Coincidentally, I Used to Play Bass for Furious Kangaroo

Golfers scream in terror as they are chased from course by furious kangaroo

Politician Takes a Swipe at Philosophy Majors [Like Yours Truly] with Bad Info

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary of a mid-career American welder is $37,000 a year. The median starting of a philosophy graduate, meanwhile, is $39,000 a year, according to Payscale. The mid-career median salary of a philosophy graduate, meanwhile, tops $80,000 annually. That’s right: Contrary to Rubio’s assertion, philosophy majors make twice as much as welders. That philosophy majors are poor must come as a shock to philosophy grads Peter Thiel, Carl Icahn, and . . . Carly Fiorina. (I’m hoping Fiorina took the opportunity to educate her opponent on the subject backstage after the debate.) 

You see, Marco, I do have a philosophy degree, but I can also weld, shape wood, and re-build a carburetor.  As I had to explain to my high school counselor all those decades ago, just because I wanted to go to college didn't mean that I wished to be ignorant of how machines work.

When did philosophy majors become the enemies of our culture?

Who Killed the Liberal Arts?

If You Wonder Why The Coracle Isn't Open to Comments, Here You Go

The Internet was supposed to facilitate better exchange between the public and news media. But vile and hateful comments changed all that.

My '69 Torino Had a Fake Hood Scoop and I Didn't Mind at All

The Most Egregious Fake Flourishes on Cars Today

Some Can Do Both, It's Not That Hard

When Some Turn to Church, Others Go to CrossFit

Although, given the rhetoric of current mainstream Protestantism, there may be more devotion and self-sacrifice expected at CrossFit.

Tell Me About It

Surprising number of people stealing baby Jesus from nativity scene

Anyone With an Apiary Could Have Told You This Was Nonsense

Of course, it excited people like actors, pop stars, clergy, and politicians, who told us the end of the world was nigh.  Again.  You know, the people whose only association with bees is putting honey in their herbal tea.

Washington Post: Call off the bee-pocalypse: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

You will never go broke predicting the end of the world.  Just ask the leaders currently in Paris.

The Complexity of the Holy Land and Its Politics

In the photo below one may see four members of the Israeli Defense Forces.  From left to right, they are a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, and a Druze.

Their Experience Doesn't Fit the Current Political Narrative

While DC debates religion, refugees, Iraqi Christians feel Uncle Sam's boot

This is Discipleship

Hey, We're Back

Thanks for being patient during the hiatus.  While I was gone I had some knee damage addressed, managed to come down with...well, something that was tricky to diagnose.  Suffice it to say, I currently stand as a challenge to medical research.

However, even during the height of my affliction, I managed to write around 25,000 words of the slim volume that I have been commissioned to write.  It hasn't been easy, as I'm attempting to construct the book that is more like the experience of surfing the Internet than it is linear reading from page 1 to page whatever.  It's a collection of homiletical observations based on a life spent among the demi-monde of surfers, musicians, archaeologists, and mad holy men and women.  It's fun to relive those rich and varied days; I just hope it's as much fun for the reader.  One thing that I retain from this experience: There is nothing lonelier than writing.

While The Coracle has been reactivated, I still have another 25,000 words to produce, so the daily output will not be of the same volume as it was, at least until the opus is finished, and there may be some re-runs here and there.  Still, for those used to reading this on a daily basis, I hope you are able to return to the habit.

Has anyone seen Jeanne and Jayne?

The Coracle Will Return on December First

We Interrupt This Hiatus for My Favorite Thanksgiving Recipe

Since people ask me what we do for Thanksgiving [I know you're just being polite, but be careful what you ask for], there is a particular dish that I like to prepare to either delight or horrify those with whom we share the holiday. [If you're looking for a turkey recipe, you've come to the wrong place. We never eat turkey at Thanksgiving. What are we, Congregationalists?] The recipe and preparation instructions follow:

Surf City Curbside Fish Tacos
Ingredients:

1 lb of fresh swordfish steak
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
1 doz corn tortillas
Vegetable oil or butter (optional, depending on how you heat your tortillas)
Lime Mango sauce [see instructions]
1 ripe Avocado
Cabbage or iceberg lettuce
Cider vinegar
Salt

Prepare the sauce. This can be done either the simple or the complex way. The simple way is as follows:

1. Go to Stop and Shop
2. Buy some lime mango sauce in aisle 6

You may use it as a marinade for the fish and then, with the addition of some sour cream, use the remainder as the sauce for the finished dish. Naturally, don't use the sauce in which the fish has been marinating for the presentation sauce. At least, that's what Jenni always tells me. What she doesn't know won't hurt her.

The more complex way is to do the following:

Place two ripe, peeled and pitted mangoes and some lime juice [two limes or equivalent] into a food processor and blend until pureed. If the sauce is too thick, add a tablespoon or two of cold water. Stir in one diced jalapeno with seeds and skin removed [unless you like four-alarm sauce, like I do, in which case toss the seeds and skin into the whole shebang] and there you go. Save it until taco construction.

Prepare the cabbage and avocado. Thinly slice the cabbage and put it in a small serving bowl, sprinkle it with cider vinegar (about a tablespoon) and salt (about a teaspoon). Mix in the vinegar and salt. Peel the avocado and remove seed. Chop and reserve for later.

Heat the tortillas. There are two ways of doing this.
1. Simply heat them in the microwave for 20-25 seconds on high heat, on top of a napkin or paper towel to absorb the moisture that is released.
2. Or heat a cast iron skillet to medium heat. Add a teaspoon of oil to the pan or spread a half a teaspoon of butter on one side of one tortilla. Place tortilla in the pan (butter side down if you are using butter). As the tortilla sizzles, flip the tortilla with a spatula so that the other side gets some of the oil or butter from the pan. Continue to flip every 10-30 seconds until the tortillas begins to develop air pockets, after about a minute. You can always skip the butter or oil.

Remove the tortilla from the pan and place it folded on a plate. If the pan is large enough you can prepare two or more tortillas at once. Continue until all the tortillas (estimate 3 per person) are cooked. Set aside.

Cook the fish. Soak the fish fillets in cold water for at least one minute. Pat dry with a paper towel. Heat a large stick-free skillet to medium high heat. Add a couple of teaspoons of olive oil to the skillet. Place fish on skillet. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillets. A thin fillet may take only one minute on each side to cook. A thicker fillet may take a couple of minutes. Fish should be still barely translucent when cooked. Break off a piece and test if you are not sure, or give it to your cat and see what he does with it. Do not overcook the fish. When done, remove the fish from the pan to a separate plate. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Place the plate of tortillas, fish, the sauce, cabbage, and avocados on the table and let everyone assemble their own. You go to a separate room where it's quiet and watch a football game and drink a fine Michelada. Preferably, Ohio State, since Princeton's season is over.  Or maybe watch Endless Summer again.

We Interrupt Our Hiatus in Honor of Today's Birthday [USMC, November 10, 1775]

And, a link to a reminiscence from last year.

"Holy" Grail

Why The Coracle?

It skipped my notice earlier this year, but my official "blogging" actually began ten years ago. While I had participated as a contributor to weblogs before that, I realized how fluid a medium for communication this could be in a parish, especially an active one with a broad congregation, so, on Easter Wednesday of 2005, while serving at St. Paul's Church in the Huntington section of Shelton, Conn., what would become The Coracle enjoyed its first post.

The people of St. Paul's were particularly good about reading the weblog and submitting information to it about parish activities.  It was so successful that the ancient parish complaint of "We need better communication" [which was usually voiced by those who never bothered to read a parish newsletter] was obliterated.  Recognizing the possibilities, I told a bishop of the weblog's existence.  His response was, "Be careful.  E-mail is tricky"  Historically, innovation isn't always well received in organizations.  That remained true with the people at my next parish, as they didn't really have any interest in such a thing as a weblog and, as the warden said to me, "We don't like to do e-mail."

[Seriously, what was it about the mid-00's that Episcopal Church leadership thought that every form of social media was "e-mail"?]

So, as the original mission could no longer be fulfilled as long as only a dozen parishioners bothered to read it, and as parish weblogs were now becoming more and more common, I thought I'd try something radical.  Well, radical for the Church.

Just about every parish weblog at the time presented parish information and links to official statements made by the local diocese and the national church offices.  They tended to the prosaic.  So, I thought it would be lively to present counter-arguments or perspectives not usually reflected in parochial weblogs, especially as most Episcopal Church thinking in those days [and these] was/is simply a re-statement of whatever was/is read in the New York Times or heard on National Public Radio.

It turns out that a lot of people who were blogging and engaged in Internet commentary had the same idea and online discussions, debates, and arguments became the contemporary equivalent of the Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park or the Oxford Student Union; a place of free thinking and freely exchanged opinion.  It was refreshing, especially since both churches and universities were becoming more and more monolithic in their ideology and more and more intolerant of any deviation from a preferred narrative.  Suddenly, my readership, which was around 6-20 people a week, reached over 300+ a day, and increasingly from international sources.

My current parish, while certainly much more attentive than the last, still doesn't use The Coracle for its original intention, although to be fair much of that information is nowadays presented through the parish's Facebook page.  As The Coracle has been in its current form since 2008, it has developed as an eccentric forum for religious and Christian news not often found in the mainstream, for archaeological developments, circumstances of a gently humorous nature, of inspirational people in danger of being lost to history, of uncommon sources of music, and of occasional commentary, especially when such commentary may be contrary.

Oh, and surfing.

Except for a few days or a week from time to time when I'm either traveling or on vacation, I have published 14,000 individual postings in 3800 days that have enjoyed over 180,000 views.  It has become the habit of my mornings, for indolent moments, or when afflicted with a bout of insomnia.  However, as I have to complete a project that will require every spare moment not serving in one of my paid positions, I'll need to clear some time.

To fulfill that need, The Coracle will be on hiatus from today until Tuesday, December 1st.

All I would ask is that those who read The Coracle by habit [I see you, Jeanne and Jayne] remember to come back on that day.  Believe me, there will be lots to read.  If you wish, a reader may sign up for notification whenever something new is posted by following the link at the bottom of the page that is marked "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)"

Also, near-weekly videos and other information will appear on the parish's Facebook page.

For those who wonder why this is entitled The Coracle, here's an explanation from February, 2010:

The reason it's employed as the title of this weblog is because of an ancient Celtic story about three men who set out on the Irish Sea in a coracle to see where it would take them, confident that God would guide their apparently random and rudderless journey. This story is one that is often offered to illuminate the experience of peregrinatio, the Celtic Christian version of a spiritual walkabout. Since I don't know really know what any day's topic will be, and as this weblog seems to wander some, it seemed like a good title.

"Why Doesn't the Jewish Tradition Hold Noah in Higher Esteem?"

Abraham and Moses are considered wholly righteous men, but Noah isn’t quite. That’s because, unlike them, he does what he’s told without question.

A Serious and Necessary Re-Appraisal of Henry David Thoreau

Really, the article's title sums it all up:

Pond Scum

This comprehensive arrogance is captured in one of Thoreau’s most famous lines: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” It is a mystery to me how a claim so simultaneously insufferable and absurd ever entered the canon of popular quotations. Had Thoreau broadened it to include himself, it would be less obnoxious; had he broadened it to include everyone (à la Sartre), it would be more defensible. As it stands, however, Thoreau’s declaration is at once off-putting and empirically dubious. By what method, one wonders, could a man so disinclined to get to know other people substantiate an allegation about the majority of humanity?

I've always been struck by the fact that, while living "deliberately" in the woods, he also permitted a woman to do his laundry for him.  Thoreau's popularity is probably based on the fact that he is generally introduced to teenagers in high school English classes and there is something insufferably adolescent about his world view.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Hawaii governor declares state of emergency for homelessness

No Assaults? No Flaming Cars? No Scolding Law Enforcement Officers? What Kind of Victory Celebration is This?

You might only see this in Canada: Blue Jays fans danced around the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street in Toronto right up until the light turned green. Then they calmly walked aside to let the cars through.