Original Face

TTFN

I need to take a break for a bit.  Nothing bad, mind you but I've got to concentrate on some other things for a couple of months and I don't want to see Original Face as a chore, which it was never has been.  But, as Mac Arthur said, I'll be back...but I won't do it in two takes.

Last Best Hope

    Another Independence Day.  Another birthday for the nation whom Lincoln dubbed the "last, best hope of mankind."  Time to take pause.  To reflect.  And then to celebrate,light the fireworks, let the bells ring and the canons roar.

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

e.e. cummings 

Let the games begin!

    The Olympics start on Friday not 8/8/08 as NBC has been drilling into our heads with their incessant promotional advertisements for the past six months.  They start in Brooklyn on the Fourth of July and the best of the best from the nations of the world will be represented at the games.  What am I writing about?
    The annual hot dog eating competition of course.  Who can forget the upset victory of America's own Joey Chesnut winning back the gold after so many years?  Or the gutsy performance of the legendary  Takeru Kobayashi who presaged Tiger Woods' US Open performance by fighting through a severe case of TMJ to come in a close second to Chestnut?
    Forget about track and field, swimming or gymnastics.  Who but freaks of nature could stand on an Olympic medal stand?  But all of us if we have stomachs of steel and the ability to push through the heartburn can dream of being hot dog champ.  I can't wait.

By my side

    Today is the Feast of Saint Peter & Paul.  It is traditionally the day in the Roman Church when the metropolitan archbishops come to the Vatican and get the pallium, the woolen symbol of their office.  Happens every year.  No reason to write about it.  Except when the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the titular head of the world's 200 million Orthodox Christians, participates in the service.  That is news.
    Both the pope and the patriarch processed together, kissed the main altar of St Peter's and sat side by side during the Liturgy of the Word.  Both incensed the Gospel books, both received the Gospels from the other's deacons and they read together the Creed (minus the filioque).  Of course, when the Liturgy of the Sacrament started, the Patriarch retired to a throne of honor outside of the sanctuary, as the two Churches are not in communion with each other--yet.
    This is the closest the two Churches have come in nearly 1000 years.  While there is still a long way to travel until the schism is finished, today's actions are a dramatic development on that road to unity.  Deo Gratia!

The road back

    It will be a long road to health, but today, in Israel, the orthodox of the Anglican Communion took the first and most important step toward recovery.  The GAFCON communique issued this afternoon is a masterstroke.  It neither caves in with the typical Anglican vacillation nor declares a formal parting of the the ways with the rest of the Communion, both of which would have been welcome news to the the Episcopal Church and Church of England leadership.  Rather, the GAFCON statement makes it quite clear that they are and will remain Anglicans and that the criteria for being Anglicans is theirs, not Canterbury's, to bestow.  A new reformation has occurred. 
    By maintaining the power of the conciliar process of the Communion's primates, of which the orthodox have the lion's share, the leftists' power has been tossed aside.  Canterbury will be told, in not-too-subtle terms, if he wishes to have a Communion over which to be Archbishop, he had better take his orders from the orthodox from now on.  The real powerful bishop in Britain is now Michael Nazir-Ali, not Rowan Williams.
    What does this mean for North American orthodox Anglicans.  Nothing right away.  But it seems clear that soon the Communion's primates will be recognizing a new North American province and de-recognizing the Episcopal Church as the American branch of the Anglican Communion.  This will probably have little to no influence to civil judges making decisions on property disputes as parishes and dioceses leave the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church.  American Anglican parishes will be hardscrabble and start from lowly beginnings, winning souls with faith rather than furnishings.  But given the decline in numbers and demographics of the Episcopal Church and other so-called progressive Christian denominations, there will probably be a whole lot of church buildings on the market shortly.

Suggested by Ben, stolen from Bronwyn, stolen from Edmund...

    My son, Ben's good friend, Bronwyn, posted a really fun game the other day.  She listed the first lines of the first 30 songs that randomly came up on her IPOD playlist and challenged everyone to name the artist and title of the piece.  The rules also included no use of computer databases (I used a person for one so I will close that loophole here :)  ).  Write in and if you are the first correct response your name will be listed next to that entry.  To make it a bit more fair I only included popular music--no world, serious or sacred music in my list.  Ok.  Have your thinking caps on?  Here it comes...

1.  I heard there was a secret chord
2.  Well, they're flickin' on the bar lights
3.  I can't stand it, I know you planned it
4.  Yesterday, all my troubles were so far away
5.  Voy ya cantar estos vergos, aunque yos no soy de aqui
6.  Sometimes I think about you, wonder if you're out there thinkin' 'bout me
7.  24 hours to go, I wanna be sedated
8.  I marched in the battle of New Orleans
9.  The way you wear your hat
10. I wanna meet Santa, the real, real, Santa
11. Well, I went home with a waitress, the way I always do
12. The theatre is so obsessed with drama so depressed
13. Have you seen the old man in the closed down market
14. In the summertime when the weather is hot
15. Way down south in Birmingham
16. Gallieo's head was on the block
17. There's a place I like to go, cherry bombs and cherry wine
18. I know what you want. I want to take you to a midnight show tonight
19. He was sittin' up there for more than an hour
20. We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor
21.  Come on, come on, come on. Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man?
22. First thing I remember I was lying in my bed , I couldn't have been more than one or two
23. They say every man must need protection; they say every man must fall
24. Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see
25. Driving that train, high on cocaine
26. She was in the backyard and it was a little past 9 when her prince pulled up
27. I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still
28. One week since you looked at me
29. The dutchman's not the kind of man who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam that keeps his dreams in
30. Spring is here, Spring is here, life is skittles and life is beer

Bishop to archbishop 1. Check...

    The Anglican blogosphere and media are all focused on the large meeting of orthodox theologians, clerics and laity in Jerusalem this week, wondering if GAFCON, as the gathering is called, will mark the beginning of a formal split of the Anglican communion.  These reporters and commentators note that the meeting, coming just before the once a decade Lambeth Conference held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be attended by bishops who represent more of the world's Anglicans than will those attending Lambeth.  Yet, while GAFCON is an attractive story, it is not the big story in the dismantling of present day Anglicanism.
    The news that has received quite little attention is that Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England, has let it be known that he and several other of his fellow diocesan CofE bishops will also be absent from Lambeth.  This is like the governor of Illinois or New York stating that he is refusing to come to the Democratic National Convention on ideological grounds. 
    Nazir-Ali, a leading evangelical in the Church, has long opposed the Episcopal Church's disregard of the rest of the Communion's prohibitions against gay marriage and consecrations but the breaking point is probably deeper than that.  His fierce attack on ++Rowan's speech on Sharia law earlier this year demonstrates that the Pakistani born cleric believes that the present CofE leadership is ill equip to deal with the problems presented by an aggressive Islam.  Nazir-Ali's decision seems to be that time is of the essence and that ++Rowan must be humiliated and forced to resign for the good of the Church.
    Without Nazir-Ali, Lambeth can no longer claim to be an inclusive meeting of Church hierarchs but rather will be merely a gathering of ideological bed-fellows and those who see Lambeth only as the the highlight of their life's social calender. There is no way for ++Rowan to save face.  He has failed to heal the breaches...indeed, he has exacerbated them.  Nazir-Ali's actions will just force this issue to the foreground.

Equal time

    I have been asked to give equal time to the no-happy father's day sentiment out in the blogosphere.  Given that our Democrat controlled Congress is soon to mandate equal time (how that squares with freedom of speech and the press I have never understood), I figured, well, why not.  So here it is.
    I have posted a poem of Philip Larkin's previously.  He is a very complex and interesting figure in modern British poetry.  An atheist with a sense of the divine, he has the knack of penetrating below the surface of things and showing the inner aspects of life.  He also can be richly ironic and pungent.  Here is a poem that knocks parents, parenting and parenthood.

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

Fathers and sons

    Tomorrow is Father's Day.  It was, literally, an afterthought created almost 40 years after Mothers' Day.  More or less, it will be acknowledged with a metaphorical tip of the cap to the Ol Man.  Perhaps a card, or a phone call.  Maybe even a special breakfast.  But the restaurants will not have waiting lists for luncheon reservations, the flower shops (or wine stores, for that matter) will barely see any blip in their sales numbers due to the day.
    Yet, let's celebrate fathers.  In the era where they are no longer a necessity in reproduction, but a luxury for family life, their influence over their children continues throughout the kids' lives, regardless of their presence.  So, Dad, here's to you.
    A wonderful, if little read, modern American poet, Louis Simpson's poem about a father and a son resonates with me.  Perhaps with you as well.

Working Late

A light is on in my father's study.
"Still up?" he says, and we are silent,
looking at the harbor lights,
listening to the surf
and the creak of coconut boughs.

He is working late on cases.
No impassioned speech! He argues from evidence,
actually pacing out and measuring,
while the fans revolving on the ceiling
winnow the true from the false.

Once he passed a brass curtain rod
through a head made out of plaster
and showed the jury the angle of fire--
where the murderer must have stood.
For years, all through my childhood,
if I opened a closet . . . bang!
There would be the dead man's head
with a black hole in the forehead.

All the arguing in the world
will not stay the moon.
She has come all the way from Russia
to gaze for a while in a mango tree
and light the wall of a veranda,
before resuming her interrupted journey
beyond the harbor and the lighthouse
at Port Royal, turning away
from land to the open sea.

Yet, nothing in nature changes, from that day to this,
she is still the mother of us all.
I can see the drifting offshore lights,
black posts where the pelicans brood.

And the light that used to shine
at night in my father's study
now shines as late in mine.

You are heroes. Now get out...

    Mom, apple pie, the flag and the Boy Scouts.  For decades there were few things more emblematic of America and American life than that.  They were, all four, icons that provided touchstones for the national sense of self.
    That all ended when the left wing establishment began attacking a number of American institutions, most particularly, the Boy Scouts.  The Scouts' requirement to have a belief system not only alienated them from the establishment's good graces but caused the Scouts to be driven out of schools, libraries and other public buildings.  Their reputation was vilified as they did not adhere to the post-modernist ironic critique of American society that is the Baby Boomers' own emblematic conceit.
    Then yesterday happened.  A tornado touches down, scores of injured men, women and children laying wounded in debris covered territory that made professional rescue equipment for all intents and purposes useless.  But, there was a squad of senior level Scouts camping nearby.  Without regard for their own safety, the boys used the first aid skills which they had been taught in the Scouts to treat the victims, keeping them stable until the rescuers could make it to the scene.
    They are heroes.  Selfless boys who, when called upon, came through for their fellow Americans in need.  Of course, they still will not be allowed to meet in the local school, library or town hall. 

Maybe we can sell them the Brooklyn Bridge too

    Drudge Report, which has gotten, if such a thing is possible, even more shrill recently, is running a red banner headline this afternoon that Abu Dahbi is buying the Chrysler Building for $800,000,000.  The implication made by Matt Drudge from his pea-sized understanding of finance, economics and simple geography, is that the nation is being sold off, bit by bit.  That America is going to Hell in a hand-basket.
    Of course, in the 1980s the same scaremongering occurred when the Japanese invasion occurred.  The fact that Japanese investors bought Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach Country Club meant that the United States was just a step or two away from being a Ni-hon vassal state.  So, how did that work out for Japan?
    As far as I can tell, Abu Dahbi is planning on keeping the Chrysler Building right where it is in Manhattan.  New Yorkers will not lose its iconic building's silhouette from the skyline and Woody Allen can use it in any of his next umpteenth remakes of the same New York angst movie he has been peddling for the past couple of decades. 
    After all, who cares who owns it?  Do you know who owns it now?  What would it matter to you if it were owned by anyone other than Donald Trump (who would have the building's exterior changed to spell his name in lights)?  That's right. It wouldn't. 
    So good.  Let some rich oil guy have his overpriced penis replacement (oh, you know I am studying psychoanalysis. I have to use the phallic symbol imagery...).  It's nice to have the nearly billion dollars repatriated.  With luck Saudi Arabia might want the Grand Canyon too.

Never thought it would happen

    I'm bored of the Yankees.  I have been a Yankee fan all of my life.  Unlike most Yankee fans who have only known good (and great) teams, I grew up with the likes of Horace Clark and Jake Gibbs.  I cried, bled and screamed for the Yankees.  When they won I cheered..sometimes mightily.  When in 2004 they lost, I mourned.  But regardless, I always, always cared.
    Now instead of checking the box score as soon as I get up, I sometimes go hours and even days without knowing how they did.  If they win, I go "huh" and if they lose, I go "huh."  It doesn't much matter.
    I still love watching and playing sports and it isn't that I am finally after more than two decades in Boston changing my pinstripes for red sox, but I find this team right now to be mediocre and uninspiring.   I just don't care.
    I hope I get the passion back, but if not, then, I'll have to content myself with hoops and football.  And in those sports I have always rooted for the Ol' Towne Teams.

What she didn't do

    She didn't release her pledged delegates.  Hillary Clinton might have ended campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president but she did not end her campaign.  In techo-election law lingo that can only make a lawyer happy, today she "suspended" her campaign. 
    Now most likely this suspension has as much chance of coming back to life as Ted William's cryogenically suspended body (Or did Teddy go for the economy model of preservation only paying for his head to be placed in liquid nitrogen?).  However, if something were to happen, say a piece of videotape, another crazy preacher, revelations from the outcome of the Renzo corruption trial or a major stumble when Obama is off his prepared remarks, the green flag will be waving again and it's full throttle to the finish.
    So while you have time to go to the 'fridge for another cool one or pop some corn, don't turn the television set just off yet.  There may be more racing action to come.

Big Brown as Bobby Bonds?

    There is an old saying of a father to his son, giving the young man some life wisdom: "If a man come up to you in a bar and says that a bird will fly into a bar and poop in your ear in the next two minutes.  Do not take that bet, because as sure as you think you are, there will soon be a bird shitting on you and taking your money."  That caution against easy expectations was borne out again today, as Big Brown couldn't get it done in the Belmont Stakes.
    Unlike other Triple Crown wannabes it wasn't the 1 1/2 mile distance that caused Big Brown problems.  From the 1/8th pole, the horse looked off...his head was high and he was fighting the bit.  Looking at the replay I can't see anything that would throw him off stride, rather it seemed as if from the starting gate on, he wasn't really in the race.
    In the days ahead much will be made of the quarter crack in the left front hoof, but that problem couldn't have caused the type of race he ran today.  Instead the question is more was he "juiced" at the Preakness and the Derby?  Almost all states ban steroids in racehorses.  Surprise, surprise but that isn't the case in three of the major racing venues.  Wanna guess which ones? In Maryland and Kentucky the use of steroids is legal in horseracing.  It is also the case in New York.  But unlike the first two legs of the Crown, Big Brown hadn't been on steroids for several weeks.    Why did they lay off the needle?  Could it be that since steroids impinge wound healing, that the trainers and vets were concerned that the quarter crack might not be completely repaired with the steroids on board?  Was it because the media was beinging to wonder if Big Brown was really just Barry Bonds on four hooves, a talented but not talented enough athlete without chemical help?
    It probably will remain a mystery, but it does make one wonder.  If human athletes should not use steroids, that should also be the case for equine athletes as well.  Watch for Kentucky, Maryland and New York to follow the example of the other states and ban steroids in equine athletes.

   

He forgot one thing

    John Mortimer, the barrister and author of such wonderful works as "Brideshead Revisited" and all of the "Rumpole of the Bailey" stories, has a great line.  He states that the three things which Britain has given to the world are: 

• "Oxford Book of English Verse" --the Arthur Quiller-Couch edition
• the English breakfast
• the presumption of innocence.

I would like to add a fourth--treasury tags.  They are the civilized alternative to paper clips or staples.