NRO’s folks had a great LINE from Charlie Krauthammer on Obama’s “budget:”
The president used the word “honest.” That’s astonishing. Look, all budgets are fiction. This one is fantasia.
Pay no attention to the fact that the fellow leading the parade in that picture has huge ears. It’s a complete conincidence. Nothing to see here. Move along.
And yes, I know it’s usually “1,000.” I’m just taking the impending inflation into account.
Today, however, BRIETBART, ZENIT, and FATHER Z. all linked to a more complete (and for me, more satisfying) statement:
The Holy Father and my Superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay, have requested that I reconsider the remarks I made on Swedish television four months ago, because their consequences have been so heavy.
Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.
On Swedish television I gave only the opinion (…”I believe”…”I believe”…) of a non-historian, an opinion formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available and rarely expressed in public since. However, the events of recent weeks and the advice of senior members of the Society of St. Pius X have persuaded me of my responsibility for much distress caused. To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise.
As the Holy Father has said, every act of injust violence against one man hurts all mankind.
+Richard Williamson
While still feeling that his statement is very (perhaps “too”) carefully worded, there are two things I’d particularly like to note here.
The first is that he sincerely seems to be taking responsibility for the imprudence of his remarks without disavowing them altogether. And that makes a lot of sense. I disagree with his opinion - drastically so - but while I might wonder how someone could possibly hold such opinions, I don’t see how anyone could possibly say that he was simply lying about his beliefs. If he truly believes that the Holocaust resulted in “only” 300,000 Jewish dead and that gas chambers were not used in the Nazi concentration camps, then he should not disavow such a belief. (He should still read a lot more history, though. Or at least try to find a few works from a difference perspective.)
Second, he actually addresses “survivors and relatives” this time around. And that makes a big difference to me. His first attempt seemed directed exclusively towards the Vatican and Benedict, and while that was certainly an area that could have expected an apology, the affront to them was definitely secondary. Now, he’s at least willing to concede that there was a broader victim to his comments.
I feel better about him now. And I’m not even that bothered by the video of his confrontation with the Argentinian reporter. More signs of imprudence, perhaps. But probably pretty understandable.
Among the less startling assertions one could make today would be that we live in a drug culture. The vast majority of us gobble an aspirin here, gulp an antibiotic there, whiff a decongestant now or a few milligrams of nicotine then. We take a little opiate in our cough syrup, a jab of Novocain from the dentist, caffeine to start the day, alcohol to mellow it and a sedative to blank it out at bedtime. However, after it has been admitted that most citizens dope themselves from time to time, there remain excellent grounds for claiming that in the matter of drug usage, athletes are different from the rest of us. In spite of being—for the most part—young, healthy and active specimens, they take an extraordinary variety and quantity of drugs (see cover). They take them for dubious purposes, they take them in a situation of debatable morality, they take them under conditions that range from dangerously experimental to hazardous to fatal. The use of drugs—legal drugs—by athletes is far from new, but the increase in drug usage in the last 10 years is startling. It could, indeed, menace the tradition and structure of sport itself.
Scary, yet true.
But you know what’s really scary? That ARTICLE was written in 1969.
At what point does hindsight become culpable ignorance?
The notion that someplace there is a compound, a formula or a food that will automatically convert bronze medals into gold is a general one confined to no one nation, sport or class of competitors. This conviction that there is the athletic equivalent of the philosopher’s stone sought by ancient alchemists, and the terrible fear that somebody else may have already found it, is the rationale—or irrationale—behind many of the current athletic drug practices. It is used as a justification by physicians and trainers for prescribing drugs that cannot be justified on conventional medical grounds. It is the excuse used by coaches and trainers (“There might be something in it”) for pushing pills the effectiveness and safety of which are unknown. It is the reason athletes carry their own little black drug bags, endanger their health, risk their reputations and break oaths and laws to get and use bizarre pharmaceuticals. It explains the ever-multiplying rumors about records being set and games being won by doped competitors. Finally, the belief in the existence of the ultimate pill, and the unrelenting search for it, is why many doctors share Dr. Kerlan’s fear that athletic drug practices are leading to a sports scandal of major proportions.
Luckily, we’ve got The Onion to keep things from getting too DEPRESSING.
OK, that requires some clarification. It keeps us from getting too depressed about baseball. But it does that by shoving us even further into Stimulus-induced depression.
Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week.
The “Credit Score Enhancement Program” will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city’s homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers.
Why wasn’t this sort of thing around when I was trying to buy a house? Or trying to “enhance” my credit score? (Come to think of it, that wouldn’t have helped. My problem was not that my credit score was bad, it was that it didn’t exist. It would have been easier for me to get a loan with bad credit than with no credit. Who’s running this thing, anyway? Anyone? Stanford? The same folks running THIS?)
Sort of. At least this ARTICLE is written by the same guy that wrote Moneyball. And it tends to focus on the same idea; the “there’s more to the sport than meets the eye, or than is understood by the common man/scout” claim is just as interesting in basketball as it in in baseball. Actually, it’s probably a bit more interesting, given the increased importance a single player has in the sport.
Interesting side article HERE which suggests that the Rockets have been better this season with Battier playing while “star” McGrady is hurt than with McGrady playing while Battier is hurt. Course, McGrady’s been trying to play through a pretty serious injury; that might have something to do with it. Even a Moneyball-inspired GM would be reluctant to pick Shane over McGrady.
I’ve always enjoyed Battier, for some reason. He seems like the basketball equivalent of Scott Hatteberg: someone that the “traditionalists” can’t (or don’t) appreciate because his skills don’t ”look right.” But they can be difference-makers in their own right.
It’s nice to see Hobson’s Choice finally getting the TREATMENT it deserves.
An unsung comic triumph from David Lean, Hobson’s Choice stars the legendary Charles Laughton as the harrumphing Henry Hobson, the owner of a boot shop in late Victorian northern England. With his haughty, independent daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie) decides to forge her own path, romantically and professionally, with none other than Henry’s prized bootsmith Will (a splendid John Mills), father and daughter find themselves head-to-head in a fiery match of wills. Equally charming and caustic, Hobson’s Choice, adapted from Harold Brighouse’s famous play, is filled to the brim with great performances and elegant, inventive camera work.
I understand why Lean’s epics are so famous. And I don’t begrudge them that attention; at least, not much. But I cannot escape the belief that his “little” films - Hobson’s Choice, Brief Encounter, perhaps even Great Expectations - are significantly better films. I think it has something to do with their small scope; an ironic fact, given the massive scope for which Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Dr. Zhivago are so frequently praised. (OK, perhaps Dr. Z isn’t praised anywhere near as much.)
Brief Encounter, in particular, is a masterpiece. Few films are as nuanced (or as accurate) in their examination of marital infidelity and a true understanding of marital love. And Hobson’s Choice is not far behind. It does, however, feature a lot more humor, making it significantly more palatable to many.
Columbia Pictures is bringing a time-traveling Jane Austen drama to the bigscreen, with Sam Mendes aboard as producer.
Based on the Brit miniseries “Lost in Austen,” film will center on Amanda, an ardent Jane Austen fan, lives in present day New York with her boyfriend, until she finds she’s swapped places with Austen’s fictional creation Elizabeth Bennett.
The show’s original writer, Guy Andrews, is penning the screenplay.
A couple of quick thoughts:
First, how did I not know this TV series was happening? Second, why would Sam Mendes be inteersted in it? Third, if Sam Mendes is interested in it, how can I be interested? And fourth, by “intriguing” I mean “insane.”
I’m in.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, has suggested his state may not be interested in all of the roughly $4 billion allotted to it in the economic stimulus package to be signed by President Obama today.
“We’ll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it’s beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars,” Jindal said, according to CBS affiliate WWLTV.
…
As WWLTV notes, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said he’ll take any money that Louisiana turns down.
The trickle-down stories that will start to trickle out as the stimulus package goes into effect may turn out to be almost as much “fun” as the passage of the bill itself.
…all of which is significantly less fun than watching the radically different ACCOUNTS of Pelosi’s Papal visit:
From the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, today. In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.
From the Press Office of the Holy See:
Following the General Audience, the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage. His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists, and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of development.
Were Benedict XVI and Nancy Pelosi in the same meeting, or even in the same city, this morning?
And then there’s THIS. It seems to be spreading from South DAKOTA.
