"Purity"

This XKCD strip had been bothering me for a while.

...so I fixed it.

What If She had Said No?

Stolen Reprinted in its entirety from Universalis.

The question may strike you as irreverent. How dare I suggest that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Co-Redemptrix of mankind, could have left us in the lurch like that?

But what if she had?

Could she have said No? You might say that of course she couldn’t, she was far too holy — but you would be guilty of demeaning and dangerous sentimentality. It is demeaning because it turns Our Lady from a free human being into a sanctified automaton. The whole glory of the Annunciation is that Mary, the second Eve, could have said No to God but she said Yes instead. That is what we celebrate, that is what we praise her for; and rightly so.

This sentimental view is dangerous too. If we believe that the most important decision in the history of the world was in fact inevitable, that it couldn’t have been otherwise, then that means it was effortless. Now we have a marvellous excuse for laziness. Next time we’re faced with a tough moral decision, we needn’t worry about doing what is right. Just drift, and God will make sure that whatever choice we make is the right one. If God really wants us to do something he’ll sweep us off his feet the way he did Mary, and if he chooses not to, it’s hardly our fault, is it?

So Mary could have said No to Gabriel. What if she had? He couldn’t just go and ask someone else, like some sort of charity collector. With all the genealogies and prophecies in the Bible, there was only one candidate. It’s an alarming thought. Ultimately, of course, God would have done something: the history of salvation is the history of him never abandoning his people however pig-headed they were. But God has chosen to work through human history. If the first attempt at redemption took four thousand years to prepare, from the Fall to the Annunciation, how many tens of thousands of years would the next attempt have taken?

Even if the world sometimes makes us feel like cogs in a machine, each of us is unique and each of us is here for a purpose: just because it isn’t as spectacular a purpose as Mary’s, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. When we fail to seek our vocation, or put off fulfilling some part of it, we try to justify ourselves by saying that someone else will do it better, that God will provide, that it doesn’t really matter. But we are lying. However small a part I have to play, the story of the Annunciation tells me it is my part and no-one else can do it.

Faced with the enormity of her choice, how was Mary able to decide? If she said No, unredeemed generations would toil on under the burden of sin. If she said Yes, she herself would suffer, and so would her Son; but both would be glorified. Millions of people not yet born would have Heaven open to them; but millions of others would suffer oppression and death in her son’s name. The stakes were almost infinite.
You might say that Mary didn’t worry about all this, just obeyed God; but I don’t believe it. What God wanted was not Mary’s unthinking obedience but her full and informed consent as the representative of the entire human race. The two greatest miracles of the Annunciation are these: that God gave Mary the wisdom to know the consequences of her decision, and that he gave her the grace not to be overwhelmed by that knowledge.

When we come to an important decision in our lives, we can easily find our minds clouded by the possible consequences, or, even more, by partial knowledge of them. How can we ever move, when there is so much good and evil whichever way we go? The Annunciation gives us the answer. God’s grace will give us the strength to move, even if the fate of the whole world is hanging in the balance. After all, God does not demand that our decisions should be the correct ones (assuming that there even is such a thing), only that they should be rightly made.

There is one more truth that the Annunciation teaches us, and it is so appalling that I can think of nothing uplifting to say about it that will take the sting away: perhaps it is best forgotten, because it tells us more about God than we are able to understand. The Almighty Father creates heaven and earth, the sun and all the stars; but when he really wants something done, he comes, the Omnipotent and Omniscient, to one of his poor, weak creatures — and he asks.

And, day by day, he keeps on asking us.

So, I was sitting with Isis, the other day, while she ate. I heard a "thump" behind me and turned around to see my *sigh* iPhone on the floor. "That's odd," I remark to myself. "How did it end up on the floor?" Perhaps Damien, in some wild flailing move, somehow managed to reach over to where it was on the table and knock it off. I get up to check what's going on and I find this....

From Damien

This will be either a) messy, b) hilarious, or c) hilariously messy.

I considered letting the situation play out, for the fun of it, but thought the cleanup might be worth work than it was worth.

Breaking News

IndyCars Wreck in First Turn of Race



That used to be one of the generic news headlines we had here. The 2010 IndyCar season kicked off in much the same way as the 2009 season.

Ides

Does anyone (else) remember that proof that Julius Caesar had an infinite number of limbs?

Something like,

Julius Caesar was warned to beware the ides of March.
Now, forewarned is forearmed,
But four arms is certainly an odd number of arms for a man.
But four is also even.
And the only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, Julius Caesar had an infinite number of arms.


I remember Mom reading us that proof some book decades ago, although I don't think I ever knew what the book was. Anyone remember? I seem to recall that it also proved that Alexander the Great did not exist and he rode a white horse named Bucephalus. And that heaven was hotter than hell (something about the brightness of seven stars).

Social Network Propagation

Here's how it goes:

So if I post something to this blog (like this post), it is automatically posted as a note on Facebook and on Buzz. Handy, no? But that means that if you subscribe to the blog's RSS feed, and are friend with me on Facebook, you get spammed twice for every blog post I make.

My main problem with managing my social networks, is that my audience is different for each one (I think Dave and Jen are the only two who read the blog, are friends in Facebook and Buzz, and subscribe to my YouTube channel). This means that when I want to release a new piece of media, I have to upload it or link it in several places, which means some people hear about it multiple times.

For instance, suppose I take a picture of Damien and want to share it. I can use Picasa to upload it to Google, and it will automatically be displayed in the BabyFeed™ to the right. Buzz will also automatically be updated. But several key people (namely, grandparents) are not made aware. To solve this I can use another network, say Twitter or the Blog, to alert those other people. But both of those will update Buzz, as well, and one links to Facebook. (Twitter does not... yet. Hmmm... let me fix that. K done, thanks for waiting.)

Not helping this is the fact that Facebook itself encompasses several of the media types of the other two. I have not, for the life of me, been able to figure out a good way to distinguish "Twitterable" content from "Facebookable" text (it doesn't quite go the other way, though). Also, Facebook has its own photo and video galleries, which overlap with YouTube and Picasa.

It gets even more complex since I have two Facebook pages (one for myself, one for Damien). So if I, for instance, make a movie about Damien blowing up the Death Star, where do I put it? YouTube? Facebook?  And whose Facebook? Mine or Damien's? Even blogger has a video upload option, although it has a space limitation.

So I end up duplicating a lot of work, and some people end up getting spammed a lot. For instance, last night I uploaded some more pictures of Damien to his Picasa album. That automatically Buzzes it. Next, I twitter that the album's updated, which puts a message in the blog's sidebar (and from now on will also update my Facebook status). But then Damien's Facebook friends might want to see them, and just linking really isn't good enough. So I post them to his account (second time I've uploaded them, and a second set of pictures to manage). Also, there's a discrepancy between albums. Picasa has some Damien pics Facebook doesn't have and vice versa. In fact, Damien's baby feet album isn't even on Picasa (I am wary of the rapidly-approaching 1GB limit). And I don't think I ever put up Angry Babby on this blog. (I don't really want to upload all my babby videos to YouTube. Somewhere along the way, I actually picked up some real subscribers to my channel (probably my piano music videos), and I don't want to bore them with excessive babby videos.)

It would be nice if I had one central repository of text, images, and videos where I could put things, then check off boxes for which social sites I wanted to update. For instance, I could write this post, then say "update FU-News, Facebook, and Buzz", or I could upload a picture and say "put this in Picasa and Damien's Facebook album, and link to it on Twitter."

And this is not even including my Livejournal and Photobucket accounts. See the hassles I go through to keep you people updated about my every whim? I'm just too connected and too interesting a person!

Father Max

Well, after three weeks of getting berated (not really) in my literary group and being told (not really) that JF:SP is drivel (not really), and getting depressed and cynical and being on the verge of calling it quits as a writer and telling myself I'm just not up to it (well, almost), I finally received positive feedback on the pages I brought tonight (woohoo)! And it's not Space Pirates! This, in fact, marks the first non-space, non-pirate pages I've written and/or brought to the group. I thought I'd share my success with all one of you who are interested (hi mom!).

* * *

J+M+J

The red and blue glare of the sirens, blinding in the darkness, let me know that I was in the right place. I was not native to the area and even though I had lived in the small town of Sand Canyon for a few years now, these back roads were still treacherous for me to navigate, especially at night. I was glad to know that I had not gotten lost this time.

I pulled over to the side of the highway, as far onto the dirt shoulder as I could, and stepped out of my car.

Sploosh! My foot sunk into a muddy puddle, a remnant from the previous night's rainstorm.

"Thank you, Lord," I muttered under my breath. In the abbey, I had been taught that instead of cursing, we should thank God for the little tribulations of daily life, and the opportunity they gave us to grow in patience and holiness. I hoped that was the meaning God took from my words, and that He ignored my sarcastic tone.

I shook the water from my shoe and looked down at my habit. The only light came from the sirens, and the damage was impossible to determine. I really didn't need to see it, though. Years of experience had told me that white shows everything. I knew I would be spending most of tomorrow trying to remove the stain.

I silently praised God—again holding back the sarcasm as much as my weakened human nature would allow—and walked towards the police line. My wet shoe sloshed and squished with every other step. A young officer stood at the line watching me.

"Hello," I said to him as I approached. "Detective Roberts called for me."

"Are you Father Green?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm Father Maximilian Green."

He held the tape high enough for me to duck under, and then escorted me past the police cars and ambulance.

I had not met Detective Roberts previously, but it was not hard for me to identify him at the center of the scene. I guessed he was the tall, dark-skinned man sipping something from a foam cup—coffee I guessed from the aroma—and not the man lying on the pavement with a trickle of blood at his side.

Roberts looked like he might have been nicely dressed earlier, with a pressed shirt and nice tie, but all semblance of a sharp appearance had faded with the sun after a long, hard day. The tie was missing, his collar was unbuttoned and the shirt's tail was untucked at his side. I came up behind him. "Detective Roberts?"

He whipped around and looked me up and down. His gaze stopped twice on my left foot, probably noticing the mud on what should have been the pristine white of my habit.

"Father Green?"

"Yes, but I go by Father Max."

"Right. Father Max. Thanks for getting here so quickly." He extended his hand.

I took it. His grip was very firm for a man who looked as fatigued as he. "Of course. What can I, uh." I looked down at the body at our feet. "How can I be of assistance?"

"We were called out here about a half hour ago. A driver noticed the body on the side of the road, called nine-one-one." He pointed to the man on the ground. "I noticed his left hand and thought maybe it would be nice to call a priest."

I looked down to where the detective indicated. Clutched tightly in the man's hand were the beads of a rosary. The crucifix dangled from his grip, resting lightly in his blood.

"I'm thankful you called, but I'm not sure what I can do."

"You're a priest, right? Can't you, I don't know, give him last rites?"

Oh, would that I could, I thought. I smiled, weakly. "The anointing of the sick, like all sacraments, is reserved for the living. He is in God's hands now."

I gazed down at the body. He was on his side, face turned away from me. The only wound I could see was a large gash on his left arm, inside the elbow, but not much blood flowed from it.

"Has the body been examined? May I touch him?" I asked.

"Yeah, go ahead."

I stooped. As gently as I could, I rolled the man onto his back. The face I saw startled me.

It was young, a little older than twenty. I recognized it, but that wasn't what rattled me. I had ministered to many sick and dying. I had held them, anointed their foreheads with oil, as the life slipped from them. It was all in the job description.

No, there was something wrong about this man's face. Frozen onto it was a look of abject horror. His eyes bulged open and his jaw was locked askew, in what looked like some unearthly silent scream. Whatever had killed this man had terrified him. I understood the literal death grip on the rosary. May Mother Mary protect his soul, if She didn't his body.

I closed his eyes, then traced a cross on his forehead. "Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen," I whispered, and dwelt on the English meaning of the words: Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

I remained at the man's side for a moment longer. I looked down to the wound on his arm. The blood drained from my face. It looked like a bite mark; punctures from teeth were apparent. I had seen this type of bite before. "Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us," I muttered. I hoped it was not what I thought it was. We did not need that sort of animal wandering through our little community.

Very little blood had oozed from the wound. A tiny pool had formed at his side and trickled downhill towards my feet. I looked down to see my scapular dragging on the ground, in the red stream.

I sighed. "Thank you, Lord," I said once more. Mud was one thing, but blood stains were next to impossible to remove. I might have to toss this habit out, which was a shame: it was my favorite.

"I've seen this man," I said, standing. "At mass. He attends my parish. Tim something. Or Tom."

"Thomas Augustino, according to his ID," Detective Roberts replied.

I turned to face him. "Do you know how he died?" I asked.

"Not sure. He had his wallet. Still had cash in it, so that rules out mugging. The ME could only find that one wound on his arm. But there's not nearly enough blood around for him to have died from that. So he was either moved after he died, or there's some other cause."

I was hoping for the second option, for the poor man's sake.

I saw that the coroner was behind the detective, waiting to take the body. I stepped aside to let the coroner do her job. I watched the young woman, with her assistant's help, gently place the body into a bag.

"Supposing that the man died by some other means, what do you think bit his arm? What animal would have taken one bite and left?" I said, turning to face the detective.

"I dunno. Maybe a coyote took a nibble and decided it didn't like the taste. Or it could have been scared off by a passing car."

I shook my head. That wasn't a coyote bite.

The detective must have noticed my expression. He looked at me with a furrowed brow. "It doesn't look like an animal bite," I explained.

"Yeah, I know. But it doesn't look human."

He was right. It wasn't that either.

The detective smirked. "I don't know," he said. "I don't think I've seen anything like it." He hesitated before turning to look me in the eye. "Have you."

I considered what to say for a moment. "No," I lied.

I try not to make a habit of lying to those in positions of authority, but somehow I didn't think I would be believed anyways if I told the detective that his victim had been killed by a demon.

* * *

Everyone liked it so much they asked me to bring more next week, instead of those boring, awful, dreadfully-written Pirates... in Spaaaace! (Really!) This, of course, puts me in the uncomfortable position of, you know, actually having to write more of these pages. Which requires that I figure out what I was writing about.

I think I shall call it "Father Max the Vampire Slayer: Twilight of the Blade Underworld" and make it a story about a priest who, along with his blonde cheerleader sidekick, slay sparkly vampires who look like Kate Beckinsale, wear lots of leather and carry lots of guns, and are basically big bags of red jelly.

Speaking of The Onion...

One Year Into the Stimulus.

Meant to link that a while ago. People from Smelly Old Virgina will appreciate item #2. People who have the tiniest grasp of basic economics will appreciate the last item on the list.

Whale Biologist of the Day/Week/Month

"They Need to Be Liberated From Their God"

...says Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of one of the founders of Hamas. He converted to Christianity and became a spy for Israel.

"I converted to Christianity because I was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love.... I'm not trying to convert the entire nation of Israel and the entire nation of Palestine to Christianity. But at least if you can educate them about the ideology of love, the ideology of forgiveness, the ideology of grace. Those principles are great regardless, but we can't deny they came from Christianity as well."

Do you consider your father a fanatic? "He's not a fanatic," says Mr. Yousef. "He's a very moderate, logical person. What matters is not whether my father is a fanatic or not, he's doing the will of a fanatic God. It doesn't matter if he's a terrorist or a traditional Muslim. At the end of the day a traditional Muslim is doing the will of a fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist God. I know this is harsh to say. Most governments avoid this subject. They don't want to admit this is an ideological war. (Quick, call John C. Wright. Someone else who agrees with him.)

"The problem is not in Muslims," he continues. "The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to."

These are all dangerous words. Of the threats issued to his life by Islamists, he says, "That's not the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm OK with it, I'm not afraid. . . . Palestinians have reason to kill me. Some Israelis may want to kill me. My goal is not to defeat my enemy. It is to win over my enemy." (Spoken like St. Francis of Assisi)

Have fun with that. I'll be over here hiding from the suicide bombers running your way.

In Honor of International Women's Day

(When's International Men's Day?)

Oh, Girls Are No Good At Genocide

East Timor's First Female Dictator Hailed As Step Forward For Women

Courtesy The Murloc's Parents

...who were at the Reagan Library to see Mark Levin live. The video of the speech is below and is a very, very good watch. It's long but I recommend you take a look.

Optimal numeric base

After starting an argument on a subject I know nothing about (a frequent hobby I enjoy), I was unsatisfied with the "I have to go home" or "I have work to do" cop-outs from those around me. So I proceeded to seek confirmation that the optimal numeric base would be a power of 2 (I was lobbying for either 8 or 16) from the most trustworthy of sources, the internet. I was aghast to discover that the internet too was wrong for disagreeing with me. But this sure is an interesting read. Even the comments are interesting! (I should post something about the author being a ghey n00b just to even out the comments). There are lots of perspectives to consider apparently when deciding on an optimal numeric base.

Dear Internet,

I normally hate criticizing grammar, particularly because I am so prone to mess it up myself. But in this case, I see the incorrect usage more frequently than the correct usage. This has caused me much frustration, and I would appreciate it, Internet, if you would correct your behavior.

The issue:

"Loath" is an adjective meaning "reluctant" or "unwilling", such as in "I am loath to use that word correctly." It ends in a hard "th" and rhymes with "both".

"Loathe" is a transitive verb meaning "despise". The connotation is one of intense hatred, as in "I loathe using that word correctly." It ends in a soft "th" and rhymes with "clothe".

Now you know and, as they say, knowing is half the battle. Please correct your usage of these words immediately and stop saying that your are *shudder* "loathe" to do something. You cannot be "loathe". You can loathe and you can be loath.

Internet, this constitutes your first and only warning. From now on, every time you misuse these words, I shall strangle a bunny. You have been warned.

Sincerely,
Me

P.S. For more common errors to avoid, see here.

Rules Grammar Change.