The Sunday Morning Muse, April 12, 2009

Musing about Easter.

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I watched the sunrise through the bathroom window as I was brushing my teeth this morning. Easter Sunrise. I thought of Alex getting up and going to church. He doesn't drive a car, so Alex has to go to church when he can bum a ride. He used to walk to the Polish Church over the hill, but now it's closed. So he must find a ride downtown.
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I asked Alex about Easter Sundays. He said they aren't as big a deal at the big church. Men don't wear suits anymore. The ladies don't wear hats. Most people go to church on Saturday night...and then out to dinner. It's easier for them, he said. They don't have to get dressed up twice. Sunday's pews aren't filled with people like they used to be.
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I can remember toward the end of my church-going days, I felt like they needed to give everyone a punch card. Catholics were big on attendance. It was some kind of sin if you missed church, and unless you confessed it or something, you faced consequences. As I remember it, I was scared to miss church, for fear with that sin piled up on top of my other sins, (lying, talking back to my parents, etc) that somehow, if I got hit by a bus and died I'd go to Hell.

There is a rumor spreading that the Catholics are "doing away with" the old ethnic churches. Actually I know a few people who chose to join a Polish National Catholic Church rather than go to the big church downtown. And they are happy. They like the old Polish songs.

When I was a kid on Easter I had to dress up in a Polish costume and participate in a big procession around the church. We had weeks of preparation, learning Polish songs, and practicing the procession so that we knew where to sit. The hardest part actually was not the procession itself but sitting for almost two hours up front in church, where you had to behave. And you breathed in most of the incense, so you had to struggle to keep from coughing while you sang.

I still know a lot of those songs.

Happy Easter.

Lucy Van Pelt Said

"All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt!" ~ Lucy Van Pelt

Grip It and Rip It

"Now Momma Lou makes chocolate gravy; Lord, she is so nice /Poppa Jim pulled me aside and gave me some advice/ He said, 'Quit spending all your money on all those old skanks/Just put some in your pocket and put some in the bank.'"—John Daly, "All My Exes Wear Rolexes"

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The bigger they are, the harder they fall. John Daly certainly resembles that old saying.

He's one golfer you won't see on the Leaderboard at The Masters this year. But you could go up the street and buy something from him.

He's got a bus on Washington Road up from Augusta National, where he is hawking T-shirts, head covers, hats and and stuff, trying to make a buck. (Link) He is on the outside looking in, literally, because he is temporarily suspended from the PGA Tour.

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More from ESPN:

John Daly smashed one tee shot off the top of a beer can during a pro-am. At another tournament, he returned from a rain delay with Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden as his caddie. And his most memorable photo this year came in an orange jail suit, eyes half-closed.

Daly has had his share of problems over the last few years. Alcohol, a few failed marriages, weight challenges, money problems, etc. Let's hope he gets it together at some point and makes a come back.

PS -- if you want to watch the beer can shot.... here.

400 Years of the Telescope

If you are home Friday night, don't miss the PBS Special 400 Years of the Telescope.

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(from the Post Gazette) - Watch the Video Trailer Here.

Since Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) first turned his primitive spyglass on the heavens in 1609, it has moved the Earth from the center of the universe. A new PBS documentary, "400 Years of the Telescope: A Journey of Science, Technology and Thought," is poised to shed light on the telescope's contribution to our understanding of the cosmos. It will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Friday on WQED-TV.The film is part of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 that commemorates the anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope for astronomical purposes in 1609. Subsequent telescopic observations disproved the widely held belief that Earth was the center of the universe; rather, our planet is one of eight major bodies that orbit the sun with a congregation of other objects that include minor planets, asteroids and comets.

The Good News Flower Hour- Episode 15

Church was Wrong, Galileo was Right

"The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved."
-Psalms 104:5


Link

This bible verse shackled the minds of men for thousands of years, and held back
the advance of science. It was this verse that was used as evidence against Galileo, who argued for the theory of Copernicus, that the earth is not immovable, but rotates around the sun. It was for teaching this that he was called to Rome in 1633, and tried for the crime of heresy. The aged Galileo, in his 70's, was taken down into the dungeons of the church and shown the instruments of torture that were going to be used on him if he did not recant. Fearing the torture, and fearing that he might share the fate of Giordano Bruno, whom the church burned at the stake a generation earlier for the same crime, Galileo recanted the truth. He was confined to his home under house arrest, neither allowed to leave or to receive visitors, for the last seven years of his life.
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It wasn't until 1832 that Galileo's work was removed from the list of banned books that Catholics were forbidden to read. That's two hundred years after his trial... and well after Isaac Newton established the truth of the theory!

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In 1992, Pope John Paul II (reluctantly) formally apologized for the persecution of Galileo. They finally admitted that they, the Catholic Church and all the Popes since the beginning of the Church, were wrong, and that Galileo was right. For fifteen hundred years they had argued that every word in the bible was true-- that it was the perfect word of God, true in it's history and in all of its sciences. They were wrong. They threatened, tortured and killed people who disagreed with this error in the most brutal ways imaginable

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Good News Flower Hour- Episode 14

My favorite part is about the Pope. I haven't forgiven the church for what they did to Galileo either.

The Sunday Morning Muse, April 5, 2009

Thirty years after Three Mile Island. I was only a young teenager when it happened, and barely remember it as a blip on the radar screen of my youth, even though I live here in the Keystone State. I found this Walter Cronkite newscast and it is fascinating to watch. Even if just to see how much things have changed in broadcasting and news conferences. The black and white video also makes it strangely surreal. Like you are waiting for the end of the world and Walter Cronkite will patiently tell you when it will arrive.
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I've been in sort of a self imposed newsblock lately, so I didn't even realize the 30 year anniversary of the event until I started Googling it. Actually I was going to rave about North Korea's missle launch today, and how we really need to put this nuclear nonsense to bed somehow before the whole planet gets destroyed. Now I feel this need to dig up something from the No Nukes Concert from way back then. I think I had it on an eight track.

Touching The Queen? She touched first!

Since when did conservatives start caring about diplomacy, much less obscure rules of diplomatic decorum? I seem to remember these same bloggers defending a previous president who (while not actively pissing off the entire world with his policies and rhetoric), took the time to give the Chancellor of Germany an awkward neck massage, told the Pope he gave an "awesome speech", and, after implying that the Queen was over 200 years old, turned around and winked at her. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that these same bloggers would have lept to George Bush's defense if he had tackled the Queen 'Naked Gun' style or belched in her face.

Quoted from the Anonymous Liberal.

The Sudden Right Wing Obsession with Diplomatic Protocol.

I came across this post responding to the Right wingnuts' determination to find ways to make the Obama's look bad on their first oversea trip. The First Lady was a big hit in Europe... with her genuine warmth and great ability to connect with people. As usual the loons on the Right are so pissed at the Obama's popularity, they resort to sneering and sniping. As for protocol...nothing will ever top W's father--George H.W. Bush--who threw up on the Japanese Minister. (video here, if you can stomach it)

Leonard Cohen on Fresh Air Today

Who but Leonard Cohen, when asked to describe a raincoat he once owned, called it a sort of the opposite of an invisibility cloak...."the garment that will lead you to erotic and intellectual adventures...."

It's always a joy to hear Leonard unexpectedly as I did on my way home from work today. That remark and a bit of the song Famous Blue Raincoat is about 9 minutes or so into the featured program on Fresh Air today. You can go to the website below and hear it.

NPR's Fresh Air ran parts of Leonard's 2006 interview...and intermingled his readings of some of his poetry from Book of Longing. You will also hear snippets of several songs...and I must say interviewer Terry Gross did a wonderful job picking them. You can tell she is a fan. Asking him about different lyrics and asking insightful questions. She gets him to talk about his 5 years at Mt. Baldy at the Zen Center...and he reveals a suprizing insight...it is not as reclusive to go to a monastery as you would think. There are more private moments on Boogie Street.

His voice..though much lower and gravelly than in his youth still rings with his spirit. I can almost hear the younger Leonard underneath in his phrasing...with his pauses, and a smile peeking through the darkness and that sense of longing which Leonard is known for.

There's no better way to hear Leonard's poetry than him reading it. I loved "Titles" and "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (which I taped to my wall a long time ago)

Toward the end a discussion of beauty, prompted by a phrase in the song Chelsea Hotel. "We are ugly...but we have the music." The song is about a tryst he had with Janis way back when. The encounter is immoralized in the song.

"I'll be waiting on the corner where there used to be a street." A snippet of a poem/lyric he wrote for Anjani, comes at the end. There's more to it, but I won't spoil it. Terry Gross seemed awed by it.

He makes me want to write so much better.

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Leonard's new CD is called "Live in London" and it was recorded last July.