Pope given last rites

This doesn't mean much. As the article states, last rites are often administered in the face of any grave illness, and it doesn't necessarily meant that his situation is terminal. But his time is drawing close, and the media frenzy when he dies will make Reagan's postmortem deification seem tasteful and understated.

I'm no Catholic- I was baptized in that church a month or so after being born, and haven't been back since- but with my amateur interests in politics and theology, I'm experiencing a little bit of trepidation about the next Pope. John Paul II has done a wonderful job of stacking the ranks of the cardinals with doctrinaire conservatives, virtually ensuring that meaningful change in the Church won't happen in the tenure of the next three or four Popes.

The worst case scenario as far as the next appointment? This guy. Cardinal Ratzinger is in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (an office of the Roman Curia which is historically related to the Inquisition), and as such is one of the big enforcers of orthodoxy in the Vatican. He has a notorious reputation for hardline conservatism, and even his "fan club" refers to him as the "Grand Inquisitor for Mother Rome."

His appointment is not a foregone conclusion (a lot of folks are betting that Francis Cardinal Arinze gets the gig), but it would make sense. Rome is desperately fighting against modern liberal ideas such as acceptance of homosexuality, and who better to conserve the Church's position than the cardinal who has been most outspoken on these topics? Ratzinger authored a 2002 paper titled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons which contains such classy statements as:

Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.

Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such [homosexual] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.

If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians... the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.

Lord, please save me from your more blockheaded followers.

In Soviet Russia, Scientists Whip You

Siberian medical researchers recently released a paper called "Methods of painful impact to treat addictive behavior" which states that "'whipping therapy' cures depression and suicide crises." This method of treatment works due to the increased endorphin production one experiences while enduring pain, so it kind of makes sense in a bizarre way.

Please note that the link isn't to The Onion, it's to an article in the Russian newspaper Pravda. This is for real, inexplicably enough.

Since it's tax time, this has got me wondering: Can I go down to Fetish Factory, buy a bunch of BDSM gear, and write it all off as a medical expense?

Cryptic Statements About Recent Personal Calamities

1. If that Ford F-150 were a little bigger and a little more blue... then perhaps I wouldn't have run into it.

2. It would seem to me that the worst time to discover that novocaine has little effect on you would be while sitting in the dentist's chair, undergoing a root canal.

Tone emailed me the following newspaper article (from a University of Florida-based paper), with the subject heading "Get out! Now!"

TALLAHASSEE - Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out "leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors" in the classrooms of Florida’s universities.

I had several snarky comments prepared... but right now I pretty much just want to cry. That, and get moving company estimates.

I left my wallet in El Segundo...

And I got to get it.

Got, got to get it.

Which makes a trip to California very necessary. I will be on the Left Coast from tomorrow through Saturday morning. It's a working vacation, in that I'll spend a big chunk of time dealing with teaching certification/job application junk in the event that I eventually move back. I'll be in San Diego and Los Angeles at different points. A side trip to the Bay Area isn't going to happen due to my limited time in the state, alas. Over the summer I will be couch-surfing with relatives in San Diego to keep my expenses down, and am planning on Amtraking my way up to the Bay for a weekend in July.

So by all means call me on my cell phone* (if you don't have the number email me) and we shall hang out. I may even buy lunch at Astroburger when in LA, or at La Bella while hanging out in Chula Vista. Assuming, of course, that I can find my wallet.

*Yes, I bit the bullet and acquired my first cell phone two months ago. I held off on getting one for a long time because, well... a cell phone killed my father. Twice. It was pretty traumatic, but remarkable advances in psychopharmaceuticals have made it possible for me to cradle one in my hands without deep-seated feelings of revulsion. Besides, I got a cheap plan with 1000 minutes per month, and that helped ameliorate some of my angst.

It seems as though I am much wittier when digitally marking my territory on other people's blogs than I am on my own turf.

The evidence:

Berlioz

Nipples

Meatloaf (context for Lee's seemingly non sequitur-ian reference to 50 Cent in that thread is located here)

In rereading the previous post, it has occured to me why I cannot accept the religious arguments against things like homosexuality.

The reason: The universe is a hell of a lot bigger than that.

Let's assume for the moment that some sort of Godhead exists (call it God, Shiva, the Force, whatever), and that She is still actively involved with this reality. It doesn't make sense to me that She would be overly concerned whith the places people choose to put their genitals when there are other, more necessary tasks at hand.

To illustrate... somehow I doubt God's palm pilot looks like this:

6:30 AM - Wake up; turn off chirping "seraphim and cherubim" alarm clock.

7:00 AM - Form new comet on the far side of Arcturus.

10:45 AM - Collapse large star to initiate formation of new galaxy.

12:30 PM - Strike the ocean of Rigel's sixth planet with lightning, creating amino acids which will one day, billions of years hence, evolve into sentient lifeforms.

2:00 PM - Sit in judgment of Bruce Miller (West Hollywood, CA); condemn him to an afterlife of shrieking agony because he occasionally put his penis in another man's mouth.

5:00 PM - Cocktails near the Oort Cloud

----------

This is not to say that morality per se is a sham. I think we are most blessed when we treat other people with kindness and compassion. And since consensual sexual activity between any two other people has no direct effect on anyone else's life, we can best show that kindness and compassion by ignoring said activities and spending our valuable mental energies on things that do matter.

Right now, a new star is coalescing in a galaxy an unimaginable distance away from here.

We will never see the light from this star. Its energies won't even pass through this part of the universe until long after our own sun has collapsed.

For some inexplicable reason, this makes me feel very, very good.

Passion Two: Electric Boogaloo

(Disclaimer for any readers that might be religious: In this post I am not making fun of Christianity... I am making fun of Mel Gibson. For the record: Jim Cava-whatshisname is not really Jesus, Mad Max is not really the Apostle Matthew, and I am not really as hypercritical of Christianity as this post would suggest, being a half-assed Christian myself. That being said...)

Self-righteous bastard Mel Gibson has apparently decided that he hasn't made enough money off of "teh Jesus." A new version of his Godly gorefest The Passion of the Christ has been released, titled The Passion: Recut. The new version has about six minutes of bloody ecclesiastical BDSM edited out, to make it more palatable to a wider audience (read that as: "anyone who doesn't want to see the shit kicked out of Jesus for an hour-and-a-half," and include me in that category).

I wrote a much more thoughtful and scholarly post here upon the film's initial release last year... but am not inclined to be as gracious this time given Mel's shameless money-grubbing. Therefore, mockery is in order.

One thing you may not know about me: I have mad contacts in Hollywood. After performing many shameful "favors" for my friends among the entertainment elite (which were non-sexual in nature... unfortunately), I was made privy to the improvements that Gibson made for this release of the classic Christian horror movie:

1. "Bad" Jews are all digitally replaced with Harvey Fierstein.

2. In an attempt to capitalize on South Park's notoriety, Gibson retitles the film The Passion: Bigger, Longer, Recut.

3. The Jews still speak Aramaic in the film, but the Romans now speak "pig Latin."

4. Gibson hires Michael Cretu of Enigma to score the film, feeling that a soundtrack featuring trance music and Gregorian chant would give the "Last Supper" scene additional gravitas.

5. Pontius Pilate's chambers are now called the Thunderdome. "Two men enter, one Savior leaves."

6. One scene where Jesus is scourged remains, but now as the centurions flog him they say "Quis est pater tuus" (which roughly translates into English as "Who's your daddy?"). Test audiences were unfavorably disposed to Jesus' responding "Jehovah!" each time the question was asked, so Mr. Cavaziel's lines were edited out prior to the full theatrical rerelease.

7. The music under the closing credits is now "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life."


UPDATE: My brother John (a grad student here and a funny guy indeed) made the following comment, which I felt warranted spotlighting on the main page:

Hey, what if the film were to end with Simple Minds' timeless "Don't You Forget About Me?" After their day-long "detention" at Mt. Calvary High, the music would fade in as Anthony Michael Hall narrates his letter to Pilate: "Signed...a nerd, a princess, a jock, a basket case, and the son of God." Jim Caviezal as Christ pumps his fist in the air as the chorus kicks in.

Also, thanks to John, Anna and the mighty languagehat for their help with the Latin translation!

David Horowitz's site Discover the Network (discussed here), which purports to unveil the ties between America's liberal left, big foundation money and the media, is so bizarre and misinformed as to almost be a parody of itself.

This fact hasn't stopped actual parodists from lampooning the site, though. I bring you:

Discover the Nutwork

Discover Your Momma's Network

[links via MeFi]

nietzscheswife sent along the following poem after reading the past couple of entries. It's by Charles Bukowski (who, like HST, is alternately praised for his talent and castigated for his behavior):

----------

What They Want

Vallejo writing about
loneliness while starving to
death;
Van Gogh's ear rejected by a
whore;
Rimbaud running off to Africa
to look for gold and finding
an incurable case of syphilis;
Beethoven gone deaf;
Pound dragged through the streets
in a cage;
Chatterton taking rat poison;
Hemingway's brains dropping into
the orange juice;
Pascal cutting his wrists
in the bathtub;
Artaud locked up with the mad;
Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;
Crane jumping into a boat propeller;
Lorca shot in the road by Spanish
troops;
Berryman jumping off a bridge;
Burroughs shooting his wife;
Mailer knifing his.
- that's what they want:
a God damned show
a lit billboard
in the middle of hell.
that's what they want,
that bunch of
dull
inarticulate
safe
dreary
admirers of
carnivals.
- Charles Bukowski

This morning I spent a goodly amout of time at the Kendall Bookshelf, my favorite South Florida bookstore. They're a wonderful purveyor of used books, with a great store credit policy:

1. Customer brings in, let's say, $100 worth of books, as determined by the cover price.

2. Customer can then select up to $100 in books, and pay 1/4 the cover price for them.

3. Without store credit, books are 1/2 of the cover price.

It seems like a good deal... but then again I'm pretty bad at math, so maybe I'm getting screwed.

I'm in the process of packing. I don't know when I'm moving, or where, but I figure I should get as many possessions shipped to California as possible, since I'll most likely end up there. I have filled 7 boxes with books, and that represents less than half of my library. Hence my trip to Kendall Bookshelf: the idea was to convert a large number of books I didn't want into a smaller, more portable number of books I do want.

These are the books I picked up today:

Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Delillo, Don. Cosmopolis
Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Redskins
Green, Elizabeth. The Modern Conductor
Leyner, Mark. Et Tu, Babe
Leyner, Mark. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
Reed, Peter. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I'm going to go read now. Have fun.

In the wake of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide, I have stumbled across quite a few articles, blog entries, and the like which excoriate Thompson for either his loutish behavior in this world or his spectacularly messy way of leaving it. Our culture has always had a way of overlooking the flaws of our great artists, and I can understand the impulse to be contrarian about that. It's difficult to see assholes deified.

Right now I'm reading Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Jamison. The book is exceptionally well-written, well-researched, and very interesting. Jamison, a professor of psychiatry who has also written a memoir about her own struggles with manic-depression, examines the ways in which bipolar disorder and creativity intersect. In doing so, she compiles biographies and family histories of many famous artists who likely suffered from the disorder... of course, it is impossible to accurately diagnose people long dead, so she primarily focuses on artists who seemed to embody the symptoms most (Hemingway, Byron, Woolf, Schumann, Henry and William James), and lists in an appendix additional creative types whose histories would indicate a pattern of bipolar behavior.

And it is a long, long list. The number of prominent artists (cross-disciplinary) who suffered from some sort of bipolar disorder is simply staggering; the author gives the names of almost 200 prominent writers, painters, composers et. al. that suffered symptoms of that condition.

I was thinking about Hunter S. Thompson as I read this today. HST likely had his own issues with this illness... he was a complete loon, but his thinking wasn't disordered enough for it to have been full-on schizophrenia, whereas people who are bipolar can often function to some extent. I'm not a psychologist, but I think a diagnosis of serious bipolar personality (exacerbated by alcoholism and drug addiction) is possible. It is irresponsible to make claims like this, but then again one of the lessons I take from HST's life and work is that irresponsible claims are occasionally enlightening, entertaining and necessary. Therefore I don't feel too badly about it in this case.

Many of the folks listed in Jamison's book were not pleasant people. They treated others like shit, fucked up their own lives as well as the lives of those closest to them, struggled with alcohol and drugs, and generally wreaked a lot of havoc. They also attempted or committed suicide at far greater rates than the rest of the population.

To be sure, here are also plenty of bastard-ish artists for whom mental illness was not a valid excuse for their jackassery. Beethoven had a famously bad temper (even more so after he went deaf), and was described by Goethe as "an utterly untamed personality, who is not altogether in the wrong in holding the world to be detestable, but surely does not make it any more enjoyable either for himself or for others by his attitude." Richard Wagner was a hardcore anti-Semite and a world-class wife-stealer. Mozart was mercurial and childish with a bit of a cruel streak. Da Vinci designed war machines.

And yet, without the artistic gifts bequeathed to us by people such as these, we would live in a much poorer world. We put them on a pedestal in spite of their flaws. We put them on a pedestal because of The Old Man and the Sea and Die Zauberflöte and Ornithology and The Great Gatsby and sunflowers and a certain obituary for a certain deceased President.

And if I had never had to do a harmonic analysis of the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde (one of the finitely identifiable points where Western music changed forever) by Wagner for a college music theory course...

or worked on Robert Schumann's art songs as a young voice student...

or sung in the chorus as the Florida Philharmonic performed Beethoven's Symphony no. 9, tears cascading down my face toward the end as I realized what an absolutely fucking perfect piece of music it was...

or, for that matter, never read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... I would be a worse person for it.