This is just teh awsum. Sailors and light sabers and Navy tradition: it’s all good. Also, there’s a break for snacks and some commercials.
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Episode 67: Seeds of Betrayal
After the Election, Rebooting the Right – TIME
When a party suffers the kind of beating the Republicans have taken in the past two elections, the public has not rejected one of its factions. It has rejected the party as a whole. Voters have turned on pro-choice as well as pro-life Republicans, on Senators who favored amnesty and ones who fought it. Evidently voters did not believe that Republicans of any stripe offered solutions to the challenges America faces now.
You know that former girlfriend or boyfriend you dated for a while, that kind of stalked you after it was all over and refused to take your most vehement rejections at face value? That even throwing their clothes and stuff out a third-floor dorm window in a rainstorm while screaming “FUCK OFF OR I CALL THE CAMPUS SECRETIONS!!” didn’t convince them that It’s Really Over, I Mean It This Time?
That’s kind of like what’s happening in the Republican party right now. They refuse to hear the fat lady singing, they are not on speaking terms with The Hand, and they are convinced that by becoming even creepier and more unattractive, they’ll win you back, or at least force you to pick up the phone if only to say “stop calling me!”
In response to this Time story, which is like a lot of other analytical stories about how the Right can recover from the recent drubbing it received in the elections, voices on the right insist that only an even more rightward shift can save the party.
After the Election, Rebooting the Right – TIME
When a party suffers the kind of beating the Republicans have taken in the past two elections, the public has not rejected one of its factions. It has rejected the party as a whole. Voters have turned on pro-choice as well as pro-life Republicans, on Senators who favored amnesty and ones who fought it. Evidently voters did not believe that Republicans of any stripe offered solutions to the challenges America faces now.
Yet the Right is busy snatching victory in 2012 from the jaws of defeat in 2008 already.
In effect, they’ll will be spending some time flapping their hands around their heads and chanting “La! La! La! La! I can’t hear you!” Because in spite of losing a lot of national and regional races, they still think the “Rally Base!!11!!” button is connected to, like, a majority of actual voters.
They just don’t take Lose, or Fail, or NO!!! for an answer.
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Jail terms for Israeli neo-Nazis
Eight teenagers have been sentenced to time in jail by a court in Israel for carrying out a series of neo-Nazi attacks that shocked the nation.
That’s what I thought you said. Some male teens will do anything to work off those crazy hormones…
President Bush delivered a speech at an international gathering in Peru earlier today, and waxed nostalgic about those warm and wonderful days immediately after 9/11, when the entire world was on our side and was ready to stand with us against a common threat.
Excuse me, I need to get rid of a load of bile now. Because this same brush-clearing faux cowboy diplomat worked reeeeal hard to screw up our reputation world wide, totally squandering the goodwill that we had gained, and also totally squandering our short-lived sense of national unity. Thousands of lives were lost before the war due to the Bush Administration’s near-criminal lack of interest in Bin Laden, who was indeed “poised to strike within U.S.” and did. And thousands of American lives have been lost, and untold numbers of Iraqi lives too, because this man bungled the first responsibility of the Presidency; he failed miserably at the job of keeping the country safe and secure.
Diplomatic Memo – President Looks Back in Goodbye From Peru – NYTimes.com
Mr. Bush engaged in an unusually sentimental look back over his presidency in a speech here on Saturday morning, beginning with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: “I remember the flag flying from every fire truck in Montreal, Canada. I remember children kneeling in silent prayer outside our embassy in Seoul. I remember baseball players in Japan observing moments of silence.†He continued: “The bonds of unity we felt then remain today, and they will always remain.â€
The untold sentiment: he’s also longing for the days when he actually enjoyed a nearly 90% approval rating. I can’t believe he said this, but he did.
It seemed like things had been starting to move on the “Episcopal split” front, what with dioceses like Quincy, Ft Worth, and Pittsburgh shaking the icky liberal dust from their sandals. It seems like such a terrible waste of everybody’s time and talents. But then, I forget: homosexxxuls are teh evul! They do not deserve to live, let along marry! The Devil is constantly going about tempting people to decorate with pink flamingo accent pieces and sing show tunes!
Anglican Primate ‘Disturbed’ by New Rival Body| Christianpost.com
Nevertheless, breakaway Anglicans have expressed little hope that the current church bodies in North America would get back in line with orthodox Christianity and Anglican tradition. The Common Cause Partnership plans to unveil their draft constitution and affirm their stance at an evening worship celebration on Dec. 3 in Wheaton, Ill.
Why is it these angry Anglicanists – there, I coined it myself – always seem to have their renewal whoop-de-dos in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago? Why not in a venue they still claim as theirs in “friendly” territory: Quincy, Ft Worth, Pittsburgh, or San Joaquin?
Why? Because there’s money and support from well-funded Evangelical bodies in the Wheaton area? How long are the Anglo-Catholics going to put up with the Evangelicals, and vice versa? High Church and Low Church don’t really see eye-to-eye on a number of matters, and there are often hints that the highest-profile leaders are jockeying for position. Also, there’s definitely an aspect of “in your face, Chicago” because our previous Bishop, William, voted to sustain Bp. Gene Robinson’s election. Methinks that conflict and drama are essential to their plans, too – no conflict means no publicity, and no publicity means people lose interest as the movement appears to become less viable.
I ran into some old friends, who left the old Holy Moly a few years ago, while my husband David and I were at REI today. It’s always a bit uncomfortable when I see them, because they left pretty much because the vicar was too much Teh Gay when preaching and speaking. I don’t know if they found another church home; we’re friendly when we see each other, but I’m not comfortable enough to ask them flat out. A number of other former parishioners didn’t come along to the new church after the closure and merger, and I now seem them only at the occasional funeral. They probably feel that we left them, or we made it seem it was “our way or the highway.”
It’s a difficult thing. The Bible does condemn various kinds of homosexual behavior, but Jesus Himself was silent on the subject, choosing instead to condemn (heterosexual) adultery and the uncaring rich. Meanwhile, He hung out with tax collectors and other riffraff. Who are we to exclude any group by name, when He didn’t?
More discussion, and plenty of accusatory “you liberal Episcopalians aren’t really Christian” commentary here.
The tech problem was solved this morning and we’re up and running again. However, we’re not terribly busy and so later today they’ll probably offer “downtime” or unpaid time off. I won’t be able to avail myself of it because I’m covering for someone who specializes in small groups.
Ominously, there are now memos making the rounds about training for new accounts, more advanced training, and one-to-one feedback meetings. It’s the season when travel cuts back, but this is pretty quiet even for November.
Ironically, this is the time of year when I get hit with small hotel blocks for early 2009, so I’ve got stuff to do, waiting for callbacks and researching rates.
I get out a bit early today because stayed late last night, but then have choir at 630pm. So not home until 8pm.
Rats.
Lovely. Work is totally borked.
Can’t work because the main system is run as a secure webpage, and somehow everyone’s logins and passwords have been lost. Some webpages work that are either within the firewall or company pages, but nothing “outside.”
In about an hour they’ll start going around re-enabling the native version that everyone still has, mark my words.
David installed the white-painted shoe molding earlier this afternoon, and even got through the angsty moments trying to get the floor brackets for the closet doors re-installed. Now all that remains is the quarter-round. We’d had a bad time with the oak trim that came with the floor product (actually, it was quite expensive) as it was such dense, hard wood that no matter how we pre-drilled and pounded and used an electric nailer, we couldn’t get the nails to go in all the way. So we regrouped, bought plain pine and it’s now all cut and mitred to fit the room precisely, and as of right now it’s in the front hall with the first coat of stain on it. I’ll give it another hour and then put a second coat on it. It’ll dry overnight, then tomorrow night a coat of urethane (which we already have on hand) and Tuesday we should be installing it.
Once over the wittering we had to do over the floor bracket, David got his DIY mojo working and the baseboards are very neatly installed. He likes the power nailer, which certainly made the job a lot faster and easier. Soon I’ll be getting some bookshelves for the room, and will probably set up my laptop up there along with the lounge chair and reading lamp.
I don’t usually do anything remotely approaching scholarly discussion of the Bible, ever, but today’s Gospel reading is one that I find interesting and troubling.
Here it is, starting from the part where the slave who was given one talent and hid it away, and now has to explain to the Master why he didn’t “double his investment,” so to speak:
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, `Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, `You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.‘ ” The Lectionary Page: Proper 28…Nov. 16
Here’s the scholarly, dare I say it – rationalist explaination of this parable, from Episcopal Cafe:
Now we need to look at the shadow side of this parable [of the talents]: the third slave who was given only one talent and did not do anything with it. Here is a somber warning without doubt. There are two ways of being unfaithful. There is the “hot†way, which is to abuse our powers and use them destructively. This is the sin of commission. Then there is the “cold†way of being unfaithful, which is to do nothing at all and therefore neglect and abort one’s potential. . . .
[It] may have been that the smallness of his talent led him to conclude that what he did with it did not matter. If I believe anything at all, it is this: in God’s universe, there is nothing that is insignificant. The great things were first of all little things that were lifted up to God in reverence and gratitude, and then used to the fullest. It is a mistake to confuse size with value. . . .
Now that is all well and good – the slave given one talent is castigated for not trusting his Master, and for not trusting himself to succeed at making it grow into two talents. But what often bothers me with this passage is first of all, the one talent is taken away from the slave, and given to the more successful of the other two slaves. Which, in a way, seems uncomfortably like “taking from the poor and giving to the rich” to me. In my mind, I identify the third slave with the poor, who have so little to begin with, they can’t afford to put their small amount of money to work for them, feeling the need to hoard it instead. Also, the advice to “give your money to the bankers” may or may not be wise depending on your interest rate or the financial health of your local savings institution, in these uncertain days – substantial penalties for early withdrawal, minimum deposit penalties, and all that! But I’m also troubled by the thought that this Gospel is used to support the doctrine of the Prosperity Gospel, and to justify blaming the poor for their poverty because they’re lazy, wicked, worthless… is that a dog-whistle inaudibly setting my teeth on edge?
However, no matter how troubled I am by this passage, there’s always somebody of the ultra-conservative bent who will take it to extremes of analysis that are simply astounding.
While casting around for a conservative or fundamentalist response to this reading, I came across this little gem from a well-known site full of yapping, basement-dwelling right-wing attack pups. A pastor posted a well-written sermon, describing God as a “good and gracious Master” and calls on us to be faithful stewards, doing such good works according to the talents given to us by our Creator, rather than being damned by our own unbelief like the third slave. That’s fine, a well-reasoned response.
But one of the first comments at the well-known site, to which I will not link, somehow turns it into Yet Another Condemnation Of The Gays. The reference to the protests is to the current anti-Prop 8 protests that took place Saturday all over the country. Note that there is no previous mention in the thread or in the sermon about gay people, yet the protests are now cast as “making war on God’s children.” The stupid, it is everywhere:
It’s interesting how the Gays in this country are now protesting, not realizing that this country is only blessed because of the contributions of Christians, to the philosophies that are the foundation of our constitution. Unfortunately, people do not understand that all blessings come through God and his son Jesus when people follow his teachings. Even people who live in wickedness are blessed only because of the goodness that coexists. These people are making a grave mistake by declaring war on God’s children. It says in the bible, that when it rains and the fields are watered both god’s people and those not god’s people benefit. Look what happened to Germany when they declared war on his children, look where it ultimately got them? It was only because of the intervention of the United States after the war, that they were delivered from that hell. Our nation was founded on the principals of Christianity. Those people should never want to find out what it would be like if they ever got their way. They don’t want to know, no they don’t!
Huh? This was about faith, in God and in one’s God-given talents. Not about spiritual warfare, wicked gay people, or Nazis.
Anyway, I’m still bothered that the whole rationale for the Prosperity Gospel seems to be made on the backs of the poor. But that’s enough bad Bible scholarship for me today. I turned in my packets of orders for Fannie May candy, and I’d classify myself as a two-talent steward, rather than a five-talent steward, as I was reluctant to flog the candy aggressively at work this last couple of weeks. But I got four or five orders in, and I’m okay with that.
Compared with “Casino Royale,” ” Quantum of Solace” is a disappointment. Craig anchors it, and Judi Dench’s M enjoys some fine, stern scenes, but director Marc Forster “Finding Neverland,” “Monster’s Ball,” “The Kite Runner” isn’t much of an action man. There’s plenty, but half the time it’s visually incoherent.
Yep, pretty much. The review goes on to compare the Bond action scenes with the “Jason Bourne” movies’ action scenes, from which they were clearly derived. Actually, a couple of the “gags” were just like ones in Bourne flicks (best example: the leap across a gap between two buildings, right into an open window) but weren’t shot or edited or even focused as well. The action on the screen in several sequences seems to shatter like the glass so liberally sprayed all over Bond and his opponents. And you can’t keep track of who/what/where, let alone when and why.
I liked selected sequences, everything LOOKS good, but the only thing holding the film together is Bond’s smoldering anger over the death of his girlfriend in the previous picture, Casino Royale.
The bad-guy’s organization was so secret, even M didn’t know about it. By the end of the movie, we didn’t know any more about it either, it was so badly laid out in the movie.
Basil? Calling Basil Exposition!