DaveTown

The more I re-read Thomas Merton, the more he seems like a prophet. To wit:

“Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardon, and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.”

I just saw the trailer for the new movie based on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’ve been a tad worried that they would make a muck of my favorite book, as moviemakers usually do with great books.

The trailer allays my fears. I haven’t looked forward to a movie this much since . . . ever. It comes out sometime during the Christmas season, and I plan to be their for the first showing of the first day.

The trailer is a huge file, so be patient, it took two or three minutes on my DSL connection. I love it that download speeds have gotten so lightning fast that two or three minutes is now “long”. Just five years ago this file would’ve taken a good couple of hours or so. Sweet!

I just saw a commercial for Lunesta, which is the latest trendy sleeping pill being thrust upon us by one of the mega-giant-multinational-pharmaceutical outfits.

As they always do these days, they gave a list of the possible side effects of the drug (not very astute marketing, one might observe; I suspect a lawyer was involved in that decision). Among the possible side effects, alongside such regulars as headache, nausea, bleeding from the ears, et cetera . . . was . . . wait for it . . . drowsiness. Yeah, drowsiness. Who woulda thought that?

OH MY GOD THIS SLEEP AID MIGHT MAKE ME DROWSY, I CAN’T RISK THAT!

“Over my many years of presiding at such scholarly confabs, the question is regularly raised about what results they produce. It is, one gently suggests, a dumb question. Nonetheless, it is asked and, in response, many fall back on Richard Weaver’s maxim that “ideas have consequences.”Those who have to be told that ideas have consequences are living with the sad consequence of minds dominated by ideas that are not their own.”

– Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

How can a legal trial, which, by its very nature is SCHEDULED AHEAD OF TIME, be considered breaking news?

Also, do you think Saddam’s lawyers got their fees up front?

Bad luck for Saddam, the judge’s first order of business was to deny the former dictator’s request to have the venue changed to Los Angeles County.

It was a nice try, though, you gotta admit.

The defendants are sitting in what appears to be a large baby’s playpen. That’ll teach them to throw a tantrum in court.

Saddam refused to give his name to the judge when asked. Of course, when the judge asked Saddam to give his name, he referred to him as “Mr. Saddam”.

This is going to be great. I hope CourtTV does a nightly reenactment, like they did with the Michael Jackson trial. Jamie Farr could play Saddam. Not that he looks a lot like Saddam, but it’d just be nice to see him working again. Oh, and the judge? Yeah, he’s Kurdish. You remember the Kurds, right? They’re the people who Saddam attacked with POISON GAS . . . Perry Mason couldn’t get the boy off the hook at this point. Clarence Frickin’ Darrow couldn’t get the man acquitted. Johnnie Cochran . . . were he not deceased, would have a shot. No one else, though.

Tom Hayden and the other members of the Students for a Democratic Society published the Port Huron Statement in 1962. Here is a paragraph concerning higher education in the United States:

Tragically, the university could serve as a significant source of social criticism and an initiator of new modes and molders of attitudes. But the actual intellectual effect of the college experience is hardly distinguishable from that of any other communications channel — say, a television set — passing on the stock truths of the day. Students leave college somewhat more “tolerant” than when they arrived, but basically unchallenged in their values and political orientations. With administrators ordering the institutions, and faculty the curriculum, the student learns by his isolation to accept elite rule within the university, which prepares him to accept later forms of minority control. The real function of the educational system — as opposed to its more rhetorical function of “searching for truth” — is to impart the key information and styles that will help the student get by, modestly but comfortably, in the big society beyond.

I wonder if Sen. Hayden and his fellows have read that bit lately, and if they have, I wonder if the irony of that statement, given the modern academic climate in this country, is lost on them. It’s not lost on me.

We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.

– St. Thomas Aquinas