November 2005 – Page 4

Bless His Heart

Down in Texas, and elsewhere in the South, we have a saying: "Bless his heart" (or, in the feminine, "Bless her heart"). This phrase is used to signal affection for someone, frequently just before or just after noting one of their shortcomings.

The amazing thing about this phrase is that you can couple it with the most withering critique, but the phrase "makes that okay."

F’rinstance: "Bless his heart, Lester never did have the sense to come in out of the rain" or "Bless her heart, Betty Jo’s entry into this year’s apple pie contest tasted like it had been made with persimmons."

"Bless his heart" is like of like putting a smiley face after an insult on the web.

Well it seems that the MSM has an equivalent to this. Witness:

At the end of a day of meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Chinese officials, Bush held a session with a small group of U.S. reporters and spoke at length about issues like religious freedom, Iraq and the Chinese currency.

The final reporter he called on critiqued Bush’s performance earlier in the day when he stood next to Hu in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square to deliver a statement.

"Respectfully, sir — you know we’re always respectful — in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?" he asked [SOURCE].

It appears that "Respectfully, sir" is the MSM equivalent of "Bless his heart." It’s a phrase to "make okay" whatever outrage is about to pass the reporter’s lips.

Only it’s darker than "Bless his heart," because there can be (and usually is) genuine affection expressed with the latter phrase.

There isn’t any of that in the reporter’s "Respectfully, sir" and certainly not in the patently false "you know we’re always respectful."

This question was anything but respectful, and calling it that didn’t make it so. It only called attention to the fundamental rudeness of the question, which can only be described as an ill-willed, nitpicky, and petty effort at "gotcha" journalism.

The question was asked purely to embarrass the president. It certainly was not a serious attempt to elicit information that would be valuable for the public to know. I mean, if there was a urgent global crisis that the president was aware of and that was what was what was on his mind, he could scarcely be expected to tell that to the reporter.

The question also has the appearance of trying to stir up ill will between the president and his Chinese hosts by overtly suggesting that he wasn’t enthusiastic about relations with them. Trying to stir up trouble between the U.S. and China in a diplomatic situation like this isn’t just asinine, it’s positively unpatriotic.

No president should be asked such a blatantly insulting question in such a diplomatic situation. Not Bush. Not Clinton. Not anybody.

Oh, and think what a sterling example of the free press the reporter set for the Chinese. Yes, that’ll make Beijing want to loosen control of reporters in China. "My asinine behavior is what y’all have to look forward to if you free the press, guys!" is what this guy telegraphed to the Chinese leadership.

Despite the fact that the reporter was acting like an arrogant, nitpicking, petty little man bent on troublemaking, the president had a good comeback:

"Have you ever heard of jet lag?" Bush responded. "Well, good. That answers your question."

Nice comeback.

Still, that reporter needs a trip to the woodshed.

Bless his heart.

Cheese

I didn’t plan on publishing this. It’s just a note that I sent to a family whom I’m helping thorough my parish’s Thanksgiving and Christmas program. But I thought printing it might encourage others to help families in their own areas during the holiday season.

So here goes. . . .

Dear Family of [Children’s Names Deleted]:

I wanted to send y’all a note and thank you for the one you
sent me. Thanks! I appreciate it!

I know what it is like to need help financially. I have been
so poor that all I could afford to eat was 17-cent boxes of generic macaroni
and cheese. After a summer of that, I couldn’t stand to eat macaroni and cheese
for years, though it had been one of my favorite foods before that.

Later, when I was married, my wife and I were so poor that we had to search the cushions of the
couch for spare change to scrape together enough money to buy a pack of cheap hotdogs
and a can of generic lemonade to have food and drink for the day. We could only
buy the most inexpensive food possible.

My family later offered to help us, but they had no idea how
bad off we were. At one point the subject of cheese came up, and I said:
“Cheese? That’s rich person’s food!” We simply couldn’t afford it.

My family brought over a bunch of food, including several
blocks of cheese, and it was such a gift from God!

Now that Jesus has blessed me and I can help others, I want
to do so. I hope that y’all enjoy what I was able to buy for him and for you.

I tried to get everything that was on the list that the food
pantry suggested for a family of six—plus more—though I wasn’t able to get
marshmallows since the store was out of them. There are extra sweets for the kids in the box, though.

I also made sure that there were some additional things that
the food pantry didn’t suggest.

In particular: I made sure that there were several blocks of
cheese.

The love of Christ be with y’all!

—Jimmy

Parishioner at [My Parish] Catholic Church

If you can, please help the less fortunate in your area this Thanksgiving and Christmas!

The (not-so) Fiery Furnace

We’ve been having trouble with our furnace.

For you folks out in sunny California, or down in balmy Florida, a furnace is a household appliance common here in Arkansas, the primary job of which is to waft great billows of toasty, heated air into our chilly living spaces, so that we don’t have to go to all the trouble of getting up and walking all the way to the closet and putting on a sweater.

That’s alot to ask of any American, especially when you consider that there is a good chance of misplacing the TV remote while you walk around the house.

So, I called a technician and he fiddled around with the thing for about twenty minutes, announced that he had found the problem and informed me that it would be very expensive to fix. I told him to hold off ordering any parts, because I wanted to be able to do some creative budgeting before I coughed up several hundred bucks.
That night, my wife (the one of us who isn’t absent minded) reminded me that we have household insurance that covers stuff like this.

OO-RAH!

I called the number on our copy of the contract, and in a few hours, another technician was knealing in our cramped furnace closet, only a few feet from the catbox. I thought to myself that anyone who spends that much time in basements and garages probably gets to see alot of catboxes.

The new technician is younger than the last. He sets to work, and the thought of telling him about yesterday’s technician crosses my mind. Should I tell him that "the other guy" thought it was a stuck relay?

He hums a little while he works. He is patient, unlike "the other guy", who seemed to be having a hard day, and grumbled whenever he dropped a screw, or misplaced his flashlight.

Do I just casually drop a remark like, "-think maybe it’s a stuck relay?"

The "new" guy is moving a little probe around to different wires that run around the furnace. A little red light in the probe blinks on and off as he touches here and there.

Do I mention the previous diagnosis, just to save him some trouble?

No, and here’s why. Two reasons:

1) I have no clue as to whether the "other guy" was correct in his diagnosis. Sure, I would have trusted him to fix the problem, because he knows more than I do, but I can’t say for sure that he got it right on his first go.

2) As I heard someone say recently, "Everyone likes to peel their own banana". This guy seems confident and capable. He probably likes to go about his job in a certain way, testing and deducing according to his own logical pattern. He might not appreciate people throwing out theories while he is trying to systematically form his own judgements. I could just see him giving me a sideways glance and saying, "Well maybe it’s a stuck relay and maybe it ain’t.". Here in thenSouth, such un-asked for advice could be taken as a lack of trust. It wouldn’t be polite.

This new tehnician is very patient, and works for a solid twenty-five minutes before saying anything.

"Hm-m-m-mm."

That’s it; "Hm-m-m-mm.".

A few minutes later he stands up and explains "Looks like there’s a bad relay in your control board.".
It’s going to be expensive, and will take a few days to get the part, he says. We make some innocuous conversation and chuckle a little over how complicated machines are these days. In the old days, I could have fixed my own furnace, but this one has an electronic brain. I always used to work on my own cars myself. He understands.

He leaves with a "take it easy", and I’m glad I didn’t mention the other technician.

It’s chilly at night this week. We can make it like an adventure. Pile blankets on the bed and wear sweaters. And now we have an excuse to use the fireplace!

Habits That Should Not Be Broken

A reader writes:

Dear Jimmy,

As a frequent listener to "Catholic Answers Live" and
an occasional visitor to your blog, I have long been
impressed by both your charity and your ability to
stick to the facts when discussing even the most
contentious issues with callers who wish to "drag you
into the muck" and to engage in speculation about what
this or that priest or sister or bishop has said or
didn’t say.

This is why I was so dismayed to read the most recent
entry on your blog entitled "Yes, It All Makes Sense
Now."

I will be the first to agree that Sister Helen Timothy
was wrong to expel Katelyn Sills for her courageous
decision to reveal that a teacher at her school was
escorting students to Planned Parenthood to have
abortions. But contrary to your assertion that the
picture and article to which you linked "explain[ed] a
good bit," I was left asking "What exactly was the
point Jimmy was trying to make here"? And your
comment that "I’ve never understood those orders in
the habit of habitually having habits whose style is
best described as ‘office frumpy’" was unchartiable
and irrelevant to the facts of this case.

Thanks for writing. I appreciate your perspective, and I’ll try to clarify.

The point I was making is that the fact that Sr. Helen Timothy does not seem to wear a habit is consistent with some of the other things that have been reported about her, such has:

Her apparent resistance to firing a woman who facilitated murders until ordered to do so by the bishop.
Her apparent refusal to communicate with the Sills about this matter prior to the action.
Her apparent refusal to support the bishop’s decision publicly (manifested in her referring all press inquiries to the bishop’s office).
Her apparently unjust dismissal of Katelyn from the school.

The reason that the lack a habit is consistent with these is that there is presently an identity crisis among many religious. This identity crisis manifests itself in different ways, including a reluctance to embrace traditional Catholic teaching and values.

Among the traditional Catholic values that some religious have been reluctant to embrace is the value of traditional religious garb. Traditionally, Catholics have regarded such attire as an important sign of consecration to God and indicator of the social function and identity of the member of a religious community. Such garb has traditionally served as an identity marker, just as clerical garb is an identity marker for priests, police uniforms are identity markers for police officers, military uniforms are identity markers for members of the military, etc.

As the identity crisis has spread in religious circles, many have been reluctant to wear the traditional identity marker for their role (the habit) and have either unlawfully ceased wearing it or have sought to change their community’s charter such that the identity marker is toned down as much as possible, while remaining in minimal compliance with the ecclesiastical law. (For example, getting rid of veils and habits and instead wearing a religious pin or brooch–neither of which is visible in the picture of Sr. Helen Timothy).

The identity crisis in religious circles has not gone unnoticed by the laity, who have become suspicious of religious that do not wear the traditional identity markers for their roles.

Ordinary lay people recognize that the clothes a person wears tell you something about the person. This is true not only in cases where there are formal uniforms (as with a monk, a nun, a priest, a policeman, or a military officer) but even in cases where a particular style is informal.

The fact that I dress like a cowboy tells you something about me, where I come from, and what I identify with. It doesn’t tell you everything about me (e.g., most cowboys probably haven’t specialized in theology and canon law as much as I have, nor do they likely have the same interest level I do in ancient history, linguistics, and science fiction), but it does tell you something.

Similarly, "hippie" garb and "rapper" garb and "grunge" garb and "goth" garb tell you something about the people that choose to wear them. (As well as "milkman" garb and "McDonalds employee" garb and "businessman" garb, and every other kind of distinctive dress you can think of.)

Lay people know this instinctively, and when they meet a religious sister who does not wear the traditional identity marker for her role then they take it as a sign that the sister may be caught up in the identity crisis that affects so many religious these days.

That identity crisis affects more than just the outward identity markers of religious, though, it can also affect things like:

Willingness to fire employees who are discovered to be facilitators of murder.
Willingness to communicate with people who ask for such firings.
Willingness to support bishops who order such firings.
Willingness to expel students who prompted such firings.

Now, none of those things follow necessarily from failure to wear a habit, but they are correlated in a way that is notable to a lay audience. Hence the reader who e-mailed the picture and saying that it explains a lot without even needing to identify the element in the picture (the absence of a habit) that does the explaining.

The bottom line is that ordinary people realize that when someone has a particular social role but refuses to embrace the traditional identity markers of that role that it calls into question the degree to which they embrace the role itself.

People wouldn’t trust a neurosurgeon who showed up for work dressed as a chef or a judge who entered a courtroom dressed as on olympic swimmer and they tend not to trust religious sisters who dress as secular businesswomen.

They may not say it all the time, but for many there is always a background level of mistrust toward religious sisters who don’t wear religious habits.

In particular cases, it may not be the fault of the individual in question. Some may have joined their institute at a time when it was habited and then, over the objections of the individual, the institute changed its rules so that the habit is no longer permitted. In those cases the inability to wear a habit is a cross of suffering for the individual.

But that is an exceptional case, and in the main when one encounters a religious sister who doesn’t wear the traditional garb of the role one naturally asks questions like: "If this person is a religious sister then why doesn’t she want to be seen as a religious sister? Why does she want to be seen as a secular businesswoman instead? What’s going on here, and how deep does her lack of identification with the traditional role go?"

Same exact thing applies to monks who don’t wear habits and priests who don’t wear clericals or married people who don’t wear wedding rings.

Failure to wear the traditional identity markers raises questions about the individual’s attachment to his vocational identity.

I hope this sheds light on the point I was making.

Regarding the "office frumpy" remark, I woud disagree that it was irrelevant to the facts of the case for the reasons indicated above. As to its assessment from a perspective of charity, I don’t know that I would characterize it as uncharitable. Charity is not the same thing as politeness. Charity involves willing the good of others, and I think it good for those who wear such garb to realize how it strikes others.

If it was not sufficiently polite then I would mention that I was in searing neck pain when I wrote that post and I apologize again for all my shortcomings.

Vatican Express

A few weeks ago I actually found myself contemplating getting a Starbucks credit card since I often find myself heading in there for a hot chocolate and a gossip-fest with my sister and a mutual friend. Then I came to my senses and decided not to drink materialism’s Kool-Aid by getting plastic to buy a cup of cocoa. In any event, the Curt Jester has devised a credit card offer that I’d like to find in my mailbox: The Vatican credit card, the slogan of which is, naturally enough, "Don’t leave Rome without it!"

"Sure you receive offers everyday in the mail and you promptly throw them away, but this offer is truly different. Tired of false promises and fine print that discloses how you are going to be raked over the coals if you actually charge anything? Tired of big banks that will only get bigger by charging you a fortune in interest and late fees. If you are tired and disillusioned by business cons then you will actually love this new credit card that actually delivers on its promises.

[…]

"But wait there is more! Each member gets automatically enrolled in our debt warning system. If your charges become disordered in relationship to your salary automatic stewardship warnings are mailed to your house or sent via email. Our group of dedicated contemplative money managers will also immediately start asking St. John of the Cross to intercede for you in the area of detachment from material things.

"From the Church that brought you Western civilization finally there is a name you can trust on the card you carry around with you in your wallet."

GET THE POST.

Sign me up as quickly as possible so I can be sure to use it next time at Starbucks!

More Surprises From The Pope Of Surprises

Benedict XVI recently read the Austrian bishops the riot act, telling them:

You, dear brothers in the episcopacy, know this well: there are some
topics relating to the truth of the faith, and above all to moral
doctrine, which are not present in the catechesis and preaching of your
dioceses to a sufficient extent, and which sometimes, for example in
pastoral outreach to youth in the parishes or groups, are either not
confronted at all or are not addressed in the clear sense understood by
the Church. Thanks be to God, it is not like this everywhere. Perhaps
those who are responsible for the proclamation [of the Gospel] are
afraid that people may draw back if they speak too clearly. However,
experience in general demonstrates that it is precisely the opposite
that happens. Don’t deceive yourselves! Catholic teaching offered in an
incomplete manner is a contradiction of itself and cannot be fruitful
in the long term.

Ouch!

He then surprised the bishops of Latin America by deciding, on the spot, that a conference they were planning to hold in Rome so he could participate would instead be held in Brazil and that he would go there.

Benedict XVI said to them all of a sudden: “It will be held in Brazil,”
and immediately asked what the country’s most venerated Marian shrine
is. “The Aparecida,” they replied. And the pope: “In Brazil, at the
Aparecida, in May. I’ll be there.”

The four cardinals were taken completely by surprise. And so were
the leaders of the Roman curia – the pope hadn’t discussed the matter
with any of them. What induced Benedict XVI to choose Brazil may have
been what Cardinal Hummes said at the synod a few days earlier:

“The number of Brazilians who declare themselves Catholics has
diminished rapidly, on an average of 1% a year. In 1991 Catholic
Brazilians were nearly 83%, today and according to new studies, they
are barely 67%. We wonder with anxiety: how long will Brazil remain a
Catholic country? In conformity with this situation, it has been found
that in Brazil there are two Protestant pastors for each Catholic
priest, and the majority from the Pentecostal Churches. Many
indications show that the same is true for almost all of Latin America
and here too we wonder: how long will Latin America remain a Catholic
continent?”

But the choice of the Aparecida also left the four cardinals
speechless. That is indeed the most frequently visited shrine in
Brazil, but it is located in an isolated part of the state of San
Paolo, and it lacks the structures capable of hosting a large-scale
continental congress.

But none of the four cardinals dared to object. The pope had
decided, and his reasons were all too clear. He has at heart a vigorous
renewal of the Catholic faith on the Latin American continent, and
symbols are very valuable in this regard.

There’s time to build a convention center on the plain of the Aparecida, until May of 2007.

GET THE STORY.
(Thanks to the reader who e-mailed.)

Drat! I Should Have Thought Of This Sooner

Many parishes have programs to provide food and other items for needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Thanksgiving is coming up this week and Christmas is next month.

May I suggest that those readers who would be able to participate in such programs do so, either by volunteering their time or by purchasing items for distribution to the needy?

I’m occasionally asked by folks if they can make donations to support the blog. I am very grateful for such offers, though to this point I have not gone in that direction.

May I suggest that if you find the blog valuable and if you are able that you consider helping the less fortunate in some way this holiday season? I would appreciate it, and I know that those in need of help would as well.

Thanks, God bless, and (early) Merry Christmas, y’all!

State Of Smear–Redux

Earlier I linked to my review of Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear, which is a world-class example of how NOT to write a novel.

Later I got to reading what was at the link and realized that I had FORGOTTEN just how skin-peelingly bad this book is.

But some things are worth remembering.

So here goes. . . .

I have just finished Michael Crichton’s "novel" State of Fear and plan to review it. First a couple of disclaimers:

This is a contemporary thriller novel and as such contains a
significant amount of cussing, non-described acts of sexual immorality,
and a scene of particularly gory brutality towards the end of the book.
I happen to agree with Crichton that the theory that global warming
is caused by "greenhouse gasses" is junk science, as are many other
items of popular junk science that he brings up in the course of the
novel. And I hope State of Fear manages to spark a real debate over global warming and enviro-nuttiness.

Now for the review:

Michael Crichton’s "novel" State of Fear is not actually a
novel but instead is a piece of propaganda masquerading as a novel. A
novel, of course, is a work of literature, a piece of art whereby words
are used to evoke aspects of the human psyche and of human experience
that transcend the merely ideological.

This transcendance of the ideological is what fails to happen in State of Fear.

According to the novel, there appear to be three kinds of people who believe in global warming:

Those who don’t really know much about the science involved and
whose attachment to the environmental movement is so tenuous that they
can and will be flipped to the other side by the end of the novel,
Those who don’t really know much about the science involved but
whose attachment to the environmental movement is so strong that they
remain shrieking harpies no matter what facts they are confronted with,
and
Though who know that the science supporting global warming is junk
but whose commitment to environmentalist ideology (or something) is so
strong that they are willing to cause millions of casualties in order
to fake scientific data supporting global warming.

If there are any other kinds of people who believe in global
warming, they apparently occur sufficiently infrequently in nature that
they do not merit having a recurring character in the book.

Also according to State of Fear, there apparently aren’t
any evil big busines types willing to fake environmental data. Sure,
many charactes appearing in the pages of the novel talk incessantly
about this type of individual, but since no exemplars of this type
appear in its pages, they appear to be a myth–like unicorns, centaurs,
griffins, or global warmings.

With this ideologically one-sided cast of characters that inevitably
results from the above, does Crichton at least succeed in delivering a well-made piece of propaganda, like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will?

No.

Artistically, the "novel" is a disaster on every level above basic spelling and grammar.

On the top level, there is the plot, which involves a huge,
sprawling mess of a story that is so poorly defined that much of the
time the reader has a better sense of what is going on when watching The Big Sleep
than reading this morass. There is no clearly defined central action,
and poorly-drawn characters do preposterous things at the drop of a hat.

F’rinstance:

What should a young lawyer do when he checks his messages and
discovers that he has several calls from the local police department
telling him that he failed to show up for an appointment and they will
issue a warrant for his arrest if he doesn’t contact them? Should he
drop everything to get the matter taken care of? Make sure he doesn’t
get distracted by anything else before he does? Nooooo! He should
simply leave a message for the detective who called him and then zip
off on global assignments he has no qualifications for whatsoever!
A preening Hollywood actor/activist who plays the president on TV
(think: Martin Sheen) wants to tag along with the heroes on a mission
of vital global importance in a place so dangerous that death,
decapitation, and pre-death cannibalism are real possibilities. No
problem! Just have him sign a waiver! Don’t worry that he might
actually be a security risk to the mission since you already know he’s
working for the other side. Perish the thought that he might simply a
bumbling incompetent who would get in the way of your vital mission to
save millions! You’ll need him along so you can constantly argue with
him about the lack of evidence for global warming and other
environmentalist fetishes and make a fool of him at every turn.
Suppose that you’re an eco-terrorist mastermind. What should you do
with people who are getting too close to the truth? Shoot them and be
done with it? No! You should send your goons to use a tiny poison
critter that you keep in a plastic baggie filled with water to sting
them with a poison that will make them paralyzed but not kill them and
that will wear off in a few hours. What’s more, you can do this to
several people in the same city without any fear that after the toxin
has worn off that the victims will tell the police enough to figure out
who you are. So confident can you be of this that you don’t even need a
clearly defined REASON to do this to people. You can just do it as part
of some vaguely-defined attempt to be intimidating or something,
without even telling the victims what it is that they are supposed to
do or avoid doing in the wake of your goons’ attacks.
Suppose that you are a rich man who has been supporting environmental causes and who has somehow (FOR NO REASON EVER
EXPLAINED IN THE BOOK) come into possession of a set of coordinates of
where major eco-terrorist events will be happening–what do you do?
Turn the list over to the government? Put it in a safe deposit box
which only you and your lawyer have access to? No! You <SPOILER
SWIPE> hide it inside a
remote control in your TV room, where there is a lot of Asian art
including a Buddha statue, then fake your own death in an auto accident
so you can go personally face eco-terrorists all by your lonesome on a
south sea jungle island despite the fact you are an aging, overweight
alcoholic, and just before doing so you cryptically tell your lawyer
that it’s an old Buddhist philosophical saying that "Everything that
matters is not remote from where the Buddha sits"–seeming to imply (if anything) that the TV remote is NOT where the hidden list will be found.</SPOILER SWIPE> See? It’s obvious, ain’t it?

Below the level of plot is the level of character. How are the
characters? Thinly-drawn action adventure stereotypes, with one glaring
exception. Unfortunatley, the one glaring exception is the
pseudo-protagonist.

Y’see, this novel has an ensemble cast, but the omniscient narrator
focuses on one character in particular–a young L.A. lawyer–to use as
the lens through which to show us the vast majority of the story,
making him the pseudo-protagonist.

Because of his status in the narration there is a need for the reader to at least be able to like him (ideally, you’d want the reader to be able to identify
with him, but that’s too much to ask in a novel like this).
Unfortunately, you can’t. While every one of his colleagues–whether
they are personal assistants to rich men, rich men themselves, or other
lawyers–are apparently action heroes, this character is the ultimate
momma’s boy.

For the first chunk of the novel he does nothing but walk around,
take order from others, and ask simple questions so that the reader can
be given load after load of exposition. He takes no personal initiative
in doing anything.

Eventually, the action hero characters he’s surrounded by start
noticing what a wuss he is and our glimpses into their internal
monologues reveal words like "wimp" and "idiot" as descriptors of this
character–who is, you will remember, the main character the omniscient narrator has chosen for us to follow.

In the second part of the novel the character is placed in a
potentially life-threatening situation that causes him to experience a
collapse into such a passive, sobbing, whimpering wreck that even the
omniscient narrator seemingly turns away from him in disgust and
temporarily starts following his action-wouldbe-girlfriend until she
can rescue him from his predicament.

Just before this event occurs the character is wondering to himself
why the action-wouldbe-girlfriend (i.e., the action hero woman who he
would like to date) doesn’t "take him seriously as a man"–a moment bound to leave the reader going "Hey! Buddy! No one in the audience takes you seriously as a man EITHER!"

Fortunately, getting his butt saved after his potentially
life-threatening experience starts to awaken a glimmer of intestinal
fortitude in him, and by the end of the novel he has learned to cuss (a
little) and he gets a romantic hug from his action-wannabe-girlfriend,
who is apparently transitioning into his action-actual-girlfriend for
no good reason.

If the plot and the characters are disasters, how about the dialogue and narration?

They suck eggs on toast.

Some passages are so excruciating that I found myself wondering "Didn’t they give Crichton a copy editor?"
One such instance occurred when a character says something to Momma’s
Boy in a foreign language and we read (quotation from memory):

"He didn’t know what it meant. But it’s meaning was clear."

Other
pasages contain monstrosities of dialogue that no copy editor could
fix. F’rinstance: Toward the very end of the book one triumphant good
guy character is expositing on his grand vision for the future, of how
to save environmentalism from itself, save science from its current
predicament, and generally improve society. (This speech is sometimes
so general that certain points remind one of the Monty Python sketch
"How To Do It," in which we are told that the way to cure all disease
is to invent a cure for something so that other doctors will take note
of you and then you can jolly well make sure they do everything right
and end all disease forever.)

This manifesto would go on for several pages without break except for the fact that Momma’s Boy gets to interrupt it with scintilating interlocutions like:

"Okay."
"It sounds difficult."
"Okay. What else?"
"Why hasn’t anyone else done it?"
"Really?"
"How?"
"And?"
"Anything else?"
and (a second time) "Anything else?"
and (a third time) "Anything else?"

I’m sorry, but no copy editor could fix a multi-page speech with
such transparent attempts to disguise it as dialogue. At that point
it’s the editor’s job to call the author and demand a re-write.

If the publishing house is interested in producing quality works, that is–as opposed to simply making money.

Oh, and lest I forget, there are numerous dropped threads
in this story. Like: Whatever happened about that arrest warrant that
Momma’s Boy got threatened with? And: How about other
established characters who left him messages and needed to talk to him?
And: What did the other critter-victims tell the police after the toxin
wore off? And: Where did that body come from that got washed up on the
beach and how did someone else’s clothes and watch get on it? And: Why
didn’t the heroes ever use the incriminating DVD to incriminate anybody?

And most importantly: What actually, y’know, happened to
the bad guys in the end? Did they go to jail? Were there congressional
hearings? Did they flee to countries without extradition treaties? Did
they manage to keep their cushy jobs? Did they just go out for sushi? What???

Crichton is interested in telling us none of these things.

But then, his "novel" was never about the story to begin with.

It’s a political tract that fails to rise above the level of those
theological "novels" (both Protestant and Catholic) in which one side
is always right and in which characters of opposing points of view exist only to serve as conversational foils to help illustrate the rightness of the protagonists–time after time after time.

It’s enough to make you scream.

“Mary Is My Homegirl”

In what might be dubbed a sequel to my post Growing Protestant Devotion To Mary, here is a report on teenage girls who are becoming, er, chummy, with the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"They’re wearing ‘Mary Is My Homegirl’ T-shirts and bracelets, and not all of them are Roman Catholic.

[…]

"’Mary Is My Homegirl’ T-shirts made by Teenage Millionaire, a California-based clothing company, have become one of the company’s biggest sellers nationwide and recently got a mention on The Gilmore Girls, a humorous TV drama about a mother-daughter relationship.

"The shirt sports a figure of the Virgin Mary, some made in gold or silver lame on a black background.

"’In the past, there have been reservations about what some people see as "Mary-olatry [sic, Mariolatry]," or seeming to worship Mary,’ said the Rev. James Lyon, pastor of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in downtown Columbia.

"’The new position is that there’s nothing wrong with appropriate devotion. The key is to keep in mind that Mary can be seen as someone who points the way toward her son, Jesus Christ.’"

GET THE STORY.

Although the Rev. Lyon’s comments are great and sound downright Catholic (he even calls Mary "an intercessor for the people of God"), a quick peek at the t-shirts the article discusses leaves me thinking that this is less a case of teenage devotion to Mary than a case of fad-following. But if the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, then perhaps this fad might ultimately lead to a religious interest in Mary, which in turn might lead in the direction that the Rev. Lyon noted that all true Marian devotion ultimately leads.

Blog Bleg

As you may know, there are blog search engines out there (like Technorati) that let you search the content of blogs specifically (as opposed to other web sites).

Why Google isn’t all over this, I don’t know.

Well, I’m looking for a specific blog-search feature that I haven’t found yet, and I was wondering if anyone knows if it exists yet.

Here’s what I’m looking for: A blog search engine that has e-mail notifications (or at least an RSS feed). I’d like to be able to do for blogs what I can do with Google news alerts: Type in a few keywords, give it my e-mail address, and let the system e-mail me links whenever those keywords show up on blogs.

Anybody know where I can find such a critter?