Archive for August 23, 2009

Deal with it, don’t duck it

Posted: August 23, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
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Last week for the table top baseball league I’m in I was playing over a friend’s house. They are very religious and have cards of many biblical quotes on the side of their walls. They are however both ex-Catholics and tend to tease about Holy Communion being a magic trick. So as you might guess John 6:53 doesn’t make the cut:

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

It’s a real peeve with me when people duck bits of the Gospel or the bible. Ironically today the ducking took place at many Masses and considering todays reading it’s quite ironic:

The first reading was from Joshua 24 the key verse being 15:

If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Basically a “choose sides” reading, you’ve seen what things are make up your mind.

John Chapter 6 has been the focus of the gospel reading for the last month and we concluded this week with verses 60-69: For the purpose of this post we are only interested up to verse 62.

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ”

Another choose sides, yeah it’s a tough saying can you handle it?

The theme of the sermon today was the Eucharist and it was a good one, but we never discussed today’s 2nd reading. It was Ephesins 5:21-33. We read the short form that omitted verses 22-24 they say:

Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.

Now three or four years ago we did the long form and our priest gave a great sermon on its meaning in context, but I couldn’t get over the irony that we skipped that verse when the theme of the Gospel today was getting over a “hard saying”. From what Fr. Tom Washburn had to say we were likely not alone in skipping it:

This is perhaps the most dangerous passage in all of Scripture to preach on, in fact, most preachers usually try and avoid it. But, I feel a little dangerous today, so let’s give it a try

He does almost as good a job as Father Bob when he tackled it the whole thing is here the key bit:

The problem with this phrase from Colossians, “Wives be subordinate to your husbands,” is that we tend to isolate that passage out and not look at the rest of the reading. Alone, this passage is troubling and seems to support a subjugation of women, but it is out of context. When we look at the bigger picture, we find not a chauvinistic household, but one that is balanced; not one where husbands lord authority over wives, but one where everyone is subordinate, or the servant, to the other. There are two keys to this reading – the first is the initial words we heard today, “Brothers and sisters, be subordinate to one another.” We are all called to be in that position of subordination to each other, deferring to each other, serving each other. So, if “wives be subordinate to your husbands” is true; then it is also true to say, “husbands be subordinate to your wives,” “children be subordinate to your parents,” “parents be subordinate to your children.” This reading doesn’t want to perpetuate a power dynamic, it wants to eliminate it; leaving in its wake a community of servants.

Context is everything, people tend to hear what they want so when for example the rules on Meatless Fridays are relaxed they hear the eating meat part but not the “substitute sacrifice“. Our protestant friends take John 6:53-56 metaphorically while ignoring the context that Jesus actually challenges them on it and loses disciples over it. People either attack or overemphasize Ephesians 22:24 and ignore the context to suit their agendas.

The Church and scripture can stand on it own two feet. If we try to gimmick it as the ECLA did to fill the seats our seats won’t be worth filling. No pulling a Yale and ducking.

Weather .com is really useful but come on…

Posted: August 23, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
Tags: ,

…do we really need the weather broken down every 15 minutes of the hour?

If I want to know the weather in 15 minutes I’ll look at the sky out the window.

What else is a private Tropical Island for?

Posted: August 23, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , ,

RS. McCain latest chapter in his unpublished web book All Girls named Tonya (and other lessons of a misspent youth) does several interesting things:

As the title suggests it will discourage millions of young boys from trying to own a tropical island:

In the first paragraph, this story has already destroyed the fantasies of millions of 14-year-old geeks around the world. “You mean, even if I become so rich that I’ve got my own private tropical island, I don’t get to have sex with any 22-year-old woman I desire?” Disturbing.

Later on he he tells a basic truth that all husbands know today’s second reading not withstanding:

The business about demanding that the chick “get naked”? That’s never worked for me. I’ve been married for 20 years, and if I demanded that my wife “get naked,” she’d laugh in my face.

No wonder the short form of today’s reading (Ephesins 5:21-33) left out verses 22-24. (I will post on that later today)

The third section is however the most important and should be read by every teenage boy alive today:

For the benefit of any young people (or 52-year-old show-business superstars) forced to sort out the new rules for themselves in this disturbing environment, allow me to offer a few suggestions by way of etiquette:

* In general, be careful about situations where you are alone with a person of the opposite sex….

…* Guys, a selfish attitude about sex is self-defeating…

* OK, the girl’s accepted your invitation. You might be in luck. But you’ve got to play it cool. She shows up, and you greet her with courtesy and hospitality. (“Would you like a delicious cold beverage? I’ve got some wine coolers here in the fridge . . .”)

* Don’t move too fast. Unless she’s totally making the moves on you, chill out and read her signals. If she just wants to talk, just talk. No pressure, see? This girl’s got friends, and you don’t want her telling her friends that you’re such a desperate loser that you started making the moves on her and she turned you down. The key to developing a reputation as irresistible is to avoid provoking resistance.

* If you’re going to make a move, make a move. Forget that slowly-work-your-way-up-to-it approach. Assuming you’re reading the signals correctly, a green light means “go.” Chicks dig the bold proposition. Take her in your arms and tell her you’ve been burning with desire for her ever since the first time you saw her. Gently kiss her neck and whisper your passionate intention to ravish every inch of her glorious naked body.

* Be willing to take no for an answer and to apologize for any unintended offense. Hey, even an ace pilot sometimes accidentally locks onto the wrong target, OK? This girl came over to your dorm room to study for the art history exam and when she started talking suggestively about Michelangelo’s David, you took it the wrong way. It happens.

Chicks sometimes aren’t so clear about the signals they send. My senior year in college, on the afternoon of a big concert on the quad, a girlfriend of my girlfriend came over to my dorm room. Lucy kissed me, got completely naked and still ended up saying, “no,” an answer I was obliged to accept.

I never forgave Lucy for that — which is why I feel no compunction about naming her — but I had to accept itemphasis mine.

It reminds me of two scenes From 1940’s The Philadelphia story:

And the resolution that comes at 7:00 of this clip although the whole thing is worth your time.

The laws might be different but if you live by the classic rules of Jimmy Stewart in 1940’s by the pool and R.S. McCain from the 1970’s in Room 215 Patterson Hall then everyone will be better off, especially you.

Update: Welcome Other McCain readers. Take a peek around. See how the Madonna might save me 2k a year. Discover how in vogue is a relative term. Learn why the NAACP doesn’t think Nigger is such a bad word. Learn how to avoid Sullivan’s Syndrome. And check out my Amazon reviews on all kinds of things.

Update 2: Ancient Roman villas and hundreds of slaves work too.

Update 3: If the article doesn’t discourage conservative geeks from shooting for a private tropical island, photo confirmation that Mary Katherine Ham has a significant other is sure to do it.

Palin is what happens when the left believes its own press…

Posted: August 23, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , , , , ,

…as HillBuzz explains:

Sarah Palin is almost single-handedly bringing down Obamacare using only Facebook.

Let that sink in for a moment. The woman the Loony Left demonizes as Anita Bryant 2.0 and Tina Fey lampoons as some sort of space cadet, the woman the Lefties in Chicago constantly make the butt of their jokes or use as a straw (wo)man for whatever they need a villain for, posts remarks on Facebook that fuel Americans’ anger and resentment over the way Democrats are rushing through healthcare reform so recklessly.

The woman these Lefties claim is so, so stupid sure seems mighty smart to us.

Here’s her latest posting on Facebook…it is spot-on, perfect. If anyone doesn’t believe this woman is running for president, we just don’t know what to tell you

The problem with living in an echo chamber is you can’t hear anything else. As Palin supporters we need to take that to heart. Just because we are on her side that doesn’t mean we are immune to this.

Speaking of echo chambers despite the opinions of three guys I respect they totally misread Clift.

True she re-writes history both on social security and medicare but on the campaign:

Obama won the election because his campaign had a great ground game and they had him, a super communicator who made the media swoon.

Poppycock the media didn’t swoon because of Obama’s skill as a communicator. They swooned because they projected onto him a compilation of all their liberal “virtues” and didn’t bother to vett him at all. They saw what they wanted to see.

Despite this Clift finally figures out this isn’t enough:

All the White House has to counter the opposition is Obama, and he’s not enough. The magic has waned. People don’t line up for miles to see him the way they did in the campaign. And judging by the anxiety showing up in the polls, voters don’t trust Obama enough on health-care reform to set aside their historic distrust of government.

This statement also has holes, he has the media and the SEIU, but the media are not believed thanks to stuff like this and this, and the SEIU’s tactics of infiltration or calling Black men niggers and sending them to the hospital if they seem to oppose the president for some reason just doesn’t capture the imagination of the masses.

Clift doesn’t recognize that his stuff is smoke and mirrors but sees that whatever it is, it’s not enough. This isn’t the word of someone at worship, it’s the word of someone who realizes the game is up and has to change. One last tidbit:

“When it comes to taking a punch, I don’t know whether you’re Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson,” Axelrod wrote to Obama in a November 2006 memo

Right sport wrong analogy, Obama isn’t Ali or Patterson, he’s Primo Carnera. He’s a cog of the Chicago machine who with the media have fed him a diet of stiffs to get on top.

Of course the comparison might be is unfair to Primo.

Footnote. I never know he was the only man to ever hold the Boxing and Wrestling World Championships.