The Power of Nightmares

So I've been way burnt on blogging the past few months. Just haven't had anything interesting to say, honestly.

Tonight I watched the first part of "The Power of Nightmares," a three-part documentary that originally aired on BBC2. The first part describes the rise of neo-conservatism from the philosophy of Leo Strauss and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism around Sayyid Qutb. The neo-conservatives knew to keep power they needed some sort of crisis. In Ford's administration, it was the Cold War. Since the real information out of the CIA showed that the Soviet Union was rapidly falling into economic collapse, information was manufactured. Who was behind all of this? Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.

Qutb was an Egyptian schoolteacher, who was studying over here. He saw Truman's America as corrupt and degenerate. So when he went back, he saw the same influence creeping into Muslim society. His take on things influenced the growing Islamic Jihad. What I found interesting--in the Chinese proverb sense of the term--was that his thought said it was okay to kill the leaders of the government, because they weren't "real" Muslims.

What does that sound like today?

Turn on EWTN. You'll hear talking head after talking head opine about how it's okay to deny communion to those who aren't "real" Catholics. It's fine to disparage them in all sorts of ways because they aren't "real."

And, to be fair, the other side does it too. Have you heard some of the vitriol spewed at those who prefer the extraordinary form of the Mass?

Divisions

So a comment made over at Sr. Susan's blog got me thinking about divisions. The poster made mention of the racism and hostility at one parish, and it certainly echoed my experiences. While my family does have a lot of Irish in it, the Catholics are mostly Italian, and, yeah, they do hold a lot of ugly stereotypes about Irish-Americans now. Now, my Italian family came over before WWII, so these are long-held ideas about other people. And you should hear what they think about the Polish. (In Chicago, they're a substantial group.)

Now, granted, my family isn't going to be winning any awards for progressive thinking, but I have to wonder if the recent troubles in the RCC are due to old fractures that just aren't getting dealt with.

For instance, if you have the Italians that don't like the Irish, the Irish not liking the Italians, and both not liking the Polish, then that's a sign of a bigger problem. Now? You've got Republicans not liking Democrats, pro-life against pro-choice, and God knows what other divisions are happening.

A friend of mine was active in the Catholic Worker movement, and she mentioned that such divisions happened in her day, but that at the end of it, everyone saw each other as Catholic and part of the same Church. Somewhere between then and now we've lost that. Real question is: how do we get it back?

Some New Ground Rules

Still here. Busy. Not really feeling like blogging much.

Along with that, I guess I'm burnt on polarization, and I don't see it getting much better. I'm tired that one side thinks I'm suspect because I don't express the appropriate amount of self-loathing, and that the other side thinks I'm not Catholic enough. I'm tired of people bringing their issues, pinning them on me, and demanding I do something about it. If you're angry that your parents dragged you to Mass all those years ago, I'm not your damn therapist. If you can't understand that the Catholic Church is a diverse place full of different viewpoints, then this blog isn't for you.

I guess I'm tired when people find that I'm not one of "those" Catholics, and proceed to bash the Church in front of me. When I call them on it, they're all bent out of shape, insisting that I should agree with them. Look, if I didn't love the RCC, would I really put up with all the bullshit of the past eight years? If I didn't believe the dogmas (look them up, there aren't many) and the Nicene Creed, would I really stick around?

On the liturgy: What we bring to it should be the best. Can you really point to most of the music written in the past 50 years and say it's the best we can do? There was a history of the Church sponsoring the arts to add beauty to the liturgy. Now? When's the last time your parish had a Mass composed? Does this mean going back to an earlier form? I don't know. It can't hurt to be inspired by it.

On politics: Does my faith influence my voting? You bet it does. Did I vote the way I did because of my faith? Certainly. Does it mean anything other than that? Nope. Is it anyone else's business? We have a secret ballot in this country for a reason.

There are certain topics I'm not going to discuss. It's not that I don't have opinions on them, but it's that discussions of those topics rarely lead anywhere good. Nor do they really help people. We all know what these topics are. If you bring them up and they aren't relevant, or bring them up to start a fight, I'm going to block you from commenting. Don't like it? Get your own blog.

Jack's new IP: 98.178.151.160

I really hope he does start with threatening emails, because ISP's can and will take action. FYI, if he does start harassing you via email again, save every email you get with complete header information.

The big elephant in the parish hall

http://notredamescandal.com/

So Obama is going to give the commencement address at Notre Dame. I wonder what percentage of sites like that and the protest around it are actually fueled by unspoken racism of the scary black man over his policies on anything. I don't see Joe Biden getting the same level of hysteria.

Maybe it's my perspective post-civil rights movement, but I don't see the average parish as an overly inclusive place. LA and TX are bit better in some respects, but there's an awful lot of segregation between English and Spanish-speaking Masses. On some feast days at my parish in LA, they'd do a mix of both, which worked really well. But there would be those in the pews who'd bitch about "them" not going to "their" Mass. I think our parish doesn't have Spanish-language Masses, because there just isn't much call for them in North Seattle. Now is kind of a strange time after Fr. Tom's death, but we've always had at least one priest, who's fluent in Spanish.

can't speak for everyone's parish, but aside from one or two families, there just aren't that many PoC at my parish.

I could understand not liking Obama's policies and engendering some sort of discussion on those issues. That's a totally valid disagreement. But a lot of the anti-Obama rhetoric is getting rather personal, which isn't a valid critique of the guy. It's hinting at the big elephant in the middle of the room, which is that the average US Catholic parish isn't overly diverse and has never had to grapple with issues of race like other denominations. (Or so I'm going out on a limb to say.)

don't believe me? how many PoC do you see on EWTN, for instance, on their 'prime time' lineup? how about at EWTN's Masses?

Sorry for the crosspost between blogs, but I think this is an important issue that isn't being discussed.

From a friend on LJ. I don't know whether to be amused or disturbed by this:



I don't think that song means what he thinks...

Haloscan problems appear to have resolved. I wasn't banning anyone who shouldn't already have been banned. I'm really busy in thesis land, so I may disappear for awhile.

Because we all could use a cute cat video right about now.

Do Android Trolls Dream of Electric Bridges?

Guys, I think everyone's favorite troll is a bot. Jeff, do you have that bit of robot, webcrawler, and bot blocking text in your header? I put it in, and he doesn't seem to come around. (That and I've got him banned from commenting in haloscan.) How many of you have it in your header? I was getting hits from him, but haven't, once I fixed a problem with the header. (I mis-typed something.)

He acts a lot like one of those AIM sex bots. I mean, think about it. once you get to a certain point in the conversation, if you keep responding, he'll respond with something completely off topic, but a previous topic of conversation. It doesn't matter what you respond with, so long as certain phrases are there, he'll respond with a set (pre-programmed?) response. But if you get to something that breaks the query/response loop, you'll get gibberish, like it's some sort of parse error.

For instance, Eliza. Here's another interesting article from Salon. (Would seem to contradict my theory, since humans don't always pass the Turing test.)

University of Tulsa does have some people doing AI at it. I could see some grad student getting ahold of the book our favorite troll supposedly wrote for a couple of bucks and using that to set up certain facts about the bot's "life." Eliza's decades old, and I know advances have been made in the field.

Then again it would be more likely (and more ethical) to have a bot you wouldn't notice. It responds appropriately to threads, and goes on its merry way without leaving a shitstorm in its wake. Unless it is learning from analysis of threads. The internet's a nasty place, so I could see any AI loose on it going psycho.

Clerical geeks

Okay, so Maria and I got talking on someone else's LJ about clergy who game. I know some people lurk on my blog, and I'm wondering how well the Catholic Church is represented in Azeroth. So come on, priests and religious who lurk here. Time to fess up. Alliance or Horde? I can completely understand not mentioning servers.

Other gaming is fair game (pardon the pun), as well. I think I remember hearing on a podcast that Fr. Roderick of the Daily Breakfast podcasts played Lord of the Rings Online.

Facebook

PSA time. For those of you using IE, consider using Safari (available for windows) or Firefox. 25% of you are still using IE6. Please upgrade, if you have to use IE. I'd heartily recommend Firefox with NoScript, a plugin that blocks javascript. Considering some of the really nasty security breaches with Safari, I'd consider using Firefox on OS X, as well.

Here's another PSA that follows up on my main post. If you don't know about Facebook's beacon, you might want to read up on it and opt out, if you care about privacy. Also consider downloading the add-on BlockSite and putting this entry in your blocked sites: http://*facebook.com/beacon/ Of course, this works, if you're using Firefox. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog posting.

I'm feeling caught between worlds again.

As a lot of my "regulars" know, I'm on Facebook. On the one hand, it's a nice portal to the outside world. I can fire off something quick there that I can't really do here. It's also a good way to keep in touch with some people. Since I switched to my real name, a lot of people from elementary through high school have found me. Some of them I don't particularly mind, and it's been good to catch up. Others? I have to wonder if they really think I'm going to friend them back, after they were awful to me.

That, aside, I'm not in the same place as I was back then. Jokingly, I've started a FAQ. But there's something deeper about it all. I feel as if I'm forced back into the place I was back then, and it's not a comfortable place to be. I've moved on. Maybe the facebook people have moved on, as well.

Day 4

Accidentally deleted the last one. I got a bit behind, because I was busy...but while I'm waiting for my rice to cook (curry), I'm doing Day 4.

Today's thing to squee over: the whole confession thing.

And as to why it's something to squee over, I'd like to share the story of my first confession. I was in 2nd grade. This was when I was having problems in school, and my teacher had discovered that the reason why I was having problems in school was because I was horribly bored. I loved my second grade teacher. But there were still problems. One such problem happened, and (as is wont to happen), my parents found out about it. Now, in hindsight, it wasn't a big deal, and my teacher wasn't overly bothered about it. But my parents (who weren't winning any parenting awards), raked me over the coals for it. Like I still have nightmares about that "discussion." Every time thereafter when I'd annoy them or do something wrong, they'd bring it up.

So when it was time for our first confessions, I was scared. Now, forgiveness isn't a concept that exists in abusive families. There's nothing that you can ever to do mitigate the consequences of your actions. You are always at fault, no matter what. Love is also conditional upon how good you are. When I had to tell my parents what I had done, it was literally hell on earth.

So when it was my time, I was terrified, and I confessed that incident. I remember crying, when the priest asked if I were sorry. I remember him telling me that God still loved me, which made me cry all the more.

After that day, my parents never mentioned that incident. I never told them what I confessed, either. I don't remember the priest's name, but I wonder if he ever knew what a grace I'd received.

30 Days of Squee, Day 1

So I'm really not feeling the blogging thing. It seems like the blogosphere is dominated by those who shout the loudest, and I'm really not interested in trolls. That having been said, I'm declaring a month-long ban on polemics in my blog. I'll save the bitching for my LJ, and I'm ruthlessly deleting comments that bitch on my blog. Y'all have your own blogs you can bitch on for a month.

That having been said, I'm going to do a "30 days of squee." In other words, each day I'm going to post something that keeps me coming back to the RCC through all the bullshit.

Day 1: There are people like Fr. Tom in the RCC. I know my LJ is probably tired of him by now, but I've never met a more saintly, wonderful person. He lost his battle with cancer yesterday, and although it's sad, I can't help but be happy that I knew him, however brief. I think either this picture or this one sums up how a lot of people remember him.

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2417

Everyone's probably already seen this, but there's some good stuff in there. (If you can stand Yet Another Post about the last presidential election.) Like:

A hate-filled blogosphere, on the other hand, feeds a politics of odium, misleading people of faith and good will, diminishing and at times obliterating our ability to know one another. Our faith urges us to presume the stranger is kind, and to seek out opportunities to manifest love of neighbor.

I'd think that World of Warcraft would be the last place to look for commentary on social justice issues, but I've run into a few quests the past couple of days that bring up a number of issues.

First up is the quest, "Art of Persuasion." In it, the player is asked to "interrogate" a prisoner, since the quest-giver is forbidden from such things by his faction. There's no question what the player is being asked to do when given an item that will cause extreme pain, but no damage. There is also no way to progress the quest line without doing this quest, nor are there ways to complete it without torturing a prisoner. (For the record, while there's a lot I've done in video games, this quest was way over the line, and I dropped it.)

What's really over the line for me is that a player can keep poking the prisoner, after information is supposedly received (or so the write-ups on the quest say). That, and players can get other "neural needles" for free from another NPC in the same area. Yet another instance of the Milgram experiments.

Supporters of the quest will point out that it's no different from the TV show, "24," and the Death Knight opening quest sequence. One, the show "24" isn't accurate in that torture rarely gives accurate information. People will say whatever the hell they think the torturers want to get them to quit. Secondly, in the Death Knight opening quests, the person the player needs to get information from is fighting back the entire time. Plus, the Death Knights in that quest line are supposed to be evil and under the thrall of the Lich King. My gnome warlock who happened upon that quest is supposed to be one of the good guys, and fully in control of herself.

If this quest is supposed to be a critique of the Bush/Cheney policy of "special interrogations," it fails. There's no way to finish the quest without playing along, for one.

But the Netherwing Drake quests in the Outland more than make up for the torture quest. In them, the player happens upon the Netherwing Drake flight in one of the Outland areas and eventually winds up helping free them from slavery in a nuanced fable about human trafficking. The entire quest line walks the player through earning their trust, to infiltrating the faction imprisoning them, working with others trying to free the drakes, and finally breaking the fel Orcs' domination of them.

Never mind that the end of that quest line is one of the coolest ever. It's not every day that you fly off into the sunset on the back of a huge dragon.

Yet another drive-by posting, but this link is too good not to share. It's an article written about Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was thinking to myself how she could possibly speak to a 21st century person. Here's how:

http://jesusindisney.blogspot.com/2008/12/nuestra-senora.html

Courtesy of Maria, who posted about it first.

You know, when conservatives start going off on feminism and how Mary (specifically Our Lady of Guadalupe) wasn't a feminist, I wonder who the heck they're talking about.

She was pregnant and not married in a time when that was a death sentence at the hands of men. She's the first contemplative, when she chose the better part of pondering everything in her heart. (It used to be that Trappists--men and women--would take her name at their professions.) She got Jesus off his ass at Cana, when women just didn't talk to men like that. She was there at the crucifixion and then in the upper room. Sounds like a wonderfully empowered woman, to me. She also has a habit of appearing to children and peasants, not exactly bourgeoisie.

And I just learned that she's got her own book in the Qu'ran. This is pretty cool. I think it would be fun to get a Muslim's opinion on Luke.

(Crossposted from my LJ.)

Kind of a drive-by posting. Haven't had much to say lately, I guess. Found a blog to share:

http://youngwomenandcatholicism.blogspot.com/

Now, when I hear "young women" and "Catholicism" on a blog, I immediately think of what the Catholic barfosphere thinks of the terms. That version of womanhood doesn't remotely describe or speak to my life. I was hesitant, but Sr. Julie of A Nun's Life writes for them, so I thought I'd take a peek. (Since she's cool and has interesting things to say.) Glad I did, because it's nice to be reminded that there are others on the 'Net who're like me.

I was trying to express everything I'm thankful for in my bloggy friends, but I think this video conveys a very special Thanksgiving message to everyone:

Bishops ask for stay of execution. This makes me happy with my archbishop. You don't want to read the comments on it. it surprises me how liberal Seattle can be, except when some undesirable is involved (homeless people, people on death row, etc.)