ex cathedra: Distractions

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Distractions

Been a day with a lot of irritation in it. So I look for distractions. Spatchcocked a chicken, roasted it --really juicy-- and made gravy with giblets, and rice, with cold Pinot Grigio. Felt better.

Moving thru the TV dials, The Graham Norton Show on BBC America, usually a silly waste of time, had Bette Midler, whom I like and then this very eye-pleasing self-possessed and charming black man with cornrows and a working class British accent. Didn't recognize him. Checked out who he was. Turns out he is the WBA World Champion, David Haye. Distracting.

PS. Late night irksomeness. Presentation of church and clergy on TV and movies. Just the factual and visual mistakes are legion. Tonight some cops visit an independent church and ask the pastor for a list of all the men in his congregation. He says that he cannot because it would be "breaking the confessional seal." First of all, not a Catholic church, hence no "confessional seal." And it's just a list of members. Ditto. A script written either by illiterates or people who don't care about any kind of accuracy. Legion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Yes, obviously not accurate re "confessional seal." But as far as I know, by American, Canadian (all Western?) law, no cleric or or cleric equivalent or plausibly clergic equivalent (e.g. a shamanism adviser) can be compel'd to testify or give evidence to police or courts from knowledge they have in their spiritual advice etc work with parishioners or parishioner-equivalents. Even if the cleric's religious organization would not defrock or defrock-equivalent him for giving personal information to police or courts. Since, as usual, the RCC has the clearest formulation, referring to a 'confessional seal' for a Baptist minister, Jewish rabbi, Nation of Islam minister, etc is the most direct way. I wonder if the courts decided on this matter in some famous case that involved an RC priest. ... I am not sure, though, that a membership list is consider'd protected by any 'confessional seal' for an RC parish or any other religious institution. I assume that an RC parish would co-operate with police in terms of giving a membership list to police, as would most not-cultlike religious organizations.; 7:53 PM, December 08, 2010

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Toward Our Future

What the sons of Europa need is a new religion: one that is as tribal, portable and survivalist as Judaism, as masculine, terrestrial and tough as Islam and as intellectually and aesthetically creative as Christianity...with a dose of the unflinching realism of the ancestral ways of the Greeks and Romans, Germans and Celts and Slavs..And for the larger Indo-European frame, something of the Indian capacity to combine an ultimate and philosophical realization of The One with a robustly mytho-poetic religion on-the-ground. Oh, and some of the psychological acumen of Buddhism.

Liberalism's Basic Flaw

Liberals believe that the chief role of the State is to force everyone to be equal, (ie, take vengeance on the successful). So when they are confronted with any group that they deem less well off than themselves, they are morally disarmed, completely and utterly. Any group that can achieve Victim Status is on their way to power and the (White) liberal's only job is to give them what they want, no matter how much that damages him. And nothing may ever be expected, much less demanded, of them in return. It's a recipe for suicide: no other outcome is possible.