Biden To America: HOLY CRAP! EVERYBODY START FREAKING OUT!!!

Here's the "heartbeat away from the presidency" response to a 'pandemic' that has claimed a maximum of a dozen people:

...I would tell members of my family — and I have — that I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now... if you're in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft...

We here at Apoloblogology are trying to decide whether we're relieved by the fact that the Vice President is nowhere near as divisive and evilly cunning as Dick Cheney, or bummed that he's as embarrassingly naive as Dan Quayle.

Ah, politics. Strange how its proponents keep trying to preach to us that its collective employees are somehow different.

Upon The Feast Of Pope St. Pius V

"I'll see your Reformation, and raise you one Counter-reformation."

Upon The Feast Of St. Catherine Of Siena

The stigmata, without the stigma.

Margaret Sanger In Her Own Words: Catching The Vision

Whenever someone like Hillary Clinton says something to the effect that she admires Margaret Sanger's vision, it always prompts me to remind people what exactly that vision is by quoting Sanger herself as to how she thought society should be operating. Tip of the hat to LEARN:

"Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents...

...It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant.

...The most serious charge that can be brought against modern "benevolence" is that is encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression."

Vision, indeed. Let's all catch it today, and remind the disabled and dependent among us that they shouldn't be here and that they're dragging all us fit people down.

Upon The Feasts of Sts. Gianna Beretta Molla, Louis De Montfort, And Peter Chanel

If there were such a geometric possiblity as a three-sided die, Catholics could roll it today to determine which of three significant feasts to observe today. Two French priests and an Italian woman get their day in the liturgical sun. Here are the vitals:



St. Gianna Beretta Molla
-1922 to 1962
-Italian saint
-Physician and surgeon
-While pregnant with her fourth child, doctors discovered an ovarian cyst and recommended Gianna have an abortion. She refused, and died a week after from complications.
-Patron saint against abortion



St. Louis Marie de Monfort
-1673 to 1716
-French saint
-Priest and founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Wisdom
-Fought Jansenism (which my wife has broadly referred to as "Catholic Calvinism")
-Among those books of his still in print:The Secret of the Rosary and True Devotion to Mary



St Peter Chanel
-1803-1841
-French saint
-Priest and missionary to New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in the South Pacific shortly after it outlawed cannibalism
-When a native king became jealous of Peter's influence, he had him beaten with clubs and dismembered

Holy men and women, Ora pro nobis!

Too Busy To Post Today

As such, I've posted the text from the comboxes that involve nudity and Markan authorship(involvement?) in the earliest written Gospel. Since this is a matter of "lowercase 't' tradition" as opposed to "Capital 'T' Tradition," I figure it should generate enough controversy to keep you kids jabbering until I have the leeway to post something else about robots, the pope, or eugenics. Have at ye!

SIXTHSCALE said...
a silly tradition claims that the naked dude is mark... but the text and simple reason seem to disprove that....

Anonymous said...
Sixthscale, I don't see how you can infer from the text or simple reason that the young man wasn't Mark. Mark 14:48-52 (RSV) reads: "And Jesus said to them, 'Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled.' And they all forsook him, and fled. And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked."

I agree that there's little there to indicate that the young man *was* Mark, beyond the fact that Mark would have been young at the time, and may have the account as an act of humility or something like that. But I don't see anything in the text that would rule out his being Mark.

Anonymous said...
"[may have] included [the account]" is what I meant to say. "Always preview," I tell myself, but do I listen?

SIXTHSCALE said...
sorry i didn't mean the text of that verse alone... i meant the text of all of the Gospel of Mark.

there is reason to believe from the text that the person who wrote mark got his information from an eyewitness (tradition says it was peter and the text offers a fair amount of support for this as well)
but the writer of Mark's gospel doesn't seem to be personally familiar with the Geography or customs of the area where it takes place...

also the vocabulary of the greek that Mark is written in is much more latinized than the other synoptic gospels implying that the writer wasn't from israel...

there is no indication whatsoever that Mark was the naked guy.

Dustin F said...
The argument for that naked person being Mark, I think, is that the comment about a young man following Jesus, wearing nothing but a linen cloth, is quite a random, pointless comment to insert in the passion narrative unless, perhaps, that person was more significant than simply some random bystander--was, say, the writer of the gospel himself.

And the fact that Mark uses a latinized vocabulary, or that he doesn't seem to know Palestinian geopgraphy all that well, doesn't imply that he wasn't there. Jerusalem was not the most important city in the region (that, I believe, was Caesarea Phillipi), but it wasn't some podunk town, either. There are a number of reasons why Mark might have been there, even if he wasn't a natural Palestinian.

Isn't Mark supposed to be connected with Antioch, actually?

Fill the combox with your theories, my little poppets.

Upon The Feast Of St. Mark

"And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked."

Upon The Feast Of St. George

Before I became Catholic myself, I lived at Old St. George, a former Catholic Church, in Clifton when I first moved to Cincinnati. It was a time of radical formation for me, and I can sincerely say that my sojourn there, fraught with both joy and distress, has served as much as any other experience of mine when it comes to my understanding of myself.

So in honor of this saint on his feast day, about whose legend we know more than his life, I offer these lyrics from one of the songs that I wrote for a stunted concept album about my life-changing adventures in the building named for his patronage:

Making Your Mother Concerned

Looking for treasures in heaven
I lost all my treasures on earth
Suckered, depleted, broke and defeated,
Hustled, harangued, had and hurt,

And it's damn near impossible
To play a righteous role
Being so bitter and burned,
When you turn 21,
It's never quite as fun
Making your mother concerned.

But I've got my bets on a longshot,
I've got my eyes on the prize,
Heard all the projections predicting defections,
But I'd rather be a surprise,

We train like olympians,
Take it like champions,
When we get beaten and bruised,
'Cause everyone knows the disgrace when you quit
Is worse than the shame when you lose.

It's damn near impossible
Not to be humble
Knowing how broken you are,
But everyone knows that the Spirit sticks closer
To spirits who're falling apart
It shakes out the sickness
To recognize weakness
It undoes the things that you've done,
But I'm lifting up my eyes,
Glad for the exercise,
Glad for the treasures I've earned,
I've not lived so long I can't learn,
But I'm making my mother concerned.

"Clearly, Sterility Doesn't Matter Given That Death Is The Desired Outcome."

What's creepier? The fact that our culture is seeking to treat the sick among us like racehorses with broken legs, or that euthanasia is being addressed in such casual terms in a forum like Time Magazine? This, from the article glibly titled "Foolproofing Suicide with Euthanasia Test Kits":

When someone with a terminal illness decides to end his or her life by overdosing on barbiturates, they may hope the drugs will lull them into a peaceful and permanent sleep. But if the drugs have passed their expiration date or lack a sufficiently lethal concentration, the would-be suicide victim may actually survive — risking an array of complications including coma, reduced physical functioning and the opprobrium of disapproving friends and family. Now, in an effort to provide certainty to those contemplating suicide, one of the world's leading euthanasia advocates plans to sell barbiturate-testing kits to confirm that deadly drug cocktails are, in fact, deadly.

"People who are seriously ill don't want to experiment," says Dr. Philip Nitschke, the physician known as Dr. Death for his efforts to legalize euthanasia in his native Australia. "They want to know they have the right concentration of drugs so that if they take them in the suggested way, it will provide them with a peaceful death."

The kits, which will debut in Britain in May and retail for $50, include a syringe that allows users to extract half a milliliter of barbiturate solution without breaking the sanitary seal. "Clearly, sterility doesn't matter given that death is the desired outcome," Nitschke says. But the solution deteriorates slower in a sterile environment, allowing those with painful conditions to "lock it away in the back of the cupboard in case things gets too bad." The extracted sample is then mixed with chemicals from the kit; a color change indicates a lethal solution.

I'm wondering how the ads for this will be worded: "Want to end it all, but hate to leave a gross-looking corpse?" or perhaps "have you tried to kill yourself before, but other assisted suicide kits just didn't get you quite dead enough?"

Mercy.

Another Interview I Am Not Likely To Schedule: The Christian Samurai

I love swords. And stories about people killing other people with them for honorable causes. As I've stated before, I'm about two ethics textbook questions away from being a pacifist. And, alas, most of the shows I watch would be extremely boring if nobody ever got killed. At least I'm self-aware.

In the meantime, I'm not booking this interview:

Author Paul Nowak has posted his book, "The Way of the Christian
Samurai: Reflections for Servant-Warriors of Christ" for free on his website, Eternal-Revolution.com. The book can be downloaded here or for a free will donation.

"After much prayer, I decided that this work should be made as widely avaialalbe (sic) as possible," said Nowak. "Economic issues should not stand in the way of Christians encouraging one another."

ChristianBookReview.net rated "The Way of the Christian Samurai" as an "Essential" book, calling it "an important book that can be read with profit by those in the Church.”

The samurai, whose very title means “one who serves,” were skillful warriors of feudal Japan who devoted themselves fully to the service of their masters, willing even to sacrifice their lives in service to their lord. Christians are also called by their Lord, Jesus, to take up their cross and follow Him, and to seek to lose their life for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25).

While fantastic legends and stories of the samurai are plentiful, "The Way of the Christian Samurai" draws from primary sources – notes, essays, and books written by real samurai from Japan’s feudal era. Their advice on everything from overcoming fear, giving counsel to others, serving one’s Lord, and self-sacrifice are remarkably applicable to the life of the modern Christian.

Author Paul Nowak ties the advice of these servant-warriors of old, pointing out how the selections from samurai texts relate to Christian teachings found in the Scriptures.

The book is a matchless resource for Christians intrigued by the mythos of the samurai or Japanese culture, or for pastors and other spiritual leaders who are looking for anecdotes that illustrate Biblical ideals. Christian parents whose children enjoy Anime or Manga will find it a useful tool in understanding their children’s interests and in ministering to them.

Eternal Revolution prepares and arms Christians to keep, defend and spread the faith in the modern world which is always hostile to genuine Christianity, using reason-based arguments to combat the forces that seek to destroy our society and humanity. The Eternal Revolution blog and other products can be found at Eternal-Revolution.com.

I still plan, once one of my legs gives, to purchase a cane with an embedded sword. But I have no plans, under any impending circumstances, to claim to be a Christian Samurai.

2009 Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards Underway

Nominate me in one or more of the categories here.

Blagojevich Truth Is Stranger Than Blagojevich Fiction

Try reading the following story with a straight face:

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich will ask a U.S. court for permission to leave the United States to participate in a reality TV series in Costa Rica.

Blagojevich is slated to appear in NBC's I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, premiering on June 1, NBC confirmed late Tuesday.

Blagojevich "will be a participant on the show pending the court's approval," the statement said.

(...)

Blagojevich will receive $80,000 per week he appears in the reality series, which will pit 10 minor celebrities against each other in Survivor inspired competitions, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing an unnamed source. Viewers of the series, which is scheduled to run for four weeks, will get to decide who leaves the Costa Rican jungle after each episode.

NBC describes the series as "the ultimate Swiss Family Robinson" that will challenge the competitors to win food, supplies and luxury items while testing their skills at adapting to the wilderness. The last remaining celebrity will be "crowned King or Queen of the Jungle," according to a statement from NBC, and will receive a cash prize for a charity of their choice.

Blagojevich will seek permission from Judge James Zagel, who is presiding over the corruption trial, to take part in the series, said an attorney close to Blagojevich's legal team who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Currently Blagojevich's bail does not allow him to leave the United States.

I was crestfallen when Hot Rod slipped out of the news cycle; his presence made the current events docket not just tolerable, but actually entertaining. Here's hoping that Milorad keeps the hits coming.

This Day In History

Waco, TX: On April 19, 1993, a 51-day U.S. Government standoff against the Branch Davidian compound led by cult founder David Koresh ended in a fire, killing 81 people.

Oklahoma City, OK: On April 19, 1995, The Alfred P. Murrah building is bombed by domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, killing 168 people.

Thanks a lot, Dave and Tim, for getting moderately sane people like me put into consideration when it comes to things like this.

Upon The Feast Of St. Bernadette Soubirous

"You must receive God well; give Him a loving welcome, for then He has to pay us rent."

Dubai Doubles A Dromedary

Five years ago, if I had read a headline like "Dubai Claims World's First Cloned Camel," I would have treated it like an email from a Nigerian businessman. These days, however, anytime I see a story about a woman extracting sperm from her dead son, or someone trying to reanimate a sabretooth tiger, I pretty much take it as gospel.

And unless PhysOrg.com is scamming me, I'm pretty sure that there's now a camel running around some Middle Eastern cage that has the same genetic makeup as another camel that was sold for meat four years earlier.

The only thing that made me think for a second that it was a hoax: the director of the lab that did the deed is named Dr. Lulu Skidmore.

Thank You, Future, For Freaking Us All Out With Gross New Ethical Questions

In my collegiate days, I remember many a coffee-sustained night in many a dorm room and diner wherein my fellow budding intellects and I tackled improbable ethical question after improbable ethical question in the interest of stimulating both our common desire to work our philosophical muscles, and our common interest in The X Files.

I remember pondering questions such as, "when science comes up with ways to replace every human body part incrementally with mechanical parts, at what point does the person cease to have a human soul?", "is it immoral to murder a child zombie?" and "should that lady in The Good Son have let go of Elijah Wood or Macaulay Culkin?"

However, never in our wildest imaginations could we have come up with something as disturbing and ethically befuddling as what one greiving mother is trying to accomplish:

A Texas woman, Missy Evans, has harvested her dead son's sperm and hopes to find a surrogate and one day raise her son's child.

(...)

Nikolas Colton Evans had talked about how much he wanted to have a child, but the 21-year-old died after he was punched and hit his head on the ground in a fight. Evans isn't concerned about what others might think. She says she is only doing what her son would have wanted. "He would love me so much for doing this," she told the Associated Press.

After a doctor told her that nothing more could be done for her son, Missy Evans came up with the idea of harvesting his sperm. She discussed the idea with her ex-husband, her older son and other family members, and said all supported her wish to help a part of Nikolas live on through his future offspring. She said her son once told her he wanted three sons and had already picked out names.

(...)

Evans had to go to court to get permission to harvest his sperm. On Tuesday, a Travis County probate judge granted her wish and ordered that local officials nearly freeze his body so experts could come in and take his sperm to allow a future birth.

Apoloblogology Bioethics Correspondent Dr. Ian Malcom, when reached for comment, had this to say: ""Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever witnessed, yet you wield it like a mom that's harvested her kid's semen."

Phil Spector's Choice In Buttons Reveals How He's Going To Try To Avoid Serving His Full Sentence For Murder

Annual Triduum Post: An Egg, Lidless, Wreathed In Flame, And That's No Moon, That's A Space Ovum!

Upon Good Friday

Yes, sin is that bad.

Upon Holy Thursday

Pedicures for the pending priesthood.

Kumar Goes To Washington

True story. And I swear it's not a RickRoll.

Upon Spy Wednesday

Thirty pieces of silver: the Torah's official penalty when your ox gores somebody's slave (Ex 21:32).

The Most Entertained I've Been In Minutes...

...is when I just read the "Facebook Passion." It features gems such as the following:



...although in other spots, it appears to go a bit far. In any case, a clever premise.

Prominent Scientists Have Obviously Not Been Watching Soylent Green

Has the whole world gone insane? From the BBC comes this story that indicates further slippage down the slope (emphasis mine):

(Dignitas founder)Ludwig Minelli told the BBC suicide was a "marvellous possibility" and he wants the assisted suicide law clarified for the healthy partners of dying people. (You read that right: dying is awesome, even if you're healthy.)

(...)

In his first broadcast interview for five years, Mr Minelli told BBC Radio 4's The Report that failed suicide attempts created problems and heavy costs for the UK's National Health Service. (Not to mention all that mess- yuck!)

(...)

He added: "Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter." (Like parenthood, or taxes?)

(...)

"We are not a clinic. As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people." (I can only assume that this means he is against abortion.)

And Mr Minelli revealed that his organisation plans to test the legality of assisting the suicide of a healthy woman whose partner is terminally ill.

"There is a couple living in Canada, the husband is ill, his partner is not ill but she told us here in my living room that 'if my husband goes, I would go at the same time with him'. (Hence making death of a 'broken heart' a medical reality).

(...)

Dignitas is known in Britain for having helped more than 100 people to kill themselves.

The majority were terminally ill, but there have been more controversial cases such as psychiatric patients and couples, even when one was less ill than the other. (But hey, they probably thought someone was giving them some candy, so they probably enjoyed it.)

Let me reiterate a point that has become nearly axiomatic in our society: what sounds crazy in Europe today will sound perfectly normal in the United States five years from now.

Upon Palm Sunday Of Our Lord's Passion

"Hosanna! No, wait, crucify him!"

Today reminds us that we are all members of the mob.

"Both Religions Say There's Only One God..."

But only one of them claims Mohammed is his prophet.

Can someone be both "100 percent" Christian and Muslim simultaneously? Recently defrocked Episcopal priest Ann Holmes Redding of Rhode Island thinks so.

And no, I'm not kidding. Here are the juiciest excerpts from the story, which originally ran in the Christian Post:

An Episcopal priest who claimed to be both Christian and Muslim was defrocked, effective Wednesday.

Bishop Geralyn Wolf of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island deposed Ann Holmes Redding, citing abandonment of Communion of The Episcopal Church.

Although Wolf has described Redding as a "woman of utmost integrity," the bishop said she "believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim," according to a statement by the Rhode Island diocese.

(snip)

An ordained minister in The Episcopal Church for over two decades, Redding made headlines in 2007 when she told the Seattle Times she was "100 percent" Muslim and Christian. Her story was first revealed in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia's newspaper, the Episcopal Voice.

Three years ago, Redding attended an interfaith gathering where she said was moved by Muslim prayers. She said she felt an overwhelming conviction to surrender to God and soon after she became a practicing Muslim.

Convinced that her new Muslim faith did not contradict her beliefs as a Christ follower, Redding declared she was both a Muslim and a Christian.

"Both religions say there's only one God," Redding said, according to CNN, "and that God is the same God. It's very clear we are talking about the same God! So I haven't shifted my allegiance."

She also said she does not believe that God and Jesus are the same and believes Jesus is divine just as all humans are divine.

And I used to think that the only people who thought Christianity and Islam were basically the same were people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, who claim that believing in the Resurrection is basically the same as being willing to fly a plane into the World Trade Center.

Starved To Death

Four years ago this week.

Mind you, not taken off a ventilator, not relieved from the perils of a terminal disease, nor liberated from the oppression of death-inducing brain damage.

Just starved.

Nation, take note. Oregon insurance companies have already instituted policies in which those dying of "whatever" are allocated moneys to purchase death medicine, but not funds to buy life-sustaining drugs through the waning hours of there sojourn here on Earth. Of course, the last thing a dying person needs is more time...

And bear in mind, Our Current President's greatest regret as a lawmaker involved the above situation, specifically as regarded his life-sustaining vote in that matter:

"I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better..."

Reminds me of a similar situation with the previous administration:

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

Kill the murderer.

Kill the invalid.

Kill the unborn.

Kill the pre-born with eugenic defects.

Kill everything in sight.

Then, and only then, the economy will right itself.

Thank God for pragmatism.

Obama: U.S. To Bail Out Struggling Video Game Industry

No joke.

I feel like I live in an alternate universe, and that the real me is extremely confused by all my fictional goings-on.