Vatican gets sex education

Mavis and Ron Pirola

By NICOLE WINFIELD -- (AP) Pope Francis, cardinals and bishops from around the world have gotten an unexpected lecture on the joys of sex, from a Catholic couple brought in to talk about what makes a marriage last.

Ron and Mavis Pirola, parents of four from Sydney, Australia, told a Vatican gathering of some 200 prelates that sexual attraction brought them together 57 years ago and that sex has helped keep them married for 55 years.

Setting aside a host of other snarky remarks that might be directed at the Vatican, there really is something ludicrous about 'sagacious' adults who need a crash course in one of the laws of gravity. There is something so sweet and honest about the Pirolas' presentation ... a fact that tends to cast their audience into an ignorant and arrogant pit.

I can't help but be reminded of an insult leveled at various dolts when I was a teenager: "He's so stupid, he'd fuck up a wet dream."

But I won't say that, but rather delight in a belated education that is better than the corrupt arrogance of credulous and insistent gurus.

Billy Collins on leadership

Even if I hadn't been taught to hate poetry in high school, still I would love former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins for a line I heard him deliver once in a radio interview: "Meeting your favorite author is one of life's most reliable disappointments." If that doesn't deserve a Kewpie doll, I don't know what does.

Oh yeah, and his poetry is not self-importantly abstruse.

"pro-life" gimmickry

As the Supreme Court begins its new term this week, pro-life advocates hold a prayer vigil on the plaza of the high court in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014. The group, Bound 4 Life, has come to the court for ten years to make a silent appeal against abortion. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) 

 

The designation "pro-life" is generally held at arm's length in serious journalistic circles because the term implies, as its backers would applaud, that any other stance is "pro-death." That the Associated Press, the biggest news organization in the world, should fall prey to this gimmickry (as in the above cutline), is ... well, I suppose it's the new normal.

 No one is "pro-death," so decent news stories generally prefer "anti-abortion" which more accurately describes such demonstrations. But like the word "terrorism," language morphs over time and news reporting slumps and surrenders to "everyone knows what that means."

Serious conversation about serious topics deserves some effort to define terms, but seriousness is too often held in contempt and the agile snakes of solemnity enter with increasing ease.

"Terrorism," "pro-life," pick your poison -- I guess individuals are left to their own devices and "consensus" is more blurry than it is meaningful.

TV's England -- the criminals and their kin

Anyone interested in the delicate difficulties of the aristocracy in television's "Downton Abbey" might also enjoy the Netflix series, "Peaky Blinders," a six-part serial that depicts with loving camera work if not character development the criminal enterprises that flourished in 1919 Birmingham, England -- a time when England's well-to-do at 'Downton Abbey' were trying to realign their mores to match the demands of an industrial revolution and a rising egalitarianism fueled in part by World War I.
The historical Peaky Blinders were active in the latter part of the 19th century. The TV serial, I have a hunch, takes some liberties with history, but so it goes with story-telling. And just as aristocracy in truth relies on some criminal underpinnings [Balzac: "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime"], so those criminal underpinnings rely on a demanding code of brocade and a gilt tea service.

The two TV serials are not the equal, one of the other, but the time-frame connection and juxtaposition of activities brings depth to both worlds.

cashing in on fear ... again

Naturally, the U.S. Navy does not want to miss out on the funding trough provided by a 'terrorist' fear mentality. How about drone vessels (cost unspecified) to ward off inimical vessels and keep human sailors out of harm's way ... and, let's not forget, are really kool?

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Self-guided unmanned patrol boats that can leave warships they're protecting and swarm and attack potential threats on the water could join the Navy's fleet within a year, defense officials say, adding the new technology could one day help stop attacks like the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen.

comes the moon

It was the moon, all rowdy and rollicking, that sliced through the window shortly after 2 this morning and waked me up. Its beam was as piercing as a flashlight out of the southwestern sky ... three days shy of a full moon:

"Wake up! Wake up! Get crackin'! Everything is bright and assured ... See how bright everything is?! How bright ... just like me!!! Pretty kool, hunh?!"

Noisy bugger!

Had the moonlight been drinking before it stopped off at my house and whooped into my eyes?

It was a silly question. Light does not imbibe, but more important, it does not consort with "before" and "after." It may be juvenile in other ways, but that is not one of them. It is just "BOOMMOON!" and there is the beginning and end of it ... a "beginning" and "end" that make about as much sense to moonlight as "before" and "after."

How did the moon get so bright? I wonder if it woke me up so that then, in the tailings of the night, it could pass the baton -- go home and sleep and await my rowdy and rollicking visits.

"Why I Want to Die at 75"

Missed this when it came out:

On Sept. 17, 2014, the Atlantic published a piece by Ezekiel J. Emanuel entitled "Why I want to die at 75." Here is an excerpt:

Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. This has become so pervasive that it now defines a cultural type: what I call the American immortal.
I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.

Emanuel does not seem to seek the treacly agreement that others bring to discussions of death. He states his position and reasons. I happen to feel heartened by them: At last, someone talking turkey about a dicey subject. If you agree with him, that's your business. If you disagree with him, that's your business. The need for an over-arching philosophy or religion is left out ... Emanuel offers you a stick of gum; the flavor is not improved or upended by polling others.

picture imperfect

Being who you are in a world where others work very hard at being who they aren't is a pretty attractive, often daring, attribute ... maybe that's what jolted me a bit when seeing pictures of my younger son, Ives, as they appeared in a newspaper advertising tab yesterday.

It was sort of like seeing the faces of those who have been to a sesshin or Zen retreat -- after three or four days, people become naturally beautiful. The in-control fakin'-it drops off. It's not as if anyone could contrive the posture or presence by 'modeling.'

Others may not see my son's photos and have the same reaction. I am, after all, the father of my son. But the notion of my son "modeling" felt weird basically because I don't imagine him as a pretty person who phonies things up. There are other ways in which he plays the protective contrivance game, but 'pretty' is a bit too precious for him ... that's why he has tattoos.

He didn't volunteer to be a model. He just worked for a store that sold apparel and part of the deal was that he had to model stuff. To me, he just looks like my son ... maybe to others he looks like a posturing contrivance like a 'model.'

What a lot of energy, being who you aren't when being who you are is so much more attractive and effective.

Reuters photos

An Afghan girl waits for customers at a livestock market in Kabul, October 2, 2014.
REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

 

 

Amit Kumar, 14, a performer, gets makeup applied before performing the role of the Hindu lord Rama in a religious play ahead of Dussehra in the northern Indian city of Allahabad, September 30, 2014.
REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash

 

 

A cradle left behind by Syrian Kurdish refugees lies at the Turkish-Syrian border near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, September 27, 2014.
REUTERS/Murad Sezer

 

 

Models present creations by Italian designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli as part of their Spring/Summer 2015 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Valentino during Paris Fashion Week, September 30, 2014.
REUTERS/Charles Platiau

asleep and awake

If, as is sometimes suggested in spiritual endeavor, you claim to be asleep and striving to be awakened, is that recognition worth crediting or is it simply another example of what it is like to be asleep ... or awake either, for that matter?

How consequential are the "encouragements" lounging under the banner of "encouragements?"

Is this the reason that practice is sometimes touted as a good idea?

smile, be happy, climb a chimney

DOLNI SMRZOVKA, Czech Republic (AP) -- From afar, they look like ants crawling up a tower into the sky.

Dozens of members of the Czech Union of Chimney Climbers scaled the 60-meter- (200-foot-) tall chimney of a former textile factory one recent Saturday - a hobby they do for thrills and incomparable views.

A 76-year-old former track-and-field athlete and an 8-year-old boy were among those who clambered up the chimney's ladder.

"It's a joy to climb one, to look around from the top on a beautiful sunny day," said organizer Jiri Chudoba. "It's also great to see the others smile and be happy."

Spanish landscape ... art

The Washington Post has run a series of aerial photographs of the Spanish landscape -- photos by David Maisel taken in 2013. I think they're evocative. The link is more emphatic than the blog:

a "Muslim -free zone"

Passed along in email today was the news story of an Arkansas gun dealer who has declared her range to be a "Muslim-free zone." Her declaration is complete with the kind of reasoning that is disclaimed by the well-coiffed neo-cons but actually is the fertile soil of separation and fear... and all in the name of a greater America.

With or without the "tea party" label, with or without the creamy arrogance of the neocon, still the feeling seems to well up (blame one, praise the other) like concertina wire, scratching whatever union the country might display into a mediocre pudding of distrust ruled alternatively by flag-waving idiots and flag-waving savants.

"Hearts in Atlantis"

A flavorful shard of story-telling ... that's how I found "Hearts In Atlantis," a movie lifted from Stephen King and with Anthony Hopkins as the sole big-name performer. Nice photography, but if I were asked to say what it was about, I'm not entirely sure, but it was softly moving. Critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time..." and that's close enough for me.

educating the well-off

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education is supposed to help bridge the gap between the wealthiest people and everyone else. Ask the experts, and they'll count the ways:

Preschool can lift children from poverty. Top high schools prepare students for college. A college degree boosts pay over a lifetime. And the U.S. economy would grow faster if more people stayed in school longer.

Plenty of data back them up. But the data also show something else:

Wealthier parents have been stepping up education spending so aggressively that they're widening the nation's wealth gap. When the Great Recession struck in late 2007 and squeezed most family budgets, the top 10 percent of earners — with incomes averaging $253,146 — went in a different direction: They doubled down on their kids' futures.

surveillance takes root

Surveillance misdirection:

(Reuters) - Documents released by the U.S. government show it views an executive order issued in 1981 as the basis of most of the National Security Agency's surveillance activities, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday.

The NSA relied on Executive Order 12333 more than it did on two other laws that have been the focus of public debate following the leaks exposing U.S. surveillance programs by former agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to the papers released by the ACLU.
The ACLU obtained the documents after filing a lawsuit last year seeking information in connection with the order, which it said the NSA was using to collect vast amounts of data worldwide, "inevitably" including communications of U.S. citizens.....

Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a blog post published on Monday that the documents "confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying."
"Congress's reform efforts have not addressed the executive order, and the bulk of the government's disclosures in response to the Snowden revelations have conspicuously ignored the NSA's extensive mandate under EO 12333," Abdo wrote.

John Cleese on "stupidity"

Passed along in email:

"principles"

For 50 years, I have saved the following missive in a journal I kept in 1964 while I was part of a top-secret-oriented army unit in Berlin.  Misspellings and all, the sheet appeared in my mailbox -- and everyone else's as well -- without further explanation. In an atmosphere of paranoia that secrecy can instill, it was just one more reminder of the fealty owed to the government we worked for.

Then as now, I had no desire to broadcast my country's secrets, however boring they might be. But simultaneously, there was no way I was going to rat out my friends from whatever country. Further, keeping a dear-diary journal (travels, parties, hangovers, culture, getting laid) was not something I was willing to give up.

The sheet infuriated me then but it also helped me to recognize that matters of "principle" could not be allowed to rely on the agreement or disapprobation of others. There really were guys in polyester slacks who had identification folders to flash under your nose before they started an interrogation. The implications of that sheet scared me, but they did not scare me quite enough.

Principles that are based on poll numbers are a just bling-studded uncertainty ... or perhaps cowardice.

Kind of like spiritual endeavor, I suspect.

"The Last Mile"

Passed along in email. I can imagine strong reactions. I kind of liked it.

invisible ... uh .... stuff

If it's invisible, where is it?

Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered a way to hide large objects from sight using inexpensive and readily available lenses, a technology that seems to have sprung from the pages of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series.
Cloaking is the process by which an object becomes hidden from view, while everything else around the cloaked object appears undisturbed.

The amount of energy that goes into revealing or concealing things in this life makes me wonder if the ultimate accomplishment would be just to address those things as they are.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Now.

Not.

the Jon Stewart network

Since the television networks and other 'news' outlets can't seem to offer much more than tits, ass and unrepentant fluff, perhaps it is time to consider making Jon Stewart a network of his own ... as exemplified briefly by this collage/clip sent along in email.

Yes, children, there was a time when people asked the obvious questions and suggested there might be another side to the story....

test result

Today is probably the day on which I will receive confirmation that I have lung cancer. Up until this point, there have been tests and suppositions, but the PET scan Monday will confirm what has merely been believed up until now.

The head-honcho cardio doctor said before the scan that the nodule on the right lung was small and treatable and just getting started and so, comparatively speaking, things are looking up.

I have a hunch that sub rosa, a part of me is anxious and crabby and disbelieving and wishful. There are all sorts of tests and doctor visits lined up irrespective of the PET scan outcome -- treating the matter in a worst-case-scenario format.

Besides whatever unspoken anxiety, it's nice to see the sun shine today.

"Hard Times"

Though it was first published in 1854, the plaintive resonance of "Hard Times Come Again No More" seems to find a home in every succeeding year and economic circumstance. There are myriad presentations of the song, but I ran across Kate and Anna McGarrigle (et al.) this morning and liked it.

agitation/propaganda

 Once upon a time news organizations were aware of their ability to "yell 'fire!' in a theater" and sow havoc among those attending. It was a serious responsibility, not just because it was caring but also because the news organization's trustworthiness was on the line. Nowadays, it seems acceptable to report what is said or done without reference to past contradictions. Trustworthiness is based now on assertion and repetition ... it must be true because I say it's true and you agree that it's true.

DOESN'T ANY EDITOR READ THIS SHIT???!!!

 

28 min ago By ZEINA KARAM of Associated Press [color added]

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he was told of the plot by Baghdad, and that it was the work of foreign fighters of the Islamic State group in Iraq. There was no immediate comment from Washington or Paris, and al-Abadi's assertion could not be independently confirmed.
Asked if the attacks were imminent, he said, "I'm not sure." Asked if the attacks had been thwarted, he said, "No." Al-Abadi said the United States had been alerted, and that the suspects included extremists from the United States and France who were fighting for the Islamic State group in Iraq.
"Today, while I'm here I'm receiving accurate reports from Baghdad that there were arrests of a few elements and there were networks from inside Iraq to have attacks ... on metros of Paris and U.S.," al-Abadi said, speaking in English. "They are not Iraqis. Some of them are French, some of them are Americans. But they are in Iraq."
He made the remarks at a meeting with journalists on the sidelines of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.
The Islamic State extremists' blitz in Iraq and Syria prompted the United States to launch airstrikes in Iraq last month, to aid Kurdish forces who were battling the militants and to protect religious minorities.
In addition to the brutality Islamic State has visited on the people in Iraq and Syria, western leaders have voiced concern that the group would move its terror operations outside the region.
This week, the U.S. and five allied Arab states expanded the aerial campaign into Syria, where the militant group is battling President Bashar Assad's forces as well as Western-backed rebels.

Where there is no verification or plausible logic (what threat does IS pose to the mainland USA, eg. and what proof is adduced?), a little hoo-rah background (likewise unexamined) will suffice.

People laugh at the governmental interference with the media in China or Russia ... but their laughter seems to be ill-informed.

I guess agitation/propaganda pays better and doesn't require as much thinking....

Follow-up story from Reuters.

new and improved not-war

As the U.S. cranks up its latest war in the Middle East -- bombing oil targets in Syria, claiming the assault is not really a "war" and generally laying the groundwork for another decade or more of violence that is easier than economic constructiveness -- various other idsies and odsies caught my eye: 

...... BOSTON (AP) — Suffolk Downs officials says live thoroughbred racing will end for the season — and most likely for good — on the first Saturday in October.
..... WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to announce Thursday that it is granting permits to seven movie and television production companies to fly drones, an important step toward greater use of the technology by commercial operators, said attorneys and a company official familiar with the decision.
...... INCHEON, South Korea (AP) — The Qatari women's basketball team withdrew from the Asian Games in a protest against international rules that ban players from wearing Muslim headscarves in competition.

I'm not sure quite how, but all of this feels as if a reality-show lifestyle is more important and credible than a reality lifestyle in which horses and jockeys sweat, people are responsible for the activity of the drones they employ, and the women beneath the headscarves are just as competent or incompetent as they might be without them.

If I remember correctly, when the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler stood out on Berlin's chancery balcony in 1933 to proclaim his ascendancy as chancellor, there were only some 200 people listening in the streets below according to then-reporter William Shirer. One of the reasons for so sparse a turnout for a man whose later propaganda films would be packed with cheering throngs was that in 1933 the citizenry could still vividly recall the horrors of World War I ... and Hitler made no secret of his militaristic goals. Those memories did not stop World War II any more than the fruitless ten years the U.S. has used in Iraq is likely to inform the U.S.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/09/23/6142193/suffolk-downs-to-close-oct-4.html#storylink=cpy

Vatican arrests former archbishop

Passed along in email yesterday was this Australian news account of the Vatican's first-ever pedophilia arrest of a former archbishop.

Jozef Wesolowski, a Pole who was defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June, was placed under house awaiting a criminal trial, the Vatican said in a statement.

Jozef Wesolowski

Whether the arrest represents a sea change in the Vatican's thinking about its child-molesting priests or whether it is yet another damage-control ploy is hard to guess, but the arrest certainly would have been impossible several years ago when the Vatican used its vim and vigor to defend itself, assert its righteousness and avoid the social lash that society can lower on child molesters.

Perhaps the arrest was in aid of staving off worse repercussions. Or perhaps it represented a more open and responsible approach to a problem the church has strained to evade.

Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, vowed zero tolerance against Roman Catholic clerics who sexually abused children.
Last May, he called such abuse an "ugly crime" and likened it to "a Satanic Mass".
In July, he told victims of sexual abuse the Church should "weep and make reparation" for crimes he said had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.

Inner Mongolian drought

Inner Mongolia and America's West seem to share a problem -- increasingly intense drought.

I suspect the trickle-down economists are snapping up access points and will give the rest of us a terrific bargain when the time comes. The idea that water sources might be staked out for the public good is ... well, it's probably not 'feasible.'

full/unfull life

The local newspaper ran the first of a three-part series on a woman's deliberate steps to die today. At 90, Lee Hawkins had had enough and so, in consultation with family and others, let go of food and drink. Today's article represented the second time the Daily Hampshire Gazette had taken a space-gobbling approach to Lee Hawkins' death. The first time said she was thinking of trying it. The second time said she succeeded. Lee Hawkins died Sept. 2.

As a former newspaper person, I have to admit my first reaction to today's appreciation was ... irritation. Dying is hardly what you'd call news ... or was it? Would there be any room for news in the news outlets if each person's death were recounted in such caring particulars? It made me wish a more serious approach had been taken.

But it also nudged my somewhat blurry memory banks and brought up two touchstones: 1. At a time when trust was more commonplace in the U.S., the "most trusted man in America," newsman Walter Cronkite, once observed, "News is not about how many cats did not get up on the garage roof." Everyone dies. Since everyone dies -- or 2. as my Zen teacher's teacher put it, "joins the majority"-- it seems a bit much to assess death, per se, as a news-worthy event. This is not to deny the sorrow or other reactions of those left behind, but it is to include death within life ... an inclusion that those left behind too frequently would prefer to sidestep.

Fearing death -- whether by hymn or philosophy or religion or nonchalance -- is fearing life, and fearing life is not to live fully. But not living life fully is nevertheless a full life, I suspect.

It's a strange conundrum, fearing what you might die to preserve.

separating apples from apples

In the course of reinvigorating its wartime footing in the Middle East, the United States and its allies are starting, as usual, with the comparatively 'distant' bombing campaign used in the past. As yet there are "no (very visible) boots on the ground." The object of the bombing is the Islamic State, a militant Islamic body whose numbers are not numbered and whose attractiveness is always treated as bogus and cruel and inimical even as it somehow gains adherents who are also not numbered.

In the course of rounding up the latest 'coalition of the willing' -- countries willing the lend a supportive hand in the attack on IS -- the U.S. has solicited help from Iran, a country which, six or eight months ago, was roundly attacked by the U.S. for trying to make the kind of uranium that might be used in an atomic bomb. [Scientific studies I cannot immediately find suggest that even if Iran did make a nuclear weapon, it would probably take at least 10 years. Further, no one in the U.S. suggests that we squeeze or vet a sovereign Israel in the same way.]

As to Iran, it seems the bad guy on the could-be nuclear front can be the good guy when it comes to routing the Islamic State. The two cannot be linked, the White House has asserted in a statement that might make a Jesuit's jaw drop:

[White House Press Secretary Josh] Earnest said the effort by world powers, including the United States, to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program is "entirely separate" from President Barack Obama's attempts to build a coalition against Islamic State.
"The United States will not be in the position of trading aspects of Iran's nuclear program to secure commitments to take on ISIL," Earnest said, using an acronym for Islamic State (IS).

Let's not compare oranges with oranges.

Cloud 9 noodles

A Chinese noodle shop owner has admitted to lacing his wares with opium poppy seeds, in an apparent effort to keep customers coming back, it's reported.