Disastrous Round-up

Welcome to Friday, for which we are waggishly enjoined to thank God. This, the day that sees more debauchery and dereliction of duty than any of the other six! We may very well thank God for the day, as we should for all days, but not even for a moment in the spirit the trite little phrase implies.

In any event, a few things worth considering, but not so many as usual; I have a substantial post with which to follow this up.

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A California radio station has offered a profound theological service to the listening public by re-enacting the Fall of Man in miniature. It remains to be seen whether or not this mimicry will continue with some sort of blood-soaked redemption, but prospects at this time are not so good. I'd recommend that you stay tuned for further details, but there seems to be some sort of disinclination to do so, in this case.

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Last year, Christians (Fundamentalist Protestant) engaged other Christians (Catholic, some Chaldean Catholic) in a street brawl in an effort to save their souls. Tensions mount this year as the anniversary approaches. There is a passage in a Graeme Greene book that I would like to cite.

One day, however, when Milly was thirteen, [Wormold] had been summoned to the convent school of the American Sisters of Clare in the white rich suburb of Vedado. There he learnt for the first time how the duenna left Milly under the religious plaque by the grilled gateway of the school. The complaint was of a serious nature: she had set fire to a small boy called Thomas Earl Parkman, junior. It was true, the Reverend Mother admitted, that Earl, as he was known in the school, had pulled Milly's hair first, but this she considered in no way justified Milly's action which might well have had serious results if another girl had not pushed Earl into a fountain. Milly's only defence of her conduct had been that Earl was a Protestant and if there was going to be a persecution Catholics could always beat Protestants at that game.

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No mere person could be this hideous. There must be some other quality to Hillary Clinton that accounts for the ominous, alienated feeling one gets when one looks upon this image.


Yes, in an startlingly premature move, the Museum of Sex in New York NY will be unveiling Hillary's Presidential Statue, jumping the gun by two years and likely an entire plane of reality. As is typical with such nonsense, the bust's unbearable ugliness is meant to challenge our perceptions of this and confront us with how threatened we feel by that. The conclusion, as ever, is that all revulsion is a matter of cringing and even unconscious fear, and that no settled perception can possibly be correct. This is what we get in a world without value judgments.

Anyway, my question is, what good is returning to the classical bust style if you're not going to be crafting a hagiographical sculpture? That's sort of the point of them. I suppose this could represent a legendary figure to some sort of person, but it sure as heck doesn't for me. My other question is with regard to how much of the taxpayer's money was siphoned through the NEA for the production of this otherworldly piece.

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Finally, be sure to check out Alan's post about Islam just below; he likes to post just before the day is out, and we wouldn't want it to get lost in the new updates.