The Kiwi-Do

Here’s how New Zealander’s (men in particular) are styling their hair now! They picked it up from Mark Stevens right before he had his hair cut to Rick Warren Disciples specs.

The End is Nigh for Oxford’s Faculty of Theology?

If so, that’s both sad and silly as well as totally unnecessary and pointless.  Political correctness is nothing but silly narrow-minded idiocy.

Writes Ruth Gledhill: In my story in The Times today, we report: ‘For more than 800 years, the University of Oxford has led the world in the study of the divine. For centuries, it has sat alongside Cambridge as the leading centre for the study of the Bible. Now academics are considering a proposal to rebrand theology at Oxford as “religious studies” because of the growing demand from students who wish to study Islam, Hinduism and Judaism as well … Read More

via Fr Stephen’s Blog

Perverted Priest Promotes Pedophilia!

Amsterdam — The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a Salesian priest served on the board of a group that promotes pedophilia with the full knowledge of his boss. The order’s top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that the priest – identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old “Father Van B.” – served on the board of “Martijn,” a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex. The group is widely reviled but not outlawed.

Well Father VB needs to be defrocked at the very least. And any group that promotes pedophilia should be outlawed. Seriously. How can a group like that exist? And how can a Priest be part of it without suffering serious consequences. This is not right. It is just not right.

“Of course we reject this and distance ourselves from this personal initiative” on the part of the priest, Spronck said in a statement. “Membership in such organizations does not fit with the ethos of the Salesian order.”  However, Spronck’s own superior in Belgium said he will investigate both Spronck and Van B., after both men were quoted by RTL Nieuws as saying such relationships aren’t always harmful.

WHAT?????  ‘Aren’t always harmful’??????  Oh yes, they are.  Priests calling evil good?????  And it being tolerated by their superiors?????  Dear Lord we need the fires and racks of the Holy Inquisition these days more than they did in the 16th century.  This is outrageous.  I’m not even a Catholic and I’m infuriated.  Sick. Sick.  Sick.

If Kids Would Just Climb Trees…

The world would be a better place.  Because kids would be stronger…

Children have become weaker and unable to do physical tasks that previous generations found easy, a study has found. Experts said today’s 10-year-olds had less muscular strength than children born a decade before, because instead of spending time climbing trees and climbing ropes, their leisure is spent indoors playing on computers. The findings, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica, found children could do fewer sit-ups and were less able to hang from wall bars in a gym. As well as the decline in arm strength, the study found they were less able to grip an object firmly.

It makes sense if you think about it. So kids, get out of the house, go climb a tree! And while you’re at it, stay out of the middle of the street…

What A Mockery of Marriage

This Korean woman is being married, for the 50th time.  She doesn’t even know what marriage is and that’s as plain as the word on the screen.  I find such demeaning of marriage to be utterly and completely disgusting and while some may applaud her and others may find her act humorous, I think it nothing but pure evil depravity.

Yoon, 39, is a first generation Korean-American. Calling herself “the voice of the unmarried Asian-American woman,” she bridled against the pressure her parents put on her to get hitched at a young age. So she became Maria the Korean Bride, and set out to hold a wedding in all 50 states to amplify and explore the ostracism that she feels, as well as examine how getting married is seen in other cultures.

Evidently she didn’t have the sense to simply say no.  Instead, she’s decided to take on the life of a scoundrel in order to make a simple point.

Each wedding is an art project, and thus requires a commitment from a guy only to show up and read the vows Yoon writes for each occasion (“I promise to love, honor and cherish you until the end of the ceremony…”). Nevertheless, it’s no simple matter to find grooms. In one state (Nebraska) she married a 700-lb. Angus bull. In another (Wisconsin) she married an embroidered shirt.

Marriage isn’t an art project and ‘marrying’ inanimate objects is an absurd evil.

The Media’s Shameful Obsession with the End of the World Indeed

The New Republic has a fine opinion of the rank madness and putrid sycophantism of the media and it’s lust for rapture crackpottery.

Here at TNR, we thought about joining the circus. Last week, when we learned that Camping was predicting the apocalypse, I was tasked with spending May 21—the day of the Rapture—with a few of his true-believing followers, who have been filling websites, billboards, and city squares, handing out pamphlets, and generally warning the world to repent. What an amazing story, I thought. I’ll spend time with people who believe the world is going to end, and then be able to watch their reactions when it doesn’t.

But before long, I had second thoughts. First, I ran into some accessibility snags. While the media-friendly end-timers wanted to warn heathens beforehand, they really just wanted to spend their last day on earth surrounded by loved ones, in quiet preparation. Their response to me was something like: Why would you want to follow us around on Saturday? We’re not going to be here anymore. Yes, there was a certain humor to this. But the more I looked into the story, the more it began to turn my stomach to think of spending my Saturday evening in someone’s living room, waiting for that gotcha moment when they realized it was all a lie—leaving me to file a story the next day, poking fun at their gullibility. I decided I couldn’t do it.

Yet the media coverage has continued, and now to me, the schadenfreude has turned sinister. Based on the high traffic the articles are garnering, it would seem as if many of us are intrigued voyeurs, gleeful in knowing the exact day when these people will experience their life’s greatest disappointment. We feel superior, knowing that even though they told us we were heading for death and destruction, now, they get theirs.

The people who were foolish enough to follow Camping are the ones I feel sorry for.  If they had only bothered to check it out with a reputable scholar.  Alas, none of them bothered and now many of them are in quite a lurch for it.

Read the whole essay.  It’s sobering.

Indeed… This Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Yes, You’re Still Here. No, Judgment Hasn’t Come. Yet.

Just in case you aren’t sure- yes, you’re still here.  No, judgment hasn’t come.  Yet.  And if anyone ever tells you they know when it’s going to happen, just cut them short, call them a liar, and walk away.

But I do love the way the Telegraph puts it:

Reports of the end of the world appeared to have been exaggerated today.

Oh you laconic Brits!  I bet this kid feels the prat, along with all the other tragic people who would rather believe a lie than the truth-

Self Publishing and Print on Demand: Get on Board or Get Left Behind

Loads of people poo-poo self publishing and print on demand as though only publishing houses can guarantee that quality books hit the market.  Anyone who’s read any number of books knows how ridiculous that assumption is.  We’ve all read real nonsense from big publishing companies.

There are certainly good publishing houses that do tremendous work.  Really good stuff is published the traditional way.   But academics especially, who talk so much about education and knowledge, who oppose self publishing, print on demand, or electronic only distribution are being a tad hypocritical to continue ‘but only traditional publishing will do as it ensures peer review’.  Nonsense.  Anyone can send a copy of their work to learned friends and colleagues and voila, review, correction, suggestion.

Those who maintain that only traditional publishing is appropriate for scholarship are- if I might put it plainly- interested in two things: money, and elitism.  Money is more likely (at least for now) to flow to authors who publish with companies that have huge publicity machines.  Of course that publicity model is changing as some blogs and bloggers reach far wider audiences than any academic publishing house mailing list does.  And second (and probably centrally) is the elitism factor.  These academics are just like those who were first entrusted with the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Hold the texts and you hold the power.  Allow only certain texts to be published at a pace you determine and you can call the tune.  Such methodology may suit those who have all the power and want to hold on to it- but such power grabbing, and holding, have nothing whatsoever to do with learning and the dissemination of knowledge.

And that’s the most amusing aspect of the ‘we must all only publish via traditional methods to ensure the purity of our discipline’ crowd.  They don’t even see, or know, how their disposition concerning publishing flies in the face of their work as putative educators.  Educators educate.  Educators don’t hide or hoard or hang on to what they know, they share it.

Publishing has come full circle.  It was originally (as anyone with historical knowledge knows) fully funded by the authors of those materials taken to the press (and who hoped they would at least sell enough copies to get their investment back).  Then publishing houses came along and so did big money.  But big money is drying up and print on demand has become sophisticated and requires not a cent of up front money.  It is the ideal method.

Self published books are far less expensive, carry no overhead, are printed on demand and don’t require warehousing, can be of extremely good quality, are peer reviewed and analyzed as thoroughly as any other books (if their authors wish them to be), and are more easily accessible to people who may be interested in them.  There’s no downside.  Except, of course, for those who wish to continue to tell the whole world what it may or may not read.  Academics falsely called so.

But you don’t have to believe me.  Even an essayist in the New York Times sees the handwriting on the wall.

Academics should, and eventually will, get on board or get left behind.  Those left behind deserve to be: they aren’t interested in disseminating knowledge, they’re interested in something else.  Something less scholarly and far less academic.