Found the following on a website on the details on moving to the UK. The section titled, "How concerned are Brits about health and fitness?" The answer, "Not that much, actually," made me want to cheer.

Looks good to me.

On the whole, Brits seem less concerned about maximizing their personal health and fitness than Americans are. In fact (get ready for this one), they view America as a nation of "health nuts," all consumed by the pursuit of the "clean life" and a fixation on having the perfect skin, body, legs, and so on. Not long ago an article in a London paper on the Irish actor Stephen Rea remarked that, when Rea ordered mineral water (rather than beer) during the interview, it was telling proof that he'd "gone Hollywood." The book "Brit-Think/Amerithink" has some funny material on this cultural diffe rence elsewhere.

Here are a few random observations on health in the UK. Although the movement for banning smoking in public places is gaining ground, it remains a more a minority sentiment in this country. Pubs are tremendously smoky, although thankfully, smoking is not allowed in movie theatres. Probably be cause Britain makes some of the best ales in the world, people drink a lot (3 or 4 pints an evening is not considered particularly excessive here), and they seem to start very young. The institution of The Pub is an omnipresent, essential public facility; for example, Universities will have not ju st one pub, but three or four spread over the campus. You will not see any oriental restaurants proudly displaying a "No MSG" sign, and waiters may consider the request unusual. There are many workout clubs, but you will not find many men in aerobics classes; the British sense of macho identity s eems to regard that as a domain for women. Magazines on childbirth, instead of glorifying more natural methods of childbirth, contain testimonials from women who were so glad they were drugged up for delivery: "It was wonderful, I didn't feel a thing."

And then there's the incredible amounts of grease and deep frying in their foods. In particular, there is the "English Breakfast" you will find served at every restaurant and Bed & Breakfast: greasy fried egg (although on alternate days, tolerable scrambled eggs), greasy sausage, greasy bacon, slices of bread fried in grease, hash browns fried in grease, plus the piece de resistance, the small half-tomato fried in grease.

Mmmmmm... grease...beer...

where do I sign up?

For quite a while, our gentlemen readers are going to be more bored than usual here...

"I'm not Doctor Who, I'm your English teacher."

"I don't think you are
though. I think you're a nine hundred and forty-five year-old Time Lord."

"You know your house, right; is it bigger on the inside? Did you park
the Tardis on a meter?"

Here's David Tennant giving helpful tips on how to do a Glasgow accent.

(I am reliably informed that almost the entire female population of Great Britain, possibly excluding only cloistered nuns, has a girlish crush on David Tennant.)

Having watched a bit of British TV

in the last week, I can say I've made another decision:

I'm not going to be getting a TV.

I'm also of the conviction, growing hourly in strength, that the "Estuary" accent is a scourge. It must be eradicated.

EXTERMINATED!

Note to self ~ leave country

After coming back from Vancouver, I have sunk into a funk. For this condition, I have self-prescribed an analgesic treatment of endless back-to-back Dr. Who episodes on Youtube and other internet television. As a result, am picking up distinct estuary accent. And a girlish crush on David Tennant, the first rumblings of which have already appeared below.

I think the only cure will be a long uncomfortable stint in Yorkshire. Visiting reltives in Cheshire and Manchester. Must seek out the last Yorkshire pub that has no TV in it. I've heard people talk about it, though no one seems to know where it is. I think it may have faded away like the ancient sidhe. Or the Tardis.

Am a step or two closer. Got mother's b. certs from her papers and father's b. cert. came in the mail from Liverpool was waiting when I arrived home. Now all I need is marriage cert from British Columbia vital statistics, and am away.

AWAY!

shaking dust off sandals...

if I had any sandals,

which I don't.

Movie Confessionals

Does this bug anyone else as much as it does me? Hollywood movie confessional scenes.

How hard could it be to just phone up the nearest parish and ask how a Catholic makes confession?

And once and for all, it's "BLESS me, father, for I have sinned..." not "Forgive me father..."

Urgh!

One of the funniest confessional scenes I've yet seen...

...and obviously, because it was the BBC, they knew to give a call to find out how to say it right.

(And for the girls in the audience, isn't David Tennant a cutie pie!)

Now here's something very interesting

A Motu Proprio

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has changed the rules for electing a new pope, returning to the traditional requirement that two-thirds of the cardinals in the conclave agree on a candidate, the Vatican said Tuesday.

Pope John Paul II had altered the voting process in 1996, allowing the pope to be chosen by an absolute majority if the cardinals were unable to agree after several days of balloting in which a two-thirds majority was needed.

In a document released Tuesday, Benedict said he was returning to the traditional voting norm, essentially reversing John Paul's reform of the centuries-old process.

The brief document, written in Latin, was dated June 11 and signed by Benedict.

EXTERMINATE!!!

So me n' Vic were roaming around the wild streets of Vancouver one night


and were brought up short to see this


in a bakery window.

An innocent bun-rounder you say?

I'm sorry. I'm just not buying it.

There's no doubt in my mind that it's a scout, part of a planned invasion force.

Don't believe me? OPEN your eyes!

Funeral Rites

Tony is my atheist friend. He and his brother Steve have been friends of mine since I was sixteen. It's been a strange time. They did the lion's share of looking after my mum and I owe them more now than I can ever give back.

Steve didn't come to the funeral, but was in Vancouver and spent a lot of time with mum. She was very fond of him and gave him her engagement ring for his upcoming wedding.

Tony is mum's executor. What a strange life it is. I met them at a medieval society event 25 years ago. We had all stayed up to the wee hours sitting about the campfire. When I realized I didn't remember, in the pitch dark of a Saltspring Island summer night, where I had left my little tent, Steve found me a spot in the big group tent he and his group of friends had brought. The next morning, I found myself in a ten-man army tent with about eight other people. I turned over and this guy with a mop of curly black hair in the next spot smiled and said, "Hello, my name's Tony. What's yours?" The brothers, though as different as it seems possible for two brothers to be, have remained friends of mine ever since, and they took on the care of my mother without a murmur.

When I went out there last year to see mum for the last time, I asked Steve why he had done so much for someone who was no relation. He said that he had been estranged from his own father for years and a friend of his had made the effort to get them to reconcile. "He died in a car accident two months later. I figure I owe the universe."

Neither of them is a believer, but I once gave Steve a green scapular. He keeps it and tells his friends it's a "get out of hell free card." He told me that he is counting on me, his only Catholic friend, to get him a spot. I'll try my best.

Tony and me.


Tony and Vicky (I told Vic she looked wonderful and that she should dress like a girl more often.)

Vancouver

As Vicky already said, between funeral home visitations and mourning, we managed to have a pretty good time. Vicky is doing the last of her degree this summer at UBC and in the eight years it has taken her, she has learned one thing without a doubt: university education is an oxymoron.

My Vancouver:

We ate lunch in Japanese restaurants a lot


and ate a lot of raw fish and rice.

...it's kind of a Vancouver thing.

We went to Stanley Park a lot. Drove around the ring road, looked out at the water a lot.





Vicky insists she's not photogenic. Don't know why.

Aslan is Tash; Tash is Aslan

Why can't you understand that, you stupid beasts?

Catholics outside London cathedral protest concert of Allah names
Catholic Herald:

"Catholic traditionalists, including two priests, converged on Westminster Cathedral, London, to publicly protest the first ever performance of the Beautiful Names...(by Sir. John Tavener.)

"They claimed that a concert glorifying a religion which denies the divine nature of Jesus Christ should not be allowed to be staged in a Catholic place of worship...

The group included Fr. Tim Finigan... (yay!) and Fr. Michael Clifton, a retired priest from the Archdiocese of Southwark. Fr. Clifton said, 'A concert like this should never be put on in a Catholic church because it is music which belongs to a foreign, alien religion which is Islam. I have nothing against Islam as such, but this is not the place to do it. Allah is not a Christian god. Allah is not the triune God that Catholics believe in at all.'

"Sir John's brother Roger was on the Piazza to view the demonstration...he said, 'His intention is to bring all faiths together under one roof...We all worship the one God...I can't understand why there is a demonstration.'

Msgr Mark Langham, the administrator of the Cathedral defended the performance on the grounds that it is 'not a liturgical act of worship'. He said that in a discussion with Sir John it was 'agreed from the beginning that a work by a Catholic composer, Tomas Luis de Victoria- would be included in the programme, to emphasise that there is one God worshipped by Christians and Muslims.' Mgr Langham said, 'as the chief Catholic church in the country Westminster Cathedral mustn reflect the Church's concern to dialogue with those of other faiths.'"

The Ape jumped up and spat at the Lamb. .."Tash is only another name for Aslan. All that old idea of us being right and the Calmormenes wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenese use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who. That's why there can never be any quarrel between them. Get that into your heads, you stupid brutes. Tash is Aslan. Aslan is Tash."

[...]

"Excuse me," said the Cat very politely, "but this interests me. "Does your friend from Calormene say the same?"

"Assuredly,"" said the Calormene. "The enlightened Ape--Man, I mean--is in the right. Aslan means neither less nor more than Tash."

"Especially, Aslan means no more than Tash?" suggested the Cat.

"No more at all," said the Carormene, looking the Cat straight in the face.

More Ducks

A little known fact is that I am also a fanatical duckfan (though perhaps not quite so dedicated a one as one of our readers).

Actually, the thing I like best about ducks is how lovely and soft they look. It always gives me a tremendous urge to pick them up and pet them.

I grew up in a town that has a lot of ducks and is rather infatuated with them. Victoria is a duck town. When I was a kid, my mother used to drive me to school and we always took the route through the park. Early in the morning, the ducks would all be sitting in a huge flock in the middle of the ring road, sunning themselves. We would drive up to them and stop, neither party really interested in going anywhere. Mum and I would get a moment to drink our tea (which we nearly always needed to take along with us, being both chronically late people in the mornings) listen to the radio and look at the ducks. The ducks usually took no notice of us. After a few minutes they would, at some telepathic duck-signal, all amble off together to the pond for their early morning bathe and we, having finished our tea, would go off to school.

Going to the park to feed the ducks was a major feature of my childhood and we always kept a bag of bread ends in the freezer for the purpose.

For the first year I lived in Halifax, I was terribly ill, and therefore terribly bored and frustrated. I couldn't do much and tired very easily. When all that brought me down, I would go to the Halifax Public Gardens and watch the ducks. They have antics. Duck antics are probably the most cheering things you can watch; they make you laugh out loud.

Yet another duck video:

Oh! The Flappy Feet!

I'm just going to die of cuteness!

This Woman is Magic!

(You can tell I'm a bit bored.)

I looked up the site of the woman who made the call duck video and discovered she is magic.

Have you ever seen or heard of anyone who can get a hummingbird to land on her finger?

Questions for Friday

In the last week, I've only slept about two hours a night, so my brain is being more entertaining than usual. More entertaining than TV, at least.

Some things I've been wondering about:

Is/are the Cotswolds still a nice place to live? or is it just a Y.B.of Olde Englandie Theame Parke?

Do we think there's still time to live a bit of ordinary life before the Parousia? How much time are we talking about? I mean, is it time to start buying yellow bananas at the grocers or can we make a few longer-term plans? You know: is there a point to joining a choir or taking a weekend course in custom bookbinding or rose-growing? I'm sort of disappointed actually; Ratzinger was elected pope, the Red Sox won a World Series, and I've kept the same job for more than three years. Hell actually does appear to be freezing over and...still NO TRUMP! What's taking Him?

Fight or flight? Which is better, escape to some remote corner of Wales or Montana, raise ducks and let the Muslims blow up the inner cities? Or to take a stand and try to oust them? or convert them? ...or get blown up trying?

And to what are we supposed to convert them? Have any those people saying that Muslims have to integrate into modern British/Canuckistan/US/French society for things to work out, really thought about what they are proposing? I mean, I read Mark Steyn the other day going on about how we have to do something to get them to be more like us, but I couldn't figure out what that really meant. Did he think they ought to become crass materialistic quarter-educated secularized nincompoops like most of the westerners? "To what shall we convert them, Mark?" I wanted to ask him. I notice it's a question he is rather reluctant to address in his book or column.

Will I now get excommunicated from the Church of the Great Steyn for having asked such an impertinent question?

Are there any remote corners of Wales left?

Are conservatives really just mean?

What's the real story with the bees? Are we facing a worldwide agriculture crisis or is it an urban legend or what?

Why do Philipina ladies seem unable to sit still at Mass and not fiddle with their crackly plastic shopping bags? Is it a cultural thing? Is it some kind of genetic problem that is linked to them like sickle cell anemia or hemophilia? And just what the heck is in those bags that the ABSOLUTELY MUST dive into them and start crackling away right at the Consecration? What could anyone possibly need out of a crackly shopping bag at that particular moment at Mass?

If Canadians Did Star Trek

Amusing Myself into a PVS

So, I'm doing that thing I said I would try to stop doing. I'm letting my mind wander aimlessly about, looking stupid things up on Wiki and YouTube.

I did get a whole chapter finished of a novel I've been thinking about, and have worked my way through about a third of the next one. I've got a bit of British legislation to look at and do something with for the Interim next month, and a whole book on stem cell research and ethics waiting there, dangling a cheque in front of me like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

And what am I doing?

Looking up "latte-drinkers" on Wiki. As in, "grey-ponytailed, Volvo-drivin', New York Times readin', Vermont-dwellin', cheese-eatin', limp-wristed..."

As in: "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs."

You've got to say it with the best approximation of a Texas accent you can manage, (London-dwellin', Eton n' Oxford-Graduatin', silver-spoon chewin', Harrods-shoppin', Darjeeling-slurpin' folk are exempt of course.)

Heh, I like the Wiki thing on "Liberal Elites." Of course, it's all really just a manifestation of the lower classes trying to climb up into places not meant for them. Envy, really. They or their parents now I suppose, were born in the wrong stratum and had to, ahem, earn their way to the top of academe, the only place that would have them.

The culture of envy and whineyness they have created to replace the old order has just proved that the old order was the better one. People who know their place, do not spend their lives endlessly carping about the advantages of others. And do not try to create an "elite" class for themselves.

Wiki has links to the terms

smoked salmon liberal
Latte liberal
chardonnay socialist
BBC-Guardian axis
salon communist
limousine liberal - a term for a wealthy liberal person who claims to have a deep concern for the poor, but is not actually directly engaged with them on a day to day basis. The term can also carry the connotation of expressing concern for the poor but not spending any considerable portion of one's personal time, effort, or wealth to help them.

Cute duck video

The Problem We Face

I was just reading Ben and thinking about Steve's hopes and aspirations and those of my fellow Restorationists. There are a lot of discontented souls out there. You don't have to read the Catholic trad bloggers to see it. A glance at the daily papers will suffice. No one seems to know what is going on, least of all the people who purport to be in charge. Many simply assume that this state of mental dissolution and befuddled philosophical palaver is normal.

One hears often, "Oh, when has it ever been different?" Thus speaks a modern and lately educated person. As has been said many times, the revolutionaries knew that they could not win without destroying the past; the victims had to never suspect that they had been tampered with. In Ingsoc, Orwell showed us that it is not the generation of the revolution, but their children, who are the completely indoctrinated ones. They have known nothing else. History is not taught and young people are cut off from their elders and cannot ask what life was like in the Before Time.

I think I have said that the problem we face in this age as Catholics is that we must all make it up for ourselves from day to day. It is why we have the different "movements" in the Church. We have 'liberal' apostates, feminist theology, Trads and trads, neo-catholics, Americanists, Marian apparition and end times people, yodeling "charismatics" and all manner of crackpottery and no one has the faintest idea how to simply live quietly as a Catholic. The Church has, for whatever reason, abandoned its role and can no longer give a coherent structure to sustain our daily religious lives.

Ben says, "A religious posture which requires to be shored up with ideological constructions and historical contingencies in order to preserve the appearance of solidity cannot be sustainted indefinitely."

...a Benedictine father asserted it in relation to the good effect of the Old Rite on the celebration of the New. This is fine as it relates to externals – but what about the texts, and that ominous shift in the lex orandi that it doesn’t require a Dr Lauren Pristas to detect? Asserted oontinuity is meaningless here. It springs from the same desperation that leads conservatives to insist, whenever an official statement includes something obviously at odds with reality, "Oh well, of course he has to say that..."

Catholics are, by definition, not supposed to have to make it up. Truth is outside ourselves, outside our preferences, our philosophical or ideological constructions. We are, therefore, forced to do something that goes essentially against the general thrust of following that external truth.

Now, I'm all for such projects as Steve's and I am, obviously, much more on with the "hermeneutic of reconstruction" or restoration than that of "continuity," all respect due to Fr. Tim. But such a reconstruction strikes me, in the larger sense of our societies, as flatly impossible. We can do whatever we can individually, and for our families to live in as true a way as possible, but the re-ordering of society? It requires a set of assumptions that have been burned out of the great majority of people.

The problem of how to live, as integrated Catholics, as wholly truthful and truth-seeking people, is something that remains unsolved. I don't know many SSPX laymen, but I have talked with a few of their priests and the honest ones will tell you that their solution is also a lousy one. There are no good solutions. The normal Catholic life, the day to day life lived by our ancestors for 1965 years, is destroyed and cannot be brought back, at least for the indefinite future. We are, therefore, refugees for life. We have to learn to live in exile.

Me n' Vic

Ten days in Vancouver: the coolth, the clean air, the quiet (compared to Toronto, Vancouver is a trafficnoise-free zone), the non-humidity and, well, see for yourself.

Vicky posted some pics here that she took on one of our little romps around Stanley Park.


Home of the Big Trees.

The park had suffered a huge wind storm a few years a go and a number of the really big trees were down. We went to Third Beach, where I used to hang out and swim. We spent a few hours there one evening watching a seal swim around a few yards off. We leaned on my customary log (fourth to the right from the middle stairs) and I read Belloc's Cautionary Poems for Children while Vicky drew pictures.

My own pics are forthcoming.

(What am I doing in Toronto again? Someone who remembers, please drop me a note and remind me.)

HilaryVision

I have acquired a digital camera that makes short videos.

I will, therefore, shortly introduce a new phase in my online troublemaking life:

HilaryVision on YouTube
with a series of short vids taken in Vancouver of me and my friend Vicky hanging out and being silly. And tired. We were tired a lot.

Fr. Tim Holding the Line

alone. As usual.

While the Dhimmis inside Westminster Cathedral were singing along to the 99 Names of Allah...

At 7pm we began by singing the Credo and it was immediately apparent that the participants in this prayer vigil wished to proclaim their faith in the Triune God with enthusiasm. As a priest, I was happy to provide leadership for this group whilst being prepared to recognise that many came under their own initiative. Many people said that they were pleased that a priest came to lead the prayers. We sang, prayed the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Litany of the Holy Name, the Litany of Loreto, the Salve Regina and the Christus Vincit. At the end, I suggested that we might have enough energy to sing "Faith of our Fathers" and was proved correct in my supposition!

"We have had meetings within the parish with the local Muslim mosques. It was attended by one of the local Immans who recited verses from The Koran in honour of Mary alongside the Archbishop of Birmingham."

Ummm... guys. I think you need to know something about Islam.

If an Imam prays in a church, it automatically becomes a mosque. That's their rules and they're not really all that into "inter-faith dialogue."

I think someone needs to let the Archbishop of Birmingham know before the nice chap with the little crocheted cap gets invited to "share" the prayers at St. Chad's Cathedral.

Feeling Depressed?

Not yet?

Here, let me help you along with some of today's Religion of Pieces headlines.

Top of the Charts
for our "What Do Islam and Marxism Have in Common?" files - Four Muslim and one Neo-Marxist state take the top (or bottom) five World's Worst State awards.


Meanwhile in Ye Merrie Oldie:
Catholic Church in England Sues for Dhimmitude ~ Parish priest calls it an "innovative approach" and "the way forward for Catholic churches to reach-out to other faiths".

"The cultural integration has worked very well. The children come to the church and they always come up for a blessing. And of course in the church we have a verse on the wall from The Koran about Our Lady."

Of course.

"Now we are here we must work to form some sort of social cohesion. If we didn't embrace other faiths around us, it would be almost like a form of apartheid."

(Gasp!) Apartheid?! Oh no! NEVER that!

Oh, I think that "reaching out" isn't going to be a big problem for Catholic/Muslim relations in the near future.

Muslim mob Religion-of-Peace social justice action commitee attacks greets Christians in Pakistan. Riot Ecumenical tea party breaks out.

police turned blind eye to stop Muslim attackers in remote village of district Faisalabad.

The bullets were fired to threaten Christian worshipers and a baton was charged on unarmed women and children in Church courtyard.

Police have not registered any case against the Muslims and medical aid was denied to injure Christians by the local hospital.

...and now for

money well-spent, I would say


"Think outside the flock"

Seriously, don't these people have anything to do?

How to drive Christianly.

I liked the advice in section 61: "Please don't kill anyone with your car. That would be wrong."

Thanks guys. Good work there.

At least they're not using income tax to pay for it.

Michael Coren is Right

There. I've said it.

I feel like a living cliche

(That's "cleeshay", I don't have the accent for the 'e' in the headline.)

I'm writing this from an internet cafe on Main street and 10th in Vancouver, sitting amidst all the other hipsters and students, sipping a chai-latte and chewing a (somewhat stale) biscotti. I've brought my computer and am picking up the cafe's free wireless. I could spend all night in here if I wanted, sipping and writing. A fine arrangement. I am not, however, wearing black. Nor do I have a cellphone. I am hoping that the similarities between self and fellow lounge-lizards are superficial only.

I spent the day today sorting through my mother's belongings that were in storage. I have found nothing suprising, but many photos. All of her life story which I added last week is now illustrated with pictures of her lookng cherubic, despite wartime rationing.

I also found something that readers may have been looking forward to for some time: a photo taken of me in highschool, complete with 80's hair style.

The funeral Mass is not going to be in the True Rite, but will be keeping a minimum of decorum. Being the only Catholic among mum's family and friends, I expect it will not be heavily populated. And that is just fine with me.

It turns out that the priest is not a Franciscan after all. Neither is he a hippie, a godless commie nor a pagan. He seemed a sensible, perfectly ordinary Novus Ordo parish priest and, thanks be to God, told me that mum recieved the last sacraments and quite reverently. I was so relieved I almost burst into tears on the spot. After that news, after having my mind set at rest on something that had been plaguing me terribly, all else seems almost superfluous.

White vestments at the funeral Mass? Offertory "songs" out of the Glory and Praise songbook? Hand-shake o' peace?

Tchah! Who cares?

Deo Gratias.



* ~ *

more to come.

Kind Thanks

to everyone on this list, and at Catholic Restorationists list and all elsewhere who have written me notes of condolence, played tunes on the pipes, and most importantly, prayed for and had Masses said for the repose of my mother's soul.

I will be going to Vancouver this evening and will stay about ten days sorting her things and arranging funeral and greeting long-lost relatives. I don't expect to be able to put much up here in the meantime but be assured that all the kindnesses and prayers sent out from y'all have been greatly appreciated.

My mother and I are the first Catholics in our family history since at least the 1830's. The parish priest who attended her while she was ill is a Franciscan of somewhat, umm, dubious religious opinions (if I recall, Hawaiian shirts being de rigeur); I imagine therefore that arranging the Mass, especially since mum died without a penny to her name, will be something of a trial. My greatest hope is only to have there be a measure of decorum: no Beatles songs, no clapping, no sharing, no hand-shake o' peace, no eulogy, and, God forbid, no 'intercommunion'.

Pray especially that I will retain my cool with the Franciscans and their attendant BoomerCatholics, and maintain at least a minimal level of charitablenes. (Keeping in mind that their revolution is over and that it failed and that the winners - us - are called to be merciful in our victory and that we're all going to be in front of the same Judge some day.)

I woke in the wee hours this morning to turn on the fan in my room and while I was struggling with it, trying to make sure it neither fell into the room nor plummeted into the garden, I glanced out the window and saw one of the local working ladies pacing her walk up and down in front of the streetcar stop opposite the house. I was struck suddenly with the uncertainty of things in life. How easy it is for any of us to end up far away from where we thought we were supposed to be, for life to fail our expectations and then be over.

Thank God that He sees our lives in an entirely different light than our limitations can grasp, since His opinion and not that of our friends or relatives or even ourselves, is what matters. My mother and I had not been close for nearly 20 years and I had wondered for some time what effect her death might have on me. What I find is surprising. I feel somehow deracinated, as though there had been an invisible thread, almost never pulled on either end, that connected her to me, and me to all the people who came before us. I find now that for the first time in my life, I want to make some kind of connection, re-attach the thread, to the people who are left: Uncle Mike and Auntie Gill and to those Doloughan relatives mum was in contact with before she died. Not necessarily to become matey, but just to be known. I hope that there will be some information on them in her letters and that Mike and Gill will come to Vancouver next week. I haven't seen them, and they haven't seen me, in 35 years.

I keep thinking what a terrible botch of things we all make of our intentions; whether things "work out" or not, it is true of nearly everyone to some degree that life almost never goes where we thought it would. But of course, we all end up in the same place anyway.

If I could impose on y'all a while longer, please keep me and my mum in your prayers.

Cheshire

green and pleasant land.


Mist in the morning.


Auntie Gill's clematis.


Roman wall and Dee canal.


Roman wall with town clock, Chester.


High Street, Chester.


Cheshire dale.


Cheshire road.


Near Chester Cathedral.


View from Mum's seat at the (16th century) Pheasant Inn.

Mumpics

in the bluebells.


A cat lover: this is George



Her bobbin lace

My mother taught me to write

I told her, when I went to see her for the last time last year, that this was the greatest thing she did for me, after giving birth to me. She gave me my first typewriter when I was about seven or eight. She showed me where to put my fingers on the keys and we used to talk about the stories I was thinking about. She always took them very seriously and would patiently help me work out the characters, plots and details. She proofread and made suggestions, corrected grammar and spelling. She was an excellent editor.

More from her blog:

Why does one write? I can imagine a host of answers but the one that fits me, and I am the only one I can answer for, is that I must. It's what I am; it's what I was created to do. It's what gets me out of bed in the morning and keeps me up at night. Many people have written on the art of writing, both good writers and bad. The consensus is that it is a need, a drive, an urge that must be obeyed or we are unhappy. If you are uncertain whether you are a writer, think how you would feel if you were to give up the notion forever. That should do it.

And if you are a writer, you probably know what it is you want to write. Or think you do. You have probably tried your hand at something or other by now, perhaps a poem or a diary, or perhaps you enjoy writing letters, a noble and dying art. However the Muse stings your hide, be assured that it is the real thing, for anything which whispers in your ear in the middle of the night, disturbs your dreams or otherwise coaxes your thoughts ever back to itself has undeniable reality. And if you ignore it, it will not go away, for it is your inner self rapping for attention and it will not be denied; if you would be happy in your life, obey it.

Trust your inner consciousness to know what it wants and to be right in that; you're just along for the ride. The still, small voice is that call to be yourself, to be what you were created to be and not to be afraid of that, though there be dragons lying in wait. We have been taught to be timid, to mistrust our instincts and ignore the inner voice as false and fantastical. Everyone has something to say and writing is the instrument both of self discovery and of the expression of that awakened self. All art is the expression of that elusive internal self; all creation is an act of bravery. Those who create are the life blood of the race. If you are a writer, count yourself among the blessed and get on with it.

And while everyone has something to say, and perhaps everyone does have a book in him or her, it does not mean to say that everyone is capable of writing that book. If you approach your writing from the outset with the idea that your goal is to become rich and famous à la Stephen King, you are extremely likely to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you have decided that you shouldn't write a word because you have no hope of becoming rich and famous, you are cheating yourself of one of the finer things that you can do with your life, which is to leave behind you a personal record, an archive, however well or poorly written. Never discount the value of leaving behind something real of yourself. Just think how valuable anything written by your great-grandmother is, even though it talked only of how she spent her afternoons. The danger is in thinking only in the short term, one of the many illnesses of Western civilization. No matter how long you inhabit the planet, your writing will live after you and be valued for as long as it exists, even if only by your descendants. You will become a revered ancestor.

and she has.

Mum's Life: Sevenoaks and Chickens

In England:

I have always liked chickens. They take me back to my earliest years. The place I lived when I was the tiniest baby until I was about four was Sevenoaks in Kent south of London. I have no illusions that the place has changed beyond recognition in the sixty years since then. I’d rather not know how much.

We lived at number 20 Hillingdon Avenue in a row house. There were swings close by, going by how often I was photographed sitting on them and scowling. They houses were cinder block consctruction and there was a garden at the back. That was where the chickens were kept. I don’t know for certain but I’m guessing, its being wartime, that people were encouraged to raise as much of their own food as possible.

I don’t remember what was grown in the garden, just that we had chickens and I loved eggs. The eggs were a wonderful, creamy yellow goodness in a great package and if the chickens laid one and I found it, it was mine. I remember once being so excited that I was running up the garden path, tripped and fell and, inevitably, the egg broke. I was very upset, mostly because I thought I would be in trouble for breaking the egg than going without my breakfast.

A lot of people lived in that house. I realized that much later, of course. There was Grandad, a grand old man in his eighties who had earned his living as a hurdle maker. I have no idea what that was or the need for them and if anyone can tell me I’d be grateful. There are several photos of me and Grandad. I do remember that I loved him. He died shortly after the end of the war and we always went to put flowers on his grave. He was much loved.

Then there was Auntie Dolly and her husband Russell Knight and Auntie Dolly’s two teenaged daughters, Gillian and Aileen. Then there was my godmother, who was Dolly’s sister, her daughter, Joan.

Just as the war ended, we also had Joan’s son, Michael (my foster brother) and Pop [Fred], Michael’s father who was demobbed in 1945. And then there was me. For a grand total of ten people. It was wartime and there was no building going on. People were living with relatives if they’d survived being bombed out.

Mum, Michael, whom I called "Uncle Mike" when we lived in Manchester, and Michael's wife, my "Auntie" Gill, grandparents themselves, now, at their son's wedding.


L to R, Uncle Mike, Joan (with back to camera), her husband Fred Hill, Auntie Gill holding her grandson's hand. (plus two unknowns).

Me. My mother was not married to my father [Herbert Burkett, a dashing American airforce officer from Texas about to go overseas and possibly never be seen again. He survived the war, however, and died in 1971 of leukemia, we suspect, after having been part of the nuclear testing in Nevada], which happens a lot in wartime. My mother and my uncle, Laurie, turned up on the doorstep if 20 Hillingdon Avenue with me, wrapped in a blanket. I was ten days old. Nan took me in and became my godmother. [I remember Nan, a lovely elderly lady, who lived with Joan and Fred until she died. She was very kind to me and I was devastated when I learned she had died a few years after we returned to Canada. Had a soft spot for old ladies all my life. Possibly because of her, as much as because of my grandma.]

Sevenoaks is — and has been for hundreds of years — the seat of Knoll House.

It’s one of the great houses of England and is so old that the first renovations were done by the Tudors.

We often walked to the gate of Knoll House, either to go in and have a picnic on the grounds or to visit someone whose name I have forgotten. They lived in a coach house right beside the gate. I was intrigued because the doorway was down. You had to step down to get inside. I can see in my mind’s eye even now, the horses and the coaches, hear the sounds of the horses’ feet clop-clopping on the cobblestones. I don’t suppose it’s still cobbled but sixty years ago, they were still there. They hurt my small feet to walk on them.

There are red deer in the park, descended from the original herd which provided the gentry with hunting sport. They aren’t hunted now, of course. Back then, no doubt, there were plenty of rabbits running about the town. The blackberry vines were enough to guarantee that. At our house, the blackberries began just the other side of the chicken coop. The land fell right off back there and nobody was arguing with the blackberries about who owned it.

Waking up to the call of the rooster was good for me, I’m convinced. I still love the sound of the rooster.

A Life

Judy kept a blog. I didn't know.

Like so many others, I was not born in Canada. I was born in the picturesque, thousand-year-old town of Salisbury, in the southern English county of Wiltshire. It has a magnificent Gothic cathedral whose spire is -- was – falling down. Perhaps they have fixed it now. And is not far from Stonehenge. It used to be called New Sarum, so I’m told, and was built next to Old Sarum, which had been inhabited since the days of the builders of Stonehenge. It is old, if anything is.

But I have never really been there. I was not raised by my mother but was taken in at the ripe old age of ten days by foster parents, living in Sevenoaks in Kent. It was wartime and such things were not uncommon. Sevenoaks is in what was known as ‘bomb alley’, the route of the rocket bombs launched in Holland, with the anti-aircraft guns pounding away at all hours to try to knock them out of the skies before they fell on London. Apparently, it was all right if they fell on us.

Needless to say, I was a nervous child. I chewed the ends of my pigtails and sucked my handkerchief when no one was looking. Until I left England, at the age of eight, we lived on rationing. They say it was severe and I suppose that an allotment of one ounce of sugar per person per week counts as ‘severe’. It was the only system I had ever known and if I was deprived of the necessities of life, I was blissfully unaware of it, having, it seemed to me, everything I needed, a family, a brother, a dad who carried me on his shoulders and wonderful Christmases. How is that deprivation? No-one thought to explain to me either what a ration was or the need of it; it was a way of life and the only one I had ever known. I did at least know that everyone was required to have them; there were no special cases that I knew of. If I was deprived, so was everyone else and it was not noticeable. The grown-ups never spoke of such things within earshot of children and I am inclined now to think that there is merit in such a system.

Some time after the war, perhaps in 1948, we moved to Wythenshawe, a suburb of the great Industrial Revolution city of Manchester, with its ship canal that had been the aorta of Britain for the export of woollen goods from the ‘dark, Satanic mills’. What did I know of all that? To me, Manchester meant Manchester United football team, having a red and white muffler, filling in the football pools for Pop, since we two children had as much chance of being right as anyone, being within driving distance of the Blackpool Illuminations, walks along country lanes every Sunday after church, being forbidden to play in the rhododendron bushes because of the black, oily streaks that resulted from touching the dark leaves, Father Christmas at Lewis’s Department Store – and at several other big stores as well, of course, which was how I determined that, lovable as he was, Father Christmas was a fake -- and a field for playing Cowboys and Indians behind the ‘semi-detached’ house.

We lived with the sight of bombed buildings. I thought nothing of them; they were simply there, the way of things, as ‘normal’ as sharing one can of Spam between five people and thinking ourselves well off for a lump of coal for the fireplace instead of the usual peat. There were trips to the zoo, with its wonderful elephants. There were rides for the children in a wooden seat high on the elephant’s back. One of the best-cherished childhood delights was feeding Bassett’s Licorice Allsorts, one at a time, to the huge beasts, holding the treat carefully between childish fingers while the two-ton giant took it with exceeding delicacy by the prehensile ‘lips’ of the end of its trunk, its touch warm, soft and gentle. I have loved the great behemoths to this day. I actually remember nothing else about the zoo, but it is enough.

Mum's Trip Abroad

I found a disk of photos she took on her last trip to England Europe a few years ago. I don't know if she knew, but she seems to have had a little natural knack for photography.

She went to Paris:



She always loved flying buttresses


and gargoyles


and particularly statues of Our Lady.


Figures in the north portal of Notre Dame.

She visited the little village of Clynnog Fawr, often simply called

"Clynnog",

on the north coast of the Llŷn peninsula in Gwynedd, north-west Wales.

She visited the church of St. Beuno:



rood screen


passageway


rectory


portal arch

Wiki says,

The main feature of the village is the church, dedicated to Saint Beuno, which is much larger than would be expected in a village of Clynnog's size. The site is said to be that of a Celtic monastery founded by Beuno in the early 7th century. It developed into an important foundation and some Welsh law manuscripts specify that the Abbot of Clynnog was entitled to a seat at the court of the king of Gwynedd. The church is recorded as being burnt in 978 by the Vikings and later burnt again by the Normans. By the end of the 15th century it was a collegiate church, one of only six in Wales. The church was an important stopping place for pilgrims heading for Bardsey Island and contains Cyff Beuno, an ancient wooden chest hollowed out of a single piece of ash and used to keep alms donated by the pilgrims. "Maen Beuno" or Beuno's Stone has markings reputed to be those of Beuno's fingers. Outside in the churchyard there is a sundial dated between the late 10th century and the early 12th century.

Saint Beuno (died 640) was a 7th century Welsh holy man and Abbot of Clynnog Fawr in Caernarfonshire.

Beuno was born in Powys, supposedly at Berriew, the grandson of a prince of that realm, with Cadfan King of Gwynedd, being his generous benefactor. Cadwallon, Cadfan's son and successor, deceived Beuno about some land and, when the saint demanding justice, proved unsympathetic. Thereupon, Cadwallon's cousin Gwyddaint, in reparation, "gave to God and Beuno forever his township" of Clynnog Fawr, where the saint founded the famous abbey.

Beuno became the guardian and restorer to life of his niece, the virgin Saint Winefride. He was relentless with hardened sinners, but full of compassion to those in distress. Before his death "on the seventh day of Easter," he had a wondrous vision. Eleven churches bearing Saint Beuno's name witness to his far-reaching missionary zeal. His feastday is 21 April.

After a day of wandering about, ended it, like a sensible person, with a pint in the pub.

Mum

Judith Leigh Doloughan
April 11, 1944 - June 5, 2007

If you would all be so kind, please pray for the repose of the soul of my mother, who passed away last night.

Things I Don't Really Care About

Jeff has tagged me, (admittedly, only after I whined about never getting tagged) in his Thirty Things that Don't Bother Me meme.

I like memes. It's like Sharing, only less socially awkward. A few months ago, I was having a chat with Paul Tuns, the edior of the Interim, the "last conservative paper in Canada" (according to Conrad Black), and he (Paul, not Conrad) was telling me that he and Kathy Shaidle were doing a Ten Things I Don't Care About meme. I thought it was a cute idea and started a list of my own.

Strangely, I fizzled on it.

It's because, well... it's hard to think of stuff you don't really care about, because you don't really think much about things you don't think about...if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I told Jeff that thirty's a lot, especially for someone like me who's known to be a bit highly charged about quite a few things, but I'll have a go. (Some of these are a bit Canadian, so bear with, if you don't live above the 49th.)

Things that don't really bother me:

1. The Vocations Crisis - there isn't one.

2. Canada - see note above re: vocations crisis.

3. Global Warming - warmer winters? longer summers? sounds pretty good to a Canuckistani.

4. Women's Rights - actually I do care about this, it's just that I think we should have fewer of them.

5. Canadian Politics - tough to care about the politics of something that doesn't really exist.

6. The Canadian Catholic Church - as note one above.

7. Liturgical Abuses in the Novus Ordo - Can't corrupt something that is itself a corruption.

8. Genetically Modified Foods - humans have been genetically modifying the food they grow for ten thousand years. Too late to worry about it now.

9. The Sex Abuse Scandal - fags do what fags do; if you put a bunch of yippity-skip nancy-boys in the Church, that's what they will do.

10. The Environment - nature is stronger than us. Oxford says: "Environment, n. Surrounding; surrounding objects, region, or circumstances." sounds like the sort of thing that will be there no matter what.

11. Islam - it's a false religion. Truth always wins...in the end.

12. Racism - it's been with us a long time; not going away soon.

13. the Role of the Laity - pay, pray and obey gives us plenty to do.

14. the Modern Dissolution of the Religious Orders - no point saving a house that's already riddled with termites. The sooner it goes down, the less threat it poses to the neighbourhood. With the anti-nuns: the sooner they die off, the sooner we get their stuff.

15. the Motu Proprio - if it comes before the Parousia, we're ahead, I figure.

16. University Dropouts - a sign of mental health if you ask me.

17. Catholics who don't want to move and shake - also disparagingly called 'pew-sitters.' We need more non-activist Catholics. People got enough to think about without obsessing over encyclicals.

18. Ladies who don't want to work/go into politics - Kittens and embroidery, as well as gardening, homeschooling, sewing, pie-making, and watercolour landscape painting are all under-represented in the unpaid labour market.

19. Modern "Art" - the only people who pay for it are corporations and it is only seen in art galleries that only stupid people go to. What's the loss? Beauty is like truth and nature; they're stronger than our stupidity and tend to make comebacks.

20. Gay Rights/Feminism/Demographic Implosion - a problem that is naturally taking care of itself without me having to lift a finger.

21. The Pandas - (or cute endangered species of your choice)- people don't want to save the pandas; they want to keep feeling the Cuteness Thrill and worry they will lose it when the cute animals go away. Plenty of cute furry animals around to trigger the response. Besides, any animal that refuses to reproduce and only eats one kind of food deserves to get voted off the genetic island.

22. The Coming Persecution of the Last of the Faithful Catholics - can't think of an easier way to go to heaven than at the point of a commie rifle. cf. Miguel Pro.

23. Anglicanism - I write a lot about the 'coming Anglican schism'. It almost always makes me giggle.

I tag John and Dale.

Why Women Should not be Educated

...or, why I'm glad I dropped out of university.


and a classic, timely reminder:


and a bonus...

"...but I know about embroidery and kittens..."

which leads me to the thing I've been reading this afternoon. An important object lesson indeed:
ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE APPLAUDS SYRIA’S DECISION TO WITHDRAW RESERVATIONS
TO WOMEN’S TREATY, URGES AMENDING DOMESTIC LAW TO REFLECT COMMITMENTS

Art on Youtube

Van Goh


500 years of women in art

(a bit weird but very instructive)

Caravaggio (a favorite rogue)


No Monet though. I had only one face-to-face encounter with Monet, at the Chicago Art Institute in February this year. A friend and I had gone for hours through the entire place, seeing Botticelli's, Renoirs, El Greco's and all sorts of wonderful things. Towards the very end we came to the Monet room. I turned to Frank and pleaded, "Please, I can't take a room full of Monets. All those purple haystacks...and (shudder) water lillies..."

We had to go through the Monet room to get to the exit. We went through with eyes cast down as quickly as possible.

Freedom of Expression

Why do we allow women to learn to read and write again?

Who's issuing threats here, Jackie?
* ~ * ~ *


Jackie Ashley (who I'm sure looks nothing at all like this...)
Monday June 4, 2007
The Guardian

It comes round as regularly as spring showers. Every year, and sometimes more often, there is another assault on women's right to abortion. Forty years on from the orginal Abortion Act, in 1967, it is still not possible to relax about this issue. There are plenty of people around even now who want a return to the dark ages when women had no right to choose, or had to resort to the horrors of backstreet abortion.

The latest, and most shocking statements [I suppose it is shocking these days, and the poor dear probably just isn't used to hearing Catholic things from Catholic prelates. Who is?] for some time, come, unsurprisingly, [except that she seems plenty surprised] from the Catholic church [sic]. In recent weeks church leaders have used extreme language and thinking wholly against our constitution and tradition. What they have done is perilous for their religion, never mind for women who have decided to have an abortion.

It was the Scottish cardinal, Keith O'Brien, who was first into the ring, speaking at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh. He urged voters to boycott pro-choice politicians and said: "We are killing - in our country - the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day, can you imagine that? Two Dunblane massacres [Dunblane massacre was a multiple murder-suicide in which sixteen children and one adult were killed] a day going on and on." He then went on to suggest that Catholic MPs who supported abortion should cease to take communion and implied he thought they should be cast out of the church: "It's not up to me to judge them, I'll leave that to God to judge them."

Next up was the leader of English Catholics, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who told MPs to educate themselves about the church's prohibition of abortion so they could make decisions with "consistency and integrity". He too suggested Catholic MPs who voted the "wrong" way should be denied communion: "The longstanding tradition of the church teaches that anyone who freely and knowingly commits a serious wrong (that is, a mortal sin) should approach the Eucharist only after receiving faithfully the Sacrament of Penance," he said in a statement.

They were backed in turn by the Catholic archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, who said although a priest was not allowed to refuse communion unless someone had been excommunicated or publicly rejected its teaching, "they ought to remove themselves from receiving communion because it would be a cause of great scandal".

These words, the tone of all this, is important because of its ferocity [Sorry? I just woke up. Did a Catholic bishop say something fierce and I missed it? Dang!]. The offensive comparison with the Dunblane massacres, [...whatever you do dearie, don't refute the numbers or the facts, just shriek a little louder at how offended you are.] the talk of mortal sin and scandal, is an opening fusillade in the Catholic attack, to be followed by a day of action and protest on July 1. The first aim is to hijack a government bill, in order to cut the time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20, though of course Murphy-O'Connor, Smith and O'Brien will want to go far further and outlaw all abortions. A "mortal sin" is not susceptible to ticking weeks on a calendar. [Interesting language here: 'opening fusillade', 'attack', 'hijack'...is she drawing some kind of analogy? can't quite get it...]

Some of this is not new, of course, and the archbishops are following dutifully, as they must, in the wake of the latest advice from the Pope [oh, if only they would...if...only...]. Everyone has a right to their views, [except Catholics and all men! Oo! Did I say that out loud? Where's that delete key?] and yes, the rules about who may take part in any ceremony is up to the rule-makers of that particular club. But what is dangerous is the demand that Catholic MPs must vote for their religion first and constituents' views second. How many MPs are elected because they are Catholic, not because they are Labour or Conservative? The answer, of course, is none. There are a mere 4.2 million Catholics in Britain. Yet Labour MPs (for Catholic MPs are largely Labour [ah, it all comes clear now]) are expected to vote on behalf of their faith, rather than the party under whose banner they were elected.

Poll after poll has shown miniscule support for a complete ban on abortion in Britain. Most people with doubts have doubts over the time limit. A Mori poll, taken in November 2006, reported 63% [37% is 'miniscule'?] of respondents believed that if a woman wanted an abortion she shouldn't have to go ahead with her pregnancy. So why should the Catholic church seek to impose its beliefs on the rest of us? ['that's our prerogative and ours ALONE'] How would they feel if Muslims announced that the majority of Britons who are not Muslim must live under sharia law? [hmmmmm...again, I feel she is making some kind of analogy...]

We live in a multifaith and also secular society, in which countless opinions rub up against one another all the time, and in which we all have to make compromises about our views, to get along. As it happens I regard Catholics, with their belief in angels and eternal damnation, just as I regard self-proclaimed witches or Jewish people who say they have been chosen by God, or indeed believers in ghosts, fairies and ancestral spirits - utterly deluded, every one. I respect their right to their beliefs, but I cannot begin to share them. [oh, I give up...]

Our entire political system requires accepting that others with different views have a right to their own space ['Except Catholics and ALL MEN!...oops, dang...'] . It means that MPs have to take into account the feelings of constituents who don't share theirs. It is the essential difference between an MP who is a Catholic, or a Muslim, and asks to be treated first as a public, political figure in a party system, for whom I would vote, and a "Catholic MP" or a "Muslim MP", or for the sake of clarity, a "Church of England MP", for whom I would not vote.

The distinction is a delicate and sometimes confusing one, I admit. We know that in an abortion vote, a high proportion of Catholic MPs will go into the lobbies against it. We know ministers like Ruth Kelly struggle with their consciences over issues like gay rights. But we don't elevate this into a great contest between state and church. Those days are long gone, and there is no doubt the state would win if there was a contest. [Yeah, I recall that's what happened the last time the state wanted the Catholic bishops to shut up on an issue of sexual morality.]

It's the Catholic church which has decided on a war of ideas, and to make MPs "their" MPs. I suspect its leaders haven't thought it through [yeah, it's true. We've really only been working out the possible ramifications since about AD 315, probably got a ways to go yet]. Does it mean that because I think Catholic teaching on contraception has killed innumerable people in Africa then I should regard Catholic MPs as accessories to murder? [Only if we're insisting on moral consistency and integrity] Do we really need to ramp up religious bigotry or hatred?

As it happens the Catholic church has also decided to do this at a dangerous time, when the relationship of Muslims with secular society and non-Muslim law is peculiarly sensitive. [Mmmm...still getting some kind of analogy indication here, it's not quite clear...] For my part, the answer is unavoidable. If any MP really thinks their personal religious views take precedence over everything else then they should leave the House of Commons. Their place is in church, mosque, synagogue or temple. Parliament is the place for compromises, [and people with no moral integrity whatsoever] for negotiations in a secular sphere under the general overhead light of the liberal tradition. So liberalism is privileged, is it? Yes. For without it, none of these religions, or more to the point, the rest of us, would have such an easy time. Cardinals, come to terms with the society we live in, back off, and repent at leisure [or else...].

jackie.ashley@guardian.co.uk

Rev Paul Morton, St Bride's RC Church, replies:

in the Herald.

A Cardinal should uphold a basic tenet of the Catholic faith?A Roman Catholic Cardinal insists that his fellow Roman Catholics hold to one of the basic tenets of their faith - the sanctity of life. Why is that so shocking? Was Cardinal Keith O'Brien threatening people of other faiths or none?

Was he demanding that they should do what he wants? No, he was reiterating the Catholic position and yet he is lambasted by the elite in the political sphere and the media as though he were some kind of undemocratic fascist. Cardinal O'Brien's remarks were no more "judgmental" than your own editorial criticising him.

What the reaction to the Cardinal's perfectly reasonable and consistent remarks indicates is just how non-pluralistic and intolerant our secular society has become. If the Cardinal had been suggesting that Catholics who advocated racism should consider not taking communion, not an eyelid would have been batted. However, because he challenges one of the shibboleths of the modern "liberal" elite he is labelled as "undemocratic and unacceptable". The last thing our elite want is for abortion to be honestly debated.

advertisementThe argument is always reduced to "abortion is necessary and anyone who thinks otherwise is an illiberal bigot who wants a return to backstreet abortions". The intelligent discussion you call for will only happen when the assumptions of our liberal elite are allowed to be challenged. Thank God for a Cardinal who is actually prepared to do that.
David A Robertson,
St Peter's Free Church of Scotland,
Dundee.

Most readers will remember a programme called Late Call that gave ministers and priests a three-minute slot to present God in daily life.

As a programme it was much caricatured, especially by Rikki Fulton. The "God-slot" quietly disappeared from our TV screens. We could never have imagined that in time it would be replaced by an "anti-God slot" by columnists such as Ian Bell. He never misses an opportunity to use the pulpit of his column to denounce, condemn and caricature people's religious views. The irony of his recent comments about the Cardinal is that he is happy to see him condemn the extermination of human life through Trident's replacement and yet not happy to see him condemn the extermination of human life through abortion. This article and others, although written with some flourish, betray the same anti-religious bias and his inability to write on this topic with a clear head and a fair pen.

Rev Paul Morton, St Bride's RC Church,
21 Greenlees Rd, Cambuslang.

Not at all trivial

I know the subject brings mostly horrors to most people's minds, but I am beginning to think, or at least postulate, that the key to re-inventing western civilization is the restoration of grammar.

Knowing how to say something is as important as what you say.

Is this a maxim that can be proved using the traditional methods? I haven't tried, but it is a suspicion that is growing in my mind into what looks as if it may become a conviction.

In 1935, Sr. Miriam Joseph Rauh heard a lecture by the great Mortimer Adler at St. Mary's College titled "The Metaphysical Basis of the Liberal Arts" in which he is recorded to have said, that college students of the day "know little or nothing about...the liberal arts."

Adler, it is said, "centred his discussion on the three arts of language, pointing out that whereas among the Greeks and Medievalists their integral unity and harmony was always recognized and preserved, since the fifteenth century specialization has contrived to separate them to the consequent deterioration and even the ruination of their educative function - to develop the power of the individual to read, write, and speak - in other words, to acquire mastery over the tools of learning."

(An aside here: we were discussing this weekend the general collapse of a Christian approach and interpretation to the classical authors that became known popularly as the 'Renaissance' when scholars seemed abruptly to have abandoned Christianity in favour of a new paganism. We speculated why this might have occurred and agreed that it would be an interesting spelunking task for an historian of philosophy to investigate what might have been the triggering events or developments. More than I or my friend is qualified to attempt, but someone out there might want to try.)

Sr. Miriam Joseph went on to finishe her Ph.D. at Columbia and became a disciple of Adler's re-classicizing movement that has led to so many restoration-like projects - Senior's Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas and thence Clear Creek; TAC and its imitators ...

Sr. Miriam Joseph taught a course at St. Mary's College which became an institution and was a requirement for all undergraduates : the Trivium. It was designed to teach students how to think correctly,, read with intelligence, and speak and write clarly and effectively. Sister wrote the text, the book I have in front of me now, The Trivium, recently republished by Paul Dry books.

She also wrote about Shakespeare, answering the question, "why did he write so good?"

She answers that "the extraordinary power, vitality and richness of SHakespeare's language" are partly due to the "theory of composition then prevailing." That is, the classical theory based on the three arts of logic, grammar and rhetoric that make up the three liberal arts of language.

"It is this ...which accounts for those characteristics of Shakespeare's language which differentiate it most from the language of today..." A nice way of saying that since we are no longer taught in the classical manner, we can never produce another writer of that calibre. The best-educated among us us is a semi-literate savage. Is it any wonder that this savagery is showing itself more and more openly in our political and social structures?

"The difference," she continues, "in habits ofthought an din methods of developing thought results in a corresponding difference in expression principally because the Renaissance theory of composition, derived from the ancient tradition, was permeated with formal logic and rhetoric."

"While ours," she says bluntly, "is not."

We cannot think. Thinking is a prerequisite to writing and we can no longer manage the necessary preliminary tasks.

Correct this lack and western civiliation will almost restore itself.

I have only one thing to say about this Weekend's Motu-Scare

One born every minute...

So, that's no huh?

My informant apologises for having been drawn in.

That was the first and the last time I gave a shred of cred to a
motu-rumour.

And offers by way of amends a cute duck moment to cheer everyone up.

Of course, I've been wrong before

Damian Thompson seems to think I am this time:

To my mind, this Mass, in which the celebrant says the Latin words of the canon sotto voce – the “blessed mutter” – is one of the most profound and numinous experiences in the history of worship, so different from the game-show mateyness of modern services.

I hope the media will grasp the magnitude of the cultural shift signified by Benedict’s decision to restore parity to the Old Rite, and will put the Bishops of England and Wales (and those of America and Europe) on the spot.

in fact, this latest flurry of rumours seems to have popped up all over the 'sphere in what seems like the last ten seconds.

Heh. I like "game show mateyness". I'm sure I wouldn't like Damian Thompson if I met him though.

Irresponsible Motu-Promoting

This just in...

Some guy told me that some guy he knew said a guy he knew in Rome said it was going to be tomorrow.

I'm betting that God isn't finished torturing us testing our faith yet. But hey, if you want to get all excited, knock yourselves out.

Who am I to step on a person's fondly held fantasy life? Whatever floats your boat.

Hey Vick,

Remember these guys?



I found a whole bunch of Cub vids at Youtube. Golly! I feel like I'm 25 again!

I even briefly had a boyfriend who was a bassist in a band. Went to quite a few club gigs in Victoria and Vancouver and what we used to call "empty space" gigs. These were just warehouse nights where a startup band would rent a warehouse, or if they had already signed one of the indie labels like Mint, the label would rent the space, and you'd go around town putting up handbills and tell all your friends. The door was five bucks and there were no drinks allowed but people brought them anyway. It was usually done to promote the band and it was always a bunch of people you knew so they were really fun and informal. I got my foot broken at one once.

The rule was that you didn't wear your glasses, your watch, or carry any change or a purse. Everything had to be in your front jeans pocket or it would come flying out or someone would pick your pocket.

There was a band called Squidsomething or Somethingsquid that I liked. And the something-Crows, I can't remember, but they had a fabulous song called "The Thousand sons of Captain Kirk."

My friend Steve Gray was a drummer in one of these bands. I went to all of their gigs.

I was just wasting a bunch of time looking down a list of Canadian bands. Every one I recognized was an indie or punk, garage or grunge band from Vancouver. I must have been in a 'scene' without noticing.

Heh. I had a life once. Wonder what happened?