Month: February 2008

The Tripods are Coming

Tripods
Kewl! The Tripods,
the science fiction trilogy by John Christopher (real name Samuel
Youd), is one of the stories well known and oft quoted in our
household. My son even named his cat Ozzy, after the character
Ozymandias. We read the books and watched the BBC TV series until the
venerable VHS tape finally gave up the ghost a few years ago. We hadn’t
given it much thought for a while, until my son found some video clips
on YouTube. It was fun rediscovering the series and covering old,
familiar ground. I’ll have to look around and see if the series may be
found on DVD.

It occurred to me, after reading some comments on YouTube (always an
intellectual treat) that the themes of the book could be interpreted as
a slam at religion. I’d considered the idea before, but dismissed it, however…
that was before Hitchens, Dawkins and Pullman labored to make the world
safe for anti-religious bigotry, dragged it out of the closet and onto
the New York Times Bestseller list.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the world has been conquered
completely by aliens who travel around in gigantic tripods (okay, not
terribly original, but consider it flattery to H.G. Wells) and the
population are kept in line through the use of an electronic wire mesh
"cap" that is stamped onto their cranium around the age of 16 (when
young folk typically begin having serious rebellious thoughts) and that
makes them content, docile and obedient to the tripods. The cap keeps
them from thinking in certain ways, eliminates violent and deceitful
thoughts, but also wonder and inventiveness. Human kind is restricted
to about an 18th century level of technology. The heroes run away as
their "capping day" draws near, in search of a secret enclave of human
resistance,  based on nothing but a rumor and a map picked up from a
"vagrant" (a human whose capping has gone wrong, they are considered
insane).

I never interpreted the story as anti-religious, and in fact saw the
cap in much broader terms as the common tendency for the Spirit of the
Age (any age) to become tyrannical and oppressive, or the readiness of
people to give up thinking for themselves in exchange for the promise
of peace and safety. These are human themes into which religion of one
kind or another might figure… or not.

If the story was meant as a veiled anti-religious screed, it’s
odd that an unabashed religionist like myself would find so much in the
story to relate to and delight in. To me, the Map could just as well
represent Holy Scripture, the Resistance the Church, and the Cap
atheistic materialism. I always assumed that once a person was capped,
religious impulses would be the first thing to go.

I Googled around a bit  and couldn’t find any blatantly anti-religious sentiments attributable to to Mr. Youd (aka John Christopher), but I’d be interested to hear from someone who may know more.

Visit Tim Jones’ blog, "Old World Swine"

But, Is It Art? – Abstraction Pt. 1

Elegytothespanishrepublic_3From Old World Swine, the long-ago promised
conclusion to my "But Is It Art?" series, Part One;

I titled this series "But, Is It Art?" because that was the question I
sought to answer regarding non-representational (purely abstract) art,
like the Robert Motherwell piece at left. My first instinct – my bias
early on – was to say that, no, it wasn’t really art. As I have
explained earlier, I have come to modify that position, and in the
process have come to a new appreciation of abstract art in its proper place.

I’m sure that in part my reaction against abstract art was due to
the particular kind of art education I slogged through as a young man.
The new broom of modernism had swept the academy clean, and it was made
plain again and again that only the dullest sort of hack artist would
bother to paint a straight, traditional portrait, still life or
landscape. The concept of seeking Beauty was actually derided, and one
poor grad student who let the term slip out during a critique was met
with snickers and the shaking of heads. She was done for.

In regard to non-representational art, we were trained not only to
see things that were not there, but to write papers about it… with
footnotes. We were all expected to take seriously the idea that a
canvas with a few lines and blobs of paint on it was as significant and
praiseworthy as Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St. Peter. Not surprisingly, I don’t recall any student in the MFA program I went through who wasn’t simply adrift
as an artist. There was no sense of connection with history or
tradition beyond the last 100 years, or so, and indeed little sense of
connection even with one another. There was very little in the way of
technical help or instruction, and even less in terms of personal
artistic development, no cohesive approach or philosophy – no rules,
except "There are no rules". We were all making it up as we went along,
with more or less success.

It took quite a while for me to begin to see past this, to gain some
perspective. When I at last reached a point where I decided it was just
a matter of plain sanity to prefer beauty to ugliness or meaning to
emptiness, I was no longer painting at all, but was doing design and
illustration. It was no doubt due to my embrace of historical, orthodox
Christianity and the influence of writers like Tolkien, Chesterton and
C.S. Lewis that I came to think about the mystery of beauty at all. In
my new enthusiasm for tradition, meaning and beauty, I turned smartly
on my heels and completely dismissed non-objective art as a fraud and
the last refuge of talentless duffers.

But I digress.

In my next post I will give what I consider to be the strengths of
modern abstraction and talk about in what contexts and in what ways I
believe it does function well. In this post, though, I will
focus on why I believe non-objective art can not be placed in the same
category as the truly great works of art history.

Art is one of those magical, mysterious things – like writing and
music – that only humans do. It sets us apart from the animal world by
a gulf that is incomprehensibly wide.

There are two things – two fundamentally mysterious and magical
things – that traditional representational art does that
non-representational art does not do. The first is the most obvious;
representational art, well, represents something. It calls to
mind something that is not there, or that never existed except in the
imagination of the artist. It communicates symbolically in a way
analogous to writing. Writing is just ink on a page, figures of varied
kinds that we string together to make words, and then sentences and
presently we are drawn into a world, with its own people and events…
we are with Frodo and Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom, or tied to the
mast with Odysseus.  One undeniable mystery of visual art is this power
to symbolically represent things that are not really there. It’s
something we may not often think about (because we are too busy doing
it), but the fact that I can draw a few lines and make you think of a
goat or a sailing ship is just indescribably awesome. It’s something
only we humans do… even cavemen knew that.

The second mysterious thing that traditional representational art often does can be related to the first, but they are not the
same; this is the breaking of the "picture plane", or the property of
taking the viewer past the surface of the painting and into an illusory
space. One can represent an object in a very flat and abstract way
(again, think of cave painting or modern road signs), but the ability
of the artist to create a believable space, with its own sense of
light, atmosphere and perspective adds a dimension to the experience
that is, again, powerful and mysterious. It gives the viewer the
sensation that they could reach past the frame and into the painting.
Most often they see past  the surface of the picture without thinking about it. That’s magic. Alice through the looking glass.

These two properties are so fundamental and potent that they could very nearly be the definition of what fine visual art really is.
Without them, what is left are the merely formal aspects of visual
art… composition, color harmony, texture, etc… all important
things, but by themselves inadequate to move the viewer in anything like the way representational art can.

Now, there is a line of thought that holds that symbolic
representation and the illusion of form and space are irrelevant to the
appreciation of visual art, or even that such things get in the way,
which to me is exactly like saying "That could have been a great novel,
if not for all those characters, locations and plot developments
getting in the way", as if the true essence of a novel were in formal
concepts like "paragraphs" or "grammar".

The formal aspects of art are very significant, and can be
appreciated and admired for their own strengths, but there’s one
problem with that way of thinking; every great novel and every great
work of art possesses these formal strengths and uses them to great
effect anyway… and in addition also provides the kind
of narrative and symbolic communication that gives meaning to the
whole. In other words, with any great work of visual art, you get the
symbolic communication, the illusion and the brilliant use of the formal aspects (like composition, color, texture, etc…) thrown in, so the experience of traditional, representational art is much more comprehensive, making use of all the strengths of abstract art, but in service to the substantive mysteries of symbolism and illusion. The great thing about, say, a Sargent portrait is how a dash of paint
can function so completely, powerfully and simultaneously as both a vital and evocative bit of brushwork and
as a totally believable reflection on the bridge of a nose or the curve
of a shoulder. We see it as one, then the other, then both at once. The
passage resonates with the energy of this meaningful dichotomy.

The point being that if you’re going to toss out
representation and illusion to begin with, you had better have
something pretty damned powerful up your sleeve to give meaning to the
formal properties of the piece… that is if you’re after fine art.

There is another way of thinking that says that visual art shouldn’t
be compared to the concrete symbolism of writing, but rather to the
abstract patterns of music. Being wholly ignorant of the subject, I
will not even try to write in any meaningful way about how music works,
how it engages the emotions, but I will say that art, music, writing,
dance, etc… all enter the mind and move the human consciousness in
very different ways. Art is not meant to affect us just as music does,
or one of them would be redundant. In a similar way, it would be a
mistake to push the analogy of art to writing too far. Fine art can be a great deal more like visual poetry than straight visual story telling.
There certainly can be a very musical sense of rhythm, texture and mood
to a piece of visual art, but the mystery and power of visual fine art
flows from its own spring and can’t be understood simply and solely as
visual music.

There is a kind of art that functions something like visual music,
though… decorative art, which figures large in the next (and final)
post.

“Christian Ramadan”: Does the Press Get Religion Now?

SDG here.

For years we’ve known that The Press Doesn’t Get Religion. And, usually, when the press doesn’t get religion, Get Religion gets the press. Get Religion is a group blog of religious religion journalists covering religion journalism, and in general they do an excellent job.

I was disappointed, therefore, by a recent blog post from Get Religionista Mollie Zielger Hemingway — who says she “loves analyzing media coverage of the liturgical calendar” — offering kudos to the “reporters” who “found the story” on what she describes as “rebranding Lent as Ramadan” in the Netherlands. She even praises “most reporters” covering this alleged “rebranding” for having “put the story in context.” She also adds that this “rebranding” is “a symptom of a larger condition” that “could use some sensible reporting.”

That’s one thing Mollie and I agree on: Sensible reporting is definitely needed. That’s why God created Get Religion. So where is their “sensible reporting” when it comes to a “story” almost totally devoid of facts — a story that even by usual media standards for religion reporting seems (at least to this non-religion journalist) breathtakingly irresponsible in the disconnect between the claims of the headline and lede and whatever facts appear to lie at the bottom of the stories?

Here’s the DutchNews piece that got Mollie’s kudos for breaking the story. (Actually, this may not be the piece that broke the story, since the first sentence credits another publication; my Dutch is a little rusty, but I think Volkskrant means something like People’s News or Popular News. However, perhaps it’s all the same outfit.) Here’s the headline and lede:

Lent must be as ‘cool’ as Ramadan

The Catholic tradition of fasting at Lent needs to become as ‘cool’ as the Muslim fasting peiod of Ramadan, say Dutch Catholics in today’s Volkskrant.

This year, the church is even promoting the 40-day fast as ‘the Christian Ramadan’. ‘We use the word Ramadan because it is a term young people are more likely to understand than Lent, the organisation Vastenaktie tells the paper.

Mollie also positively cites this follow-up piece in The Telegraph that goes further. Here’s the lede:

Lent fast re-branded as ‘Christian Ramadan’

Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the “Christian Ramadan” in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity.

The Catholic charity Vastenaktie, which collects for the Third World across the Netherlands during the Lent period, is concerned that the Christian festival has become less important for the Dutch over the last generation.

“The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent,” said Vastenaktie Director, Martin Van der Kuil.

For what it’s worth, the DutchNews piece doesn’t mention “rebranding,” although it does claim that “the church” is “promoting” the Lenten fast as “the Christian Ramadan.” What, exactly, does this mean?

In a Catholic context, when you say “the church” is doing X — at least if you know what you’re talking about — you mean that bishops are doing X, or at least sanctioning it. That is who speaks for the Church: the bishops. If, say, individual Catholics are doing X, you don’t say that “the church” is doing it, you say some Catholics are doing it.

In the case of the Dutch episcopacy, the prospect of someone proposing some sort of boneheaded Lent/Ramadan equivalency might not be entirely out of the question. A ways back Bishop “Tiny” Muskins made headlines by suggesting that Christians use the name Allah to refer to God, which makes a lot of sense — for Arabic-speaking Christians. It makes no sense at all for Christians whose primary language is Dutch or English. Whether this new flap represents similar episcopal thinking, though, remains to be seen.

The Telegraph piece offers the more startling headline — “Lent fast re-branded as ‘Christian Ramadan’” — written in the passive voice with no active subject, leaving it unclear who or what is responsible for this “re-branding.” To be fair, headlines are usually written by editors, not the reporters who are at least meant to be researching facts, but still it presents the alleged “rebranding” as a fait accompli.

At the very least, it suggests that someone with some sort of significant controlling stake in the Lenten “brand” — again, presumably the Dutch bishops, or at least a diocesan PR office or something — has embarked on a concerted campaign to get “Christian Ramadan” into the vernacular while consigning “Lent” to the scrap heap. (That’s what “rebranding” implies: deprecating an old, obsolete brand in favor of the new normative one.)

Then in the opening graf we learn that “Dutch Catholics” are responsible for this “rebranding.” Does this mean the Dutch Catholic bishops? Dutch Catholics in general? Is it a popular grassroots movement?  Whatever the facts, these early cues strongly suggest a broad-based Ramadanizing or Islamification of a Christian penitential season.

But wait. After telling us that “the church” was promoting Lent as “the Christian Ramadan,” DutchNews goes on to cite “the organisation Vastenaktie” as saying “We use the word Ramadan because it is a term young people are more likely to understand than Lent.”

Who or what is “the organization Vastenaktie”? DutchNews doesn’t say, possibly expecting Dutch readers to be in the know. It thus falls to the Telegraph to fill in readers outside the Netherlands that Vastenaktie is a Catholic charity. (Possibly with a special Lenten emphasis; “Vastenaktie” looks to mean something like “fasting and action.”)

So, okay, a Catholic charitable organization is concerned that the Lenten fast has lost cultural significance, and is trying to burnish its image among young people. That may be a significant story, particularly the cultural implication about young people being more familiar with Muslim cultural touchstones than Christian ones.

But it’s a far cry from the picture that you might get from the opening sentences of these stories of Lent being “rebranded” by “the church.” Even if Vastenaktie is an official arm of the Dutch church (and I have no idea whether it is or not), you still don’t say that “the church” is “rebranding” the Lenten fast because a Catholic charity has done…

Hm. Come to think of it, what exactly have they done? Exactly what form has this “rebranding” taken? What, specifically, has Vastenaktie done by way of “rebranding” the Lenten fast? Are there to be bulletins and other materials announcing the “Fourth Sunday in Christian Ramadan”? Will Catholics soon be asking each other what they’ve given up for Christian Ramadan?

Let’s see. Put together, both news stories give us a combined total of, um, zero facts in this regard. Zilch. Nada. Not a clue what “rebranding the Lenten fast” is supposed to entail. Just a quote from the organization’s director, talking about the need to “polish” the “image” of Lent and the observation that the Muslim penitential season is better known among young people. Later the Telegraph reporter vaguely mentions “linking” the Lenten fast to Ramadan, but again not a single specific as to what this means.

Perhaps at this point you’re wondering what Mollie was talking about when she praised reporters for putting “the story in context.” That was in reference to the relaxation of Lenten disciplines in the wake of Vatican II and the decline of Lenten observances among Mass-attending Catholics. I guess you could say that’s context. They just forgot to include the story. (Actually, according to comments at Get Religion, it looks like they got the context wrong too: Both stories erroneously claim that prior to Vatican II alcohol was prohibited during Lent.)

FWIW, I Googled Vastenaktie, went to their website, glanced over the homepage in Google translation, clicked on the first thing that mentioned fasting, and found a paragraph on “Christian Ramadan”. Below is an eclectic rendering in English based on a couple of online translation engines and my own ignorant judgment (my family is Dutch, but I learned almost nothing; I would welcome a more informed translation):

Christian Ramadan

A typical wordplay. In the Dutch media there is much attention for non-Christian religions and their practices. Each year Ramadan invariably pulls the front pages of newspapers in our country. By contrast, the Catholic fasting tradition is forgotten in oblivion. Young people especially know the Islamic fast, but not the Christian. The carnival obtains the news… The Catholic fasting tradition  is valuable. And the interest grows.

Putting together this paragraph with every single fact from both news stories, as far as I can tell, it looks like a Catholic charity in the Netherlands may or may not be saying something like, “You know how Muslims have Ramadan? Well, Catholics have something like that too! Lent: It’s like Ramadan… except the press talks a lot about Ramadan and ignores Lent, so maybe if we point out the connection, we can get Lent some coverage as well.”

I’m not saying that is all that Vastenaktie has done. Nor am I saying that this much, as far as it goes, is necessarily a good idea in itself. I’m not arguing any of that. I’m not defending Vastenaktie in any way. I’m saying that (1) I have no idea what Vastenaktie has actually done; (2) neither, as far as I can tell, does anyone else; and (3) the way the story is being reported and perpetuated seems wildly incommensurate with the facts that have emerged to date.

Certainly if the paragraph above, and the “wordplay” it suggests, represents the extent of the “Christian Ramadan” business, I’d say we have an instance here, not merely of journalistic incompetence in religion reporting, but of sensational Islamo-controversy-mongering.

That’s the kind of thing I expect Get Religion to be all over, instead of perpetuating.

It isn’t only Get Religion. A number of Catholic and non-Catholic bloggers have blogged on the story, either not noticing the problems in reporting, or possibly figuring it sounded crazy enough to be true. And who knows, it could be. But “could be” is not a story. Maybe someday if someone does some sensible reporting, we might find out.

Mollie commented in her piece that “It’s easy to write the first story.” She might have underestimated the difficulty. Perhaps we’ll know when (or rather if) the first story emerges.

Another Apologist Going On Alaska Cruise

Image012Yes! It’s true!

The apologist pictured here will be joining us on the upcoming Catholic Answers apologetics cruise to Alaska!

(No, not the one in white; the one holding the book.)

Catholic Answers is pleased to announce that our Alaska apologetics cruise will be joined by Fr. John Trigilio, well-known priest and apologist, frequent guest on EWTN, and author of a bunch of books (including the one he’s holding in the picture).

Fr. Trigilio will be serving as chaplain on the cruise and so will be saying daily Mass, hearing confessions, offering spiritual counseling, etc.

Also going on the cruise will be Tim Staples, Mark Shea, Jim Blackburn, and your humble bloghost.

So I hope you’ll consider joining us for a special, faith-building cruise to Alaska. It’ll be a wonderful opportunity to build your faith in a spiritually uplifting and relaxing environment that will give you the chance to experience the natural beauty that God endowed our northernmost state with.

MORE INFO HERE.

Global Warming To Increase Zombie Attacks!

William M. Briggs reports:

A new study by scientists has suggested that zombie attacks might increase if the current projections of global warming are realized. “If the earth gets warmer, it means longer springs, summers, and falls, and shorter winters,” said John Carpenter-Romero, Ph.D., a zombie-ologist who co-authored the study. “And shorter winters means more time for the undead to prey on the populace.”

GET THE STORY.

On the other hand, one of Briggs’ commenters suggests that this may be a self-correcting phenomenon:

The good news is that zombies have a significantly lower carbon
footprint than living humans. For example, if Al Gore became Zombie Al
Gore his utility usage and air travel would go from several hundred
tonnes of carbon per year to zero tonnes of carbon per year. . . .

Generalize these figures across the population and we can see an
inverse relationship between zombie attacks and carbon emissions
leading in time to a reduction or reversal of warming trends and
consequently of favorable zombie habitat. A new stable state might be
brought about within a matter of decades provided zombie outbreaks can
be encouraged in heavy emitting states including mainland China.

Meanwhile, Transterrestrial Musings suggests that the real cause of global warming is the sun and that changes in the sun’s activity will actually lead to a decrease in zombie attacks, stating:

Take that, undead!

Zombies and vampires. Is there any problem the sun can’t fix?

GET THAT STORY.

Dr. Atkins’ Cold Remedy

I very seldom get colds. I normally go years between getting a cold.

But when I get them, I get them bad, and I’m sick as a dog for two weeks.

But not this time.

A few weeks ago I started getting a cold–a bad one–and I decided to try a nutritional formula recommended by Dr. Robert Atkins (you know, the diet guy) to nip it in the bud.

Boy, did it work!

I didn’t even take the remedy until Day Two of the cold, and by Day Four, I was cured!

The idea behind the formula is that it’s a bunch of nutritional supplements designed to give your immune system a short, sharp boost to fight off the infection, so in theory it can help with any infectious disease, not just colds.

I have to admit, though, that I did add two cold-specific treatments to my regimen: Since colds are commonly caused by rhinoviruses (viruses that like to live in your nose), I flushed my nasal cavity a couple three times a day with saline solution (Simply Saline is the brand I like best). I also use a small amount of Zicam, which is a zinc-based nasal gel (zinc has anti-viral properties).

Now, if you’re a fan of saline or Zicam, you might attribute all or part of my rapid recovery to those, but whatever it was, I got over my cold much faster than normal.

So I thought I’d describe the cure here, in case others can benefit from it.

First, here’s the nutritional supplement regimen:

INITIAL DOSE (taken as soon as possible after onset of symptoms; preferably immediately after first clear symptom):

Vitamin A (40,000-80,000 IU)
Beta carotene (60,000-120,000 IU)
Balanced B complex (100 mg)
Vitamin C (10-20 grams)
Garlic (2400-3200 mg)
Zinc (200-400 mg)
Bioflavonoids (800-1600 mg)

MAINTENANCE DOSE:

Vitamin A (10,000-20,000 IU)
Beta carotene (15,000-30,000 IU)
Balanced B complex (25-50 mg)
Vitamin C (2-4 grams)
Garlic (2400-3200 mg)
Zinc (50-100 mg)
Bioflavonoids (200-400 mg)

I took my initial dose on Day Two of my cold and a maintenance dose on both Day Three and Day Four, by which point that "sick" feeling was gone–far earlier than normal with a cold for me.

Note that you shouldn’t take this much of these nutrients every day. They’re to combat an illness that’s in progress, not a general preventative measure. These amounts also are for adults, not children. Since it was the first time I had used the formula, I did *not* put myself on the highest doses in each category (e.g., I tried only 10 grams of C, not 20) to test my tolerance for them. Your mileage may vary.

I got this formula out of Atkins’ book Dr. Atkins Vita-Nutrient Solution, which I *highly* recommend. It contains not only information about each nutrient, its uses, and side-effects, it also contains formulas like the above that may be helpful in dealing with a wide variety of medical issues.

Well, This Would Be Nice

A couple of years ago I read a book by the founder of Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.–a private intelligence analysis firm) that analyzed the War on Terror and that was, in points, quite critical of the Bush administration and its handling of the war.

I was thus interested to read Tigerhawk (via Instapundit) quoting the following passage from a subscribers-only Stratfor piece. I wasn’t so interested in the Bush stuff, but the part in blue would be really, really nice if Stratfor is right:

Many see Bush as constrained by his lame duck status, his unpopularity and a Democratic majority in Congress. Stratfor disagrees. We see these factors as empowering the White House.

Bush is not running for reelection, so he need not cater to the polls. He has no clear successor to support, so he need not spare the lash for fear of harming an ally. A Democratic Congress combined with a general election in November means that all of his initiatives are dead on arrival on the House and Senate floor, so he need not even spare a glance in the direction of domestic policy.

All the pieces are in place for a no-holds-barred executive with very few institutional restrictions on his ability to act. Foreign affairs require neither popular support nor Congressional approval.

The president’s primary goal in 2008 is simple: reaching an arrangement with Iran. Ideally, this would be a mutually agreed upon deal that splits influence in Iraq, but we have already moved past the point where that is critical. Al Qaeda, the reason for being involved in the region in the first place, is essentially dead. The various Sunni Arab powers that made al Qaeda possible have lined up behind Washington. Iran and the United States may still wish to quibble over details, but the strategic picture is clearing: a U.S.-led coalition is going to shape the Middle East, and it is up to Iran whether it wants to play the role of that coalition’s spear or its target. And the Bush administration has the full power of the United States — and one long year — to drive that point home.