Tag: Blithe Spirit

Sobriquets and aphorisms for our troubled era

* Elena “I refuse to recuse” Kagan: the SC justice who argued for Obamacare as solicitor general but sits to declare its consitutionality.

* Words that went viral: #1 of a series, “guys,” for people of any age and gender or role (place?) in society.

* Convenient classification: There are two kinds of people men, those who wear their hats at the dinner table, out or at home, not at a picnic or beach, and those who do not.

Bonus:

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in Times Lit Supplement 3/9/12 (subscription required):

* His Mother Night is his “funniest” book, says reviewer Thomas Meaney.

* Writing as he did when he did about WW2, he “faced the shibboleth of the Good War” as in the novels and books by Herman Wouk, James Michener, and Andy Rooney.  Not so the grim accounts by Robert Stone, Michael Herr, Tim O’Brien et al.

* Post-Slaughterhouse Five, in which he reached his apogee, he catered to semi-cultists, gave into “posturizing,” says Meaney, who sells him persuasively as a world-class ironist, never deviating in his accounts of the horrors of war, slipping into a “sentimental bog,” as O’Brien does in The Things They Carried.

He did that after Slaughterhouse, when “he began to recycle his gimmicks and [his] sardonic shell started to crack.”

As V. would say, so it goes.

Catholic religious educators rock to ’80s sound

At Los Angeles convention, the “We are the worled” sound.

[The] music is dated, while chants written a millennium prior are not. The reason is: the earlier music was not ephemeral. It was not written to satisfy a perceived (usually hopelessly outdated) current theological or musical trend, but to give expression to the deep faith that can truly sustain a Christian.

The price of being with it.

the words too, sound exactly like We Are the World, which, with admirable clarity, expresses secular humanism.

Sung by all-stars.

The lyrics.

Resisting Catholicism

This fellow, a writer living in Italy, tells here a funny, irreverent, sad story in which he bemoans Italians and the pressure he is put under to become Catholic. 

But I have to, at least would like to, think he’s in a process of discovery and, frankly, would welcome more from him in this vein.  He asks good questions, for one thing.

There’s a lot of this going on, this Catholic awareness expressed by writers.  Aren’t things Catholic being discussed a lot?

Trayvon attacked Zimmerman?

Sanford FL police have witness to that effect, with corroboration based on sound of Zimmerman’s yelling “Help, help” on the 911 call made by the witness.

Zimmerman says the shooting was self defense. According to information released on the Sanford city website, Zimmerman said he was going back to his SUV when he was attacked by the teen.

Sanford police say Zimmerman was bloody in his face and head, and the back of his shirt was wet and had grass stains, indicating a struggle took place before the shooting.

Bad enough, bias by Revs. Jackson and Sharpton, but the president is supposed not to buy into initial maybe-false accounts. 

He did it before, remember, in the case of the Cambridge cop and the black professor.  Bad habit.  One would think he’s no better than those two hustlers.