Anecdotal Round-up

Not much in the way of anecdotes, actually, but here we go nonetheless. I feel that if I can't be original or interesting, I should at least be confusing enough that I could conceivably trick people into thinking something of substance has been said.

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Part and parcel of the "Pius XII aided and abetted the Holocaust" meme is the bland and groundless assertion that Adolf Hitler was a Christian, and the attendant implication that if he had a Christian past or heritage, he must have been a devout and practicing Christian, and, if this was the case, then Christianity itself must have supported the Holocaust. It's a bit of a mouthful, but you can hear it from any number of college students, who, they will assure you, could not possibly be wrong.

Count us surprised, then, by the long-awaited rediscovery of the "Nazi Bible," Hitler's "final solution" for Christianity. The heavily-modified document - some 50 pages shorter than a standard King James Bible (and thus significantly shorter still than a Catholic one) - removes all explicit reference to Jews and Judaism, as well as words such as "hallelujah" and even "Jerusalem," while adding a bunch of stuff that makes it more compatible with the dogma of the One Holy And Apostolic Reich. Such additions include a complete revamp of the Ten Commandments, which are first furiously reduced to nothing and then extravagantly expanded to twelve. They follow:

1. Honour God and believe in him wholeheartedly.
2. Seek out the peace of God.
3. Avoid all hypocrisy.
4. Holy is your health and life!
5. Holy is your wellbeing and honour!
6. Holy is your truth and fidelity!
7. Honour your father and mother – your children are your aid and your example.
8. Keep the blood pure and your honour holy!
9. Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.
10. Always be ready to help and to forgive.
11. Honour your Fuehrer and master!
12. Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice. That is what God wants from us!

The Heliand it ain't. Other than that, it's just sort of depressing.

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A breathless Gerald of Closed Cafeteria lampoons the mainstream media's treatment of the recently "ordained" "woman" "priests."

"Eileen DiNardo, 54, was made a member of the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday. Yesterday she threw her first pitch on a field rented from the AA team of the New York Mets, wearing a tie-dyed version of the Phillies Away jersey. Although the Phillies deny that she is a team member, DiNardo says that she has been called to be a Phillies pitcher her whole life." After prayers to the four directions, DiNardo threw a wild pitch. Onlookers said that that was perfectly fine, claiming that DiNardo does not play my male rules."

Served.

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A Minnesota massage therapist is in hot water for sleeping with her husband!

Her husband, Kirk Fjellman, is a former client. He saw her professionally from October 2000 to May 2002, and the two say they started dating in July 2002. But when they consumated the relationship a few months later, they ran afoul of a Minnesota law that bans massage therapists from having sexual relations with former clients for two years.

Thanks, State! Thanks for studiously neglecting to apply nuance to a situation that plainly calls for it!

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Dawn Eden returns from her trip to the savage lands, providing a Chesterton quip and a link to an artistic atrocity. The image follows below, and is not for the faint of heart.

After the fashion of the previous note, I'm trying to think of somebody to angrily and insincerely thank for this work. Somehow "Thanks, Robert Ryman!" or "Thanks, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art!" don't have the arch and relevant ring I would have liked. It might be worth wondering just what San Francisco himself would have thought of this. I don't claim to know the answer, but my guess is that he would not have been thrilled.

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Anyhow, we may as well close with an anecdote just to keep you from feeling cheated. From Robert Hendrickson, on Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), a noted Englishman of ages past:

A Renaissance man, the well-rounded author, diplomat, scientist and naval hero at Scanderoon is unfortunately most remembered for his theory that the "the powder of sympathy," presumably a form of copper sulfate, could heal wounds without even touching them. Digby, who once tried to convert Oliver Cromwell to Catholicism and once killed a Frenchman in a duel for insulting Charles I, wrote of his miraculous powder in a treatise on immortality. His father, Sir Everard Digby, was executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, so perhaps "powder" had some unknown psychological significance for the son. Sir Everard Digby may have been hanged for his treason, but one old story claims that his heart was plucked out by the executioner, who then cried, "Here is the heart of a traitor!" A heartless Digby is then ("credibly reported") to have indignantly replied, "Thou liest!"

[The younger] Digby, one of the initial members of the Royal Society, discovered the importance of oxygen to plant life. Aubrey says that "He was such a goodly handsome person, gigantique and great voice, and had so gracefull Elocution and noble address, etc., that had he been drop't our of the Clowdes in any part of the World, he would have made himself respected." It is said that when he was imprisoned by Parliament as a Royalist, "his charming conversation made the prison a place of delight." Digby married the celebrated courtesan Venetia Stanley, who always remained faithful to him. (He had said a "handsome wise man, and lusty, could make an honest woman out of a Brothell houre.") When she died, spiteful and false rumors were spread that Digby had caused her death by making her drink viper wine (a supposedly restorative wine medicated by an abstract obtained from vipers) to preserve her beauty.

No author has a better epitaph:

"Under this Stone the Matchless Digby lies
Digby the great, the Valiant, and the Wise:
This Age's Wonder, for his Noble Parts;
Skill'd in six Tongues, and learn'd in all the Arts.
Born on the day he died, th'Eleventh of June,
On which he bravely fought at Scanderoon.
'Tis rare that one and self-same day should be
His day of Birth, of Death, of Victory."

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That's it for now, then. Hopefully we'll get something from Eric or someone later today, but we're into the final summer drag now, and the lethargy is Pronounced. Let School and September return at once!