Tuesday, September 30, 2003

The rector of the Passionist parish Saint Mungo's in Glasgow mentions that the ship which brought the first Passionists to the US was called City of Glasgow. The ship was later lost.

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I love Google News Alerts.

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So Alan Reavley will walk in five years on the embezzlement charges. His attorney, the never-at-a-loss-for-words Channing Hartelius, says Reavley is "quiet, stoic and sullen" since being moved to the state pokey at Deer Lodge. I hope Brant Light, the Cascade County Attorney who seems to spend half (or more) of his work life appealing decisions of the very honorable District Judge Thomas McKittrick, hasn't whiffed on the double murder case against Reavley for the 1964 murders of Jim Arrotta and Lois Arrotta. I'm not alone, by the way, in my regard for Judge McKittrick.

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Monday, September 29, 2003

What political elites think they know about exchange rates can hurt us - not sure I agree with some of Bartleby's received wisdom, because a lower dollar does, in fact, help a company whose stock I follow with particular interest, but this article is worth a look

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Web logs might be bad for business: There are plenty of areas of business where people are judged on their knowledge, and the competitive edge - and thus the safety of everyone's jobs - is the thickness of a single good idea. Share it all on a weblog, with competitors or (worse) an office rival? You must be kidding. And, alas, changing that kind of culture is going to take far more than merely installing a smart piece of software on a server, and encouraging everyone to blog on. Duh.

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Comes now the disconcerting news that a Baptist pastor in McMinnville, Oregon has mentioned to his flock that he's not sure there's a hell. I say there is and that he's leading people straight to it.

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"...the third Scottish cardinal since the Reformation."

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Nifty article (though probably available for only 14 days) in the Denver Post about capoeira, "a martial art that African slaves in Brazil created as a dance to mask their training from their plantation owners..."

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Sunday, September 28, 2003

Huh. According to this list, it might be time to start taking my work seriously. Then again, doesn't look like BOTW is all THAT hot...

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Shotgun wedding in Montana

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Worst Jobs in Science, which includes this inspiring tidbit: In the early evening, when mosquito activity is busiest, a mosquito dinner—er, researcher—finds a nice buggy area and sets himself up inside a mosquito-netting tent with a gap at the bottom. Mosquitoes fly in low and get trapped inside, where the researcher sits stoically, sacrificing his skin to science.

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Possible malaria cure at Kew? Or maybe a widely grown herb, kapapula. At Kew site, there's a fascinating working paper on Ethnobotany of the Loita Maasai, which includes a review of plants used to treat malaria.

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Living in the shadow of AIDS in Ghana

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Malaria, scourge of Tanzania - If AIDS has moved through Tanzania like a brush fire, malaria has smoldered for centuries, and while it still kills, and may soon kill in even greater numbers, there has been an emotional accommodation with the threat. Tanzanians live with (and die from) malaria as a fact of life. If children survive the multiple infections that are a part of childhood, they build up some degree of natural immunity.

But most Tanzanians will get malaria again and again, like the flu -- sometimes so mildly that they continue showing up for work, sometimes so badly they end up hospitalized, or dead. The effects on the economy are hard to know, but the World Health Organization estimates that it costs Africa $12 billion a year and substantial economic growth. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, who has studied the impact of malaria on Africa, says even those numbers don't capture the long-term, cumulative devastation of the disease. Malarious nations don't just lose a percentage of their economic growth a year, they get poorer and poorer relative to the rest of the world.

"We find that it causes the gap to grow between the rich countries and the malarious countries, until after decades and centuries, the malarious countries are living at a tiny fraction of the income levels of the rich [countries]," he says. As the developed world has become accustomed to that gap, and to the fact that malaria is pandemic in Africa, it has lost sight of the crucial role malaria has played in destabilizing, impoverishing and demoralizing the continent. Even though Sachs estimates the price tag for aggressive war on the disease at $2 billion to $3 billion a year, wealthy nations are offering only a fraction of that figure.

"Malaria is devastating Africa, and the fact that it has been for a long time is no solace," he says. "If malaria could be controlled in Africa, it would be one of the pivotal points of breakthrough to economic development and political stability."

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Ban altar girls? John Allen doesn't think so: Bottom line: right now we don’t know what the Vatican is going to say. Based on this June 5 draft, it appears the document will strengthen the hand of those Catholics who prefer a by-the-book approach to liturgy, but will steer clear of draconian new rules that would turn existing practice on its head. Altar girls, in other words, are here to stay.

There's more in this article, including a report on an interview with the papabile Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium: Today the actual power structure in the Church is male, but it shouldn’t have to be that way. It is just that government in the Church has long been closely linked with the priesthood. But I think that priest structure and power structure in principle don’t need to be one and the same. Both my vicars are women, and I see no reason why a woman should not head a Roman congregation.

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Saturday, September 27, 2003

Poverty in Montana

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Takes all kinds to fill the email box, I guess. Tonight, really truly, this came in: I'm studying matthew ch.6 for Sunday School and I got to verse 7 "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, ....." I never knew what a hail mary was, but I knew it was repetitious so I thought i'd look it up and see what it was. Man! What a crock, she wasn't full of grace or the mother of God!! If she was, who was his grandmother? As far as death, she hasn't, will not and cannot do anything for anyone in death except herself if she believed in her son. I'm assuming that this is a Catholic Page? what is the "churches" position on these things?

Okay. So here's an idiot who doesn't know that the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary, among other things, that she is "full of grace". He has also adopted the Nestorian heresy, which was dealt with quite a while ago, and he hasn't a clue about intercessory prayer. The "vain repetitions" part? Well, Buddy-Roe, that's quite a judgement and if he'll keep reading his Bible, say along to the 7th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, maybe he'll buy a clue about that. In the meantime, I suggested that he avoid praying this prayer if, for him, it is vainly repetitious.

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Friday, September 26, 2003

So there's an astonishing photo of Bill Gates running on the front page of today's Monitor, directing folks to an article about Gates philanthropy in Africa. In particular, ...just this week, during his and his wife's three-nation tour of Southern Africa, Gates committed an unprecedented $168 million in private money to fight malaria. While the Gateses embrace old-style charity, their methods are thoroughly 21st century. Much of their money goes to finding scientific solutions to the world's health problems - like the development of malaria vaccines and new AIDS-prevention techniques. Health workers in Africa say that the world's richest couple are profoundly affecting the direction of research and aid, and creating new hope for tackling some of the most difficult problems here.

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Interview with Robert Palmer ten months ago: At 53 he looks relaxed and in good health...."I've just made my new future, this new album I'm working on - I'm really delighted with it. As you learn the craft, which for me means arranging, writing, organisation, everything, the distance between the inspiration and what you hear back gets shorter and shorter…It's like yeah I've got it - next."

Here's the official Robert Palmer site -- but fagiddaboudit if you don't have Flash 6.0. :P More accessible is a page that features liner notes from "Drive", the last album.

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Whole lotta shakin' not goin' on... - A 68th birthday party for Jerry Lee Lewis at the rock-n-roll legend's farm in Nesbit on Saturday has been canceled because The Killer will be a no show, according to his [estranged] wife's Web site.... His daughter, Phoebe Lewis, said [...] "It has become a tradition, but it has been a tradition my daddy has dreaded," she said.

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George Plimpton has died, as has rockin' Robert Palmer, best known for Addicted to Love and Simply Irresistible

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Thursday, September 25, 2003

Point (by Christopher Hitchens) and counterpoint (by Clare Brandbur) on Edward Said's Orientalism

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Edward Said is dead. My first introduction to him came 13 years ago, in his book Orientalism. Unofficial Said archive on the Web. Al Bawaba, Electronic Intifada, NY Times, Nigel Perry on "Permission to Narrate"

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Cool! A whole archive of Terry Mattingly columns

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Rolling Stone's cover story on Johnny Cash

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Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Just who goes to those Ten Commandments rallies, anyway? Surprising answers, inside an otherwise entirely predictable opinion piece

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Heard the one about the preaching parrot? No, really!

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Dr Dorothy Patterson sounds like a lovely woman, but there is something about this article that makes her and her husband sound, well, a little crazy --and not in a nice way.

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Two interesting and new (at least to me) e-zines: GodSpy - Faith at the Edge and Image - a Journal of the Arts and Religion

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New Yorker piece on Mel Gibson - ...in his middle thirties Gibson slipped into a despair so enveloping that he thought he would not emerge. “You can get pretty wounded along the way, and I was kind of out there,” he says. “I got to a very desperate place. Very desperate. Kind of jump-out-of-a-window kind of desperate. And I didn't want to hang around here, but I didn't want to check out. The other side was kind of scary. And I don't like heights, anyway. But when you get to that point where you don't want to live, and you don't want to die -- it's a desperate, horrible place to be. And I just hit my knees. And I had to use the Passion of Christ and wounds to heal my wounds. And I've just been meditating on it for twelve years.”

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Yesterday and today we have been busy with the sending off Jim Champlin, a long-time member of our community who died last Friday. He was 72. Last night, the pastor led the praying of the Glorious Mysteries from the Rosary; today he concelebrated the funeral liturgy. Both services packed our little church. I wish someone had been able to muzzle the Protestant mutts who insisted on barking along with us last night.

Last night the Women's Group provided cookies and coffee for a reception after the prayer service; today, there was a lovely luncheon after the burial. Ours is such a small group, but its members really go all out in compassionate hospitality. Fran and Jim's children were too well reared; they tried to pitch in with clean-up tasks at the end of the luncheon this afternoon. Fran, herself, confessed she found it awkward to hold herself back from fussing with the kitchen. But Vitus, so recently widowed himself that I know today's liturgy was not quite equal parts ordeal and prayer for him, and the women (and a couple of their kind husbands) had things well in hand.

From my own experiences, I am sure that there is little more valuable we can do than to furnish space for those who mourn to laugh and cry and fortify themselves with a little food and drink.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2003

George Neumayr writes in the American Prowler: The liberals who tell the Holly Pattersons that smoking may kill them won't offer the slightest warning about abortion. They have taught teens to equate Philip Morris with evil profiteering. But Planned Parenthood, a public-health menace that profits wildly off death and disease, gets no scrutiny.

Holly Patterson, if the name is unfamiliar to you, died September 17 at the age of 18 after being given mifepristone (RU-486).

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Various reporters weigh in on Denver's convincing Monday evening rout of the Raiders:

Denver Post's Woody Paige: ORANGE you glad you live in Colorado! ORANGE you glad you love the Broncos! Denver Broncos 31! Oakland Raiders 10! ORANGE you glad!

In the oh-so-grand opening at home on Orange Monday night, the Broncos - wearing blue from helmet to calf, but thinking orange all over - beat, pounded and crushed the harmless Raiders into powder.

The Rocky's Bernie Lincicome: Considering that Oakland oaf/kicker Sebastian Janikowski, freshly arrested and accused of assorted civil assaults and redundant idiocy, was allowed to play football Monday night and Rod Smith, solid Denver citizen, was tossed out of the game for inadvertent self-defense, the evening had no chance to be anything but bizarre.

Channel 7: Jake Plummer no longer has to be a pretend John Elway. He's already had a game that rivaled the master.

And, oh yeah, from the Oakland Tribune's Bill Soliday: The Broncos came seeking revenge against the Oakland Raiders. They left picking their teeth and feeling good about themselves.

Finally, from Nancy Gay at the San Francisco Chronicle: There's no shame in losing to the Denver Broncos in their inhospitable mile-high home, right? Who would've figured their gimpy quarterback, Jake Plummer, would be capable of throwing a 44-yard pass with his separated shoulder, or frisky enough to romp 40 yards on a scramble, the longest run by a quarterback in Broncos' history?

Yup. That 'bout sez it.

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Link to the full 13-page opinion reinstating the October 7 date for the California gubernatorial recall election. Thanks to Mark, who comments: Amazingly a little common sense about the unprecedented attempt to stop an election already in process, and the "possible" not probable disenfranchisement of enough CA voters to matter. Mark reminds me that last week I kvetched about the decision against the voting machines, "If it was good enought to vote 'em in, it's good enough to vote 'em out!"

I have to laugh when I read about the "problems" people have with voting machines. Before we left Oregon, we had to vote using those damned punch cards -- and no machine. And we had to mail in our ballots or drop them off at a designated reception point. Voting in Oregon, which is now entirely by mail, is much more complicated (or at least it was; perhaps it has changed) than anything I have seen described elsewhere.

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Monday, September 22, 2003

Auto sales becoming a popular career choice??

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Mr OotFP, at home in Wales this evening, might have profited from this little piece on Welsh hospitality

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Huh. Another grotto off the beaten path in Dickeyville, Wisconsin - it's called Holy Ghost Park

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iTunes (Apple) spanks Handel's Messiah with an "explicit" warning.

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Mid-course correction, at the age of 20 and by the grace of God, as ministered by Christian community

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Sunday, September 21, 2003

Shocking words from the UK Cosmo editor: "I think the emotional price of soul-less sex is too high to pay, and it's time women loved themselves enough to say no.

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Alpha females? The UK Guardian offers some thoughts: If we turn to nature for clues, we could look not at gorillas but elephants. Elephant society is a matriarchy, led by the biggest, strongest female, perceived as wise and kind - keeping the group together. This model of alpha female has different qualities from the male; she shares his leadership and strength, but also promotes community. She is a woman of substance, who combines physical potency with seriousness of purpose.

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Today at our church picnic I collared the one person in this life I was pretty sure had lived in Iowa and asked: Have you ever heard of the Grotto of the Redemption? Yes, she had. In fact, she was born in West Bend, Iowa, home to the grotto and she confirmed some interesting details about it that make me want to jump in the car right now... except that we have a funeral luncheon to prepare on Wednesday. The Grotto, mentioned in the Fairmont, Minnesota Sentinel recently, came to my attention because of a post on Amy Welborn's blog.

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Christopher Buckley on being a satirist in a post-satirical world:

It's a living, I suppose, poking fun at politicians and the French, and every so often Barbra Streisand makes one's day by issuing a 25-page manifesto lecturing Democrats on how to win back a majority in Congress. In my line of work, that's the equivalent of what people in the business world call "low-hanging fruit."

Lately, though, there has been so much low-hanging fruit that you can't take a step in any direction without bumping into an overripe mango.

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It's always interesting to see what people think of as "every day" food. Take Martha Stewart's baked ravioli, for instance. For a recipe that serves just four to six, these ingredients are mandated: 28 ounces whole tomatoes, 28 ounces crushed tomatoes, 2 pounds store-bought ravioli, 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella, 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. Wow. I can't imagine spending that kind of money on what is, in essence, a casserole.

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Pumpkin carving patterns for the Internet and beyond... This is very cute and not as hard as some of the Sunset Magazine or Martha Stewart ideas. See also: Swan Pumpkin Farm ideas, which helpfully includes an unmessy virtual carving page.

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Saturday, September 20, 2003

While I'm thinking road trips, roadsideamerica.com is one very cool site

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Rock's 10 Most Infamous Copyright Battles - maybe it is faithinschools.org popping up on my radar screen again that makes this of at least passing interest to me

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A Ducky Day for Mr OotFP. Michigan Coach Lloyd Carr said, "They completely stopped the running game." Yup, that's what those web feet are for.

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Places like La Picassiette fascinate me. In Bend, Oregon, there's Petersen Rock Gardens. The midwest has its version at Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa, and here's a whole page of "selected folk art environments in the U.S." Boy howdy, that's a whole bunch of road trips...

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Great Falls kid makes good - and does good

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Two incomes, more debt? As a bankruptcy expert, Elizabeth Warren has seen the devastating effects on families when their finances collapse. She has also watched the number of bankruptcies escalate, rising 400 percent in the past 25 years. By the end of the decade, she says, an estimated 6 million families with children - 1 in every 7 such families - may declare bankruptcy. This year, more children are going through their parents' bankruptcies than their parents' divorces.

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Friday, September 19, 2003

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has his own (purple) Web site.

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Tyler Florence, one of my fave Food Network hunks, demo'd this pizza crust recipe this week. It's pretty close to what I have used. And Alton Brown had a useful episode about cooking in pouches.

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Church noises pollute the environment - from the Christianity Today blog I picked up a link to Harry Nwana's column:

A friend of mine was eating his heart out a few days ago having recently acquired, not by choice, a Pentecostal church as a neighbour. He had lived in that neighbourhood for thirty-five years in absolute peace and quiet until an innocuous looking middle-aged man bought the property adjoining his abode and converted it to a church. From then on, he had been a compulsory participant in vigorous church sessions that are characterised by nerve-wracking, blaring noises. After many unheeded appeals by neighbours to the church to respect their privacy, the legal option became inevitable.

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At last... I finished coding for the Jubilee Edition of the Journal of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society

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A really strange story about something that happened because of the world-wide marketplace known as eBay

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Going to church with an infiltrator

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Oh, great. Blog stat report shows that SOMEBODY has been googling the search string "faithinschools houston mckelvey" -- and guess what is the ONLY place on the Internet where those words can now be found in a single document? Yeah.

So this piques my interest about the old "faithinschools" site. Ya know what? It is now password protected. So what's this? Trying to suppress copyright violation? Might be time to get back in touch with the Church of Ireland. This certainly provokes MY ire!

Oh, yeah. Somebody was also googling "tibus dunlop", where at present this is the 25th of 38 links. Hmm.

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Thursday, September 18, 2003

Today's Oprah depressed me to no end: Stop the Clock on Aging! Death is the certain way to accomplish that feat, but this was not discussed. Indeed, death is the easy way out compared to chasing down the makeup, hair styling, expensive clothing, and dermatologist tricks -- not to mention the obligatory teeth bleaching. Oprah, whom I usually enjoy, really hit a nerve for me when she assured her viewers that bleaching is really something we should all be doing.

My hair is thinning and shows a dry, scaly scalp. (Those old commercials that suggested that people don't know they have dandruff are wrong, wrong, wrong. We know; there's just not a damn thing that works to control some causes of it.) My pate balds and my upper lip grows a fuzzy caterpillar, pure white but not invisible because it is so prickly, a moustache that would be (except for its color) the pride of any 15 year old footballer. Whether the lines "have fallen to me in pleasant places" or not, the fact is that they fall: in crow's feet, in deep etchings between and over my scaly brow, in furrows that ring my never too lovely neck.

Oprah's show took women who were basically in pretty good shape and simply gilded the lily. I mean, one woman was being begged to divest herself of an outfit she'd bought on her honeymoon three or four decades ago, and the thing still fit! They were, in effect, improving the range of options -- the taste, if you will -- of two women whose only faults were unstylishness and not having had their teeth bleached.

The ante on grooming in this country has been upped substantially to include Botox and tooth whitening kits. It is not enough to be clean; one must also undertake as much as possible to avoid the visible signs of aging. But for what purpose? And at what price?

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Seattle's espresso drinking yuppie voters won't give a dime to fund better child daycare for poor families, Forbes reports.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2003

John Allen reports about the religious pluralism conference just held in Birmingham (home of philosopher John Hick, 81, whose 1986 book God Has Many Names, posits that since Christianity does not produce more kindness and goodness than other religions, it’s untenable to regard it as a superior revelation....

The Birmingham summit was my first experience of John Hick “in the flesh,” and whatever one makes of his philosophy of religion, it should be said that Hick is an unfailingly gracious man. Knitter, now retired from Xavier and more or less the master of ceremonies in Birmingham, is likewise a gentle and endearing soul. If one were to evaluate theological movements on the basis of congeniality, it would be tough to fault this one.

Of course, that’s not how it’s done.

In fact, pluralism arouses resistance from religious institutions. If all religions are equally valid, it’s hard to know why I should be especially committed to any one of them except for psychological or biographical reasons. It’s no surprise that pluralists face a backlash. To judge from Birmingham, that’s especially the case for Christians and Muslims.

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Forbes covers megachurches: No doubt, churches have learned some valuable lessons from corporations. Now maybe they can teach businesses a thing or two.

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Good grief. I had not realized that the Rocky offers a full section on the West Nile Virus.

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Weblog of Albert Mohlher, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Today it has kind of a rant about, well:

Pastor Thorkild Grosboll of the village of Taarbaek ignited a firestorm in that Scandinavian nation by declaring, "I do not believe in a [heavenly] God, in the afterlife, in the resurrection, in the Virgin Mary." Actually, by the time Grosboll's case came to international attention, he had gone on to deny virtually every major Christian doctrine. "I'm a provocateur," Grosboll acknowledged, in what can only be described as a pastoral understatement.

This isn't real new news (The Detroit Free Press of July 10), but I suppose it is a dependable topic on which somebody too busy to write in "real time" can blog.

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Clever idea - create a private blog to track work projects

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Diane Carman of the Denver Post reports that yes, indeed, Wells Fargo continues to distinguish itself in Colorado:

...the case of Gilbert vs. Wells Fargo was slowly wending its way through the Jefferson County court system, racking up billable hours by the dozens as the bank moved well into its second year of "investigating" the records concerning two $500 certificates, when I called Wells Fargo on Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, the first thing they had to do was "investigate" the matter.

It took several hours, but by the end of the day, Cristie Drumm, spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, called to say she thought a resolution was imminent.

"We've made a proposal to get the whole thing paid off," she said. She wouldn't disclose the offer.

Moore said he eagerly awaits word.

They have incurred considerable expenses trying to recover their investments, he said.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, here's the estimated value of the Gilberts' certificates, which are held by the 64th-largest company in America with a reported $349 billion in assets and stock valued at $82 billion: $3,058.21.

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Nice article from a few months back about the chapter of the Western Province Passionists, with an especially nice photo of one of the sweetest men (other than Mr OotFP and my work associates) in the world, Passionist Superior General Padre Ottaviano D'Egidio

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Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Follow-up - probably my curiousity would have remained dormant, but someone -- you, Gary? -- comes around about once a week as a result of googling Gary Steven Krist, the felon supposedly sentenced to life. Remember? He and his girlfriend kidnapped a woman, buried her in a coffin-like container, and waited for her dad to come up with half a mill in ransom money.

Googling the name just now, I see that the the Indiana Medical Licensing Board finally came to its senses and voted unanimously to revoke Gary Steven Krist's medical license. Oh -- but there's good news: he can reapply in seven years.

As you can imagine, Gary ran this information into his "it's all about ME machine" and came up with, "I'm not going to be able to fulfill my dream. I tried to be a beneficial part of society. They wouldn't let me."

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One more story: Bono recalls visiting Cash in Hendersonville during a drive across the U.S. He and U2 bassist Adam Clayton sat down for a meal with Johnny and June. "We bowed our heads and John spoke this beautiful, poetic grace," Bono says, "and we were all humbled and moved. Then he looked up afterwards and said, 'Sure miss the drugs, though.' "

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Lynn Margolis admits: I have a little secret to confess - there was a time in my life when you couldn't have paid me to listen to Johnny Cash.

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This has to be my favorite quotation from Johnny Cash, words to live by: "Oh no, I'm the last one that would be angry at God. He laid a golden platter of life for me."

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Mark Steyn on the death of Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minishter:

There seem to have been an awful lot of bystanders to Lindh's stabbing -- in broad daylight, in a crowded Stockholm department store, after being pursued by her assailant up an escalator. Granted that most of the people bystanding around were women, it still seems odd -- at least from this side of the Atlantic -- that no one attempted to intervene or halt the blood-drenched killer as he calmly left the store. I'm inclined to agree with Jimmy Hoffa that I'd rather jump a gun than a knife -- and evidently Jimmy's luck ran out eventually -- but, if just a handful of the dozens present, had acted rather than bystanding, Lindh might still be dead but her killer would be in jail and not en route, like the late Prime Minister Olav Palme's murderer, to becoming yet another man who got away.

Look quick -- Sun Times (which requires reg, natch) articles "disappear" pretty fast.

9:10 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 15, 2003

God alone knows why, but I am being a good egg and gathering some links for the St Vrain Rose Society to use in promoting its cookbook:

• Tips for selling a cookbook
• Fundraising with cookbooks
• Creating a sell sheet for your cookbook
• Marketing resources - mostly an annotated booklist about general marketing strategies

9:28 PM | 0 comments

Kurt Loder of MTV on the last interview with Johnny Cash: "Oh, I expect my life to end pretty soon," he says. "You know, I'm 71 years old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakeable faith."

About the Hurt video: When I heard the record, I said, 'I can't do that song,'" Cash recalled. "'It's not my style.' [Rick] said, 'Well, let's try it another way.' He put down a track and I listened to it. ... From there we started working on it until we got the record made."

MTV archive about Johnny Cash

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Rolling Stone about the life and death of Johnny Cash

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Ben Thompson of the Telegraph picks his Johnny Cash highlights: When Cash was on the money; great links to other Telegraph stories at the bottom of the page

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More about Johnny Cash's famous Billboard ad and a commentary by Tom LeCompte about conditions that gave rise to the ad

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What Peggy Noonan told the bishops - I told them the scandal was in my view "the worst thing ever to happen in the history of the American church"; I told them they had to stop it now, deal with it fully; that if reports of abusive priests "continue to dribble out over the next two and four and six years, it will be terrible; it could kill the church."....

I said the leaders of the church should now--"tomorrow, first thing"--take the mansions they live in and turn them into schools for children who have nothing, and take the big black cars they ride in and turn them into school buses. I noted that we were meeting across the street from the Hilton, and that it would be good for them to find out where the cleaning women at the Hilton live and go live there, in a rent-stabilized apartment on the edge of town or in its suburbs. And take the subway to work like the other Americans, and talk to the people there. How moved those people would be to see a prince of the church on the subway. "They could talk to you about their problems of faith, they could tell you how hard it is to reconcile the world with their belief and faith, and you could say to them, Buddy, ain't it the truth."

7:51 PM | 0 comments

Song clips at the Johnny Cash site

5:26 PM | 0 comments

Maria talked about what it's like to wake up with Arnold in the house today on Oprah. Between phone calls, I caught a little of the Oprah interview with the two of them. Funny, smart, interesting, and running the same day as Lou Cannon's Terminator, you're no great communicator piece in the LA Times.

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Wells Fargo Bank has become, in my mind, synonymous with bad service on mortgages. Today I received the happy news that some idiot at Wells Fargo decided that the bank should stop accepting electronic transfers from our credit union. Accordingly, the credit union mailed our monthly payment instead of transferring it and it looks like the paper payment is sitting unnoticed on some flunky's desk. At the rate Wells Fargo is going -- first, not paying our property taxes, and now this -- I think we have a basis for asking to be let out of the six month period we are supposedly bound to their crappy service.

The terrible thing is that we are not alone. When the escrow situation came up, the man who sold us the mortgage told us just to contact him in the future, that he has a "special line" that expedites resolution of complaints. He and, today, his flunky both say that problems in the servicing of Wells Fargo mortgages are quite usual, even to be expected.

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I remember Jack Harding from back in the day. Doesn't surprise me that places he has been continue to reap the whirlwind: "Cadence employees are pretty miserable these days, especially those who have been with the company for a long time," said one Cadence employee, under condition of anonymity.

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Sunday, September 14, 2003

Did Alvin and the Chipmunks ever cover Ring of Fire? If not yet, they shouldn't bother; Vince Gill did it for them on this week's Grand Ole Opry. Ugh.

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Saturday, September 13, 2003

The Nashville Tennessean covers the Multi-faceted Man in Black - this is the story to look at if you'd like to see the highs, lows, and outer limits of Johnny Cash's life and career.

The Grammy Awards of February 1998 found Mr. Cash once again victorious. Despite country radio's refusal to play material from Unchained, the album won a Grammy for best country album.

Even as he reeled from illness, Mr. Cash's pugnacious spirit made waves along Music Row, as he sanctioned an advertisement in Billboard magazine that March. ''American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music industry and country radio for your support,'' read the text, while the page's dominant image was Jim Marshall's 1969 San Quentin photograph, with Mr. Cash raising his right hand's middle finger.

Yesterday, everybody in Nashville wore black.

The Tennessean's special section about Johnny Cash.

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New trick in an old town: Paris by Segway

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NY Times audio tribute to Johnny Cash

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This morning I was so close to a big bull elk that I could see the little puff of steam it exhaled in the cool mountain air.

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Friday, September 12, 2003

The BBC does Johnny Cash

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Roseanne Cash's eulogy for June Carter Cash: just beautiful

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USA Today is running a poll about people's fave Johnny Cash song. Results have Ring of Fire way out in front of the rest.

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...and may eternal light shine on the Man in Black

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Thursday, September 11, 2003

Edward Teller, dead on September 9 at age 95, speaks for himself

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Okay, so Oregon is not TOTALLY down with assisted suicide

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Starting tonight, 7 PM edt, La Cenicienta (Cinderella) joins the spate of "reality" dating/mating shows with a twist: La Cenicienta is a 23 year old single mom who has already been married twice, and her family hopes desperately that she can now be helped into making a better choice. Executive Producer Nely Galan wants the program to explore "issues of sexism, racism and class bias", matters that affect how Latinos date -- and dates that include chaperones. The series was filmed in June, 2003 in Palm Springs, California. Telemundo's site about the show

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A September 11 love story

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Good news! Jim Lubitz, acting chief of the Aging Studies Branch in the statistics center's Office of Analysis, Epidemiology and Health Promotion, says: The basic lesson of our study is that although healthy people live longer, they don't cost more in the long run. Any chance of getting this info to some HMOs like Kaiser who, at times, seem almost determined to undermine the good health of their elder customers?

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Comes now BBC to tell us that "People who experience a sense of spirituality in church may be reacting to the extreme bass sound produced by some organ pipes." Wasn't C. S. Lewis a famous abjurer of much church ceremony on account of his dislike of organs?

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Fair trade for Palm Sunday palms: "...show a little Christian charity towards poor Mexican farmers who harvest the palm leaves used on one of Christianity's holiest days"

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Does justice trump peace in Islam? Reviews of two books that may suggest as much: Taking seriously a burning sense of injustice explored in these works may be an essential element in restoring a righteous sense of honor in today's dangerous world.

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Wednesday, September 10, 2003

I should have guessed... there is also an Out of the Frying Pan Web site.

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Capturing "the faces of people who have no interior life at all", the American painter John Currin

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Julie Moir Messervy, garden designer extraordinaire, has an absolutely gorgeous Web site

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Today is the 17th anniversary of my father's death.

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Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Vail reports on its bragging rights

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Took the car out a little while ago and noticed two things: the mirrors were adjusted for someone taller than I and the car smelled strongly of pizza. These cues brought to mind a great kindness Mr OotFP did for me last night. At the grocery, I saw that pomegranates have started to come in. The sight of these deep red orbs reminded me of how often my mother brought pomegranates for me in the Fall. She knew I delighted in their piquant flavor and their almost architectural packaging. Senses, fully alive, transmit to us not only the joy of present experience but also the deep pleasures of grateful memory.

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A groom remembers Seabiscuit

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Thanks to Mr OotFP for this fascinating article from the Christian Science Monitor about the Miss Marple of Botswana

Precious Ramotswe spends her time watching the 21st century race down her capital's sleepy streets. As the only woman in a field dominated by men, she may be rev-olutionary, but she's steeped in tradition - pining for the days when children respected their elders, firm discipline was the norm, and a verbal agreement was currency.

Though fictional, she echoes the feelings of many people in the real Botswana.

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Monday, September 08, 2003

An article about permanent deacons in Oregon

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Autumn in Colorado -- the bits about the Rocky Mountain National Park are spot on

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The Immigrant Dream, as lived by Nicolas Morales, one of the founders of Tres Margaritas, where Mr OotFP and I regularly tie on the feed bag.

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Top ski resorts are... guess where?

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I'm reading a little book by Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer. A convert to Orthodoxy, she has written widely and quite personally about religion. The personal tone of this book is, for me, a bit off-putting; it seems a little too self-consciously written in the voice of a Khouriyye, priest's wife. Nevertheless, the book one of the briefer introductions available to icons and especially useful because photos -- some in color -- of the icons discussed appear in the book.

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Sunday, September 07, 2003

Molly, a lovely woman who is part of our Saturday night community, left town a couple of weeks ago to visit children on the West coast. She wasn't feeling very well, but assumed she would rebound on the trip. Comes now news that she was stricken with West Nile virus and has not yet been able to travel home. Her husband, who received stents after a heart attack on the same trip, is said to be progressing better than she -- which I take to be more a measure of the severity of West Nile, especially for older women, than the mildness of a heart attack.

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Friday, September 05, 2003

Results for googling the word Saturn and the phrase "not good cars"

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Enough of menoPAUSE. I'm ready for menoSTOP, and here's the cocktail for it!

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Popsicle Shots, too much fun! (Though why Popsicle can't get their main link for Shots up and running, I have no idea...)

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A few folks I know or have known, may God be good to them, were around the edges of the Second Vatican Council. One of them, in particular, I have pressed to write down his memories and impressions. Here, a "driving force" in the Council lifts the curtain a bit. I hope more who participated or observed will do this.

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Theology of pluralism and its discontents. If you are Christian, you have a dog in this hunt.

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The NY Times pulls together some disparate opinions on celibacy in the Roman Catholic priesthood. The Christian Science Monitor weighs in, too.

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Thursday, September 04, 2003

Delightful description of a perfectly presented birthday gift : It looked awfully big. Mum stepped from the car, her face frozen in a ‘just-what-I-always-wanted’ expression.

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Cover THIS - discourse on the worst covers of all time. Willie Nelson on Graceland? Dolly Parton on Stairway to Heaven? Julie Andrews' Nobody Does It Better?

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Quoi de neuf, Beaubourg?

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Oooohlalala - catalogs of Galeries Lafayette

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Last of the Blonde Bombshells turned out to be an entertaining way to spend 83 minutes on HBO. Loved Judi Dench and her bandmates; hated the "tied up neat in a little red ribbon" romance. The story didn't need it and would have been better off by letting Judi Dench drive, too.

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Wednesday, September 03, 2003

How sad I am to hear of the death of Bertram Chin, C.P.

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...a living example of purity and spiritual authority.... -- an interview with Metropolitan Anthony, who died last month

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Nifty article by Robert Maloney, C.M. about mental prayer. Its focus is Vincentian, of course, but anyone would find much to think about.

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So how weird is this? Apparently someone who does not like the developer's plan for Guardian Angels has sent anonymous snail mail both to parishioners with Mead addresses and to the Archbishop (three times to the latter). Nothing like a little anonymity to hop up the pastor. (I don't like the plan, myself, but have never been shy of flying my own colors whilst saying so. And it is hard not to feel suspicious of unsigned letters. Which raises an interesting point...)

Plans for a church float for the town day parade are sinking fast. In this rural community, there is no one with a flatbed trailer to offer and, perhaps, no real interest among the parents of the young'uns because the parade conflicts with a heavy duty local sports schedule. Town ought to choose a Sunday or holiday (um, like LABOR DAY or FOURTH OF JULY -- two obvious choices that come to mind), instead.

Today I made a detour into the church grounds of Sacred Heart of Mary in Boulder, getting off the road to field a cell call or two on the way to the doc's. Three Burma-shave-style signs greet visitors. First: As you enter these sacred grounds... Second: God's peace and God's speed Third: God's speed is 10 MPH! Funny, and a point well made.

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Monday, September 01, 2003

Dining ah-lone: sautéeing a little fresh corn with some fresh jalapeno, listening to St John's Choir Cambridge CD Let all the world in every corner sing: Hymns for many occasions. After almost 20 years in the Roman Catholic Church, some days I feel quite desperate for good congregational singing (and would a descant kill anybody?).

If you've any interest in 20th century American food, i.e. food as entertainment, buy this month's Gourmet Magazine. Superb articles, especially an interview with an incisive Julia Child. Age may bother her knees a bit, but it seems not to have diminished at all her ability to chat intelligently and sensibly about modern food trends and presenters.

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Home page of the Archbishop of Canterbury - What would Thomas Cranmer have made of this?

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...when we read words less than 2,000 years old that ‘now in these last days he has sent us his Son’, we do well to remember that the Good News is still, in historical perspective, breaking news.

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From today's Telegraph:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, admits today that the Anglican Church faces a "messy" future with the danger of disintegration into rival factions.

In his bleakest assessment yet, Dr Williams concedes that cracks are widening over a range of issues, from women priests to homosexuality, and predicts that "new alignments" are likely.

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