac
Chicks dig dig, D-I-G, dig dig
metaphors
(MP3 here)
Nurses: We are not amused
Kevin Michael Grace,
12.18 am, 27 April 2006►
PRO FORMA
CRESTOR® (rosuvastatin
calcium), the exciting new medication which promises to
both lower your "bad" cholesterol and
raise your "good" cholesterol, is, sadly, not
without its contraindications. According to the
"important safety indication" on the CRESTOR®
site:
CRESTOR®
is not right for everyone, including women who are
nursing, pregnant or who may become pregnant.
This codicil will be familiar to anyone who watches
television (or reads the fine print in magazine ads). If
we are to take the fine folks at AstraZeneca and their
equally fine colleagues at Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline,
Novartis, etc, at their word -- and why ever should we
not? -- this means that CRESTOR®
and other such aids to better living through chemistry are
not right for any women (except those who have been
sterilized or had hysterectomies) between menarche and
menopause -- roughly between the ages of 12 and 50.
First the "gender
tax," now this. As the immortal Sandy
Posey sang, "It makes no difference if
you're rich or poor or if you're smart or dumb/A woman's
place in this old world is under some man's thumb."
We can put a man on the moon (a man, take note),
but we can't (or won't) engineer pharmaceuticals of
dubious utility for the plus-sized or otherwise
discomfited woman. Where is the Rosa Parks who will refuse
to sit at the back of Big Pharma's patriarchal bus? Well?
CRESTOR®: Curvilinear
tyranny
Kevin Michael Grace,
11.27 am, 26 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Leonard Shlain, chairman of
laparoscopic surgery at California Pacific Medical Center,
[an] an author whose book Art
& Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
makes you think that if anyone could understand Silent
Hill, he could.
Dr
Shlain made the most interesting comment on
the panel. He said they took some four and five year-olds
and gave them videogames and asked them to figure out how
to play them without instructions. Then they watched their
brain activity with real-time monitors. "At first,
when they were figuring out the games," he said,
"the whole brain lit up. But by the time they knew
how to play the games, the brain went dark, except for one
little point."
-- Roger
Ebert
Videodrome: The television screen
is the retina of the mind's eye
Kevin Michael Grace,
10.27 am, 26 April 2006►
AURORA BOREALIS
The Barna
Research Group's national study showed that
members of nondenominational churches divorce 34% of the
time in contrast to 25% for the general population.
Nondenominational churches would include large numbers of
Bible churches and other conservative evangelicals.
Baptists had the highest rate of the major denominations:
29%. Born-again Christians's rate was 27%. To make matters
even more distressing for believers, atheists/agnostics
had the lowest rate of divorce: 21%...
The study shows that Catholics
have a lower than average rate of divorce, 21%.
Some people speculated that
Catholics don't divorce as much as other Christians
because their church has held the line against divorce,
forbidding it absolutely.
But Dr. [Nancy T.] Ammerman
demurs. "There are huge numbers of Catholics in
recent years who've had marriages annulled," she
said, noting that they would never call themselves
divorced because "they've gone to great trouble to
stay in good standing with the church."
-- Christine
Wicker, Dallas Morning News, 17 June
2000
In many parts of the Bible
Belt, the divorce rate was discovered to be "roughly
50% above the national average." Governor
Frank Keating of Oklahoma pointed out the
irony that these unusually high divorce rates exist in his
state, where 70% of the people go to church once a
week or more. "These divorce rates," Gov Keating
concluded, "are a scalding indictment of what isn’t
being said behind the pulpit."
-- Ronald J Sider, The
Scandal Of The Evangelical Conscience
In 1965 there were 352,000
Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. In 1968
there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000.
-- Kenneth
C Jones (and see here)
The United States has 6% of the
world's Catholics but grants 78% percent of the world's
annulments...
Rather than considering the
detrimental effect on respect for the sacrament of
marriage which is caused by the scandal of almost
automatic annulment and the cynicism produced in some of
the parties to an annulment and in Catholics generally,
those handling the annulments concentrate on sympathy for
their clients or often just for the one initiating the
annulment...
Many judges think that, if a
marriage is not an ideal one, it is not a valid marriage
at all and that therefore an annulment should be granted
to any marriage that has broken up.
68% of annulments today are
granted because of "defective consent," which
involves at least one of the parties not having sufficient
knowledge or maturity to know what was involved in
marriage. The ingenuity of judges in confidently asserting
that such knowledge or maturity was lacking is amazing. [Robert
H] Vasoli says that it is done by
substituting "junk psychology" for sound
psychology and psychiatry. He quotes the statement of one
matrimonial judge: "There is no marriage which, given
a little time for investigation, we cannot declare
invalid."
-- Father Leonard Kennedy, "The
Annulment Crisis In The Church," Catholic
Insight, March 1999
Then the Pharisees came to him
and put him to the test by asking him whether it is right for a man
to put away his wife. He answered them, What command did
Moses give you? And they said, Moses left a man free to
put his wife away, if he gave her a writ of separation.
Jesus answered them, It was to suit your hard hearts that
Moses wrote such a command as that; God from the first
days of creation, made them man and woman.
A man, therefore, will leave his father and mother and
will cling to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Why then, since they are no longer two, but one flesh, what
God has joined, let not man put asunder. And when
they were in the house, his disciples asked him further
about the same question. Whereupon he told them, If a man puts away
his wife and
marries another, he behaves adulterously towards her; and
if a woman puts away her husband and marries another, she
is an adulteress.
-- Mark 10: 2-12
Kevin Michael Grace,
11.58 pm, 21 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Making workers pay for economic
growth is the name of the global economy game.
-- Andrew
Leonard
Kevin Michael Grace,
10.15 pm, 21 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The kissing came next. Norman
had placed himself in the middle of the row of priests,
near the Provincial, so there was no danger of his having
to "take" the kiss of peace to any of the nuns.
Even so, this part of the rite embarrassed him. The
American priest on his right shook his hand and said,
"God be with you, Norman."
"Good afternoon," he
replied.
-- AN Wilson, Kindly
Light
Kevin Michael Grace,
9.27 am, 21 April 2006►
POETRY CORNER
Aurora Raby
Aurora
Raby, a young star who shone
O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass,
A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded …
When
Adeline replied with some disgust,
And with an air, to say the least, imperious,
She marvell'd "what he saw in such a baby
As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?"
-- Lord Byron, from Don
Juan, Canto XV
Kevin Michael Grace,
9.59 pm, 20 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
There are basically two views
about how you can influence public debate. The Thin End of
the Wedge Theory, favored by gentle souls like James
W. Michaels and John
O'Sullivan, respectively my editors at Forbes
and National Review, is that while emphasizing how
much agreement there is between you and everyone else, you
politely but firmly insinuate modifications into the
discussion, all of such an eminently sensible character
that no one can possibly (or, at least, reasonably)
object. Over time, you turn people around.
In contrast, there's the Thick
End Theory. You pick up the wedge by its thin end and
pound the opposition with the thick end, as hard as
possible. Then you stand back and see what happens.
I have to admit that I lean
toward the second approach.
-- Peter
Brimelow
Kevin Michael Grace,
6.10 am, 20 April 2006►
FREUDIAN SLIP
What most Americans and all
would-be terrorists know, but Bill Bennett apparently does
not, is that that federal agencies have long been able to
listen in on domestic telephone conservatives [sic], as
long as they have wiretapping warrants.
-- Daniel
McCarthy
Kevin Michael Grace,
6.01 am, 20 April 2006►
GONE DADDY GONE
One day I shall write my long-promised treatise on How
To Be Cool (Intellectually), but in the meantime I shall
favour you with some exegesis. Here's a selection from "What
I'm Listening To This Week" by Jesse
Walker:
Spike
Jones: Spiked!
More
bobo-friendly packaging: Between the cover art by Art
Spiegelman, the liner notes by Thomas Pynchon, and the
fact the CD was released by a classical label, it's easy
to forget that Jones was a comedian who cut novelty
records. Easy, that is, until you put on the music and
hear the sonic equivalent of a Three Stooges short. But
the arty trappings make sense: Jones was the genius of
the novelty genre, a man whose makeshift instruments
would put Harry Partch to shame.
A masterpiece of the cool genre. Note first that
Walker's selection is obscure, not to say arcane. Then
note how Walker begins with subtle deprecation of the
intended audience of the product he praises. They, the
bobos, might require middlebrow approbation before
tentatively extending their dessert forks, but I, a
connoisseur, disdain such milk chocolate pandering. Now note the
tension Walker creates from the opposition of
"culture" -- Spiegelman, Pynchon, "a
classical label" (neatly offhand, that) -- to
"burlesque." Yes, Jones was "a comedian who
cut novelty records" (deprecation again), but he is also the "sonic equivalent of a Three Stooges
short" (self-referential triumphalism). Spike Jones
is ace because he resembles The Stooges, who are ace
because they resemble Spike Jones. Walker closes with a
brilliant bit of sleight of hand. You thought he was
readying you for a defence of the trash aesthetic, did
you? Oh, foolish bobos. Jones's "arty trappings"
are just and meet because he was a "genius." A
genius who stoops to conquer: his "makeshift
instruments" (authentic primitivism) "would put
Harry Partch" (hobo/boho posturing) "to
shame." (It is not enough to succeed; others must
fail.)
Harry Partch! Bravo! Le nom juste!
(Next up: Captain Beefheart goes Japan in a Dishpan on
Charles Ives's Yalie ass.)
Walker: The new Sage of Baltimore
Walker triumphs because his exposition is assured and
seemingly effortless. The joints are dovetailed. It is not
enough to exploit occult knowledge in the assertion of
bold, not to say outrageous, claims. Look at Dennis
Miller. One can almost smell the fear as his cack hands
lob non sequiturs into the void. From Miller
to Walker is as from crayons to perfume. Miller is the
Grande Soy Latte to Walker's ice cool beer.
Kevin Michael Grace,
3.47 am, 19 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Jack
White: It seems like nobody has any dignity
anymore. In maybe the last 40 or 50 years, something's
really been lost worldwide. They just don't want you to
have dignity. It pisses them off. It's like what I was
saying before: they don't wanna be told that there's
rules. Like, there's no possible way that you could be so
dignified, they have to find out something about you that
makes you undignified. I mean, you tell me, who's got
dignity nowadays who's a celebrity? It's rare, very rare.
Observer: Dignity and
celebrity are two words that don't really belong in the
same sentence.
Jack White Yeah, but
they used to. Frank Sinatra was dignified. We don't have a
Frank Sinatra or a Patti Page nowadays. What do we have?
Ashlee Simpson instead of Patti Page! I mean, look at
those people -- like Paris Hilton! Who are all these
skanks, man? Little girls are looking up to these girls,
and it's so gross. Those girls have no dignity at all, and
parents are letting their kids dress up like those skanks.
But what else have they got? What are the other choices?
-- "What's
Eating Jack?" Observer, 14
November 2004
Sinatra and JFK: The world we have lost
Kevin Michael Grace,
1.04 am, 19 April 2006►
SCARED STRAIGHT
How long before Hunchback
Mountain becomes a "teachable moment" in
every high school in North America? ("In accordance
with their religious convictions, Caleb, Schlomo and
Mohammed are excused to the library for the rest of the
day.")
-- The
Ambler, 17 January 2006
A Grade 3 teacher in BC has
developed a lesson plan ostensibly to teach schoolchildren
“tolerance,” encouraging the message that same-sex
attraction is healthy and normal, as depicted in the
homosexual cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain.
James
Chamberlain, notorious for taking the
Surrey School Board to the province’s Supreme Court so
he could incorporate same-sex story books like One Dad,
Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads into his kindergarten
curriculum ... encourages teachers to first
take their classes to see the film.
“It is teaching youth to be
tolerant and accepting of one another’s differences,”
Chamberlain claims, according to a Vancouver Province
report.
The lesson
plan, posted at the BC Teachers Federation
website ... has as an intended goal, “To encourage
student’s personal choices in making the world more
accepting of LGBT people.”
-- LifeSiteNews.com,
11 April 2006
This might surprise my readers, but I think Chamberlain
has a capital idea. By all means take schoolchildren to
see Ang Lee's Lonesome Cowboys. And afterwards, a
physician can explain to them, using all appropriate
visual aids, the likely condition of Jack Twist's anus and
rectum after his wigwam defloration. Let's see how
"tolerant and accepting" the kiddies are after that
revelation. Forewarned is
forearmed.
Kevin Michael Grace,
1.04 am, 19 April 2006►
PENSÉE
I grow weary of reviewers who aver that certain books
or films are "not for everybody." This is either
a genuflection before vulgarity or the elevation of false
modesty. It is contemptible in either case.
Kevin Michael Grace,
12.24 am, 19 April 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
When I say no I'm always right,
and when I say yes I'm almost always wrong.
-- Dwight
Macdonald
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.44 pm, 18 April 2006►
POETRY CORNER
The Resurrection, from the Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grünewald
Faith Of Our Fathers
Faith of our fathers, living still
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword,
Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy,
Whene'er we hear that glorious Word!
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to Thee till death.
Our fathers chained in prisons dark
Were still in heart and conscience free;
Oh, how sweet would be their children's fate,
If they, like them, could die for Thee!
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to Thee till death.
Faith of our fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win England back unto Thee,
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall indeed be free.
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to Thee till death.
Faith of our fathers! We will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife,
And preach Thee, too, as Love knows how,
By kindly word and virtuous life.
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to Thee till death.
Faith of our fathers! Days of old
Within our hearts speak gallantly.
Long ages hast Thou stood by us,
Dear Faith, and now we'll stand by Thee.
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to Thee till death.
-- Father Frederick Faber
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.55 am, 16 April 2006►
