Sentence I’d never have predicted: ‘The wildlife ecologist running Mayor de Blasio’s deer-vasectomy project raked in more than $603,000 in the first two years of the budget-busting program.’ https://t.co/caKeB0dTAI— Andy McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) December 30, 2018
Monday, December 31, 2018
It May Just Be the Hillbilly in Me, But It's a Lot Cheaper and More Efficient Just to Hunt and Eat Them
A Classic: Raise $ for the "Oppressed", Spend It on Yourself
Legislators spent big on lavish fundraisers — but gave no grants to students
I should be scandalized by this, but
1.) I grew up in a family closely associated with the Democratic Party, so this was a fairly common practice within the ranks and one of which my treasurer father despaired, and
2.) I spent too many years fixing churches that had broken themselves mainly by raising money ostensibly for ministries and operations that was, instead, blown on parties for the staff and self-flatteringministries boondoggles for the clergy.
I should be scandalized by this, but
1.) I grew up in a family closely associated with the Democratic Party, so this was a fairly common practice within the ranks and one of which my treasurer father despaired, and
2.) I spent too many years fixing churches that had broken themselves mainly by raising money ostensibly for ministries and operations that was, instead, blown on parties for the staff and self-flattering
Fascinating = Weirdly Stupid
Extreme poverty fell from 36% in 1990 to less than 10% today. It is fascinating that this progress takes place just as many in the West are starting to doubt free trade and global capitalism. https://t.co/g5HiRpzMbI— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) December 30, 2018
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Works in Denominational Institutions, Too
The Iron Law was promulgated by Jerry Pournelle, an American essayist and novelist, who maintained that any organization has two kinds of people: those dedicated to furthering the organization’s original mission—like academics who want their university to turn out well-educated students; and those dedicated to furthering the bureaucracy by expanding their budgets and staffs. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy holds that the second group will inevitably take over the place.
View some diocesan websites and check out the number, titles, and duties of the diocesan staff and you'll see what I mean. Church leaders who prang on about how congregational life must change and be less about the church buildings and formal parochial life never seem to think that change should also come to the bureaucracy that they enable and expand.
If we are truly to reform as a church, we should have some progress towards a staff-free diocesan office.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
A Poem
Dance, my heart! dance to-day with joy
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music,
and the world is listening to its melodies:
Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
The hills and the sea and the earth dance.
The world of man dances in laughter and tears.
Why put on the robe of the monk,
and live apart from the world in lonely pride?
Behold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts;
and the Creator is well pleased.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music,
and the world is listening to its melodies:
Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
The hills and the sea and the earth dance.
The world of man dances in laughter and tears.
Why put on the robe of the monk,
and live apart from the world in lonely pride?
Behold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts;
and the Creator is well pleased.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Friday, December 28, 2018
Best Sentence of the Week
From a review of a movie that I'm unlikely to see:
“...one of those movies that goes beyond unfunny and into a comedy-cubist zone, where jokes are no longer recognizable and laughter is philosophically impossible.”
“...one of those movies that goes beyond unfunny and into a comedy-cubist zone, where jokes are no longer recognizable and laughter is philosophically impossible.”
Peter Scott
Originally published in May, 2013
"The people I burgled got rich through greed and skullduggery. They indulged in the mechanics of ostentation - they deserved me and I deserved them. If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two different types of degeneracy on a dark rooftop."
I recall being fifteen and adrift in Europe, living on 75 cents a day, when I thought that this would make a pretty good life, especially if it meant a villa on the Cote d'Azur and some quality time with Grace Kelly. I also always liked the ingenuity it takes to figure out how to get into a place that is supposedly impregnable. Rather like a logic puzzle, I guess.
But what a lot of people don't know is that, during my time in Europe dreaming of being a cat burglar, there was an actual cat burglar on the loose who had been plying his trade among the rich and famous for some time. His name was Peter Scott and he died just a few weeks ago, leaving behind some very interesting writings and stories, and a legend that may never be touched. After all, computer hackers, who are the cat burglars of the 21st century, aren't generally fit enough to scale a wall and are too socially awkward to hang out with Melina Mercouri. Besides, in turtlenecks, they tend to look more like beatniks than international men of mystery.
Brits of a certain generation just can't help but be jaunty
Most of the facts of Scott's early life are unknown except through his autobiography, Gentleman Thief, and require a considerable amount of salt. According to Scott, after flunking out of the Royal Belfast Academy around 1950, he squandered his inheritance and turned to a life of crime, using his posh appearance and familiarity with the lives and manners of the affluent to simply walk into homes, usually during parties, and pass himself off as a guest to the household staff or as a member of the household staff to the guests. He perfected this double-subterfuge over 150 times in the homes in Belfast and, eventually, London.
While he was first caught in 1952, he served only six months. This gave him time to perfect his technique and enjoy a bit of a holiday. After his release, he returned to a life of crime with a vengeance, now casting himself, if just in his mind, as a new type of Robin Hood: He stole from the rich and...well... that was pretty much it.
Throughout the 1950's and 60's, Scott used the Daily Mail gossip pages as the source for his research as to what homes were most deserving of his professional attention. As a surprising amount of information about party guests, the value of jewelry on display, and security precautions would be listed in print, Scott found a lush field of information Soon, the homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, and Sloane Square became featured in another section of the newspaper. Namely, the crime pages.
Using his ill-gotten gains, Scott enjoyed memberships in a variety of exclusive clubs and the company of many female members of the swank set. In turn, these social connections introduced him to even more victims, enabling him to continue his pursuits and become the creme de la creme of burglars.
Just to give the reader a primer on Scott's professional life, over the course of 40 years, using techniques as various as the above-described party-crashing or the old-fashioned shimmy up a drainpipe, Scott stole jewelry from, among others, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Lauren Bacall and Sophia Loren. Actually, it may have been that latter theft that lead to his undoing, as the Italian starlet, upon discovering that her $400,000 diamond necklace had been lifted, placed a gypsy curse on the burglar. Shortly thereafter, Scott was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 12 years in Wormwood Scrubs [or some such place].
[I should note he wasn't limited to jewelry. In the 1990's, by now in his late '60's, he was arrested for stealing Picasso's Tete de Femme from a London gallery.]
Personally, I'm not sure why anyone would want it.
After four wives and four divorces, partying with The Rolling Stones, millions of pounds stolen and spent, memoirs written and published by name even while he was still actively stealing, and occasional "vacations" at the pleasure of Her Majesty, Scott died peacefully in a council flat [a tax-supported housing complex], his medical bills and living expenses generously paid for by the honest, working, and law-abiding people of the United Kingdom.
And they say that crime doesn't pay. I think I already had that one figured out when I was fifteen.
Scott's autobiography is now out of print and rather difficult to find, or afford, even when using online used and rare book agencies.
However, some recommended "caper" films include the following:
To Catch A Thief [1956]
Topkapi [1964]
The Pink Panther [1964]
Bob le Flambeur [1956]
The League of Gentlemen [1960]
How to Steal a Million [1966]
The Italian Job [1969]
The Great Train Robbery [1979]
Jack of Diamonds [1967]
Lassiter [1984]
Also the old TV shows It Takes A Thief [1968] and T.H.E. Cat [1966] are pretty good, too, if you like that sort of thing.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Holiday Hiatus
Between work and travel, we will be closing the international offices of The Coracle for the next week. I know, I know. Come on back on the 29th with more insouciance.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Robert Crisp and Tommy MacPherson
[Originally published on April 26, 2013]
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell [maybe]
Earlier this week, some British soldiers' remains, newly discovered, were finally interred after a proper reading of the Episcopal/Anglican Burial Office, nearly a century after their deaths. It caused me to recall a number of British soldiers who were famous among boys and young men during my formative years, especially those years spent in the UK. While it is no longer fashionable to think so among the NPR/NYT crowd that shapes common opinion, outside of that shrinking bubble there are still those of us who find the warriors worthy of some admiration. If you find this an odd statement for a clergyperson to make, I will assume it's because history wasn't your favorite subject. Yet, in the aftermath of yet another terrorist attack, there is something of their resolve that all of us may need to adopt to fulfill the evolving expectations of citizenship. After all, and as a number of international news outlets noted, it is an American tendency to run towards the site of disaster to offer aid rather than away from it in panic.
I can't remember where I read it, as it was in the middle of an Internet surfing expedition, but it was in an article about the personality types that tend to excel in periods of emergency. During peacetime or times of social harmony, these types either tend to be querulous, difficult in their interpersonal relations, and display a profound tendency towards addictive disorder; or they are shy, retiring, and largely all but socially invisible. In war or natural disaster, they are irreplaceable, as their leadership and ability to claim immediate authority often means the difference between survival and death or victory and defeat.
An infantry officer of my acquaintance [that's one way of putting it], a Marine Corps captain, used to call it the "Woody Allen syndrome". The guy who was least likely to serve any logical purpose in a tactical unit, who did not apparently fit either intellectually or physically into any command structure, would transform in times of extremis into an absolute fire-eater.
Two such fellows came to mind as I was reading the article. During times of peace, one found himself socially listless or in conflict with authority, disadvantaged by drink, or...um...challenged by conventional norms of moral comportment. The other merely a good, quiet Scot of an apparently benign and affable mien. Both were the kind of men who were lofted up in post-war British society as examples of moral and physical courage; men worth emulating in general character.
Robert Crisp was a cricketer of some renown from South Africa and holds a record that still stands in professional cricket [more than once he had taken four wickets in four balls as a bowler; I have no idea what that means but it always impresses the heck out of cricket fans]. He was also famous for his womanizing [Is that still a term we can use?] and drinking. Unable to contain his general exuberance, he also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro twice and swam the length of Loch Lomond in Scotland [Having swum the Loch myself, all I can say is “ew”; it was not the cleanest body of freshwater].
He just looks like the kind of guy you don't want taking your daughter on a date.
Despite his accomplishments, or perhaps because of them, Crisp was in near constant conflict with authority. So, naturally, he became an officer in the British Army, immersing himself in a command structure where he often ran afoul of senior officers, being either promoted for original thinking, demoted for general insouciance, re-promoted for battlefield innovation, and re-demoted for inappropriate behavior time and again. When not engaged in this funicular of military service, in addition to being near-mortally wounded several times, Crisp created a tactic for engaging, with his underpowered and under-armored tank squadron, the superior tanks of the German Army and routing them.
It's hard to believe, but there are actually ten clowns inside of that thing.
On one particular occasion, Crisp charged a line of Field Marshal Rommel’s best and, with one medium-sized American-made tank, successfully stopped 70 heavy-duty panzers. He would end the war as a major and be awarded, among other medals, the Distinguished Service Order. He then found himself unemployed.
Never to be daunted, Crisp continued his life of adventure, first writing two well-received books about tank warfare, one of which was still being read in military training courses in the US as of the mid-1970’s, and becoming a travel writer/journalist of some popularity. When diagnosed with cancer in late middle-age, Crisp engaged in his own form of physical therapy by hiking around the island of Crete. His cancer went into remission. He would spend the end of his life living in a beach hovel in Greece, in the evenings entertaining a rather broad range of women, both local and tourist.
He died in his sleep at the age of 82. An entertaining article about him may be found here. His books about the war in Greece, The Gods Were Neutral, and the war in North Africa, Brazen Chariots, are still in print and also now available in electronic editions. I can't say they are of general interest in our rather beta culture, but they are worth reading for anyone interested in 20th century history.
Tommy MacPherson was never a roue of any sort, certainly not of the Crisp quality; however, like the cricketer, he was one of those people one would not have expected to be anything more than a typical landowner’s son and clergyman’s grandson.
Any war can be improved by wearing a jaunty hat
MacPherson, a Scot, and I share an educational institution, as he is one of the stellar alumni of Edinburgh Academy, and it is there that I first heard of him. While Crisp was often featured in the ripping yarns of mid-century British boys’ magazines, MacPherson was a quieter sort, at least in terms of self-promotion, not of deeds.
After a rather ordinary early life for one of his social class, MacPherson joined the Royal Army at the beginning of World War II after earning degrees at Oxford in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and representing his college in rugby. He was initially commissioned a subaltern [what US forces call a “second lieutenant”] with one of the Highland regiments. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred into the notorious Number 11 Commando, a unit made up of the maddest of mad Scots, and it is here that he earned his reputation.
In his first mission, MacPherson and three others were sent to recon the beaches of North Africa in a couple of canvas kayaks. They leaked and the submarine that was to meet them never showed up. So, they decided to land and walk to Tobruk, which was a mere five days away, somewhat complicated by the fact that the four-man team had no food or water and was clad only in swim shorts. Pathetically, they were captured by...yes, the Italians.
MacPherson made at least three failed escape attempts. When the Italians turned over their prisoners to the Germans, he made another couple of escape attempts. When the prisoners were transferred to Austria, MacPherson escaped again, was caught again, was transferred into Poland, and escaped again. This time, he was successful.
Upon his return to the UK he was awarded the Military Cross and invited to return to occupied Europe to create general chaos on behalf of the Allies. Of course, he said “yes”. Scots.
In advance of D-Day, MacPherson parachuted into France to fulfill the direct orders of Winston Churchill to, in the PM’s words, “set Europe ablaze”. Winnie had a way with words, without question. Since he had so much experience with being captured, and since he didn't wish to be executed as a spy, MacPherson decided to operate as a secret agent in Nazi-occupied France while dressed in the full service uniform of an officer in the Highland Regiments, including tartan kilt and argyle socks. From a distance, it looked to members of the French resistance that someone had brought his wife with him on a mission.
Thus attired, and equipped with a resolute, if factually vague, mission from Churchill himself, MacPherson committed to a program of active mayhem across the French countryside. I could list, with viscera, the details of MacPherson’s actions, but it will suffice to note that during this time he earned the nickname “The Kilted Killer”.
I will offer this anecdote, however:
“On another occasion Macpherson took decisive action as the Second Motorised SS Infantry Division and the Das Reich Division pushed towards the fragile Normandy beach-head. Unarmed and accompanied by a doctor and a French officer, he drove a stolen German Red Cross Land Rover through ten miles of enemy-held territory, through machine gun fire and straight to the Das Reich Division headquarters where, dressed in full Highland regalia, he warned that he would unleash heavy artillery and call on the RAF if they did not surrender. In consequence, 23,000 German troops surrendered. It was a bluff that may have saved thousands of lives.”
After messing up France, MacPherson was sent to Italy to generally harass the remaining members of the German army. He did so with relish and, by war's end, was Britain's most decorated soldier. He stayed with the so-called Territorial Army of the RA for the remainder of his military career, retiring as a full colonel. He is still alive and very well. In fact, Sir Tommy, as he is now known, still makes an annual visit to his alma mater in Edinburgh to the delight of the students and the vexation of the more pacifistic members of the faculty. "Scots wha hae!", Sir Tommy.
A few years ago he published his autobiography, Behind Enemy Lines. It's on my nightstand, about three books down, but like its subject, I may give it a promotion.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
This Explains My Occasional Moodiness
School children will be taught that "all genders" can have periods in new sex education lessons, in a victory for transgender rights campaigners.
The advice to teachers was approved by Brighton & Hove City Council as they try to tackle stigma around menstruation.
The new advice follows a council report which said: "Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods", adding that "menstruation must be inclusive of all genders".
The advice to teachers was approved by Brighton & Hove City Council as they try to tackle stigma around menstruation.
The new advice follows a council report which said: "Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods", adding that "menstruation must be inclusive of all genders".
I Could Quote from the BB Every Day
New Gospel Fragment Reveals Part Where Jesus Affirmed Everybody's Sins
This may be the preferred translation of mainstream 21st century Protestantism.
This may be the preferred translation of mainstream 21st century Protestantism.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Wow, This Really is Fake News
This is wonderful and a true representation of the Midwest. Please read it.
Der Spiegel journalist messed with the wrong small town
German news magazine Der Spiegel has sacked an award-winning staff writer after accusing him of inventing details and quotes in numerous stories.
Claas Relotius "falsified articles on a grand scale and even invented characters", Der Spiegel said.
Among the articles in question are major features that had been nominated for or won awards, the magazine added.
Relotius, 33, admitted deceiving readers in some 14 stories published in Der Spiegel, the magazine said.
This Has Been My Question, Too
Given the horror now starting in South Africa, this would be a good time for him to remind us what he taught three decades ago.
Where’s Tutu?
Disclaimer: Desmond's a former teacher of mine, so this criticism, and the absence of his commentary, wounds me a little. In my younger, formative years as a fresh-out-of-the-box priest, I thought him the paradigm of what Anglican/Episcopal clergy could do on the world stage.
Fortunately, the hero I have left was a scholar/cleric from Iraq, who died a few years ago, who taught me more about the satisfaction of simple spiritual victories than did those who receive the fawning attention and temporal glory.
Where’s Tutu?
Disclaimer: Desmond's a former teacher of mine, so this criticism, and the absence of his commentary, wounds me a little. In my younger, formative years as a fresh-out-of-the-box priest, I thought him the paradigm of what Anglican/Episcopal clergy could do on the world stage.
Fortunately, the hero I have left was a scholar/cleric from Iraq, who died a few years ago, who taught me more about the satisfaction of simple spiritual victories than did those who receive the fawning attention and temporal glory.
Needlehooks
Art reminds us of who we are, and shows what we can be. But these days the visual arts are undergoing a crisis of relevance. Art has been weaponized into an attack on the foundations of civilization itself, full of examples of irrelevance, carrion, excrement, pornography, and debris. Instead of being reverenced as a communion for all, contemporary art is being treated as a wedge, a social signifier of elitist attitudes. In doing so, the New Aristocracy of the Well-Connected block access to powerful resources.
Our self-aggrandizing ruling class’s tawdry and nihilistic vision of life is being inflicted upon us all. They are trying to remake the world in their own rotten image. They deny our society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. As a result, the mass audience has turned away. We’ve come to call this assault Postmodernism.An interesting manifesto.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
A Pungent Observation
Arizona is about to have two serving women senators. Democrat-dominated, "woke" Connecticut has never had one woman senator.
The Senate Democrats need Blumenthal's money [he is the wealthiest member of the Senate], so maybe it would be best for Murphy to resign so that the governor could appoint a woman to fulfill his term. Do it for the women, Chris.
The Senate Democrats need Blumenthal's money [he is the wealthiest member of the Senate], so maybe it would be best for Murphy to resign so that the governor could appoint a woman to fulfill his term. Do it for the women, Chris.
Millennials vs. Generation Z
There is an interesting generational conflict building and the playing field is through a media service known as TikTok.
This is fascinating. Stay tuned for more as it continues to develop.
By the way, more can be read of Z here, including this glorious tidbit:
This is fascinating. Stay tuned for more as it continues to develop.
By the way, more can be read of Z here, including this glorious tidbit:
A 2016 U.S. study found that church attendance during young adulthood was 41% among Generation Z, compared to 18 percent for Millennials at the same ages, 21 percent of Generation X, and 26 percent of Baby Boomers.As we have noted more than once, the pendulum always swings.
A Pungent Question
If The Episcopal Church is diminishing to the point that we must accept (according to the coercive leadership) our "doing church" in a "new" way, then why is the Anglican Church of North America building new congregations, new churches, and growing by "doing church" in the familiar way?
Is it possible that virtue-signalling isn't a strategy for growth? Maybe accepting everyone, including those who don't vote in the prescribed manner, is the key to evangelism, rather than an assumption of moral superiority? How about surrendering false snobbery?
Nah, that's crazy.
Is it possible that virtue-signalling isn't a strategy for growth? Maybe accepting everyone, including those who don't vote in the prescribed manner, is the key to evangelism, rather than an assumption of moral superiority? How about surrendering false snobbery?
Nah, that's crazy.
Monday, December 17, 2018
In Honor of Today's 115th Anniversary of the First Flight
"We do not believe it will ever be a commercial vehicle at all. We do not believe it will find any very large place in the world of sport. We do not believe its military importance is as great as is commonly supposed, or will extend (except accidentally) beyond the range of scouting and courier service." - from The Engineering Magazine published on the sixth anniversary of the Wright brothers first flight.They were wrong, by the way. So much for learned predictions.
A Story That Needs to Be Heard
When ISIS fighters burst into Father Afran Sony’s monastery in northern Iraq in June 2014 wielding machine guns and knives, he and his brothers rushed to protect their most precious possessions.
They weren’t gold, relics or even their own lives, but some of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the Christian world.
For nearly two months, the terrorists held the handful of monks prisoner and openly discussed whether or not to kill them because they refused to renounce their faith. But Father Afran was more focused on saving the ancient Christian texts than himself.
They weren’t gold, relics or even their own lives, but some of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the Christian world.
For nearly two months, the terrorists held the handful of monks prisoner and openly discussed whether or not to kill them because they refused to renounce their faith. But Father Afran was more focused on saving the ancient Christian texts than himself.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Yes
The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior - Thomas Sowell
The Delicate Art of Satire
The permanent suspension only lasted for a day, but the experience was traumatic and lasting. I now understand how Nelson Mandela felt. If anything, my ordeal was even more damaging. Mandela may have had to endure 27 years of incarceration, but at least his male privilege protected him from ever having to put up with mansplaining, or being subject to wolf-whistling by grubby proles on a building site.
So what are we to make of my ban? The only sensible conclusion is that Twitter is run by a coterie of crypto-fascists. Needless to say, this bodes ill for the social justice movement. Like it or not, the successors to humanitarians such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi are now to be found on social media. One thinks immediately of Gary Lineker, Lily Allen, and that guy who played Mr Sulu on Star Trek.
So what are we to make of my ban? The only sensible conclusion is that Twitter is run by a coterie of crypto-fascists. Needless to say, this bodes ill for the social justice movement. Like it or not, the successors to humanitarians such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi are now to be found on social media. One thinks immediately of Gary Lineker, Lily Allen, and that guy who played Mr Sulu on Star Trek.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
A Tribal Letter
Hatito, hileni. [Greetings, cousin.]
I haven't written to you in awhile and I miss our people. I can spend long months with the Waapa, but their values, their complaints, and particularly their angers at various, petty things begin to wear. They like to call one another names and judge people by their social class while pretending that they aren't. It is fatiguing. As Grandfather would say, they "hate their own home". That is not a formula for a healthy people.
So, Waapa lesson #1 this week:
I haven't written to you in awhile and I miss our people. I can spend long months with the Waapa, but their values, their complaints, and particularly their angers at various, petty things begin to wear. They like to call one another names and judge people by their social class while pretending that they aren't. It is fatiguing. As Grandfather would say, they "hate their own home". That is not a formula for a healthy people.
So, Waapa lesson #1 this week:
Trees are bad for the woods.
A Waapa woman is upset that trees fell in the woods and she wants them picked up so that wild nature can conform to Waapa will. Today it's trees, two centuries ago The People were the ones the Waapa wanted removed from the woods. I guess this is an improvement.
Waapa Lesson #2:
Donald Trump is a vile, boorish person filled with hate so I will hate him in a vile, boorish manner. This is how I'm morally superior to him.
I have become used to avoiding the network news, the cable news, late night comedians, other clergy, ESPN sportscasters, and Hollywood "royalty". Their standard sentence structure is "subject, predicate, Trump". It seems to me there might be other things going on in the world.
Maybe you and I have a different historical perspective, but ever since Abraham Lincoln permitted the greatest mass hanging in U.S. history, that of our tribal brothers [most of whom were Episcopalian], I don't think that our people have regarded the President of The United States as a combination of Superman and the Pope. With good reason, I think.
However, the Waapa put a lot of importance in that office. So much so that I now cannot engage in an interesting conversation with people at a dinner party without someone demanding my silence while a tedious anti-Trump song is played. On their phone. At a dinner table.
Indians sure have bad table manners, don't they? That's what the Waapa used to tell me when I was a child. It would be tragic if not so funny.
I hope to see you at the Great Reunion after Christmas, but it will be hard
for me to get away for more than a day or so. I will always have happy
memories of the two of us singing the life song for our fathers. I hope
that someone may do the same for us when the day arrives.
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
We have a beautiful literary tradition, don't we?
Saloniki,
Lalawethika
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
We have a beautiful literary tradition, don't we?
Saloniki,
Lalawethika
Don't Mock the Millennials for This
Blame the Boomers and Generation Xers who decided these things weren't to be taught any longer. Good for these young people for being willing to learn.
Millennials lacking life skills - like cooking, budgeting, or time management - are now signing up for classes designed to teach them those basics. These are crash courses in Adulting. pic.twitter.com/EzzR54758k— KDKA (@KDKA) December 13, 2018
An Obituary of Note
Nancy Wilson, Grammy-winning jazz singer, dies at 81
We're late getting to this [in both our sacred and secular jobs, this is a busy season], but if you never had a chance to see her perform live, she was maybe the most consummate performer of her genre in small and medium venues. That never quite translated to the Ed Sullivan Show or The Tonight Show. She also had a wicked sense of humor and probably did more to normalize racial issues than did other performers.
If you can find a copy of The Nancy Wilson Show: Live at Coconut Grove, you'll see what I mean.
We're late getting to this [in both our sacred and secular jobs, this is a busy season], but if you never had a chance to see her perform live, she was maybe the most consummate performer of her genre in small and medium venues. That never quite translated to the Ed Sullivan Show or The Tonight Show. She also had a wicked sense of humor and probably did more to normalize racial issues than did other performers.
If you can find a copy of The Nancy Wilson Show: Live at Coconut Grove, you'll see what I mean.
The Coracle's Saturday Literary Corner
Thomas Merton & William Blake, Revisited
The skill with which Merton choreographed the centripetal forces in his life—as he moved inexorably toward the divine center—had an exalted pedigree: he learned it from William Blake, the engraver, artist, and poet. First introduced to Blake and his paintings by his father, Owen, a New Zealander artist who died while Merton was a teenager, Merton returned to Blake while doing graduate studies at Columbia University in the 1930s. Writing a master’s thesis titled “Nature and Art in William Blake: An Essay in Interpretation,” Merton embraced Blake’s visionary poetics and radical spirituality and made them his own. Blake entered his bloodstream completely.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Captain Sir Richard Burton
I once had an alarm clock that I found particularly abrasive. Whenever it would sound in the morning, a clanging, jangling double-bell that would vibrate the entire mechanism off of the nightstand and send me close to cardiac arrest, I felt as if I had been assaulted somehow.
Now, imagine waking one morning to discover a Somali spear rammed completely through your face from cheek to cheek. That alarm clock doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Such was a day in the life of Sir Richard Burton, a captain not in the British Army, but of the East India Company [yes, it had its own army], a linguist who had knowledge of an estimated 29 languages, a cartographer who was the first to chart portions of East Africa, a swordsman who wrote the manual on the strategic and tactical use of the blade in combat [a manual still read by officers in the Royal Army], an explorer who was the first European to set eyes upon Lake Tanganyika, and a diplomat with the Foreign Office.
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| I should mention that he dualed rather a lot while at university; they didn't have "beer pong" in those days. |
He was also a spy, a poet, a translator of works such as The Arabian Nights, and, in particular, an accomplished master of disguise. In other words, he was a typical 19th century adventurer: bold, educated, audacious, curious and, when necessary, mildly homicidal.
Burton was born in 1822 to a military officer father and a mother who was from a family of property. That meant that, since birth, he would be guaranteed both an education and a position in the army. Since his parents had a love of travel and the wherewithal to indulge it, Burton grew up living throughout Europe, picking up a variety of conversational languages from his various tutors. Eventually, he was formally schooled in London and at Oxford's Trinity College. In keeping with the tradition of accomplished Victorians, he was expelled. The one lasting experience for Burton at college was learning Arabic to fluency.
[Some day I'm going to compile a list of men and women of letters and science who either never participated in higher education or were invited to leave the hallowed halls.]
He then "accepted" a commission in the East India Company's army, hoping to fight in the First Afghan War, but the conflict ended before he arrived in India. For someone like Burton there could have been nothing more dull than a peacetime military, so he threw himself into the further study of fencing, into investigating Hindu culture, and into a working knowledge of Hindi and Persian. When offered the chance to lead a survey into an area highly dangerous to European officers, he jumped at the chance. In order to survive the command, he disguised himself so successfully that neither the locals nor his fellow officers recognized him.
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| Burton disguised as a camel. No, no, that's not right. Burton disguised as an Arab shepherd. |
As his interest in Islam and its culture and languages began to increase, along with his facility at successful disguise, Burton decided to undertake one of the most dangerous experiences of his already dangerous existence. Using his ability in Arabic, his close study of Islamic custom, and his knowledge of the Koran [he had already published his translation of the sacred book], he would disguise himself as a Muslim trader and join in the pilgrimage to Mecca in order to...well, in order to do what no Britisher had done before. Does there need to be a better reason?
Burton practicing trying to kill people with his mind.
So he did, risking discovery and inevitable death during every hour of the Hajj. He was successful, though, and marked the occasion by writing a two-volume book, A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah. [Note: the book is now in public domain and may be "purchased" at no cost for those with electronic reading devices.] The pilgrimage was so transformative that he practiced Islam for the remainder of his life.
And what a life it was. His adventures in Mecca were merely the beginning, as Burton became one of the eminent explorers of the African continent, determined to discover the source of the Nile River. To do so, Burton and his colleagues had to travel through remarkably dangerous territory [What else is new?] in the eastern portion for the continent, meeting tribes both friendly and hostile; some of them friendly one day and hostile the next. Hence the moment described earlier, which necessitated Burton beating a hasty retreat from his attackers with a spear still protruding from both sides of his face. In later life he would complain that he lost a tooth because of it.
Two years later Burton, with his co-explorer Richard Speake, began a second journey that was beset with so many maladies that it's a wonder both men were not kept in jars for study at a medical school. Plagued by dysentery, fevers, ear infections leading to partial deafness, blindness, and lame-ness, the two explorers finally arrived at what they named Lake Tanganyika in February of 1858. Speake, in a subsequent adventure, would come upon Lake Victoria and declare it the Nile's source.
There were other adventures for Burton, not the least of which was having to prove himself not a fraud before the Royal Geographical Society and dealing with a lawsuit filed by Speake, the impetus for which is still a little cloudy. It would remain so as Speake died from an accidental [?] discharge from a shotgun before things between the two men were resolved.
Burton would live to the age 69, serving during the final third of his life as a British counsel in a variety of posts, from the Congo to Brazil to Damascus, with the final posting in Trieste, Italy. For those of us raised on British boys' magazines, filled with the lusty adventures of explorers and soldiers, Burton's always set the highest standard. For all of the derring-do, it should be noted that, before the era of formalized anthropological study, Burton kept very detailed and scientific notes on all of his explorations and discoveries. Since his range of interests was so broad and deep, these mid-19th century notes were invaluable to the next several generations of cartographers, anthropologists, ethnologists, archaeologists, and diplomats.
Burton is interred in a stone crypt in London that is carved to resemble the tents still used by the hajji during the spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca. The fact that a practicing Muslim is buried in a Roman Catholic churchyard is the result of some subterfuge by Mrs. Burton; subterfuge being the theme of Burton's life, that seems rather perfect.
Burton's narratives and translations are still in print, with many, as noted above, now in public domain and thus available at no cost. A rather good biography by Edward Rice entitled simply Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, which was originally published in the mid-1990's, is still in print and worth reading. A film entitled Mountains of the Moon, primarily about Burton and Speake's African explorations, was released about 25 years ago and is available on DVD and in digital format. I seem to recall it earned "two thumbs up" from a corpulent film reviewer and his partner.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Mission Accomplished
Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut: Our job is not to keep the church in business
Alternate header: We'll Still Keep It a Bureaucracy, However
Alternate header: We'll Still Keep It a Bureaucracy, However
Needlehooks
I occasionally come across quotations that snag my attention like a needle-hook to yarn. I may or may not agree with the writer's perspective, I may find them derivative or vulgar, but they represent something that stirs my curiosity and, sometimes, thinking.
From time to time I'll share them and their source, but caveat emptor.
From time to time I'll share them and their source, but caveat emptor.
Observant Christians and Jews have long confounded the Left. They don’t get people for whom belief is more than a one hour per week obligation. For them, religion is a shiny bauble. One heads to church or temple on a major holiday. It’s a chance to look good in front of the neighbors. They offer “thoughts and prayers” when faced with tragedy and little more. The rest of the year they’ll mock the religious, poke each other in the ribs with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, and tell each other how smart they are.Having grown up in a home with a father who was the county Democratic Party treasurer for a couple of decades, and a mother who was a Democratic candidate for school board, and both of them being devout and worshiping Christians, it is difficult for me to reconcile that experience with a party that seems, in our contemporary times, to despair of the vulgarians who believe in God over the beneficence of a large, intrusive, opaque, and self-interested government.
Leftists are like the caricature of the Ugly American tourist who believes the native will understand him if he speaks English slower and louder. Perez doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, that it’s the Democrat message faith-involved people reject. The Left has substituted The State for God and their message is one of “turn your life over to us and you’ll be taken care of.” It’s a message libertarians and conservatives reject.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
I Still Miss Australia
Victorian man attacked by kangaroo manages to save his stubby
A "stubby" is a beer bottle, you weirdo.
As with Most Suicides, It's by Choice
THE HISTORICAL PROFESSION IS COMMITTING SLOW-MOTION SUICIDE
Too many historians decided it was time for their discipline to get "woke". Thus, they will now go broke.
Too many historians decided it was time for their discipline to get "woke". Thus, they will now go broke.
Broken People Set Our Social Agenda
Sad Radicals
Commentators have accurately noted how social justice seems to take the form of a religion. This captures the meaning and fulfilment I found in protests and occupations. It also captures how, outside of these harrowing festivals, everyday life in radical communities is mundane but pious. As a radical activist, much of my time was devoted to proselytizing. Non-anarchists were like pagans to be converted through zines and wheatpasted posters rather than by Bible and baptism. When non-radicals listened to my assertions that nazis deserved death, that all life had devolved into spectacle, and that monogamy was a capitalist social construct, they were probably bewildered instead of enticed.
Instead of developing a relationship to God and a recognition of one’s own imperfection, we wanted our non-anarchist families and friends to develop their “analysis” and recognize their complicity in the evil of capitalism. These non-anarchist friends grew increasingly sparse the longer I was an anarchist. They didn’t see how terrible the world was, and they used problematic language that revealed hopelessly bad politics. Frustrated with them, I retreated further and further into the grey echo-chamber of my “chosen family.”
No, an Inept, Clumsy, Puzzle-witted, Aloof, and Condescending Leadership Did; as Always Throughout History
NY Magazine: Did Facebook Cause Riots in France?
Here are some observations from City Journal's on-the-scene reporter:
I spent Saturday speaking to the Gilets Jaunes near the Bastille, where I figured I’d have a good vantage point on a traditional protest site. I walked with them as they slowly made their way to the city hall, or Hôtel de Ville. It was obvious from a single glance that these weren’t Parisians, but rural people who couldn’t afford to buy expensive Parisian clothes or get chic haircuts. I instantly understood why Macron rubs them the wrong way. They looked worn out; their hands and faces were lined; they were mainly in late middle-age. They seemed to be decent, respectable, weary people who had worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, and played by the rules.
They couldn’t have seemed less disposed to violence, nor more apolitical. They were respectful of the police, and vice-versa. As cops drove by, relaxed, the Gilets Jaunes smiled at them, like kids excited about their first trip to the big city, waved at the officers, and gave them the thumbs-up. The cops reciprocated. The sentiment was fraternal. “We’re all weary, overtaxed working men,” they were saying to each other. “We’re on the same side.”
I concluded they were just what they were advertised to be: family men and women who couldn’t make ends meet and who were tired of Macron’s attitude. Why this protest, why now, I asked? The fuel tax was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, they said; it made the difference between “able to make ends meet, barely,” and “not able to make ends meet.” It had just been getting steadily worse every year since the economic crisis began. They had run out of hope.Turning your fellow citizens into an angry mob seems to be the gift of the 21st century political class.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Mine, Too; With Spelling a Close Second
My 2018 person of the year are bad grammar. https://t.co/cWpdmbunKi— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 11, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Another Haywire Surf Story
An American Surfer Goes Rogue To Claim The Baltic Sea's "Last Wave"
Winter, along with another surf shop owner named Joscha Jancke, was among the first German surfers to take note of Mowen’s quest in the waters just beyond his store. It annoyed him. “He sold himself as the discoverer of this wave,” Winter told me. “But he had come into the shop and asked about how to surf it.”
A Quotation for Our Times
Every religion since the beginning of time has had its hypocrites who used the faith to pursue their agenda of power. All rules have only ever applied to the little people...same for environmentalism.
— Andrew Follett
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Everything Old is New Again
On Blogs in the Social Media Age
On more than one occasion, I've just about bagged this thing, but I've never liked the over-controlled weirdness of SpaceBook and The Tweety. Besides, my organization doesn't really promote free thinking, so I have to go somewhere to voice my peculiar perspectives.
On more than one occasion, I've just about bagged this thing, but I've never liked the over-controlled weirdness of SpaceBook and The Tweety. Besides, my organization doesn't really promote free thinking, so I have to go somewhere to voice my peculiar perspectives.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
No One Can Over-Think Like an American School Administrator
And I know, 'cause I used to be one.
School Principal Bans Candy Canes Because The J-Shape Might Mean Jesus
School Principal Bans Candy Canes Because The J-Shape Might Mean Jesus
Friday, December 7, 2018
Norman Borlaug, Charles Brush, and Philip Hubert Frohman
As the National Cathedral was in the news this week, we thought we'd re-publish this profile from earlier this year that featured, along with two other men of significance, the Cathedral's architect, Philip Hubert Frohman.
For those not schooled in philosophical minutiae, Objectivism is the mildly crackpot philosophy formulated by Ayn Rand, who wrote the novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Both books outline an economic philosophy based on individual freedom and the power of free enterprise and capitalism. In the latter novel, the protagonist is a genius inventor who decides, after his invention is stolen from him, to cease to make or maintain his innovations. He manages to persuade other genius inventors, all of whom have been robbed by politicians, academics, and members of the media, to do the same.
Naturally, the world basically comes to a halt. Once it does, the inventors offer their services in return for recognition and, particularly...well, let me put it this way, the protagonist at the end of the novel makes the sign of the dollar over the world waiting to be re-built.
I am unsure of the primary motivation for the three innovators whom we profile this week, but there was certainly something that permitted their innovation to transcend to the status of art.
Norman Borlaug
Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is
adequate food for all mankind.
Norman Borlaug saved more lives than did anyone else in human history. Considering that his life-saving efforts are still active in our contemporary age, one day it will be easy to say that he saved more lives than the entire rest of the human race. Ever.
Borlaug was born on his grandparents' farm in the middle of Iowa in the first year of World War I. If the reader is hoping for a soul-stirring story of early derring-do and international adventure, suffice it to say you will be disappointed. Borlaug attended the University of Minnesota on a partial wrestling scholarship and earned degrees in the decidedly non-sexy fields of plant pathology and genetics. Upon graduation, he went to Mexico to study varieties of...wheat. Yes, not the most interesting of flora, either.
While south of the border in a climate that permitted him to create a double-yield wheat season, the local farmers were dealing with a plague of plant disease. As he could study the pathology twice as quickly, Borlaug, remembering his wrestling coaches advice to always give 105%, dedicated himself to preventing the disease's contagion and spread. Instead of developing a chemical toxin, Borlaug did something much more difficult and much more effective: He would, in effect, re-boot the entire genetic structure of the seeds through rapid cross-breeding and selection, thus making the wheat remarkably disease-resistant.
Because pure line (genotypically identical) plant varieties often only have one or a few major genes for disease resistance, and plant diseases such as rust are continuously producing new races that can overcome a pure line's resistance, multiline varieties were developed. Multiline varieties are mixtures of several phenotypically similar pure lines which each have different genes for disease resistance. By having similar heights, flowering and maturity dates, seed colors, and agronomic characteristics, they remain compatible with each other, and do not reduce yields when grown together on the field.Technically, Borlaug produced what's known as "semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat". In other words, wheat that could grow quickly, strongly, and free from the most common of diseases producing in such a volume that it virtually wiped out starvation, even in the most inhospitable of climates and conditions. It is estimated the Borlaug's wheat has saved over a billion people.
So virile was Borlaug's wheat strain that it was shipped, in seed form, to every portion of the world that had been vexed by periods of food shortage or even mass starvation. As such, he is recognized as the progenitor of what is now known as the Green Revolution, that period beginning in the mid-20th century when agriculture and technology combined to greatly improve human health and life-span.
Borlaug would spend the entirety of his 95 years improving the yield of agricultural products and battling against the causes of hunger. For his efforts, he would be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and, in 1970, the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he managed to wipe out for many, many people the experience of famine which, along with war and disease, is one of the three traditional vexations of the human condition. Thus, he improved the prospects of future peace by at least one third.
Charles Brush
[Not known for being loquacious, The Coracle was unable to find any quotes from Brush.
That's a first.]
I feel an odd kinship to Charles F. Brush. He and I grew up in the same part of Cleveland, Ohio; the eastern portion along Lake Erie that is known as Euclid, so named because the original surveyor was a fan of geometry [no kidding]. It was a township in Brush's day, born as he was in 1849, and became a manufacturing center and city with its own mayor and municipal government by the time I was alive, much of it due to the innovations and efforts of Brush.
Brush was a descendant of the great migration to the Western Reserve from New England, his ancestors desiring farmland that was not only richer but wonderfully free of rocks, boulders, and shelves of shale. To say Brush was precocious as a child is an understatement when, as a child, he began to build machines powered by static electricity and invented the functional arc light by his final year in high school. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in just two years, majoring in mining engineering as it was the closest to his area of interest [there were no degrees yet offered in electrical engineering as electricity was too new and largely misunderstood].
By the late 1870's, as he continued to make the arc light more advanced and productive, Brush designed a power source for it such as had never been seen: An electrical generator that Brush called a "dynamo". It was the forerunner of every generator since and enabled the growth of the industrial age and the economy that it produced.
Brush also experimented in the theoretical side of research, testing his private theories as to the kinetic properties of gravity and the existence of ether as a gas that would regulate it, increasing or decreasing gravity's pull with some electrical manipulation. While these experiments would prove largely fruitless, they would at least lead to the development of the very first wind generator, a forerunner of the machines that are now common in many parts of the world.
However, Brush saw that with the invention of the dynamo, and the role that generated electrical power and lighting would have on manufacturing and commerce, that population growth might become an issue. Thus, he established a foundation that would work to remove the 19th century stigma against contraception, so that people might be able to control, in this new non-agrarian economy, the size of their families without violating moral expectations or written law.
As sharp as he was an inventor, Brush was an equally shrewd businessman and amassed a fortune during his lifetime, building a mansion on Cleveland's "Millionaires' Row" with John D. Rockefeller, John Hay, and others as his neighbors. He was generous with his money, endowing various chairs at the universities and institutes of science that were and are still part of northeastern Ohio's academic life. The three schools that make up the current Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Orchestra [rated one of the best in the world], the superlative Cleveland Museum of Art, the beautiful Trinity Episcopal Cathedral [where this writer was ordained], and many other institutions benefited from his largesse.
Brush would die in 1929 at the age of 80. In keeping with the stipulation in his will, his mansion and its basement laboratory were razed within the year of his death, so that his more dangerous experiments would not fall into the hands of those with a less moral vision.
[An aside: In my junior year of high school, I was in the cafeteria of a high school in a neighboring community taking my SAT's. As is common in the springtime in Ohio, a vicious and sudden storm lashed through the area, knocking out the power. When, ten seconds later, the emergency generator started and the electric lights were restored, I had to smile. I was hoping the blackout would release us from the SAT's, but I ruefully noted that we were taking them at Charles F. Brush High School, so not a chance.]
Brush also experimented in the theoretical side of research, testing his private theories as to the kinetic properties of gravity and the existence of ether as a gas that would regulate it, increasing or decreasing gravity's pull with some electrical manipulation. While these experiments would prove largely fruitless, they would at least lead to the development of the very first wind generator, a forerunner of the machines that are now common in many parts of the world.
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| Brush's wind generator, circa 1890 |
However, Brush saw that with the invention of the dynamo, and the role that generated electrical power and lighting would have on manufacturing and commerce, that population growth might become an issue. Thus, he established a foundation that would work to remove the 19th century stigma against contraception, so that people might be able to control, in this new non-agrarian economy, the size of their families without violating moral expectations or written law.
As sharp as he was an inventor, Brush was an equally shrewd businessman and amassed a fortune during his lifetime, building a mansion on Cleveland's "Millionaires' Row" with John D. Rockefeller, John Hay, and others as his neighbors. He was generous with his money, endowing various chairs at the universities and institutes of science that were and are still part of northeastern Ohio's academic life. The three schools that make up the current Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Orchestra [rated one of the best in the world], the superlative Cleveland Museum of Art, the beautiful Trinity Episcopal Cathedral [where this writer was ordained], and many other institutions benefited from his largesse.
Brush would die in 1929 at the age of 80. In keeping with the stipulation in his will, his mansion and its basement laboratory were razed within the year of his death, so that his more dangerous experiments would not fall into the hands of those with a less moral vision.
[An aside: In my junior year of high school, I was in the cafeteria of a high school in a neighboring community taking my SAT's. As is common in the springtime in Ohio, a vicious and sudden storm lashed through the area, knocking out the power. When, ten seconds later, the emergency generator started and the electric lights were restored, I had to smile. I was hoping the blackout would release us from the SAT's, but I ruefully noted that we were taking them at Charles F. Brush High School, so not a chance.]
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| The massive wind turbine, a direct descendant of Brush's invention, that adorns the skyline of his hometown of Euclid, Ohio. |
Philip Hubert Frohman
Whether it is a chapel, small church or great cathedral or any portion thereof, we should endeavor to enclose space in a manner which will suggest the infinite.
I feel as if I should have known Philip Frohman, if not for us being separated by time and circumstance, simply because of how often I have interacted with places that were seminal in his life. I lived around the corner from the place of his birth, served on a committee that restored one of his designs, and have marveled, with much of the world, at his crowning achievement and appreciated its traditional role in the presentation of Anglican theology in the United States.
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| The Chelsea Hotel, today |
Frohman was born in the Chelsea Hotel [aka Hotel Chelsea], that landmark in Manhattan's lower west side that was, during my lifetime, the place where poets such as Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, and musicians such as Bob Dylan, Janice Joplin, Leonard Cohen, and Sid Vicious, would spend some time. Frohman, born in 1887, simply thought of it as the home designed by his grandfather, a noted architect of the Gilded Age, that was at the time the tallest building in Manhattan.
It has always surprised me that one born in such a flamboyant family, not only with a famous grandfather, but a father who was a theatrical impresario and a mother who was a stage actress, would be so submerged by his work that it is all but impossible to find a photograph of him. A photograph, often thought to be of him, of a child standing next to his grandfather while in Paris, is actually that of his younger brother. The grand building that serves, among other purposes, as his burial site also lacks any photographic evidence of his existence.
It doesn't really matter, though, as Frohman is best known through his designs. Following in his grandfather's vocation, Frohman became an architect, not originally of grand buildings or hotels, but of simple shelters for the U.S. Army at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland during World War I. A graduate of what is now known as the California Institute of Technology, or Cal Tech, these chores were a bit below Frohman's talents, but there was a particularly fortuitous moment when he met an Episcopal priest who would eventually become dean of the cathedral in Washington, D.C. and, later, the bishop of that diocese.
Finding churches to be of his taste professionally, Frohman made a name for himself in their design. Over fifty churches and chapels in the United States were designed by Frohman, among them the Cathedral of the Incarnation [Episcopal] in Baltimore, the chapel of Trinity College in Hartford [on whose restoration committee I once served], and...well, that's where his story really may be found.
The original Episcopal cathedral in Washington was, like much of the town in 1912, plain, low, and simple. Yet it was, certainly in the eyes of Frohman, rather beautiful. He just had one or two ideas as to how to improve it, so much so that he scrawled a small, touching prayer in the visitor's book, written in a code known only to him. All it begged of the Almighty was a chance to use his talents to design an offering worthy of God's grandeur as revealed in a country on the cusp of greatness.
In 1921, his prayer was answered as Frohman, due to his friendship with the bishop, became the chief architect of the new Cathedral Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, better known these days as the National Cathedral. It's design and construction would take up the remainder of his life.
Frohman was what is nowadays called "hands on" in his approach to construction, maintaining a level of personal fitness that permitted him, even in his senior years, to access the catwalks and scaffolding of his designs, ensuring the they would be followed to the letter and attending to all of the details. This was wise, as Frohman took an existent plan, already approved by the chapter [a cathedral's version of a parish's vestry] and engaged in a seemingly perpetual series of improvements, some that required just a fraction of change in dimension.
The cathedral, first envisioned in the 1890's, is a work of art in perpetual construction, with some of the workers now the third generation of their families to find their vocation among the Gothic sweep, the flying buttresses, the 200+ stained glass windows, and the 112 gargoyles. While we could detail everything from the "space window", which contains an actual moon rock, to the "yuppie gargoyle", the cathedral maintains a helpful and informative website that informs the viewer of many of the fascinating aspects of its construction and architecture.
While there would be other projects, it was the cathedral that would be the most dear of Frohman's life, and the one place where he was given absolute free reign to innovate and create, all for the sake a making a grand work of art that celebrated divine inspiration and human endeavor. In 1972, while walking to the cathedral to once again admire his creation and observe the ongoing work, Frohman would be struck and killed by a car in Washington's notoriously pedestrian unfriendly streets. He was 84. He is interred in the cathedral's chapel.
Christian structures in the 21st century have many enemies, mostly those of indifference and misguided intention, and the National Cathedral is no different. During the first decade of this century much of the endowment and other gifts were diverted from maintenance to programming that was mostly of benefit to the egos of the clergy, ignoring a building that was, in and of itself, a far greater proclamation of the Gospel than any virtue-signalling priest or dean could ever realize. Such misuse is having its effect, and a sacred space is in danger because of it. Fortunately there are, for now, those unwilling to permit a great structure to perish.
Such as it is with innovators, especially those like Borlaug, Brush, and Frohman. Each added something of value to the human race, furthering and enriching our physical, mental, and spiritual lives, and enabling us to live the rich, varied, and generally happy world we enjoy. They may be all but unknown to general history these days, but their endeavors and intelligence are still felt and, to the few who know of them, still celebrated.
The cathedral, first envisioned in the 1890's, is a work of art in perpetual construction, with some of the workers now the third generation of their families to find their vocation among the Gothic sweep, the flying buttresses, the 200+ stained glass windows, and the 112 gargoyles. While we could detail everything from the "space window", which contains an actual moon rock, to the "yuppie gargoyle", the cathedral maintains a helpful and informative website that informs the viewer of many of the fascinating aspects of its construction and architecture.
While there would be other projects, it was the cathedral that would be the most dear of Frohman's life, and the one place where he was given absolute free reign to innovate and create, all for the sake a making a grand work of art that celebrated divine inspiration and human endeavor. In 1972, while walking to the cathedral to once again admire his creation and observe the ongoing work, Frohman would be struck and killed by a car in Washington's notoriously pedestrian unfriendly streets. He was 84. He is interred in the cathedral's chapel.
Christian structures in the 21st century have many enemies, mostly those of indifference and misguided intention, and the National Cathedral is no different. During the first decade of this century much of the endowment and other gifts were diverted from maintenance to programming that was mostly of benefit to the egos of the clergy, ignoring a building that was, in and of itself, a far greater proclamation of the Gospel than any virtue-signalling priest or dean could ever realize. Such misuse is having its effect, and a sacred space is in danger because of it. Fortunately there are, for now, those unwilling to permit a great structure to perish.
Such as it is with innovators, especially those like Borlaug, Brush, and Frohman. Each added something of value to the human race, furthering and enriching our physical, mental, and spiritual lives, and enabling us to live the rich, varied, and generally happy world we enjoy. They may be all but unknown to general history these days, but their endeavors and intelligence are still felt and, to the few who know of them, still celebrated.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
You Mean You Can Find God Even Through Pop Culture? You Don't Say.
That's not really news to Anglicans/Episcopalians, but whatevs.
Yes, God Can Even Use Pink Floyd To Bring You To Truth
Yes, God Can Even Use Pink Floyd To Bring You To Truth
But, But, But...No One has Ever Tried Real Socialism
Yes, they have and it looks like this.
Without gas for cremation, even dying is a struggle in Venezuela
Without gas for cremation, even dying is a struggle in Venezuela
In Case You Missed It....
There is an absolutely remarkable socio-cultural shift occurring right now, as jarring as anything from fifty years ago, and the U.S. media can't quite see it because, in part, it is a reaction against large media conglomerates and, in larger part, it has nothing to do with their obsession with the current occupant of The White House.
Let me re-phrase that, you honor. The current occupant is a symptom of this world-wide socio-cultural shift, not its cause. Although he might be an accelerant, but we'll rely on future historians to figure that one out.
What is particularly fascinating to me is that these protests have no organzing group or individual, and they are made up of everyone from the far-left to the far-right to the in-between. The divide between the people and the elites is rather stark and ill-advised in the country that invented the guillotine.
As you will notice, it's not just in France.
NYT: France's Yellow Vest Protests
CityLab: France Gives In to 'Yellow Vest' Protesters' Demands
The Local France: 'Too little, too late': France's 'yellow vests' vow to push on with protests
Netherlands Times: "Yellow vests" protest planned for Amsterdam on Saturday
Politico Europe: Police van set ablaze as Yellow Jackets protests hit Brussels’ EU quarter
Well, this is interesting. How could it have backfired, I wonder?
An aside: I'm beginning to think that Macron is not so much a new type of politician as he is a figurehead promoted by those who wish to manipulate and control from the shadows.
Also, if Brigitte is for it, then so am I. [Long-time readers will recall my fondness for, and occasional correspondence with, my first crush.]
Let me re-phrase that, you honor. The current occupant is a symptom of this world-wide socio-cultural shift, not its cause. Although he might be an accelerant, but we'll rely on future historians to figure that one out.
What is particularly fascinating to me is that these protests have no organzing group or individual, and they are made up of everyone from the far-left to the far-right to the in-between. The divide between the people and the elites is rather stark and ill-advised in the country that invented the guillotine.
As you will notice, it's not just in France.
NYT: France's Yellow Vest Protests
CityLab: France Gives In to 'Yellow Vest' Protesters' Demands
The Local France: 'Too little, too late': France's 'yellow vests' vow to push on with protests
Netherlands Times: "Yellow vests" protest planned for Amsterdam on Saturday
Politico Europe: Police van set ablaze as Yellow Jackets protests hit Brussels’ EU quarter
Well, this is interesting. How could it have backfired, I wonder?
The French head of state has retreated into the Élysée Palace, ordered his aides and ministers into media silence, and tightened presidential communication to the few calibrated messages he thinks opportune. Power, he thinks, is best exercised when wrapped in a cloud of mystery.Oh, Macron. If you want to be Jupiter, it may be best to recall what happened to the original Zeus. Not so powerful these days, is he?
This is the "Jupiterian" concept his team developed in the last few months of the presidential campaign to illustrate his vision of the presidency. Jupiter, of course, is the supreme god of Roman mythology, god of the sky, thunder and lightning.
Applied to Macron's actual presidency, this means former friends and crucial campaign aides have been shunted aside, direct access to the president is restricted to a handful of young advisers, and Macron’s mobile phone seems to have gone silent.
The president gives marching orders, ministers and bureaucrats are expected to execute. No dissent is tolerated in the ranks, nor are the cozy and self-interested off-the-record chats that long provided fodder for political commentators.
Macron doesn't speak much, and when he does, he doesn’t say much. He has mostly been heard in almost-daily meetings with visiting foreign heads of state. They’ve come from Guatemala and Senegal, Belgium and Bulgaria, Denmark and Peru and elsewhere to meet the new boy wonder. Sober statements in the Élysée gardens are staged for the media, rarely with time for questions.
An aside: I'm beginning to think that Macron is not so much a new type of politician as he is a figurehead promoted by those who wish to manipulate and control from the shadows.
Also, if Brigitte is for it, then so am I. [Long-time readers will recall my fondness for, and occasional correspondence with, my first crush.]
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
A Day of Mourning
Savor this, as it will probably be the last time that the nation's federal offices will close down in recognition of a Connecticut Episcopalian.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Yes, There's Hope for the Future
As a story emerges about a Stanford University pooh bah advising a fraternity last year to take down an American flag for fear of offending people, please allow a brief lamentation that the fraternity’s patriotic reply appears to be an ever-rarer response from today’s generation of younger adults...
It is heartening, then, to read that when the Stanford administrator dared “imply that the American flag, as a symbol, could be intimidating, aggressive or alienating,” the frat he was advising responded by “instead choosing to replace it with an even bigger one.”Old song; older attitude:
I stood stone-like at midnight, suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and come out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd, but when they said, "Sit down, " I stood up....
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