I know it's been a long time since this has been updated, but while I get things in order, you can head to http://justiceknight.vox.com to read my blog. I'm in Rome for the next 4 months at the Angelicum, so it should be quite a blast.

- Posted by in Blog Related at 3:00 AM

While researching for my Vatican II paper on the liturgical reform, I ran across a little book by the French theologian Denis Crouan called The Liturgy Betrayed, which ironically enough has a picture of St. Thomas Becket's murder on the cover.

The book, published in translation by Ignatius in 2000, is only about 100 pages or so, but is hands down the best analysis I have seen of the rationale behind the changes introduced into the 1969 Missal - both additions and deletions - and explaining why such changes are in harmony with the liturgical tradition. It also gives a well deserved smackdown to the "spirit of Vatican II" crowd of liturgists and bishops who cannot read documents as well as the "traditionalist" camp and their rather tenuous understanding of liturgical history.

Crouan has also written a book called The History and The Future of the Roman Liturgy, which in light of the aforementioned work I am probably going to pick up.

Interestingly enough, Franciscan does not have either book in its holdings while Athenaeum of Ohio, which includes Mt. St. Mary's Seminary of the West, has both.

- Posted by in Catholic , Literature and the Arts at 6:19 PM

I didn't quite realize, having not looked at it since Thursday, just how rough my rough draft of the exegesis paper was. I only had time for the hastiest of revisions this morning, but at least what I turned in didn't look quite so bad. I'll get a week to polish it up when the professor gives it back after break, so I'm not too worried. The paper's citations are the real problem area, since I have never used the style the professor wants.

In the meantime, before I go home, I get a nice opportunity to get extra work, since many people are leaving tomorrow and I will be here until Wednesday afternoon. At the moment, I have picked up 8 hours worth of shifts over Tuesday and Wednesday, which is a nice bonus to the paycheck I'll be getting around Christmas.

- Posted by in University at 6:16 PM

This year, I finished the drafts of the major term papers at a reasonable time of 10:30 the night before they were due. That leaves some time for some editing and cleaning up of the text before it gets turned in.

- Posted by in University at 12:31 AM

The University's Fall performance this semester is The Orestia, a Greek play by Aeschylus. The whole work is a trilogy, lasting about 3.5 hours, and in our case involving a cast of about 50 when all the chorus members were included. The play traces the story of Orestes, and also includes notable other figures from Greek mythology.

I enjoyed the performance, though at times I got a silent chuckle knowing few other institutes of higher education would dare to touch this play, since it is decidedly un-PC, not only with regard to women and the view of life, but also the underlying theme that there is some higher justice that demands satisfaction.

At the same time, it was possible to nod in agreement with a good deal of the ancient Greek thought running through the plot, and as someone else nearby noted, Greek theater really needs to be seen, not read, to be appreciated.

- Posted by in University at 11:18 PM

I don't know why papers are always such a massive struggle, but here we are again. My original plan, formulated last week, was to be done with my 15-20 page paper on Ezekiel by Monday, and then commence work on my 14-16 page Vatican II paper. Except that the first paper dragged on to today, and is now 25 pages in length, while the latter has yet to be researched.

The situation is still not impossible, as three solid days of plugging away should easily allow me to finish a paper of that length, especially since it's only a historical survey of the liturgical reform, and after that, the rest of the semester is simply waiting for final exams.

I did run into something of a speed bump on Tuesday by wiping out on my bike, injuring both hands to a slight degree, by landing on the palm of one and slicing up the other on the knuckles. I am very thankful for Advil and liquid bandages at the moment, since typing would be rather difficult without those aids.

- Posted by in University at 10:04 PM

It was probably fortunate that I didn't follow the elections returns too closely last night, given the end result. I had a feeling the Republicans were going to get smacked upside the head this time around, considering that, despite having their largest majority since Bush took office, I couldn't think of anything truly useful that they'd gotten done in the last 2 years aside from confirming Bush's two Supreme Court nominees. I am one of those types who votes for Republicans more because they're not Democrats; last night, I think it's fair to say a good number of people voted for Democrats because they're not Republicans.

This six year cycle of Senate seats has not done well for the Republicans since they won in 1994. That year, they won 19 of the 33 seats available; in 2000, they lost 4 of those to drop to 15, and now they have dropped another 6 to hold just 9 of the 33 seats available in this cycle. They had 13 prior to the 1994 sweep to power.

Meanwhile, I can only hope that gridlock will prevent anything too outrageous from getting passed in the next 2 years. With any luck, the Democrats might actually figure out how to bipartisanly share power now that they will be setting the agenda in the House and possibly the Senate. If they instead focus on Bush-bashing on a level that compares with the Clinton obsession by Republicans in the late 1990s, that is likely to blow back in their face come 2008, particularly since Bush isn't running again.

Free advice to the Dems - you finally got Bush in terms of electoral payback in Congress this year. Take the victory and move on.

- Posted by in Politics at 2:24 PM

I will make a general prediction that on Tuesday, the number one choice of the voters will be apathy, whether by plurality or majority. I am currently residing in Jefferson County, Ohio, where they are expecting a voter turnout rate of 46% on Tuesday. If accurate, that means 54% will be pulling the lever on "don't care," which will be more than those who opt for anyone with a D or an R following their name.

In New York, even though you may hear gaudy numbers like 70% for Eliot Spitzer or 60% for Hillary Clinton, my bet is the apathetic crowd will still prove to be larger than the number that voted for either one.

I will be voting by absentee ballot for my home district in New York, which admittedly is not likely to have much of an impact. It is somewhat amusing reading the endorsement of the local paper, the Buffalo News. There is only one statewide race in which the paper has endorsed a Republican - the office of State Comptroller - and I strongly suspect the only reason they did so is that the Democratic incumbent is caught in a scandal so toxic that even Eliot Spitzer, who should cruise to victory Tuesday easily, withdrew his endorsement and called for him to resign.

In the 4 local Congressional races, with 2 Republican and 2 Democratic incumbents, the paper endorsed 3 Democrats and declined to endorse anybody in the other. The Republican incumbent's sin in CD-29 seems to be marching "in lock step with the White House." The paper has very little of substance to say about his opponent, citing only military service, ties to Wesley Clark, beating cancer, and being a former Republican. Despite claims that the Democrat brings "a full range of forcefully articulated positions on issues, a passion to reform health care, concern for his district's tax-linked dairy problems and valuable perspective on Iraq," the paper gives absolutely zero details on these claims.

CD-26, held by Tom Reynolds, is the race the paper declined to make an endorsement. Here, the paper at least recognizes that Davis is largely running on an issue that will find no traction anywhere, although the citation of the Mark Foley mess as reason not to endorse Reynolds is particularly questionable, since even they admit they don't know the details of Reynolds' involvement.

In the state legislature, despite the paper's claimed disdain for the lack of genuine 2-party politics there (the Assembly has been Dem for a generation, while the Senate has been Republican for about as long), only once did they opt to endorse a Republican challenger over a Democrat in the Assembly, while they endorsed 2 Democrat challengers over a Republican incumbent. My math might be a bit rusty, but your endorsements would seem to yield a net +1 for the Dems in a chamber you wish were more competitive between the parties.

Locally, the paper has also opted to endorse one Republican over a Democrat for the City Council, but in this case, it's for a 1-year replacement term on a Council that has no elected Republicans.

Summary:

State Office - Dem 2, Rep 1
Congress - Dem 3, Rep 0
Senate - No endorsement noted
State Assembly - Dem +1
State Senate - No change
Locally - 1 Republican non-incumbent

This isn't to say that some endorsements aren't pretty much expected, it just seems that the only time the paper opts to support a Republican pickup is when it feels that the usual partisan makeup isn't shifted too unfavorably to the Dems (i.e. the Republican would be a token win), the Dem is impossible to endorse for some reason, or the Republican is expected to cruise to victory.

- Posted by in Politics at 7:47 PM

The absentee ballot's all marked and ready to be mailed back to the local board of elections. It appears that the local board of elections is going with an optical scan ballot for its absentees, and checking the state's website, it appears several optical scan systems are being looked at to replace the older voting machines in the state for regular voters. Personally, I think that's a good system to go with, since it's already used very widely in education, and it has a relatively easy error-correction mechanism - hand-checking the ballot.

Anyway, back to the ballot. There are 11 registered parties in the state, Republican, Democrat, Independence, Conservative, Working Families, Green, Families First, Libertarian, Rent is too High, Socialist Equality, and Socialist Workers. Since the removal of the Right to Life party from the state ballot in 2002 (which coincided with the removal of the Liberal party), the guide I follow is to vote down the Conservative ticket, since trusting New York Republicans on social issues is a dicey issue at best (see George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani).

Voting a straight Conservative ticket in this election means, ironically, voting for 5 Republicans and 4 Democrats in the 9 races in which the party has endorsed a candidate. In the other race, for Congressman, I opted for the Republican, making a total of 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The Republican candidates are for Governor, Senator, Representative, Attorney General, Comptroller, and State Assemblyman. The Democratic candidates are for State Senator, State Supreme Court, County Judge, and County Clerk.

As a sidenote, this is where I get to make a mathematical plug to go out and vote. Although for every office, the public at large can favor only one candidate, the only sampling of the public that matters are the ones who actually choose to express those preferences. Assuming voter turnout of approximately 50%, that usually means the winning candidate has the votes of somewhere between 25-30% of the public as a whole. In a 2-party system, usually both candidates, no matter how horrible, register at least 30% support in polls.

What I'm getting at is that the losing candidate in elections often could have won had all of their supporters gone out and voted if the opposition's vote count remained the same, particularly when the election is close (in New York, this rule of thumb does not apply, since a genuinely close election only happens about once every decade or two in any given office).

There is of course the side remark that those who don't vote have no business griping about whatever idiots they get in office for the next 2 years. My personal thought is that whether the Democrats win or lose next Tuesday, the runup to 2008 is going to be filled either with their getting too caught up in paying Bush back or their bitterness and internal feuds over having lost. A sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of thing, since I don't think they can handle either winning or losing in a dignified manner this cycle.

- Posted by in Politics at 5:43 PM

Third semester, third try at exegesis. This time, the passage must be from the book of Ezekiel, which ought to provide for a very interesting time, seeing as this book has had an interesting history. The professor says that at one point, Jewish men had to reach a certain age to reach this book, and given some of the bizarre behavior some exhibited while reading it, it could not be read alone.

As it turns out, I've put my foot into the muck again in choosing to focus on some part of Ezekiel 16, which is the famous chapter about the harlot Jerusalem, the longest single allegory in the Bible. Naturally, the feminists don't particularly like this chapter, as a scan through the scholarly articles revealed a delightfully titled one called "The B---- had it Coming to Her"

Currently, I am debating whether to choose some part of 16:35-52, 53-58, or 59-63. Right now, my choice is leaning toward 35-43, not only because scholars have more to say about this part, but because it tends to fit into a theme for the semester:

"Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Because your shame was laid bare and your nakedness uncovered in your harlotries with your lovers, and because of all your idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you loathed; I will gather them against you from every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. And I will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. And I will give you into the hand of your lovers, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a host against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. And they shall burn your houses and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women; I will make you stop playing the harlot, and you shall also give hire no more. So will I satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you; I will be calm, and will no more be angry. Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, behold, I will requite your deeds upon your head, says the Lord GOD.

- Posted by in University at 1:28 AM

All archives should now be restored and comments and trackbacks should be working. If there are any technical difficulties, please e-mail me at the address listed on the right side bar.

- Posted by in Blog Related at 5:53 PM

The silence of late has had to do with issues connected with my old host, Fuitadnet, and the incompetence of their technical support staff. For a long story kept short, Movable Type has been inoperable for about 2 weeks due to its inability to locate key Perl modules on my server. Others have lately been complaining about hacks and downed sites, so it's probably just as well I left.

The blog is now hosted by Netfirms, due to a friend's generous offer of excess space and bandwidth, and coincidentally, they have a Buffalo office. There are still kinks to be worked out, and not everything in the system is working yet - particularly the archives - but it should be ironed out in the next few days.

- Posted by in Blog Related at 2:31 PM