Three and a half time-outs, vol 4

Mid July: the random pining for places of my youth eye-candy edition

I. I was here twice, more than a score of years ago:

(http://www.discoverfrance.net)

II. I was here once, about the same time:

(http://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/)

III.  Before that I lived here (you can't actually see my house in this photo):

(http://www.legendtours.ca/)

III-a-half: Where does the time go???

Three-and-a-half Timeouts, Vol III

Random Ecclesial Gossip Edition

I. With a maniple wave to Fr. Z, Vatican Insider reports that a Greek manuscript of the 11th century has been discovered in a library in Bavaria, with 29 previously unknown homilies of the great exegete Origen of Alexandria. I agree, this is just cooler than just too cool.

(Image from Catholic blog payingattentiontothesky.com.)


II.God is dead: Fr. Pontifex and Spirit Juice Studios respond. (Why can't I get the embed to embed?)

III. When theologians attack!! (Why don't I want to have anything to embed?)

III et dimidius.  Click and Clack are retiring?  (I thought they'd be there forever...)

3 1/2 Time Outs (Vol 2)

My second volume of this meme is the Daddy Wars edition.  Prescinding from pointless pugilism, one can propose a plethora of paradigms, plenty of which palliate our pounding parental lobes.

I. Five responses:
     1. Stomp hard on the toes, then run.
     2. I like a .410 for the under 10.
     3. What's a video game?
     4. No comment.
     5. When you're right, you're right - Fr. Eric's duct tape is classic and stylish.

II. Five questions (and to make it easy, these are T / F):
     1. Flip flops are lame.  Unless they're color coordinated with the hat.
     2. If some is good, more is better.
     3. The first rule of non-cooperation is hit it with a hammer.  The second rule is see rule one.
     4. The maximum number of rooms in a house that may be painted any shade of pastel is two.
     5. Symmetry is unnecessary.

III. Opening the second front:
     Baseball has a certain aesthetic charm, and as a communal event, outside in the summer, it's almost unmatched (carillon concerts, although rare, are a higher caliber of charm).  However, as a sport, it's effete.  Manliness in sports resides on the ice.  If you can limp, you can play.  Also, God is a goalie.

III-point-v: On Maneuvers:
     Football in the snow is a close second. 

3 1/2 Time Outs (Vol... ummm... 1)

It's not Tuesday, but it's not Sunday either, so I'm gonna jump into the raging 3 1/2 Time Outs meme started by LarryD. He also started Fantasy Bishball, and I hope that makes a comeback this summer.

This is the Memorial Day version.

1. Here's an F4F, circa 1942. This was called "Wildcat."

It was armed with .50-cal machine guns and could also carry rockets and bombs.

2. Here's an F4F, circa 1972. This was called "Phantom."

It was armed with a variety of missiles and bombs.

3. Here's an F4F, circa 2012. This is called "Constitutional Defender."

3 1/2. The F4F "Constitutional Defender" is armed with these:

...and these:

...which makes this most recent F4F infinitely more powerful than either of the first two.

(All images are used non-commercially, and believed to be in the public domain, or otherwise permitted.)

Stephen L. Talbott on Evolution

A very cool series of articles in the New Altantis, about evolution, the illusion of randomness, and purpose (telos) in organisms.

Critically important PSA from William Shattner

Is this a resurgence of the evil Captain Kirk? He did always love to play with fire...



Maniple wave to The American Catholic.

Armistice Day (the feast of St. Martin of Tours)

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

(Lt. Col. John McCrae, 1915)

I insist on calling it Armistice Day, for the historical grounding it provides. "Veterans Day," while expressing a truth I support, mythologizes too much about the realities of Nov 11, 1918, and what came before. The truth contained in the name "Veteran's Day" is opposed to only one of the two ways we can "break faith with us who die;" namely, that we not forget our purpose, and our end. In fact, given the very grave moral evils which, lately, our society has supinely accepted as normal, this risk is very real.

But the other risk is that we forget for whom we fought and fight: not for ourselves, not for our own glory or power, and even, in the end, not only for self-preservation. The name "Veterans Day" doesn't give enough leverage to recognize this risk. But Nov. 11 was chosen for the Armistice because it is the feast of St. Martin, one of the great patron saints of France. Like St. Martin, we fight for Christ, "that the light not be utterly extinguished by the dark." We fight for the poorest and the least, who have no one to fight for them. We fight, only in order to be some part of the means by which Almighty God is "propitius, ut intercessione beati Martini Confessoris tui atque Pontificis, contra omnia adversa muniamur, per Dominum Nostrum," as today's Collect prays.

At least, that has to be our ideal in this imperfect world. To abandon that ideal is to break the covenant between us, who have received the torch, and those whose previous sacrifice kept it aflame.