Oh, Heck, let's try another!

Dear GK,

Happy Birthday!

You may have read that last week I reported some of your notes about Beacon House; this week, I think I'll return to Manalive, if that is allowed, and repeat some of your remarks about Cambridge. A copy of the notes is attached bellow

Your child in orthodoxy

Friends, Romans, Compliments...

Dear Earlendings,

"... I come not to bury Sancta Sanctis but to braise her... "

I think I shall probably have to interrupt my lecture to Adam Smith (it's not really addressing anything of his per-se; he just stands-in for practical economics) so that I can expound some nonsense in appologia pro cultus personalis. Because, while Enbrethiliel may have disabled comments at her own blog, she Can't Stop Me Commenting Here at Mine!

Home to the Dukes of Beacon

Dear Enbrethiliel,

It's Belfry, here.

This may seem an odd choice, given what others have complained of as "GKC's predilection for splashing purple moons and peacock skies about and calling it scenery" ( --> ). But in fact he was also a man keenly interested in family and holy homes, and being also a writer of vivid imagination, in Manalive he builds for us a diverting holiday house indeed, though it takes a while.

A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea.
[...]
The flying blast struck London just where it scales the northern heights, terrace above terrace, as precipitous as Edinburgh. It was round about this place that some poet, probably drunk, looked up astonished at all those streets gone skywards, and (thinking vaguely of glaciers and roped mountaineers) gave it the name of Swiss Cottage, which it has never been able to shake off. At some stage of those heights a terrace of tall gray houses, mostly empty and almost as desolate as the Grampians, curved round at the western end, so that the last building, a boarding establishment called "Beacon House," offered abruptly to the sunset its high, narrow and towering termination, like the prow of some deserted ship.

Welcome!

The Root of all Evil

Dear Prof. Smith,

There's a facebook status meme going around, asking people to set this slogan as their status for the day

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

It also asks for "politicians to get this right".

The gap between getting it right and the current state of affairs differs, of course, from place to place and across demographics. Nonetheless, whatever partial solutions are implemented in Italy or the Phillipines or the United States of America, there are common and basic problems that the perfectly-sensible appeal to justice above highlights.

Unintended Consequences

Dear Buddy,

It's really *weird*. I've noticed that, since I got into a habit of keeping my cellular on "vibrate", two strange and conflicting things happen:
\begin{enumerate}
\item It's a commonplace for me not to notice the phone actually ringing.
\item I frequently mistake other disturbances for phonecalls.
\end{enumerate}
I don't know what to make of it! It's like, I've got phantom phone rings that sometimes fall asleep.

What is up with that?

bemused

If pigs had wings...

... would they be kosher?

Dear Thomas,

I hope you'll forgive the indirect ribbing.

non nobis

[...]

Dear Enrico,

It occurred to me recently that several fabulists have pondered the potential consequences of history-changing time travel. I don't myself believe it possible any more than the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Goodness knows there's enough weirdness that just comes from classical dynamics in at-least three dimensions! (anyone up for a game of chaos?) In any case, lots of people have wondered about that, and the general consensus seems to be that it's a bad idea to try playing with, as everyone's attempts to fix various things that have gone wrong in our personal lives or politics or S.T. Colleridge's kite-high poetry... but I digress... they all invariably go wrong and produce something much worse.

At the same time it occurred to me that many people also agree that the 20th Century has been one of the Worst Times Ever. Sure, we all live in obscene comfort now (only, we don't all ...) and now is (as ever) one of the best times to be alive, also some of the most horrendous things have been done almost as soon as they got sufficiently easier to do. And that's easier just from a technological point of view.

So, many agree that Time Travel to Change History will lead to Bad Things, and also the Recent History is full of Bad Things. So, to answer your question "where are they all?" if there were any, (ok, not space aliens, but time tourists) I'd suggest they're probably at odd moments between 1910 and 1978, give or take, with plenty of arbitrariness thrown-in.

luke skywalker

Lies! Vicious Lies!

Dear Ms. Welch,

Fr. Longenecker noticed and pointed to your recently published opinion letter, and I noticed at the end this most insulting editorial flourish:

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Raquel Welch.

Of course, this a patent falsehood! There must be millions of people who agree with what you write here --- several thousand of these surely must be compatriots of yours. Possibly they meant to say "the opinions expressed in this commentary are not intended as indicating any policy of ours," or "... do not carry any dogmatic weight," or some such slitherism; but to suggest that your notions are totally unsupported by anyone else's wisdom is at best linguistic carelessness of the worst kind! I'm even inclined to suspect that they have agreed to publish your letter largely as a lightning rod for negative reaction, and are more than happy to keep happy those you critique as wanting in discernment, while suggesting that you've basically become a reactionary kook! In the attention-getting business, no publicity is bad publicity, right?

Well I for one am not fooled. I might have to think carefully about how close you get to the Truth, but basically I agree. And be assured also of my ongoing prayers for your salvation!

God Bless,

the author; he is entirely responsible for the opinions expressed in this commentary; he doesn't give two cent's worth of worry for what blogger or your ISP thinks about them.

Yo, /dev?

echo <<eof >>/dev/null

Have an eye out for this series. I think it's going to be a keeper.

eof

<--!
addenda:
Our Father,
Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread,
forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who sin against us;
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
-->