Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!

So inspired by another post on Lorna's blog, and a question in a seminar from my chair, "What is evil?"

I grew up with evil being associated with disobedience. It's a convenient definition, and it works for a lot of situations. The problem is, it's rife for exploitation.

If evil is disobedience, whether to human or Divine law, then what is disobedience, or obedience, for that matter? In abusive situations, the notion of obedience gets perverted and twisted into a shadow of what it was. The abuser seeks to hold absolute control and power over the abused, and uses this "obedience" as a chain.

But obedience isn't blind, and it doesn't ever contradict free will. Over and over again in the Rule of St. Benedict, obedience is equated with the ability--lovingly--to listen to another person. It's also a mutual obedience required from everyone to everyone: from the newbie novices to the people who've lived an entire lifetime in that enclosure. The abusive perversion of obedience is only in one direction, and only has the best interests of the abuser at heart. St. Benedict's obedience has the other's best interests in the foreground.

So what is evil? Evil is disobedience, where one knowingly and willingly asserts power over another, in order to subjugate, humiliate, and denigrate that person. I have a hard time believing in some sort of evil entity, because the temptation to do evil is so seductive and enticing, especially if it's been done to you.

New Blog on the block

Cascadia Catholics, which is started by the peace and justice group at my parish. They're a good group of people. So if you've any space on your blogroll, check 'em out!

My Game List

So the Hoopy Frood I'm marrying has a list of games he's playing through over here. I think I need to start something similar, because I'll find games used or on sale, and I'll pick them up. I may start playing them, but I get busy with life and grad school, so they fall by the wayside. Again, I reserve the right to reorder at any time, and I'll establish a beaten condition, like he does. So I give you...my list:

1. "Indigo Prophecy" PS2 (almost done with this one, might as well put it first)
2. "Resident Evil" (PSX)
3. "Resident Evil: Director's Cut" (PSX)
4. "Fatal Frame" (PS2) Better play this one soonish, with the next few...want to do a paper on gender, violence, and survival horror games.
5. "Clocktower 3" (PS2)
6. "Silent Hill 4" (PS2) (Started the PC version and got fed up with the audio not synching in cutscenes. pissed me off and I gave the DVD to the Hoopy Frood.)
7. "Katamari Darmacy" (PS2)
8. FFX (PS2)
9. FF9 (PSX)
10. FF8 (PSX) Almost finished this one, was on the last disc, but I lost the save game.
11. "Galerians" (PSX)
12. GTA: Vice City (PS2)
    
13. GTA: San Andreas (PC) might switch to the PS2 version, because the PC controls are so awkward, and I can't reprogram my gamepad to allow for the two analog joysticks as buttons.
    
14. "The Movies" (PC)
15. "Morrowind" (PC) (although I don't know if you can finish this one...)
16. "Morrowind: Tribunal" (PC)
    
17. "Morrowind: Bloodmoon" (PC)
    
18. "Warlords: Battlecry III" (PC) (love love love this game)
19. "Planescape: Torment" (PC) (If a video game can be art, this one's it.)
    
20. ".hack: Outbreak" (almost done with it, already played the first 2)
21. ".hack: Quarantine"
    
22. "Fatal Frame" (PSX)
23. "FF Tactics" (PSX) (looooove this game, too.)
    
24. "Dragon Warrior VII" (PSX) (got this one as a birthday present from the Hoopy Frood)
25. "Call of Cthulhu" (PC) (need to upgrade my computer...bought it...and found that it won't run with my CPU. Or hope they release a patch. Pretty pissed off about this one, too. May just give it to the Frood.)
26. "Tactics: Ogre" (GBA) May not be able to finish, because the cartridge is going.
27. "Advance Wars" (GBA)
28. "FF Tactics Advance" (GBA)

Dissertation update

180 / 4,500 (4.0%)

Above's in seconds. It may not seem like much, but I wrote a bunch, then cut out a bunch. Kind of a two steps foward, one step back, but it'll make things easier for the future. Need a break to make more iced tea.

Bunch of things going on, not the least of which oppressive heat and no air conditioning. But things, for good or for ill, eventually work out.

Some things aren't very funny

I'd like to think I have a good sense of humor. It's a rather warped and dark sense of humor, as well. But there are some things, which just aren't funny.

A friend from blogging is in the armed forces stationed elsewhere, in a region of the world where it's none too safe. Every once and awhile, he updates his blog, to let us know he's OK and to rant about various and sundry things. Days and weeks go by without updates.

Then one came from someone claiming to be a buddy of his (who did have posting access and was mentioned before), claiming that he'd been injured. A few hours later the same person made a post that he'd been killed as a result of those injuries. Those who read his blog were stunned. This guy was one of those larger-than-life figures who just couldn't be dead.

Then in the next day or so, people who knew him in real life were able to get in touch with him via phone and verify that he was alive and well. Someone with either a grudge or a very un-funny sense of humor decided to hack his blog and put that post up.

For every side in an armed conflict, there are ordinary people stuck in the crossfire. These people have friends and family who love them. If this were just a practical joke, or someone trying to be an asshole, then they got their jollies. But what if my friend's family (or God forbid) his child had seen the post? There are better ways of making one's political views known, that don't involve hurting people who can't do anything about it.The past 24 hours, I got a small taste of what the friends and family of people in life-threatening jobs go through every day of their lives. It's a sick feeling, reading about a friend of yours killed, and one I hope not to repeat in the future, for the sake of my friend's family.

LISP compiler with attitude

My LISP compiler just told me:

mus_header_read: can't open /home/hildegard/mcgill/obC2.aif: No such file or directory mus_header_read: can't open /home/hildegard/mcgill/obC2.aif: No such file or directory Error: cannot find ~/mcgill/obC2.aif

Restart actions (select using :continue):
0: so what?
1: abort current note.
2: close files and return to top-level.
3: jump past remaining notes.
4: retry the load of 3-5.lisp
5: skip loading 3-5.lisp
6: Abort entirely from this process.
[1c] CLM(12):

LISP compiler with attitude. I love it. Kind of fits my mood lately.

(I use LISP and Common LISP Music to do much of my computer music.)

More on the Divine Office

Meh. After looking at the 1963 traslation of the Roman Breviary, among others, and a couple weeks of the Little Office of the BVM, the 1975 ICEL translation really is kind of "bleh." It's not bad, but it's definitely a product of its times. My biggest beef with it is that it expunges any element of the psalms that might be potentially offensive, including the two cursing psalms. If the Divine Office is supposed to be the prayer of the entire Church, I can't understand why these psalms are left out, with as much violence and evil as there is out there. I can see why most of the Benedicitne and Trappist communities I know of do their own.

I'm not sure where I fit anymore. On the one hand, I dislike a lot of the "modern" musical liturgical developments of the 1970's and 1980's. Maybe I've been reading way too much Adorno, but I don't think guitars belong in the Mass. On the other hand, I can't stand the thought of going back to a time, when women just sat there and looked pious in their little chapel veils. I don't mind Latin, but I think liturgy can be beautiful in the vernacular. I like greater lay involvement with the liturgy, and I like the phrase "full and active participation." I can get filled up, with the brief intimacy of being able to hold a consecrated host. (Aside: I have received on the tongue, but it gives me giggle fits. I found this out when I broke my arm and got chicken pox right before my first communion. Oh well. Chicken pox with a cast was worth not having to wear a frilly white dress.)

It seems like those who have the best resources on Latin translations of it, are those who have the most hateful views towards anything that happened post 1965. I'm not talking even in the same league as my grousing about guitar music. I'm talking about outright hatred and vitriol towards EM's, "girls" as altar servers, and the like. I may dislike the music, but I don't hate the musicians. Is it wrong to want an aesthetically pleasing Divine Office?

Knowledge Base

OK. So aside from my dissertation (Yes, Doc Dork, I am working on it), my obsession this summer has been trying to find a copy of the Divine Office with all 150 psalms in Latin, to keep my mediocre Latin skills from going to mush.

The progression of this obsession has been thus: last March I spent a few days at Our Lady of the Rock, where they did the Divine Office in Latin. I thought it was cool, but didn't think that much of it. Fast forward a few months, and I obtained a copy of the LIttle Office of the BVM in parallel translation. It's nifty, although it's not as user-friendly to the gamer geek grad student as the current 1975 version put out by the Catholic Book Publishing Co. The ICEL version I don't mind, aside from some cheesy 1960's hymns I can't stand. (I kinda like the Grail Psalms.) The big thing that I don't like about it is that they've taken out any part of the psalms that could be offensive, including the two cursing psalms.

So I started looking for a copy of the Monastic Diurnal. But geek that I am, I thought it would be cool to get ahold of Matins, as well, since I'm usually up then, anyway. Then I heard that the breviary published by the OSB in 1963 is the Diurnal + Matins. And, lo and behold, my university actually had a copy. (Which I'm scanning. At least the first 1040 pages of each volume are the same...) Then I hear that the version they published isn't really the Benedictine offices, but the Roman Breviary. Does the Diurnal have all 150 psalms? I know St. Michael's Abbey Press in the UK has a reprint of it, but I don't want to shell out money for it, until I know what I need.

Who's right about the 1963 breviary? And should I be concerned about these people? So much of the Latin liturgy has been coopted by weird scismatic groups, I'm not sure who to trust.

Late-night thoughts on a Chronicle column

So I can't sleep--thanks to the party next door--and I'm ignoring my previous comment about not blogging at 1 a.m. There's a column in the Chronicle of Higher Ed that's haunting me. For those who can't access the link, it's the story of a post-doc in the sciences, who had an abusive advisor/research supervisor. The post-doc eventually gets out of the situation, and actually has people believe his story.

But for every one of the columnist who makes it out of a situation like that unscathed, there are dozens more, who have their careers ruined. For those who have the strength to fight back, others are crushed. For as lucky as I am with my advisor, others aren't so lucky.

Abusers were often abused, themselves, and I wonder if the academic family is similar to the biological one, in this respect. Getting a graduate degree is often like hazing, and the institution's dependence upon one's advisor or committee is ripe for abuse of power and abuse of individuals.

But I like the concept of free will. If we are nothing more than objects of our environment or nuturing, then we don't have a choice in our actions. I'd like to think that we do, and that we can make the choice to not treat others badly. It scares me to wonder how I'll be, when faced with a similar situation. How will I treat my advisees? What kind of advisor am I going to be?

Edit: think I figured out that if I don't have a title on a post, my RSS feed doesn't update. Good discipline to make myself give things titles. I hate titles. Most times it's the last thing I come up with on a piece of music, as well.

Odds and Ends

• I need to start a game list like my Hoopy Frood does over at his blog. If you're interested in gaming and one person's quest through his list of 137 games, check him out. He knows where his towel's at.
  
• I did a bit of retail therapy and picked up "Indigo Prophecy." (Europeans will know it as "Fahrenheight.") Great game, feels a bit short. Although I just checked my played time, and I've got 5.5 hours into it. I haven't unlocked everything, and I know there are some bits I glossed over. It's by no means a game for chidren, but there's very little graphic violence. The soundtrack is great, if a bit repetitive at times. Well worth the $20 so far.
• Is it just me, or are there a lot of super-reactionary conservative Catholic blogs out there? (Probably better for my blood pressure and mental health if I stay away.)
• I've been looking for a copy of the Monastic Diurnal, the version in Latin and English. It's the day hours (minus Matins) of the Benedictine office. I've found one version in reprint through St. Michael's Abbey Press, but it's $65 without postage on a good dollar day. I found another copy here, and just looking at their stuff, they seemed on the up-and-up. Digging further, I found they're associated with the SSPX and the Lefebvre crowd. Yay. Like I really want my money going to support them. Not. So here's hoping interlibrary loan comes through...