Now: After you’ve read it and appreciate it for its own sake, read it again and mentally make the following changes:
Gives one hope!
The rush of people with guns discovering chupacabra-like creatures continues . . . this time in New Mexico.
On Albuquerque’s West Mesa a gentleman was out shooting when he "kicked [a chupacabra-like creature] out of the dirt." (Not word on whether it was kicked out with a foot or a bullet.)
Pictures of the creature ran on a local TV channel, whose story (including video) is
The dessicated (but apparently not fossilized) creature appears to have wings, a tail, a long snout that some have compared to a horn, and lips that are described as "sponge-like."
It was taken to the New Mexico Game & Fish Commission for identification, and the TV channel promised to annouce what they concluded it was, but so far as I can tell they haven’t posted a follow-up report on their site.
They did say in general terms that the game & fish officials thought this was a creature that lived under the sea a long time ago.
This raises a question, though: If it’s old enough to date from when New Mexico was underwater, why ain’t it fossilized?
If it’s more recent, how did it get there? Did it survive in a lake that dried up? Did someone or some animal catch it elsewhere and transport it? Are any of these things still alive?
Maybe . . . someday . . . the answers will surface.
(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who sent this in!)
Eason Jordan, who has a history of making vile remarks about the U.S. military, has resigned from his position as top news executive for CNN, following a controversy carried out largely on the blogosphere:
NEW YORK (AP) – CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amid a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq. Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. He was the target of an Internet and Web site campaign that was beginning to rival the one launched against CBS’s Dan Rather following the network’s ill-fated story last fall about President Bush’s military service [SOURCE].
The conference was videotaped, and the videotape
had been found. Bloggers demanded the release of
the video tape, but Eason, et al., were stonewalling. Eason offered an only semi-plausible semi-denial/semi-retraction of his comments and did not call for the release of the tape to allow everyone to see what he really did or did not say. The MSM then largely turned a blind eye to the controversy.
Excerpt from MORE:
If, like most people, you relied on the conventional media for your
news, you would not only be late to the party, you would have no idea
what is going on–your first knowledge of anything out of the ordinary
would be Jordan’s resignation. Assuming even that will be reported. It
would be an interesting assignment: trying to write a story on Jordan’s
resignation for a paper that has not heretofore covered the
controversy. If Jordan had just announced he wanted to spend more time
with his family, he would have made their task easier.
Excerpts from STILL MORE:
To paraphrase Instapundit: Well, I guess we know what was on that tape.
I have a feeling that the discussion of the "blogs as a lynch mob" is going to get a lot of coverage in the coming days.
Could it be that Rony Abovitz’s account was most accurate, that the
tape would show Jordan making the accusation, only halfway
backtracking, and many in the audience applauding his courage for
making the accusation?Bill at
InDCJournal: "I’m actually shocked. I’m starting to believe in Hugh
Hewitt’s theories about blogs having the omnipotence to warp space and
time, cure baldness and raise the dead."
Kewl!
From the story:
CHICAGO — All Alison Miller and Todd Parrish wanted was to become parents. But when a fertility clinic didn’t preserve a healthy embryo they had hoped would one day become their child, they sued for wrongful death.
A judge refused to dismiss their case, ruling in effect that a test-tube embryo (search) is a human being and that the suit can go forward.
Though most legal experts believe the ruling will be overturned, some in the fertility business worry it could have a chilling effect, threatening everything from in vitro fertilization (search) to abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.
"If the decision stands, it could essentially end in vitro fertilization," said Dr. Robert Schenken, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (search). Few doctors would risk offering the procedure if any accident that harmed the embryo could result in a wrongful death lawsuit, said Schenken, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas in San Antonio.
While this one’s a real long-shot, here’s hoping!
A reader writes:
Hi Jimmy!
I’m a long-time reader of your blog, since the very beginning actually! I just wanted to ask your opinion on an issue that recently came up. I joined a bible study not too long ago on the book of Genesis. In this study, we learned that the Pentateuch was not actually written by Moses, but that portions were written by various authors at various times, which explains why many accounts supposedly contradict each other.
For example, the study mentioned 4 “authors”: Priestly, Yahwist, Elohist, and Deuteronomic. Each has a unique style to express their message. Our facilitator then talked about the two different creation stories, and how they reflected different authors with different purposes. This type of bible scholarship seemed a little too “modern” and liberal to me, so I wanted to ask if there was any merit to this type of scholarship. Has the Church said anything about the idea of 4 different authors composing the Pentateuch, esp. with regards to the book of Genesis? Thanks!
Early in the 20th century the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued documents rejecting this type of approach to the Pentateuch, though these documents were disciplinary in force (as opposed to doctrinal) and they lapsed in the mid 20th century. Since that time, Catholic Bible scholars have been permitted to advance this kind of view.
If you read John Paul II’s Original Unity of Man and Woman, it is clear that he personally favors the four-source hypothesis. This, however, is his personal opinion and not something that he (or the Church) has taught with Magisterial authority. Consequently, it is incorrect to represent it as something the Church teaches.
It also is worth pointing out that the four-source hypothesis is not certain. In fact, in Protestant circles, the theory has become passe to many, with scholars claiming that the so-called Elohist source is really not a separate source at all.
There are also significant refutations of the theory. I especially recommend the book Before Abraham Was, by Kikawada and Quinn. It is absolutely devastating. First they make the strongest case they can for the theory. Then they tear it apart. Unfortunatley, it’s out of print, but a used book service may turn it up.
Personally, I have not studied the matter in sufficient depth to resolve in my mind the question of how many and what sources there may be contributing to the Pentateuch, but I am quite suspicious of the idea that the four-source hypothesis has it correctly worked out.
I also would like to comment on the particularly destructive way in which the hypothesis is often presented. It often is portrayed as an explanation for numerous "errors" or "contradictions" in the Pentateuch. In reality, there are none of these. As Vatican II taught, whatever is asserted by the sacred author is also asserted by the Holy Spirit, and since the Holy Spirit is infallible, he makes no errors in his assertions. Therefore, any perceived errors or contradictions in Scripture are not this in reality. They are either to be harmonized or they are non-assertions (e.g., figures of speech not meant to be taken literally).
A reader writes:
Jimmy,
I am reading your book "Mass Confusion" and I need some help that I can’t find on page 118. My question has to do with the wording of the section that reads: "When supper was ended, he took up the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his DISCIPLES, and said". Our priest is substituting the word "Freind" for disciples. Is this OK? He is a Franciscan brother…tom
The word "friends" is used in place of "disciples" in the currently-authorized translations of the First and Second Eucharistic Prayers for Masses with Children. (I don’t have access to the Latin originals, so I can’t check to see if that’s the word used in the original. It may be ICEL tomfoolery.) Curiously, "friends" is not in the Third Eucharistic Prayer for Masses with Children ("disciples" is).
So if he’s saying one of those two Eucharistic prayers, he’s fine.
If he’s injecting the word "friends" into any other Eucharistic prayer (e.g., Eucharistic Prayers I-IV) then he’s not fine.
Because of the confusion caused to the faithful by any tampering with the words of consecration, this substitution (while it does not affect the validity of the consecration), is a liturgical abuse and sinful.
Down yonder, a reader writes:
Vatican documents teach that Lent has 40 days of penance.
I need to stop you for a moment. Lent is not a matter of Church teaching. It is a matter of the Church’s liturgical law. Therefore, no Church document "teaches" that Lent is forty days. I point this out partly for the sake of accuracy and to put readers on guard against thinking this is a matter of Church teaching, given the emotionally charge that the word "teach" has for faithful Catholics. It’s a matter of law, not doctrine, so the matter is a question of what the Church’s law provides, not what the Magisterium teaches.
Back over to you . . .
For example the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 540 "By the
solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the
mystery of Jesus in the desert."
I would point out several things in response:
You also write:
Forty days is also prominent in the 17 December 2001 document from
the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments entitled Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy:
"Lent
"124. Lent precedes and prepares for Easter. It is a time to hear
the Word of God, to convert, to prepare for and remember Baptism, to be
reconciled with God and one’s neighbour, and of more frequent recourse
to the "arms of Christian penance"(134): prayer, fasting and good works
(cf. Mt 6, 1-6. 16-18).
"Popular piety does not easily perceive the mystical aspect of Lent
and does not emphasize any of its great themes or values, such a
relationship between "the sacrament of forty days" and "the sacraments
of Christian initiation", nor the mystery of the "exodus" which is
always present in the lenten journey. Popular piety concentrates on the
mysteries of Christ’s humanity, and during Lent the faithful pay close
attention to the Passion and Death of Our Lord.
"125. In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance
is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the
Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. …"
While the Directory for Popular Piety and the Liturgy is a document published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which is the competent dicastery to revise the calendar, this document is still not the controlling legal document for the calendar. That document is the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, which was quoted earlier and which provides a definition of Lent that is not forty days long.
The Directory for Popular Piety is a pastoral document rather than a legal document. It contains language of a pastoral nature that draws upon the traditional and approximative mode of speech regarding Lent being forty days long. It does not re-define the length of Lent in supercession of the General Norms.
In order for it to do so, it would not only have to indicate that it was revising the calendar (it does not), it would also have to be approved by the pope in forma specifica (it is not; it has only general papal approval).
The presence of the traditional, approximative language in this or other documents thus does not override the fact that the controlling legal document for the calendar–the General Norms–specifies a Lenten period of more than forty days.
It’s understandable that folks would be confused on this point, because the traditional mode of speech, if taken literally, is at variance with the length specified in the controlling legal document–which is why this question comes up every year.
My compliments on your throughness in investigating this!
Down yonder, a reader writes:
Vatican documents teach that Lent has 40 days of penance.
I need to stop you for a moment. Lent is not a matter of Church teaching. It is a matter of the Church’s liturgical law. Therefore, no Church document "teaches" that Lent is forty days. I point this out partly for the sake of accuracy and to put readers on guard against thinking this is a matter of Church teaching, given the emotionally charge that the word "teach" has for faithful Catholics. It’s a matter of law, not doctrine, so the matter is a question of what the Church’s law provides, not what the Magisterium teaches.
Back over to you . . .
For example the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 540 "By the
solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the
mystery of Jesus in the desert."
I would point out several things in response:
You also write:
Forty days is also prominent in the 17 December 2001 document from
the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments entitled Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy:
"Lent
"124. Lent precedes and prepares for Easter. It is a time to hear
the Word of God, to convert, to prepare for and remember Baptism, to be
reconciled with God and one’s neighbour, and of more frequent recourse
to the "arms of Christian penance"(134): prayer, fasting and good works
(cf. Mt 6, 1-6. 16-18)."Popular piety does not easily perceive the mystical aspect of Lent
and does not emphasize any of its great themes or values, such a
relationship between "the sacrament of forty days" and "the sacraments
of Christian initiation", nor the mystery of the "exodus" which is
always present in the lenten journey. Popular piety concentrates on the
mysteries of Christ’s humanity, and during Lent the faithful pay close
attention to the Passion and Death of Our Lord."125. In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance
is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the
Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. …"
While the Directory for Popular Piety and the Liturgy is a document published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which is the competent dicastery to revise the calendar, this document is still not the controlling legal document for the calendar. That document is the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, which was quoted earlier and which provides a definition of Lent that is not forty days long.
The Directory for Popular Piety is a pastoral document rather than a legal document. It contains language of a pastoral nature that draws upon the traditional and approximative mode of speech regarding Lent being forty days long. It does not re-define the length of Lent in supercession of the General Norms.
In order for it to do so, it would not only have to indicate that it was revising the calendar (it does not), it would also have to be approved by the pope in forma specifica (it is not; it has only general papal approval).
The presence of the traditional, approximative language in this or other documents thus does not override the fact that the controlling legal document for the calendar–the General Norms–specifies a Lenten period of more than forty days.
It’s understandable that folks would be confused on this point, because the traditional mode of speech, if taken literally, is at variance with the length specified in the controlling legal document–which is why this question comes up every year.
My compliments on your throughness in investigating this!
A reader writes:
I have a question concerning the duration of Lent. My sister, who is just coming back into the faith, just came back from picking up her son at CCD class. She said that they were told that the first 3 days following Ash Wednesday are not officially part of the Lenton season, and that Lent does not officially start until Sunday. She said that they were also given a book, and that it also says this in the book.
Is this correct??
No. The current regulations for what days are in what seasons are found in a document titled the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, which was released in 1969. It provides:
Lent runs from Ash Wednesday until the Mass of the Lord’s Supper exclusive [General Norms 28].
The origin of the confusion may be in the fact that the First Sunday of Lent (four days after Ash Wednesday) is sometimes said to inaugurate "the first week of Lent." This manner of speech is meant to pick out the first full week of Lent and does not change the fact that the controlling legal document, the General Norms, provides that Lent begins earlier.
A Florida hog hunter downed a 1,140 lb. wild hog last August.
This hog, dubbed "Hog Kong," was larger than the behemoth "Hogzilla" killed in Georgia.
The hunter, Larry Earley, downed the beast with a .44 magnum.
He later said: "I didn’t realize he was that big or I would have gotten a different gun."
No, duh!
He’s lucky to have brought down a 1,140-lb. hog with a handgun of any caliber!
Hog Kong has inspired a number of tall tales on the Internet, but
IN THIS STORY EARLEY SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED.
DAILY PLANET — Just before being shot by Earley, Hog Kong was distracted by a beautiful woman resembling Faye Ray, leading one local rustic to remark, "Shazam! T’was beauty kilt the beast!"
In a related development, Toho Studios announce a porcine remake of its classic monsterbash King Kong vs. Godzilla as Hog Kong vs. Hogzilla. Plans are for the film to have two endings. The first, to be shown in Georgia, will have Hogzilla win the climactic battle, while the second, to be shown in Florida, will have Hog Kong as the victor.