To riff or not to riff . . .

Bob Adams – Jazz Musician
Preparing to riff

“Opponents repeatedly riffed on the project for containing only people who earn less than $26,300, rather than a mix of wage earners,” Wed. Journal says, in coverage of a public hearing at OP village hall about proposed conversion of an office building for low-income housing.

The writer wants to say that many made the same argument, but this is “riff” as “comment,” which is many steps removed from what the musician does with a series of chords. He plays it again and again — which makes “repeatedly” redundant, by the way — to the presumed enjoyment of listeners.

On another point, the article gives a location as the 1100 block of Ridgeland. South or North?

Two colors of tyranny

Flag of the National Fascist Party of Italy. F...
Italian fascists' ties that bound

Reference to Yves Simon by Eugene Kennedy led me to this:

Communism and national socialism have come to resemble each other in so many respects that their historical diversity and their lasting opposition arouse wonder. In spite of common features that are profound and increasingly obvious, they prove altogether repugnant to effecting any kind of merger.

The task of fighting them would be greatly eased if followers, actual and potential, were led to believe that one system, i.e., the one which appeals to them, is substantially identical with the other, i.e., the one which they hate; but such identification never was very successful as a polemical instrument.

Conservatives in the 1930’s were given a fair chance to understand that naziism was but brown bolshevism;{1} yet many of them helped the Nazis. Today it seems that it should be easy for all concerned to recognize in communism the very features that they hated most in naziism; but not all do.

It’s from Simon’s Philosophy Of Democratic Government (Amazon). You can read it online here.

The Kennedy reference is to his and his wife Sara Charles’s 1997 book, Authority: The Most Misunderstood Idea in America, which I have even now waiting for me at the OP library.

As for the two-colors business, I wrote about liberalism as fascism for the Wed. Journal of OP&RF late in the ’08 campaign.  This horrified leftist Oak Parkers, fascism being a word the left reserves for its enemies.

I argued that excessive governmental power (authority) was common to fascism and, for that matter, socialism.  Will have to stay with Y. Simon et al. to see to what extent they back me up.  As Bob McClory says in his comment below, with “perhaps even enlightenment” for me.

Innocence at home?

Cover of "The Adventures of Huckleberry F...
To be cleaned up

Huckleberry Finn is to be bowdlerized for various pragmatic reasons, no need to go into them here.

But de-niggerizing Huckleberry Finn doesn’t necessarily inoculate teachers from the danger of teaching that 19th century text in an offensive way. If anything, it might just give us all an inflated sense of protection from the most dishonorable aspects of our nation’s history.

Is this what we mean by post-racial? If so, it is a good example of the difference between repression and transcendence.

Thus John L. Jackson Jr. in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

2010 in review

Image representing WordPress.com as depicted i...
Image via CrunchBase

I’m not making this up:

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 29,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 467 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 2378 posts. There were 68 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 15mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 12th with 6 views. The most popular post that day was A decade of decadence.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were pajamasmedia.com, mail.yahoo.com, savewju.blogspot.com, blithe-spirit.com, and facebook.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for spanish people, blithe spirit, kc, felix owino, and bernard knoth.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

A decade of decadence January 2010
5 comments

2

Wheeling Jesuit philosophy prof arrested on abuse charge July 2010
2 comments

3

Punches thrown at Wheeling Jesuit February 2010
1 comment

4

Spics, slants, and others August 2008

5

Wheeling Jesuit, NASA, whistleblower suit January 2010
3 comments

Save the women project, continued

Another displacement of “father” in the mass, this just before the Lord’s Prayer:

Officially:

Through him, with him, in him,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father,

for ever and ever. Amen

You guessed it.  “Almighty Father” becomes “Almighty God” if the priest so chooses, slipping in the gender-non-specific for the sake of presumed bruised female sensibilities.

Sigh.

BTW, one has the devil’s own time in finding the official version at the U.S. Catholic bishops’ site.  Try it and instruct me in how to find it if you do find it, dear reader.

As for the Lord’s Prayer, I am waiting for “Our Parent, who art in heaven,” etc.  It’s coming . . .

Great mind, simple thought

If we like Narnia, we have to like this from C.S. Lewis:

“It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects —
military, political, economic, and what not.
But in a way things are much simpler than that.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect
the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.
A husband and wife chatting over a fire,
a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub,
a man reading a book in his own room
or digging in his own garden —
that is what the State is there for.
And unless they are helping to increase
and prolong and protect such moments,
all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police,
economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”

A. Waste. Of. Time.

Novelist musta dreamt it

Stumbled across while looking for something else, with apologies to the late Sidney Harris.  Novelist James McManus to PopMatters:

11. The best piece of advice you actually followed?
“Don’t fuckin’ do it!” delivered by my friend Reid Schaefer as my parents and grandparents were furiously pressuring me to enter a Jesuit seminary at age 14.

Vas ist dis Jesuit seminary taking 14–year-olds?  Never hoid of it.

He did this poker-playing book about Las Vegas.  Non-fiction.  Oh?

Jesus saves a lot more than green stamps

Feeling low?  Here’s an upper:

[17] And it came to pass on a certain day, as he sat teaching, that there were also Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, that were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was to heal them.

[18] And behold, men brought in a bed a man, who had the palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.

[19] And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in, because of the multitude, they went up upon the roof, and let him down through the tiles with his bed into the midst before Jesus.

[20] Whose faith when he saw, he said: Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.

What was that all about?

[21] And the scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?

[22] And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, he said to them: What is it you think in your hearts?

[23] Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk?

[24] But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say to thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.

[25] And immediately rising up before them, he took up the bed on which he lay; and he went away to his own house, glorifying God.

Wouldn’t you?

[26] And all were astonished; and they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying: We have seen wonderful things today.

A fearful authority.  Stunning.

[Luke 15, Douay-Rheims version for today’s gospel reading.]