Wednesday Morning

When I got up this morning, I could not believe it. The weather had gone moist on me. It was actually worse than on Monday morning. However, I was desperate to go on a walk and begin “The Man Who Loved Dogs”. Only falling rain could deter me, and it wasn’t that bad.

Coco

Coco is little hungry for attention, but I didn’t want to get up. I pat the couch beside me, almost laughing at myself for thinking that there is any chance that Coco will take my cue and hop on the couch beside me, but then she does it. Maybe I am finally wearing the cats down.

Celebrities and Stuff

"" (Watch on YouTube)

( Read more... )

Shorts and Shirtless

Shorts and shirtless this afternoon. But it won't last long. I'm already feeling a little nippy. Which is good. One already begins to brace for the oncoming summer.

Orwell

I do think Orwell is a little soft at heart on Marx, and it may be fair to say that Orwell is one who thinks that the death of God is tragic. There is only so much happiness that one can hope to find in the world.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Marx’s famous saying that “religion is the opium of the people” is habitually wrenched out of its context and given a meaning subtly but appreciably different from the one he gave it. Marx did not say, at any rate in that place, that religion is merely a dope handed out from above; he said it is something the people create for themselves, to supply a need that he recognized to be a real one. “Religion is the sigh of the soul in a soulless world. Religion is the opium of the people.” What is he saying except that man does not live by bread alone, that hatred is not enough, that a world worth living in cannot be founded on “realism” and machine guns? If he had foreseen how great his intellectual influence would be, perhaps he would have said it more often and more loudly.

-- George Orwell, “Notes on the Way”, April 1940, in Essays (Everyman’s Library edition, p. 259)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Coco

Holding Coco in my arms and planting little kitty kisses on her head, I am struck by her fragility and loveliness, and I wonder how she can run in the wild so free like a beast and prefer it.

G. K. Chesterton

A little movement is afoot to have G. K. Chesterton canonized as a saint.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

In recent years, the Chesterton revival has taken on new dimensions, with calls to explore his possible sainthood. Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton, the diocese in which Chestertion lived, recently appointed a priest to investigate Chesterton’s holiness, which could lead to the opening of his official cause for canonization.

The move has caused quite a stir, not least because the image of Chesterton—as a wise-cracking, cigar-smoking witticist—is so contrary to traditional ideas about sanctity. Yet, as Dale Ahlquist told me, “we need to expand our ideas about sanctity, and recognize the saints among us in the ordinary world”—not just mystics and martyrs from centuries past.

[The following paragraph is a testimonial from Joseph Pearce, a literary biographer, and also a hate-criminal turned devout Christian.]

I was a racist, I was an anti-Semite, who went to prison twice for publishing material intended to incite racial hatred, and it was Chesterton who saved me from all that. . . . I owe more to Chesterton than to anyone or anything, under grace, for my conversion from racial hatred to rational love. And it is because of what Chesterton did for me that I wrote my biography of him as an act of thanksgiving—first to God, for giving me Chesterton, and then to Chesterton himself, for giving me God.

-- William Doino Jr. at First Things.com

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Neighbor Dog

I’m glad I was able to snack up the neighbor dog. I noticed this afternoon that they were leashing him up again, which may account for why I did not see him at the fence for the past few days.

Dowding LJB and Dubya

Maureen Dowd gives us a nice little play on some attempts to clean up a couple of presidential legacies for LBJ and Dubya. Our two big Texans. It's a shame that she did not make that connection: Texan presidents feeding the cowboy stereotype.

( Read more... )

Late-Night Snack

It's late for a snack, and I am getting too, too fat, but I am hungry, damn it! And, so, Nilla Wafers and Coke it is.