Inside baseball, if I may--

I've made a comment or two regarding the very valid attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to assist in elaborating a more coherent and timely catechesis for students in our schools and learners in religious education and instruction programs. Like anything else, it will work better if all concerned roll up their sleeves and get to work rather than spewing and fulminating about the (mythical) powers that be. Really, there's no substitute for being involved and paying our dues instead of waiting for the next great thing to be dropped into our laps so we can criticize the work of others.

In case you can't click on the title above, here's a pretty good update: http://engagingfaith.blogspot.com/2007/11/national-framework-approved.html

Mr. Bonds

There were several comments in the press yesterday to this effect: "It's a sad day for baseball...."

No it isn't.

Baseball and America ought to be jumping with joy that Mr. Bonds will now have his day in court, and, if found guilty of perjuring himself about his alleged use of banned performance-enhancing drugs, will be removed from the available-heroes landscape.

Go Sox!

Of course, that's the hose of the red variety, and the pro baseball team of the world series championship variety!

"Erring on the side of...."

Now can anyone think of a more misused expression?

"We're going to err on the side of safety."

"We're erring on the side of the children."

I'd prefer we chose not to err at all. Let's ACT or DECIDE in favor of safety, the children, etc.

Give me a break....

Mr. Ahmedinejad's very odd address at the U.N. surely cannot be taken to be a sampling of the best of Muslim-nation statecraft, can it? Even the ambassador from Vatican City wouldn't pretend to deliver such a naive cart-load of religious pomp. If he did, the Church would be laughed from U.N. membership.

If it weren't so dire in its potential, it would be farce.

Just discouraging

There are mountains of serious words about Iraq and policy in the Middle East, but not much good debate. When the first premise of one side's argument is "It's a war for oil," there really isn't very far to go in terms of dealing with "the facts on the ground" both in Iraq and the region.

A challenging article ...

.... about how the atheist and agnostic ought to think about and behave toward sacred texts, in the 9/21/07 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Something to think seriously about and examine later. Texts and reading (do they still call this "hermeneutics") are even more critical issues today than ever.

Mother Theresa

It appears that Mother Theresa of Calcutta was not a “flat character” in the annals of the saints of the Catholic Church. Time Magazine has a major article describing the contents of a new book containing excerpts from her diaries and correspondence over the long period of her adult life, especially from the time of her transition from the community of teaching sisters in which she began her vocation through the period of her ministry as founder of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.
She documents a lifelong spiritual struggle, much of which takes the form of a “dark night of the soul” where despite an intense desire for intimacy with Jesus who called her forward, she often found silence, emptiness, and abandonment. Certainly this does not make her less, but ranks her among the great spiritual figures of Christianity. Based on the account here, the collection of writings appears to be a truly remarkable document. A spiritual guide, in the truest sense, is not the cocksure figure waving a baton at the head of a parade down Main Street, but rather one who dares to navigate the lonely alleys and deep shadows, drawing forward the lost, the hurt, the angry, the doubting.

Reading update

Finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. An apocalyptic story so painful to read that it's impossible to put down. You just have to find out whether the boy and his father live. Why must they? Until the last few paragraphs, they appear to be the last two people who care about others and live on some rudimentary level of principle. All relationships, kinships and taboos, except theirs, have been blasted from the world. (Even the blind prophet in the story isn't very coherent.)

Reading a medieval epic, "The Walking Drum" by Louis L'Amour--his one non-Western, I think.

Still not finished with "Morality Matters."

"Structurally Deficient"

What in the world does that mean?

It is apparently a bureaucratic designation reflecting the general/categorical condition of a particular bridge, according to its age, type and observed manifestations of aging/weathering/usage, etc. It seems to be used to place a bridge on a given schedule of testing and observation. It does not seem to be, by itself, a panic signal to be ignored or not.

I wish the media would begin to grow up about very basic differentiations in terminology. Many reporters confuse a bureaucratic label with some sort of normative statement, as in "the official was dangerously negligent." It doesn't seem that officials of any sort did anything different with the fallen bridge than they do with any other of the thousands of bridge in the same designation: watch carefully, accelerate the monitoring/testing schedule according to the engineering norms that are currently accepted. It may be that these criteria need to be looked at and updated according to what is learned from the collapse in Minneapolis. But that may not be the need--we just don't know. No one has categorically eliminated any possibilities yet, from acts of nature to problems with the ongoing construction to criminal activity.

In case no one's noticed, there are still operations in progress to recover the bodies of victims.