This is just one of those days where a lot of little things happened that were annoying, to say the least.

- I heard so much of "my friends" during Mass, I wanted to strike the phrase from the English language.

- Still unable to apparently grasp this, a family member still thinks I donated to Bush directly last year and made a point to bring it up at a cookout how she was very rude to someone who called wanting to thank me for a past donation, as I wasn't around to take the call. The donation in question was to the RNC, not the President. The anti-Bush tirade gets quite old at family gatherings. At least Joel is a distraction these days where we can agree.

- A recent encounter with a young lady who is the most grating person I've been around in a while. I don't think I'm the only one who was put off by the display, as it does remind me of some of the worst ones from college.

- It's generally a bad sign for a day when two offsides calls that should have been whistled by me were not and led to scores. I have too much fear of the false positive and not enough of the true negative. My level of certainty to blow the whistle's too high at times.

- I stink at games involving throwing objects at a target, be it washers into a box or darts at a dartboard. Somehow the math proficiency never translated into being good at these real world applications of math. I'm also not too good at golf, as evidenced by a 164 on 18 holes last week, that only by a 10-shot mercy rule per hole.

Posted by Justice at 11:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The title is grossly misleading, and this is one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. I spent roughly the first 90 minutes waiting for a plot device to develop before finally resigning myself to the fact that there wouldn't be one, in which I wasn't surprised. Spoilers follow, so don't read on if you plan on seeing this film.

The entire movie was just way too linear. Aliens come and activate some machines they've left behind andstart vaporizing and blowing everything up. Tom Cruise flees town with his two kids, his only goal to get to his ex-wife's house. Throughout, that's pretty much the only thing he does - try to get to where his ex-wife is supposed to be. In between it's punctuated by the rebellious son and hysterical screeching daughter, more attacks and destruction, mass mob panic, and near escapes for the trio, along with some freaky red vines.

I really felt like taking the line of "what's your plan?" and asking "what's the point?" Absent a little dialogue in the basement of the farmhouse, there was nothing remotely redeeming about the movie. The ending, if possible, was even more hideous than the rest. I thought briefly, as one of the machines was finally blown up, that maybe we were getting to something. But nope, then we go to Boston to find vines dying and the aliens in disarray. In the end, it turns out that little microbes killed off all the aliens after killing about a billion people. Brilliant. How this ever got 4 stars from the local film critic is beyond me.

Posted by Justice at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Buffalo News is taking the expected position in the Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court, today coming out with an editorial saying Democrats "deserve" documents relating to his work as deputy solicitor general. Here's the full text:

Senate Democrats are right to pressure the Bush administration over its reluctance to release U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s tax returns from the past three years. They should even get exercised over its decision to withhold documents related to Roberts' work as deputy solicitor general.

Of course they do, just as Republican senators did when President Clinton nominated justices. That's part of the system of checks and balances and adversarial parties. If one isn't monitoring the other, the system falls apart.

Much as Republicans may have wanted something to embarrass Clinton's nominees, they didn't exactly go out and demand controversial documents permitting them to go on a fishing expedition in hopes that they'd hit pay dirt.

But the News also seems to be a bit uninformed about the history and rationale behind checks and balances - the framers put them in to check government branches in their general operation, not to have adversarial parties do that work. Adversarial parties were loathesome to several of the framers as it was, and they certainly wouldn't have envisioned such a party refusing to confirm a member of another simply because they didn't like his philosophy, especially if that party was in the minority.

I'll put this simply for the News - the Senate as an institution is a check on the President's Supreme Court nominees, not the minority party, and the President's party presently controls the Senate. If the News doesn't like that fact, they can whine about it all they like, but voters gave Republicans the 55 vote majority last year, and the majority is supposed to decide things in a democracy, not the minority opposition.

If Democrats' purposes for seeking such information are partly political, then Republicans' refusal arises from the same motivation. To be sure, both sides should be prepared to compromise. For example, solicitors general - basically the government's lawyer in Supreme Court cases - from both parties believe their ability to be candid is linked to the confidentiality of their advice. Nonetheless, senators received copies of memos written by previous nominee Robert Bork. Some accommodation ought to be possible.

Compromising on the idea of attorney-client privilege is not a precedent that we ought to consider setting here, particularly if the client doesn't feel like releasing the information. The client, i.e. the United States government, is currently under the Bush administration, and if it doesn't want to release them, it doesn't have to. Unless Democrats are aware of something specific in them that they want to know, they should not be given free reign to pore over documents that ordinarily would not be released.

On Roberts' tax returns, White House resistance is more perplexing. Nominees in recent decades provided the previous three years' tax forms to senators. The Bush administration changed that policy in 2001, allegedly to streamline the process. It doesn't appear that way, though. Instead, the plan to provide only a one-page summary looks manipulative. That's hardly the impression the administration should want to convey on a nominee to the country's highest court.

Of what use is a tax return? I mean really, unless the man isn't paid up (something which can be done with a 1-page summary, I imagine) tax returns have absolutely nothing to do with a nominee's potential fitness for the Supreme Court. My only guess is that Democrats are looking to see if any donations were given to groups they dislike.

Posted by Justice at 10:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Based on the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library's newly released rankings, one can now assign playing cards to the branches, as there are 52 branches now open. By next year, the deck is more likely to look like the one used for Euchre, but I digress.

UPDATE - Now that the new year has come, the closed libraries have been crossed out.

Ace of Spades - Central Library (1964)
Ace of Hearts - Hamburg (1966)
Ace of Diamonds - Orchard Park (1971)
Ace of Clubs - Audubon (1987)
King of Spades - Julia B. Reinstein (1996)
King of Hearts - Merriweather (North Jefferson) (2005)
King of Diamonds - Clarence (2001)
King of Clubs - East Aurora (1963)
Queen of Spades - Riverside (1986)
Queen of Hearts - Kenmore (1976)
Queen of Diamonds - Clearfield (1968)
Queen of Clubs - Lancaster (1976)
Jack of Spades - Grand Island (1989)
Jack of Hearts - Crane (1955)
Jack of Diamonds - Niagara (1958)
Jack of Clubs - Reinstein Memorial (1964)
Ten of Spades - West Seneca (1953)
Ten of Hearts - Dudley (1962)
Ten of Diamonds - Collins (2001)
Ten of Clubs - Tonawanda City (1964)
Nine of Spades - East Delavan (1961)
Nine of Hearts - Newstead (2002)
Nine of Diamonds - Eggertsville-Snyder (1960)
Nine of Clubs - Concord (1964)
Eight of Spades - Fronczak (1965)
Eight of Hearts - Lackawanna (1922)
Eight of Diamonds - Northwest (1969)
Eight of Clubs - Elma (1959)
Seven of Spades - Williamsville (1960)
Seven of Hearts - Lake Shore (1966)
Seven of Diamonds - Depew (1967)
Seven of Clubs - Cazenovia (1925)
Six of Spades - North Collins (1999)
Six of Hearts - North Park (1928)
Six of Diamonds - Martin Luther King (1972)
Six of Clubs - North Cheektowaga (1966)
Five of Spades - Eden (1991)
Five of Hearts - Blasdell (1953)
Five of Diamonds - Angola (1971)
Five of Clubs - Fairfield (1897)
Four of Spades - East Clinton (1976)
Four of Hearts - Boston Free (1930)
Four of Diamonds - Kenilworth (1949)
Four of Clubs - South Cheektowaga (1967)
Three of Spades - Kensington (1925)
Three of Hearts - Greenhaven (1960)
Three of Diamonds - Brighton (1956)
Three of Clubs - Alden (Ewell Free) (1913)
Two of Spades - Marilla Free (1936)
Two of Hearts - Mead (1937)
Two of Diamonds - Parkside Village (1983)
Two of Clubs - West Falls (1930s)

Bold-faced entries denote libraries within the City of Buffalo, the year of the original building construction or space rental is in parentheses. Libraries below the rank of 8 are at the most serious risk of closing. Of special note, West Falls is the least expensive library to operate, costing less than $25,000 a year. Only 4 branches and Central cost more than $500,000 a year.

UPDATE - 16 libraries closed, though attention to location meant some poorer branches stayed open at the expense of others. Nothing higher than rank 8 closed. At present, at least 2 of the shuttered branches, West Falls and Mead, have been reopened independently of the system, and other locations also have private efforts ongoing to keep them open.

Posted by Justice at 10:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Held off for a year by a budget compromise, the Erie County library system is unlikely to be spared this time, and based on current projections, just under half the branches will be closed at the end of the year (24 of 52). To its credit, the system, anticipating this outcome, has already done its homework to evaluate the branches in order to close the weakest ones while maintaining the stronger ones.

Personally, I think the library system is in much worse shape than I would have thought, given my own home branch is considered the 2nd best in the entire system by the survey, and by no means have I ever considered it to be more than an average, decent, but not great branch. Most of the buildings are at least 40 years old, which doesn't make matters any better.

Some have apparently asked the library to revisit a 1998 plan that would have reformed the system by closing the smaller and more marginal buildings and establishing regional hubs that were state of the art. The money quote from that plan:

If the B&ECPL Board fails to act upon these recommendations and adheres to the status quo, libraries will close throughout the System during the next economic downturn. Such a crisis-based reduction will not provide replacement libraries. The result will be far worse – fewer libraries, no replacements, no improvements. Austerity will be imposed on the System by outside forces, not by internal direction and thoughtful planning. Size, age, location, condition, parking and activity measurements will affect which libraries remain and which close, but other potentially divisive influences may test the Board’s resolve to act with foresight and equity.

Well, we adhered to the status quo, and lo and behold, 7 years later, this prediction comes true - 24 libraries will be closing with nothing gained for it. Incidentally, the number of closures now is larger than the net number originally proposed by that plan (14 at first, 23 ultimately).

Posted by Justice at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The weather, lining up very nicely with my schedule, sent a thunderstorm hurtling over the lake around 45 minutes before I was supposed to referee, and was still sending lightning down about 15 minutes before the games. Since there was no call confirming a cancel, I knew it was worth at least half pay to make the journey, even though it was obvious we weren't playing.

That was only too true, but it turned out that some teams were playing their last game that night, and sheet pizzas were already on order for them. But with no coaches and no players around, the decision was made to split them up among the referees and other staff present. As most were unwilling to wait, I ended up with a whole sheet pizza to take home for free, providing a convenient snack to all.

That's something to be said for showing up even when it's not necessary - there just might be pizza in it.

Posted by Justice at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reading through the beginning of the Inferno, a triplet in the Fifth Canto stood out almost as if Dante were speaking about the present age as opposed to the Assyrian queen Semiramis:

She had so rotted with the lecher's vice
she altered 'lust' to 'just' by her decree,
to bleach the scandal that she brought herself.

The pun exists in the original Italian as well (libito..licito). Christianity in general the last century has been making many things once a sin of lust to be something just and proper. Psychology has definitely been influential in that progression, as has the relativist movement.

The triplet outlines very concisely the way sin becomes licit, in that the shame that naturally comes from recognition of the sin prompts a need for self-justification. The proper way of dealing with it is repentance and starting over afresh, but as often happens, we fall into the trap of rationalizing away the shame, convincing ourselves that what we're doing is right, and that the sin we recognized at first must not really be a sin. It's the easy path, as we don't have to change anything about our lives.

Posted by Justice at 9:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hmm...a fairly large front-page, top fold image of a woman looking at MoveOn.org's bright red notice to oppose the nomination of John Roberts was published in today's Sunday Buffalo News (the image in the online article is the same as the print edition, even though it's only available for 2 weeks). No bias there, of course. At this rate, even with the hometown advantage, I'm still expecting an editorial opposing him down the line.

Posted by Justice at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When one has a large bunch of different confessor priests, this sort of file is rather easy to build up over time, since priests, being human, will occasionally say something really weird without intending to.

Today's contribution came from an elderly, black-habited Franciscan. Speech is an effort for him, and in the course of trying to get through the absolution prayer, he slipped and said, "may God grant you pardon and sin" in the middle. I didn't really think about it at the time, as I usually focus more on making sure they get the critical last line right, but it sounds pretty funny in retrospect.

Posted by Justice at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well, I came back from the vacation in one piece. It was reasonably relaxing, though most of my reading accomplishments were finished on the way down. I did manage to complete 3 books during the trip, as well as about a third of the Inferno. Manalive was the most engrossing of the books, besides also being short and funny. Meanwhile, I am vowing not to buy another book until I read my current stock, as I added at least a dozen on the trip. This vow is almost certain to be broken when next I enter a bookstore, as I already have 3 more lined up with ISBN numbers from Barnes and Noble, but I'll never stop buying if I don't start trying to stop.

Massachusetts was a bit of a mixed book. The one afternoon visit to Provincetown literally felt like walking in Sodom, as they are very open and showy about their support of gay rights. To judge by their selection in books, the G/L section was always at least as large as religion, if not larger. Had I spotted a church in the town, it would have seemed quite out of place.

Two ironies stick out from that place. One is that a bookseller put the G/L section right next door to the religion books, so that in moving down to the next shelf, one suddenly is stuck by the abrupt change in topic. Given that gay rights is almost a religion unto itself, the placement with religion is quite amusing. The second irony is selling their little Provincetown rainbow postcard in the Pilgrim Memorial Monument. Perhaps their history is a little rusty concerning the Pilgrim moral beliefs, but I think that if the Pilgrims knew the present attitudes of the town, they'd prefer hanging the lot of them.

Hyannis was nothing too special. I had little interest in seeing the JFK memorial to begin with, and when the town's signage gave out by South Street, I ended the half-hearted attempt on that. The town does have a nice Catholic bookstore nestled in it which again is rather out of place given the Cape atmosphere. I spent the majority of my time there.

One of the locals was nice enough to encourage me to leave that wayward state. Along Route 28, it was advised one night to "go the #$&* home!" which didn't sound too bad at the time, given it was not long after visiting Provincetown. Some others also didn't seem to like the tourists much, but given the layout, it doesn't seem like much else sustains the place. I've never seen more Motor Lodges in so short a stretch of road as I did on the Cape.

We did take a little side trip on the way back to visit Auriesville, which has a little shrine to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and the North American Martyrs. This shrine has a rather odd Coliseum chapel, circular with 4 altars in the center (at least 2 or 3 of which are still old high altars fixed to the wall) with a native style to it. This chapel dates to 1930 however, so the circular plan isn't some modern innovation. The grounds themselves are rather unique. A little cross with the name Jesus have been put on many of the trees, and several little stone monuments have been put up.

The trip back from Auriesville was however rather unpleasant. Normally, a trip from there back to Buffalo should take, including a lunch break, no more than about 5 hours. But despite leaving at noon, we didn't get home until 8:30, due to a massive jam on the Thruway between Manchester and Canandaigua. The jam itself lasted about 10 to 12 miles over about 2.5 hours, caused by bridge work. Today's jam was so bad, the Thruway was diverting traffic at the 3 exits before the bridge and also waiving tolls at these locations (the last of these was some 30 miles from the work) and warning of delays as far back as Albany, at least 3 hours away.

Posted by Justice at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'm not sure if this is the best post to leave in the queue as my last, but it's 2 am the night before I leave and I am completely burned out.

I hate quitting. I can't stand throwing in the towel personally (though Lord knows I have before), nor do I take it too well when others quit on me, though like dry tinder, I tend to burn bright and hot, but burn out relatively fast these days. I'm not good in a lot of things, nor would I want to be, but get me in on something, and even if I hate it (painting, for example), I'll stick it out. Effort may be my best asset in groups, particularly in sports, even if my output's not up to par.

This tenacity may be the one thing that pulls my rear end out of the fire. I'm in a period of tepidness, just milling through life as though half-asleep. Many things have gone lax and undone, but still, I can't actually bring myself to formally give up on things that should never have been given up in the first place. They're just something that I'll pick back up tomorrow, as I have said for many tomorrows.

The intellect can't pull all the weight for me forever, sooner or later, the rest of me is going to have to get in line to make this work. The mind is ready but the will seems to be out of order for the present, the opposite internal conflict of those whose will is ready but whose minds block the way. Hopefully, with a week's rest, it may finally be repaired and ready to work in tandem with a mind fully made up.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If this shows up, that means I didn't get a chance to finish my posts on temptation, and will accordingly have to finish when I get back. Unexpected last minute problems cost me the time I needed to finish cranking them out.

Lately, I've been using Blockbuster's unlimited movie rental pass to catch up on the past seasons of 24. I only caught the show during its fourth season, and even then missed several hours, including the first two which definitely hindered the plot for me. This has been essentially the only network prime time show I've bothered with in recent years.

Blockbuster says the series is an exceedingly popular rental, and as such the DVDs tend to be in short supply a lot. Already I've been stymied all week trying to get Season One's third DVD, and as a result jumped tonight to Season Three's first one. Seeing the fourth season first already suggests a lot of what happened in the prior seasons (e.g. missing personal relations in season four who show up in season one), but hopefully it will all knit together well enough in time.

I'm not sure why I like the series so much, but it's definitely tops in my book. I'm interested to see how they're going to handle season 5, but given the hoops they seem to have had to jump through to get even season 4 out, I think it will work just fine.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Original Sin threw the whole natural order out of order. For humanity, this meant that, where once the material had once been kept tame by the soul, it now could tempt man and override the will and the intellect. Hence beautiful things such as gold and jewelry, necessities like food and clothing, intangibles like power and fame, could now tempt humanity to sin, along with many other material things.

Temptation likewise persisted in the form of the counsel of the fallen angels, which now had many more avenues to pursue. The sins of the flesh quickly took pride of place, especially forbidden sex and murder. The angels doubtlessly played a large role in humanity's gradual forgetting of God, to the point where, in the time of Abraham, God was little more than a shrouded, forgotten mystery. As Satan had distorted God's word once before to sinful effect, so they twisted the truth of God into a multitude of religions filled with gods.

Men could tempt now too, to bitter effect. Man was assaulted from all sides, from beings above him (in objective nature, anyway), from himself, and from things below him (the unintelligent world). Thus Satan's temptations on Christ also tried on those three levels - the bread below human nature, the showy display to fellow human beings, and the direct appeal to worship something above human nature, though below God.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Only one way existed for human beings to be tempted, and that was by means of some other intelligent agent. The pride, hatred, and sin of Satan brought just such an agent into the picture.

Satan was cunning enough to know that the means to get man to sin were slim. Appealing to greed, power, or lust wouldn't work, as Adam and Eve would only have blankly stared at him, not having knowledge of these vices. God had left only one commandment, and so somehow, he had to get them to eat of the forbidden tree.

To do so, Satan put forth a pair of deceits. The first of these was the denial of death (technically a half-truth, as physical death did not follow, though spiritual death did), and the second of these was the claim that eating would make them like God (another half-truth, as they would then, like God, know what evil was, but unlike God not have the means to avoid it). To Eve, blissfully ignorant of evil, this sounded like a rather convincing argument. After all, she didn't know Satan was fallen at the time, being ignorant of evil, and both of his deceits hit just the right note. Avoidance of death was a good thing, and nothing of course could be better than being more like God - an ironically pious attitude considering that by accepting the claim, she was setting aside God's own commandment.

Hence Satan's temptation, which Eve fell to along with Adam. Adam's sin in this was the greater, as Eve simply offered the fruit and told him to eat, giving him no legitimate reason to violate the commandment other than that his wife had done so, whereas Eve at least had been tricked into wanting to be more like God.

I believe that Satan fell in his rejection of the Incarnation, and the subsequent decision to tempt Eve in an attempt to derail that plan. Pride is said to have been his downfall, and nothing would have caused more of a festering wound to that than the scandal that God was planning on taking on a human body, a rather low, limiting material form. Revelation says that the dragon waited for the child to be brought forth, that he might devour it when brought forth, just after having swept down a third of the angels (Rev 12:3-4). Satan, by tempting Eve, may have been trying to thwart God's plan of the Incarnation, never realizing that in the deepest of ironies, his action would be the deed that necessitated the Incarnation, the very thing he wished to prevent.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Prior to Original Sin, temptation had no place in the material world. With human nature in its original state of grace, the purely material had absolutely no power to tempt human beings, as the rational powers of the soul would not be turned by that which was purely passive and lacked cunning or intelligence.

The story of Genesis strongly implies this state of affairs. God gives only one explicit commandment - not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This seems to preclude any possibility of things like theft, adultery, murder, or any need of any of the Ten Commandments, except the First. For however long man resided in Eden before Satan came to tempt Eve, Adam and Eve do not appear to have been tempted in the least by the forbidden tree.

If creation had been completed before Satan's fall, mankind would have enjoyed a period where no temptation was possible. The only possible tempters would have been angels, God, and nature itself. God would not have tempted to evil, and neither would unfallen angels, as both would be expressions of evil. Nature also would not have tempted, as the purely material cannot tempt human beings with an unfallen nature (this may be implied from the fact that the material will persist in Heaven at least in the presence of glorified human bodies, if not other things as well), and nature lacked any intelligent beings with which to tempt.

Personally, I think creation was finished prior to Satan's fall, thus resulting in a period of temporal paradise free from temptation. St. John writes that Satan, the old serpent, was cast to the earth after having waged a war in Heaven, which in Revelation follows the birth of the son of the woman clothed with the sun, figuratively Christ (Rev 12:1-9). Genesis records the serpent being cast to the earth on his belly following his successful temptation of Eve (Gen 3:14). As Satan is represented by the serpent of Genesis, it seems that his fall is also bound up in the tragedy of Original Sin.

But for a time, the whole of the created order stood precisely as it was originally designed to be, a complete harmony that was entirely good before evil first entered it.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Before getting to temptation itself, I wanted to begin with a digression on the angels. In the beginning of the created order, when the angels first came to be, there was yet no material world, just a spiritual world. At the time, evil had not yet entered the world as the angels had all been created good.

What caused the fall of Satan and his third of the angels? It's impossible to know for sure, although I think one thing is rather certain - their one fatal sin was not caused by temptation. Nothing was around to entice the angels to sin. God would not have tempted them, and unfallen angels and men would have been incapable of tempting as well. Rather, their fall was based on their decision, unprovoked, to sin. The cause of Satan's fall is often thought to be pride, but hatred and/or envy probably played a role too.

What could possibly cause such a decision? Three things come to mind, the creation of the material world, the creation of man, or the revelation of the Incarnation. Of the three, the creation of a material world seems least likely, as I can't imagine them caring much about a world totally absent of any spiritual presence. The creation of humans might have done it, given the scandal of humans being a union of both body and soul, but I tend not to think so, simply because I can't imagine the angels willing to disobey due to some lower beings being in the picture, even if they had to serve them.

The thing which most likely caused their fall was God revealing that He planned to take on a human body. That had to hit Satan's pride rather hard, that God would take on a limiting human form. There was the root of the infamous "non serviam" by which a third of heaven fell.

Posted by Justice at 3:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yesterday, July 14, was officially my first blogiversary (though archives extend back before that, July 14 was the first day in which the blog was fully functional thanks to Jeff Miller).

This will be the last post before the queue comes into play. See you all in a week.

Posted by Justice at 9:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I am leaving on vacation for a week, so I have a set of seven posts on temptation, broken down by topic, queued up to give my readers something to read while I'm away. New posts will appear around 3:15 pm EST each day, once the server runs the auto-post.

The posts are arranged thus:

Saturday - Angels
Sunday - The World Before the Fall
Monday - The First Temptation and the Fall
Tuesday - The World After the Fall
Wednesday - Christ's Temptation (POSTPONED)
Thursday - Temptation in Daily Life (POSTPONED)
Friday - Overcoming Temptation (POSTPONED)

EDIT: I did not finish. Other posts will appear for Wednesday and Thursday.

Posted by Justice at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thankfully enough, the weather the last two days was such that storms flared up at just the right time to cancel all the soccer games right before we had to play in near-90 degree heat, something we're not used to doing and which would have had grumbling coaches all over the place. Getting half pay for showing up at least the one night was also nice.

Today we at least got a pittance of rain, though yesterday was all rumble and no rain. The weather is not expected to clear for another 6 days.

Posted by Justice at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Some parts of the Western New York region topped 100 degrees today, easily a record, as I don't believe a 100 degree day has ever been logged in Buffalo's official record-keeping history. Add in the humidity and it's been downright miserable the last few days. Even worse, the muggy weather will not depart for at least a week. The past two cool summers are being repaid with a vengeance this year.

Posted by Justice at 2:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Is it just me, or are kids becoming more like marshmallows as the years pass? Tonight, at least three coaches all wanted to sub their players during the middle of the quarters. Granted, it was in the high 80s today, but it wasn't too terribly humid out.

I don't understand why all the need for subs all of a sudden. I understand it's a house league, but isn't it enough of a break to cut the game down to quarters instead of halves and limit the total game time to only about half of regulation length? Frankly, it's not a good sign when kids can't handle a 10-12 minute quarter in soccer, particularly since they don't need to spend the entire duration running, particularly if they're not a halfback. Something tells me this might be psychologically related to can't-do coaches, in that their attitude that the kids can't handle it might be self-fulfilling.

I don't think it's really a problem of not being physically able to do it at that age - during my playing years (through 1998), it was never even on the table. It was fully accepted that if you were on the field, you played until the quarter was over unless some injury happened. Frankly, the kids still seem resilient enough to me, but some of their parents have a lower threshold of tolerance for their child being in any discomfort than a newborn.

Posted by Justice at 2:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Via Polipundit comes a link to this article by John Hawkins that clears up some of the more common myths regarding the Iraq war. Useful to share with people who have been spouting some of these, as I believe I heard at least 6 of these in one recent conversation.

Posted by Justice at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A bike ride can be a great time to sort through ideas in one's head. Walking is even better since it requires less attention to be paid to the task of looking out for idiots behind the wheel.

That digression aside, today's thought was on Catholic education - specifically the topics it probably should include but which were definitely lacking in the version I had. While I suppose I should be thankful my program was thin enough that I had very little to unlearn, turning out ignorant Catholics isn't the best method for Church renewal.

Major topics I would personally like to see included, but which weren't really covered in my own parish's course of study:

Church History

The Church's history gets very little coverage in high school (in my own case some brief scraps were mentioned, primarily centering on the Reformation, with a little background on the Western Schism in an AP class). Ignorance of Church history is just as dangerous to the Church as ignorance of general history is to society, notably in the current repeat of heresies and disputes long since settled.

Ecclesiology

A useful thing for any young Catholic to know is just how the Church is structured and how it functions. This alone is important just to fend off misrepresentations of the Church by Protestants and others. Ideally this should include the responsibilities, duties, and powers of everyone from the Pope down to the laity, and where they fit in to the Body of Christ, as well as some idea of how the Church's Canon Law and courts operate.

Philosophy

As philosophy is no longer included in secondary education as a rule, that means that for many, the first contact they have with philosophy is an introductory course in college somewhere, if even there. Catholic education should step in to fill this gap, since philosophy is a stepping stone to things like logic, rhetoric, and theology. College is much too late to begin to learn things like logic, proper argumentation, and theology, yet that's often where it happens, if ever.

Biblical Study

The lack of Biblical knowledge was definitely a problem when I was in religious education. Sure, we'd read texts now and then, but in isolation, it does little good, since the readings require the proper context in light of the entire Bible. Using the Bible, per my own memory, was more of a special occasion than the rule. At least a year should be spent studying the Old Testament and a year studying the New.

Logic/Critical Thinking

This might fall under the umbrella of philosophy, but public schooling isn't doing too well here either, especially toward putting forth a sound position or argumentation. One of my guesses as to why so many people feel they can maintain a Catholic label while rejecting its tenets (or get away with it) is that many have never heard of the Principle of Non-Contradiction and aren't aware that they are being intellectually inconsistent or that there's a problem with that.

Systematic Theology

Nothing heavy, of course, but at least some introductory level stuff to try and present the Church's teachings in a systematic and unified whole. Personally, I'd like to see Frank Sheed's Theology for Beginners used as a primary text for this aim, since I've lent that book out and seen it have some success with others. It's not terribly long and it certainly can't be any worse than having to read James Joyce.

Prayer and Devotions

It sounds simple enough, but all I came out knowing after 11 years of study were the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, the Creed (sort of) and some rough idea of how to say a rosary. Devotionals, absent some which a sister thought to tell us about one year, might as well not have existed. There's a rich tradition of prayer extending back through the generations, and a great number of devotionals, and knowing at least a fair number of them wouldn't hurt.

The Spiritual World

A tricky topic since it deals with things we can't see, but some attempt needs to be made to explain the Trinity's nature and the relationship of the Persons in it, and knowing how angels, devils, demons, and souls work wouldn't hurt either (come to think of it, being taught that they exist would be a good start). Given the notion that people can become angels (this is amazingly common), the careless attitude toward the occult, ignorance of angels, and misunderstandings concerning the human soul, such instruction is very important.

Saints

Saints are the Church's version of Great Americans. They ought to get some place in the curriculum, even if, given the sheer number of them, it has to be a brief overview. Catechists can make use of the list of who is patron saint of what to help the kids find a saint they want to know more about.

Putting all of this together, or even parts of it, in Catholic Education might be quite a help. But perhaps even more important may be the time involved with it. At the elementary level, we had roughly 30-40 hours per year of instruction (a 75 minute class once per week, minus the introductory and closing stuff, during the Catholic school year). At the secondary level, it dropped to 18 hours per year, though a lot of this was group discussion/activity (a 90 minute class once a week in two separated 6-week blocks). Confirmation (11th grade) involved getting us to the church once every Sunday evening for maybe about a dozen times to hear a speaker and then group discuss.

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Tomorrow, the local parish will begin demolition of a portion of its old convent building in order to build its new parish center. I'm not sure if there are any sisters left, but the building's main use in recent years has been as an outreach center. Ironic that the parish's future involves getting rid of a place of self-sacrifice for a place meant more for self-affirmation, but such are the times.

On an unrelated note, today also saw the diocesan seminary making its pitch for funds in next week's collection. Last year's pitch didn't impress me much, and this year's did no better. Breaking liturgical rules by having a seminarian speak struck a sour note at once, and given that he sounded like he was detachedly reading a stock script, with difficulty at that, I definitely didn't feel like giving them a dime by the time he was done. As a helpful piece of advice to the seminary, if you must break the rules in your appeals, at least make sure that the guy you send has some fire behind him.

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I spent a good few hours at the Taste of Buffalo today with a friend. As expected, the festivities ran about $25 all told, since most food items were going at between $1.50 and $3.50 a sample. The most ridiculous was $3.00 charged for a single lamb rib - we're talking about something smaller than the size of a lighter.

Moving it to Delaware Avenue was probably a good thing, although the portions along Delaware north of Niagara Square were jam-packed just as bad as Main Street last year. Both times we passed that way, the crowd was so big, it was hardly possible to move. By contrast, traffic flowed with relative ease in the Square.

Following is a list of the food I sampled today.

- Mint-O-Potamus Goo (Bing's Restaurant)
- Cactus Strips (Cozumel)
- "Chocolate Kiss" Macaroon (Dough Bois Pizza)
- New York Style Cheesecake (EM Chrusciki Bakery)
- Jack's Garlic Pan Bread (Jack Astor's Bar and Grill)
- Cheese Pizza (Just Pizza)
- Hamburger (Louie's Hot Dogs)
- Crystal Beach Waffles (Melanie's Sweets Unlimited)
- Buffalo Hot Nuts (The Bavarian Nut Company)
- Sangria Slushie (Merrit Wines)

I haven't tried the waffles or nuts yet, but the other items were really good. If you haven't hit the festival yet and are in the area, it runs from 11 to 7 tomorrow.

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Tomorrow's the first day of the Taste of Buffalo, and I expect it will be a rather enjoyable day of sampling some of Buffalo's culinary treats. I found a friend to go with, so I'll be there for a few hours in the later afternoon, and likely providing pictures after the fact.

A sampling of some of the more unique menu items:

- Buffalo Hot Nuts (The Bavarian Nut Company)
- JunkYard Dog (Ms. Goodies)
- Mint-O-Potamus Goo (Bings)
- Mini Kegger Sandwich (Pearl Street Grill and Brewery)

For those wondering, the Bavarian Nut Company is a local business and is in no way associated with crackpot theologians from southern Germany.

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I was probably going to bed right around when the first bomb went off last night, and due to the day's schedule, I really didn't see much coverage of the London bombings.

My prayers go to all the victims of the attack, which thankfully is a smaller number than I would have expected if I had been told me terrorists would be setting off 6 bombs in the subway and 1 on a bus.

I can only hope Europe will take this latest attack as a wakeup call where it failed to do so in the wake of last year's attack in Spain. Pacifism toward an enemy that isn't interested in peace (unless, of course, everyone in Europe is on their knees five times a day aiming at Mecca and following strict sharia law) is utterly useless. Europe should know better by now, having tried the same tactic 70 years ago when dealing with Hitler.

I really hope Europe has the will to deal with the threat it's facing. The last thing anyone wants to see is more attacks in Europe by terrorists, but since at last check they seemed more outraged over American troops mistreating the religious texts of suspected terrorists than they did about those same terrorists wanting to kill people, I'm worried that they still might remain asleep at the switch.

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Manna From Heaven will be released on DVD next week Tuesday. The movie, first released in theaters in 2002, has definitely taken a slow path to DVD. Odds are, if you didn't live in Buffalo, you probably missed this independent film, since to date, it has grossed only $500,000 in the United States and never played on more than 33 screens at one time.

The Burton sisters came to Buffalo to film the movie back in 2000. Several local figures make a cameo appearance, including the now-retiring mayor, and several local landmarks also appear. I saw the film when it was playing at the University AMC (since demolished) either in late 2002 or early 2003, and my personal opinion was that it was a nice, family-friendly comedy.

The best way to describe the film is as a "Buffalo Comedy". A family finds money falling from the sky one day (hence the title) and they use it to pursue their dreams. Then they are suddenly informed, some years later, by one of those involved (then a Catholic nun) that the money is a loan and needs to be repaid at once. Thus ensues a hilarious effort to raise the money.

Unlike many films, the religious element in this movie works out pretty well, and even manages to be funny without being offensive.

The film's website is still up, and trailers and reviews are available. If you haven't seen it yet, I strongly recommend it.

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Now that there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court, I expect a rather fierce battle to confirm a new justice. Thus far, to read media accounts, only two questions are likely to matter as far as the left is concerned - Roe v Wade and gay rights issues. Roe is likely to play as large a part on the right as well, but with so much attention focused on one case, people on both sides might miss things that they'd rather know about before they vote on the nominee.

There is a pitfall for both sides in focusing too much on such a small number of issues. Particularly for the right, there's no guarantee that someone who would vote to overturn Roe will be a conservative on other social issues. One can certainly want to overturn a bad piece of jurisprudence on legal grounds while being sympathetic to the practice which it legalised. And given the nature of the state courts and legislatures at present, even if Roe were overturned, it's doubtful how far any bans would get except in the most deeply red of states.

What's more important is ensuring that a given pick will not be prone to making future social blunders on the magnitude of Roe. Reversing Roe is a good goal to work toward, but I'd rather look toward preventing more of the same before trying to undo damage already done. For example, I think it is, at this juncture, more important to make sure a justice will not be in favor of imposing gay marriage than it is to pick one who favors overturning Roe. Repairing a gaping wound does little good if in the process another is opened elsewhere.

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Bloggers running Movable Type who do not have the Spam Lookup plugin installed may want to consider doing so. Today the blog had roughly 70 spam attempts, but Spam Lookup blocked almost all of them, letting only 3 even get to me for moderation, and then only because I'm being a bit lenient on one criterion in the filter.

Hopefully this will keep spam off the comments, particularly since MT-Blacklist seems to no longer be working, according to my log file.

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After the fireworks of the holiday, God sent his own fireworks in the form of a fairly energetic thunderstorm. And following the hearty feast that tends to accompany the holiday, the following tasty deserts have been provided for the Catholic Carnival.

La Nouvelle Theologie's Resources For Catholic Writers points to a reference page by Debra Murphy at Idyllist Press for Catholic literature lovers.

Sharon of Clarity's Place has an original poem on human limits in front of reality in Taking Measure, Poem.

A Penitent Blogger gives us a Stairway to Heaven as a reflection on an important Christian function.

HerbEly's But MY Yoke is HARD and MY Burden HEAVY notes that when we heard the passage from Sunday's gospel that "my yoke is easy and my burden light" we might have wished: "if only it were so." If we feel that our life's burden is too heavy, we may need to look at our "inordinate attachments" and ask God's help in discarding them.

Fred K. of Cahiers Peguy discusses the difficulties of following Christ through human leaders in The Courage to Follow.

HMS Blog has a reflection on what Jesus Christ’s promise of “rest” in last Sunday’s Gospel means in Resting in Christ.

Two recent Supreme Court decisions concerned the public display of the Ten Commandments. Why is it usually evangelical Christians, rather than Catholics, involved in these cases, wonders Kicking Over My Traces in Catholics & Recent SCOTUS Decisions Re: the Ten Commandments.

Let There Be Peace on Earth? from Our Word and Welcome to It, notes that all are called to pray for peace in the world, but sometimes it's the peace in our own souls that proves elusive.

Ales Rarus in his submission to last week's carnival, examined whether or not substitutions for curse words are themselves curses. He disagrees with those Christians and gives his reasons in Tongue Tied, Part II, addressing two posts by Christian advocates for preferring real curses to synthetic ones.

For my own part, I submit First of the Last Things, a post which grew out of an inpromptu visit to a graveyard and reflects on death and the death penalty.

As a shameless advertisement, I will be on vacation for a week beginning July 16, but have a series of posts on temptation which will be auto-posting that week in my absence.

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There must be a new spam attack in the works, I've been hit with about 50 such entries in the comments in over the last few days. All of them were flagged by the system and moderated, but due to the number, I've shifted my filters to block mode. If the problem persists, I might consider tossing in some other options available through Movable Type's plugins.

In the unlikely event that your comment is blocked, drop me a line.

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Our seminary, once described to me as middle-of-the-road by those familiar with it, took another drop in my estimation today, having heard one of its new graduates say Mass. Liturgically, it was a mix of so many things that are problematic, except in this case, it seemed somewhat forced and unnatural, adding to the distraction. Prefacing every phrase with something like "my friends" or some other embellishment weakens what follows, besides the annoying tendency it has to turn things into a social hour. There's no earthly reason there should be clapping at almost every other Sunday Mass, especially when it has nothing to do with worshipping Christ!

Perhaps this is just residual from wherever the man served as deacon or from the parish's atmosphere, but it isn't giving me much confidence that the seminary is taking great pains to teach proper liturgical norms.

In potentially related news, Mass attendance in the diocese is down about 12% over the past few years and the number of active priests is still declining steeply, projected to be in 2015 only about a third of what it was in 1990, and a drop of about 40% from today's levels. It sounds like a good time to invest in some new mustard seeds and pray for their success.

Posted by Justice at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Due to an unfortunate accident with a dresser earlier this year, I ended up smashing one of my favorite Beethoven CDs. I've been scouring Sam Goody and Media Play for a new copy, but unfortunately, it seems this particular CD is no longer manufactured, as I cannot find it in any music database.

The album is from Excelsior's Platinum Masters collection, and is a collection of Beethoven's piano sonatas. This particular album has a green/silver cover and the order of the sonatas is the Pathetique, the Moonlight, Les Adieux, and Appassionata. I'll try and dig up the cover, since it's sitting in storage somewhere.

If anyone knows where I might be able to find this album, drop me a line. As far as my online searches have gone, it's as if Excelsior never existed as a music line, even though I still regularly see some of its titles in stores.

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A few weeks ago, I posted a little joke about a taxpayer claiming that politicians were toxic waste, and should be disposed of accordingly. In a bit of a surprising twist on that in real life, the haz-mat team was called out to the county executive's house today to investigate a suspicious substance.

I know the man is hugely unpopular, but employing threats isn't a viable way to go about taking out frustrations. Making his political life difficult is the way to do that, not trying to make his personal life a shambles.

Posted by Justice at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack