Making sure The Gate of India still stands. We have left Asia and the sub-continent and will be Middle East bound, soon. Thank God, as Arabia is far cooler.
Monday, January 27, 2020
Still Around, Everyone
Making sure The Gate of India still stands. We have left Asia and the sub-continent and will be Middle East bound, soon. Thank God, as Arabia is far cooler.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Part 3 of 3
We decided about four years ago to travel around the world. As we did not have the wherewithal nor time to do so in one trip, we broke it into three portions.
The rules were that we would minimize plane travel, as it diminishes the sense of planetary size and removes the sensation of actually going through various geographic changes, and that it would include places we had never been.
Stage One was from Seattle to Sydney, via Oahu, Maui, Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.
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| Bondi Beach, Sydney |
Stage Two was from Tampa to Morocco, with stops in Key West, the Canary Islands, Malaga, Grenada, and Barcelona.
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| The Medina in Marrakech |
Both trips were great.
We are currently beginning Stage Three. We'll tell you more about it upon our return. Here's hoping it'll be a corker. We'll be back in about four weeks.
An aside:
For those younger than I, the photo above is of a television test pattern. When the broadcast day was done, back when we had only three channels from which to choose [ABC, CBS, and NBC], the station would shut down from about 1 or 2 am until 5 or 6am. Our local stations would begin their day with the farm report and end with some clergyman reading a prayer followed by scenes of soaring eagles, jet fighters at full cry, and the American flag being lowered while the National Anthem played in the background.
So, if you turned on the set at 3am, one would not find infomercials or bad movies, but the chief up there accompanied by some silence and a little static. Since The Coracle is signing off for awhile, this seemed an apt illustration. We'll see you all again, barring something untoward, by early February.
Friday, January 10, 2020
She Really is a Socialist
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raked in oodles of campaign cash, but the Democratic socialist darling has been a real penny-pincher when it comes to spreading the wealth to the House’s Democratic campaign committee — and that’s vexing her fellow Dems.
The far-left Bronx-Queens congressional freshman has not given a dime to the Democratic Congressional Committee, controlled by House leadership, her campaign spokesman Corbin Trent confirmed Friday.In my experience, socialists are generous with other people's money, not their own.
Who Got Woke, Who Goes Broke
ITV’s Dancing on Ice debut beats Doctor Who episode 2 in ratings battle
Personally, I prefer the old Doctor Who episodes that I watched in the 1970's while in school in the U.K., and the episodes shown on PBS stations in this country in the 1980's. Sure, their budget per episode was about a buck, three-eighty, and one could perceive the duct tape on the aliens and monsters, but that just lent them more charm. Certainly, they never tried to make me conform to the BBC's notion of virtue. They were simply escapist entertainment.
For more about the woman who gave us Who as we know it, please follow this link.
Personally, I prefer the old Doctor Who episodes that I watched in the 1970's while in school in the U.K., and the episodes shown on PBS stations in this country in the 1980's. Sure, their budget per episode was about a buck, three-eighty, and one could perceive the duct tape on the aliens and monsters, but that just lent them more charm. Certainly, they never tried to make me conform to the BBC's notion of virtue. They were simply escapist entertainment.
For more about the woman who gave us Who as we know it, please follow this link.
Thursday, January 9, 2020
This is Sublimely Accurate
"Bambi-Nazis", along with "Joylessly Accusatory", are the best new terms of this equally new decade.
What happened? How did a status-marker of the left-liberal counterculture come to be abandoned? There were two reasons. The first was the rise of middle-class feminism, which has always been innately hostile to anything unseemly or raucous or improper. All those prim whitebread Little Miss Muffets reading Ms. Magazine loathed salty language, which they associated with machismo, sexuality, and roistering. There has always been a prissy neo-Victorian strain in American feminists. That’s why they are the most boring people on the planet. Here in New York we call these rigid, moralistic vanilla feminists “Bambi-Nazis,” which is a perfectly apt phrase for the mix of Walt Disney and Heinrich Himmler that characterizes their thinking. Bambi-Nazi feminists were instrumental in returning the parameters of public discourse back to where they had been in 1920.
The other reason was the rise to respectability of many of the counterculture’s representatives. Protesters at Berkeley and Columbia grew up and became lawyers, investment brokers, publishers, politicians, journalists, and—most prominently of all—academics. Radical types like Tom Hayden and Todd Gitlin and John Kerry metamorphosed into well-heeled members of the left-liberal establishment, and establishments by their very nature are pompous, priggish institutions. They breathe an air of corporate self-importance. Salty language does not comport with prestige, prominence, and fat bank balances.In my experience, the worst of the Bambi-Nazis are Prot clergy.
‘joylessly accusatory’
She neglects to mention the corrosive use of meaningless language that forms the insubstance of Protestant thinking these days. Needless to say, read the whole thing. It's far out!
Propelled by digital technology that spreads rhetorical fads like herpes, this decade’s lengthy left-wing lexicon has impressively penetrated both mainstream media and everyday speech, while carrying ideological baggage so overstuffed that it wouldn’t fit in an airplane’s overhead compartment. The idiom is persistently negative. Many of the cringe-inducers I grew up with in the 1960s conveyed enthusiasm: “Way to be!,” “Outta sight!,” “Far out!,” and “Dig that!” Subsequent generations have also latched onto effusive expressions, such as “Awesome!” and “That’s sick!” But the glossary particular to today’s left is joylessly accusatory: “fat shaming,” “victim blaming,” or “rape culture” (which indicts not only men but pretty much everything). As we said in 1970, what a drag.
Front and center in overused progressive vocabulary is, of course, “privilege.” From Lyndon Johnson onward, we’ve expressed concern for the “underprivileged.” Shining a spotlight instead on the “privileged” fosters resentment in people who feel shafted and an impotent guilt in people at whom the label is hurled. The word functions something like a rotten tomato without the mess. I myself have been decried in the Independent as “dripping with privilege,” while the writer Ariel Levy was portrayed in The New Republic as “swaddled in privilege.” This is a shape-shifting substance in which one can bathe or nestle.
Whereas a privilege can be acquired through merit—e.g., students with good grades got to go bowling with our teacher in sixth grade—privilege, sans the article, is implicitly unearned and undeserved. The designation neatly dispossesses those so stigmatized of any credit for their achievements while discounting as immaterial those hurdles an individual with a perceived leg up might still have had to overcome (an alcoholic parent, a stutter, even poverty). For privilege is a static state into which you are born, stained by original sin. Just as you can’t earn yourself into privilege, you can’t earn yourself out of it, either.
Just One More Observation
If I seem to be pranging on about this a bit too much, it's because I'm British by way of my mother and received much of my teenage education in British schools. While I have an American/Scottish disdain for English royalty, I have always respected a sense of self-less duty, such as that embodied by Her Majesty. She is living history and I appreciate her for it. Also, the Duke of Edinburgh tells hilarious jokes.
I rather liked Harry, as he was a proper soldier who also, once upon a time, performed his duties with charm and ease. It appears that he has gotten involved with the unfortunate product of our superficial era, however.
This observation captures the cultural shift rather nicely:
I rather liked Harry, as he was a proper soldier who also, once upon a time, performed his duties with charm and ease. It appears that he has gotten involved with the unfortunate product of our superficial era, however.
This observation captures the cultural shift rather nicely:
Duty is anathema to a new generation whose chief goal is often self-realisation. Any notion of collapsing the self into something bigger than oneself, something more historic or something collective, is alien to many in the selfie-taking, values-performing generation. Indeed, the most striking thing about Harry and Meghan’s bombshell is the way they talk about the royal family as if it is little more than a stepping stone to their self-realisation.Indirectly, this also explains why religion is such a hard concept for the transient intellects of our times.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
An Royal Announcement
I hereby acknowledge that I am surrendering my current state as a tiresome parish hack who is working towards financial Independence in order to become a member of the aristocracy who is also working towards financial Independence.
From now on I am to be addressed as Sir Jock Poupon McPlop, Lord of the Privy.
That's for Sure
Most boring episode of The Crown ever. https://t.co/pz1bgLhrup— James Morrow (@pwafork) January 8, 2020
Instead of the Duke and Duchess of Woke, from now on they'll just be Mr. and Mrs. Woke as they "work towards financial independence". Given he will continue to receive a multi-million dollar allowance from gran and dad, that probably won't be high on his list of accomplishments.
His nickname in the UK, btw, is “thick boy”. That’s not in reference to his ankles.
An update:
What they mean is ‘We want to use our status to lecture you ignorant plebs on institutional racism, environmental paranoia and other pet causes of the righteous rich — and because we think we can use our status as a soapbox, we’re going to retain as much of it as we can, titles and freebies and security details and exotic foreign holidays on Elton John’s private jet.’ And what that means is this: Harry and Meghan are going to intensify their exposure to the world’s media, but this time without the deference and protection accorded to full-time royals. And how did that turn out for Harry’s mother?
Well, He has a Point
“The guy who threatened another Holocaust of our people, and who had the means to try to carry it out, is gone. I hope that’s ok with you kids.” pic.twitter.com/0Wg2W2DLiU— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) January 7, 2020
Monday, January 6, 2020
Post-Christian Reality
“A phrase pops into his head from out of nowhere. ‘Everybody… all of them… it’s back to blood! Religion is dying… but everybody still has to believe in something. It would be intolerable — you couldn’t stand it — to finally have to say to yourself, ‘Why keep pretending? I’m nothing but a random atom inside a supercollider known as the universe.’ But believing in by definition means blindly, irrationally, doesn’t it. So, my people, that leaves only our blood, the bloodlines that course through our very bodies, to unite us. ‘La Raza!’ as the Puerto Ricans cry out. ‘The Race!’ cries the whole world. All people, all people everywhere, have but one last thing on their minds — Back to blood!” All people, everywhere, you have no choice but — Back to blood!” - Tom Wolfe
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Thursday's Place: Skinny Legs
Once upon a time I worked on a pleasant island filled with mostly pleasant people. I would boat over from a larger island, where my temporary residence was located, under the care of a local character who was the father, uncle, and cousin to a surprising number of people in both ports. I would be paid, in cash, $45 a week along with "something special".
That "something special" was a live chicken, which would sit in the bow with me on the way back to the larger island. I was supposed to use it for food during the week, but I was not wanting for meals [keeping the clergy overfed was an island tradition], had bad memories of caring for my grandparents' feral, malevolent chickens, and was more than willing to donate my weekly chicken to a local family in need.
As my work on that island was on Sundays and Wednesdays, I spent a concentrated amount of time making visits to the various parishioners. Since half the island, at least, considered themselves members of the church, with only a fraction of those actually attending weekly services, these visits were a challenge to the diocesan-owned Suzuki Samurai that was entrusted to me. This was especially so since it was also an island tradition not to fix potholes. Instead, an enterprising fellow from the department of works would come by every once in awhile to paint a bright, orange circle around the hole. Given that Samurais had a suspension rather like those of my ancient Matchbox cars, I would take my time.
As there was a large, transient tourist and winter population that was not served by any clergy, I began to experiment with ways of engaging with them. There was only one hotel on the island in those days, most of the transients lived in time-share condos or onboard their boats, and they were spread over a considerable area. Yet, as in any place filled, however temporarily, with expatriates, there are always hang-outs; the smaller the geographic area, the fewer the hang-outs.
On an island this size, there was only one.
It was a bar and restaurant on the opposite side of the island from the main harbor. While the island is hardly as noisy as its neighbors, Skinny Legs was in the quiet portion. It was named after its two founders and their notorious, low-muscle appendages; mainland guys who, like so many I have met working in churches and boats in that part of the world, gave up their jobs in some metro area, moved temporarily to paradise, and never left. In keeping with this sense of quiet, they did not fry their food and did not own a blender.
That's probably wise, as Skinny Legs had a definite cache, looking as it did like one of those places castaways build in Hollywood movies. As there were no true walls and little in the way of a roof, the grinding of a blender would have harshed too much mellow. [There was a TV set, however, secured over the bar with a weathered 2x4 bolted over it, but it was only for major sporting events.]
It was here that the time-sharers, the boating community, the smugglers, the wannabe pirates, and the trust fund burn-outs would gather in the evenings to eat and drink, trade in gossip and raw information, and generally embrace the slow style of living that, at least in those days, marked island life. I soon learned that, if I were to have any sort of outreach program, it would require me to belong to that confederacy. Honestly, that's the only reason.
Then I had the first layer of revelation about the movement of Christianity in the midst of community. I have spent most of my adult life working in the Episcopal Church as a school chaplain, administrator, seminary lecturer, and particularly as a parish priest. In other words, in very formal roles. However, as I have also edited a literary journal, built and shaped guitars, attempted to crack the New Wave Music scene in New York, and surfed beaches around the world, I have been embedded with alternate communities of indolent poets, self-destructive musicians, and the hodadies, groms, and shredders that are universal in wave-riding.
While the church folk with whom I have worked have generally been spiritually articulate, if modest, in their pilgrimage, the greater, more random, communities rarely have the language, background, education, or familiarity with the milieu of communal worship that permits them anything close to a common language. They also tend to be burdened by a simple, child-like understanding of God and covenant, gain much of their spiritual learning from idiotic movies and TV shows, and are burdened with a nebulous guilt about their own choices and behavior. Since that sense of guilt has no relief valve, it is suppressed.
As a firefighter once said to me, when I was serving as a company chaplain, "The fellas appreciate you being here, since they all know they're going to Hell, anyway."
I was never sure of the context of that observation. Most of the members of the firehouse were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. They lived in well-tended homes, mowed their lawns regularly, paid their taxes, watched football games on Sundays, and served as scoutmasters, karate instructors, and community volunteers. They handed out turkeys to the needy at Thanksgiving and toys to children in want at Christmas. They risked their lives for others. They lived side-by-side with my parishioners and did not seem any different.
It was just, because of experience, upbringing, or absence of opportunity, since they did not belong to any community of faith, they automatically assumed that there was no eternal role for them and no God with whom to speak. Hence, they were to be consigned to Hell. It seemed a form of self-excommunication.
It was the same on the island. An entire body of people meeting at those tables who had surrendered to the notion that God was beyond them and that, as redemption was impossible, every temporal portion of their life was to be lived in a toxic nihilism. It was remarkable.
So, into this community I made my way as a fellow expatriate, and in between tales of boat life and marine engineering, of fishing tactics and the ones that got away, managed to engage in spiritual conversation with those who saw themselves as outsiders to the faith. While the conviviality and companionship were welcome, as was the food [although I ordered no chicken dishes], it became obvious why Jesus' initial ministry was to those who were not or could not be members of the Temple.
Many years have unraveled since, and Skinny Legs is still there, having weathered changes in economy, the increasing population and construction on the island, and at least one devastating hurricane. There are still no blenders. There is also, among those who find themselves, as in other places at the end of civilization, a community of people searching for meaning and defying emptiness in the best ways they can. An entire community waiting to hear that they, too, matter in the covenant.
LOL
Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its "Gone By 2020" Signs
Until the climate hysterics finally exhaust themselves, we won't be able to have a serious conversation about environmental issues.
Until the climate hysterics finally exhaust themselves, we won't be able to have a serious conversation about environmental issues.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Give Thanks for the U.S. Constitution
In a horrific assault on religious freedoms and fundamental human rights, the NATO member and EU-aspirant Montenegrin government yesterday passed a law to sieze and nationalise all property belonging to the canonical Orthodox Church— Tim Andrews (@Tim_Andrews) January 2, 2020
We're Not the Only One with Pungent Observations
So apparently the USA CAN send troops when an embassy is in jeopardy. That might have been useful knowledge a few years back.— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) December 31, 2019