AdamSmith

The leap of faith!

Also the PhD quantum chemist.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/25/alfred-hitchcock-peter-ackroyd-review-catholic-controlling-celibrate

Saw a couple of entertaining interviews with Hayden and Gavin (separately) after the kiss show, each mentioning how funny that the other is not like the character. Gavin said how Hayden, unlike what you would expect from his portrayal of Jude, tends to be a "loud extroverted goofball." And Hayden was a bit hilarious saying "Gavin is a really manly guy. He's a very masculine, like, musclebound, person" so playing the sweet vulnerable infatuation with Jude was an achievement.

Since the kiss scene got all the press and alerted me to this show I have madly joined what the fan blogs lovingly call themselves -- "jonnor trash". And thanks be to YouTube that I can follow the Jude/Connor bits without having to sit through the other half-dozen storylines. Really something how the writers gave this storyline such feeling in so little screen time.

I looked around for that, and could only find one fringe (never heard of him before) evangelical blogger ranting about how "disgusting" it was. And this guy was of course one of those closet cases with a fixation on how seeing this on TV will lure impressionable young minds and gonads into "experimenting with homosexuality." If I can find him again I'll post his blog here.

Yes!! Hilarious.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/123048084

Only in the sense that it probably feels to Angela like she will be there forever, waiting for another leader on the world stage with any common sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-QGT6vejvx0

Could it be one of our best national-security investments in the near to intermediate term is China's consequent great interest in the U.S.'s financial well being? The long term, of course, is a game that only they truly know how to play. And maybe Angela, if she personally somehow found the key to eternal life.

Tom Lehrer said he long kept his VD song 'I Got It from Agnes' off his records because he didn't want them relegated to the dirty-records bin with Lenny Bruce and Redd Foxx.

Too good to bury in the Joke thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TPfRphwVVQ0

Typical 'Daily Beast' way of putting things, but still. Pope Francis: King of Doublespeak A big part of Pope Francis’ success? A soundbite strategy that appeals to multiple constituencies at one. In just three years, Pope Francis has taken the world by storm, and it is largely on the back of his great, tweetable soundbites. But the reason why those soundbites have been so effective is because they're so multilayered. Part of what makes Francis’ soundbite strategy successful is that they’re often vague, acting as a Rorschach Test for every constituency. This is deliberate, and there is a very good reason that goes unremarked upon: the quotes are designed to work on several levels at once, addressing a different message to different constituencies. In this, he is the consummate Jesuit, always playing multidimensional chess several moves ahead. But he has an even more hallowed precedent—none other than Jesus Christ. Jesus also liked to stun audiences with shocking, deliberately vague and multilayered soundbites. Take the famous “Give back to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, give to God what belongs to God” in response to whether Jews should pay taxes to a Roman occupier they viewed as illegitimate. On one level, the quote meant that resistance against the Romans should be peaceful. On another level, it was a putdown against Caesar—the Roman emperor claimed to be a god, but the quote reminds that he is a mere mortal, and to be regarded with indifference. And of course on a third level it was an important statement that politics cannot save us. Jesus was rejecting violent radicalism while strengthening his legitimacy as a Jewish prophet of national liberation; giving Rome what they wanted while undermining their claims to power. No wonder he made such an impression. Now, Francis. Like his predecessor John Paul II, he has keenly and rightly identified one of the key challenges of the Catholic Church in the 21st century as overcoming its negative image and presenting its faith as more than a long list of “don’ts”. But, as Francis well knows from his decades of Church governance, this problem is a symptom of an underlying problem. The Church, for all its impressive size and institutional and cultural resources, has in many ways become a ship of spiritually lukewarm passengers led by complacent bureaucrats. Thus, his soundbites work on two levels at once, delivering one message to the world at large, and another to the Catholic faithful. Take one of his most famous quotes: “Who am I to judge?” regarding gay Christians who strive to follow Church teaching. Was he changing doctrine? No. Was he trying to signal a change in doctrine? No. Did he know what impact that statement would have? You bet. So, what is going on? On one level, he is saying to the world at large: “Take another look. We’re not who you think we are.” On the other, he is giving the profound spiritual advice to faithful Catholics to refuse to judge their brethren. Or take his exhortation to build a Church that “goes out to the peripheries” of society. On the one hand, he is reminding the world at large of the Church's doctrine on social justice and the immense work it does for the poor every day. On the other hand, he is reminding faithful Catholics of their duty to the “least of these.” This multifaceted aspect of his rhetoric is why some Catholics find him infuriating, but it is also a very canny way to fulfill his office. It’s a clever strategy, and also one that shows us how he is a pastor in the classical Christian mode, who sometimes has to shock us out of our everyday complacency to bring us closer to God. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/22/pope-francis-king-of-doublespeak.html

Yeah, life without parole is what I would have on the lawbooks in place of the death penalty. Thank the Lord, or whatever Source one credences, for Il Papa's vision of boundless mercy here too; but I accept some are beyond the reach of rehabilitation. This return to the topic courtesy Francis' prompting made me realize I would be against the death penalty if even it were shown to have a deterrent effect. To use his word, it just strikes me as a terrible failure when the state confers on itself the right to take life, other than in a theatre of war.

My view completely. An abhorrent thing considered in any light. Pope: Death penalty represents 'failure,' fosters vengeance http://www.thestate.com/2015/03/20/4058612/pope-death-penalty-represents.html

Here's hoping they let him participate in the debates.

Most of What You Think You Know About Grammar Is Wrong And ending sentences with a preposition is nothing worth worrying about Smithsonian Magazine You’ve probably heard the old story about the pedant who dared to tinker with Winston Churchill’s writing because the great man had ended a sentence with a preposition. Churchill’s scribbled response: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” It’s a great story, but it’s a myth. And so is that so-called grammar rule about ending sentences with prepositions. If that previous sentence bugs you, by the way, you’ve bought into another myth. No, there’s nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction, either. But perhaps the biggest grammar myth of all is the infamous taboo against splitting an infinitive, as in “to boldly go.” The truth is that you can’t split an infinitive: Since “to” isn’t part of the infinitive, there’s nothing to split. Great writers—including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne and Wordsworth—have been inserting adverbs between “to” and infinitives since the 1200s. Where did these phony rules originate, and why do they persist? For some of them, we can blame misguided Latinists who tried to impose the rules of their favorite language on English. Anglican bishop Robert Lowth popularized the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition in his 1762 book, A Short Introduction to English Grammar; while Henry Alford, a dean of Canterbury Cathedral, was principally responsible for the infinitive taboo, with his publication of A Plea for the Queen’s English in 1864. In Latin, sentences don’t end in prepositions, and an infinitive is one word that can’t be divided. But in a Germanic language like English, as linguists have pointed out, it’s perfectly normal to end a sentence with a preposition and has been since Anglo-Saxon times. And in English, an infinitive is also one word. The “to” is merely a prepositional marker. That’s why it’s so natural to let English adverbs fall where they may, sometimes between “to” and a verb. We can’t blame Latinists, however, for the false prohibition against beginning a sentence with a conjunction, since the Romans did it too (Et tu, Brute?). The linguist Arnold Zwicky has speculated that well-meaning English teachers may have come up with this one to break students of incessantly starting every sentence with “and.” The truth is that conjunctions are legitimately used to join words, phrases, clauses, sentences—and even paragraphs. Perhaps these “rules” persist because they are so easy to remember, and the “errors” are so easy to spot. Ironically, this is a case where the clueless guy who’s never heard of a preposition or a conjunction or an infinitive is more likely to be right. As bloggers at Grammarphobia.com and former New York Times editors, we’ve seen otherwise reasonable, highly educated people turn their writing upside down to sidestep imaginary errors. There’s a simple test that usually exposes a phony rule of grammar: If it makes your English stilted and unnatural, it’s probably a fraud. We can’t end this without mentioning Raymond Chandler’s response when a copy editor at the Atlantic Monthly decided to “fix” his hard-boiled prose: “When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split.” Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/most-of-what-you-think-you-know-about-grammar-is-wrong-4047445/#sQT8DH5Dr1PUoqfF.99

I won't say anything if you won't.

P.S. In the spirit of recent outings here, is it time to let the board know that you and I are really the same poster?