Eclectic Amateur

Education: Not Entirely Wasted

This is probably only hysterically funny to people who’ve read (or

memorized, like I had to in high school English class) Chaucer’s

Prologue to the <a

href=”http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm”>Canturbury Tales:

The Sacramento Tales

Whan that Septembre with his shoures sote

Summers droghte hath percéd to the rote,

And bathéd Napas vynes with swich licour

As makéth Gallo Brothers shayre price soare;

Whan al vacacioun tyme is used and gonne

And beaches emptye lye beneath the sonne,

Whan freeways clogge with workers offys-bounde

Whyl scole-buses mak roade rage all arounde.

Whan harlots on the Strippe crye to be payd

By Englishe heart-throbbes crusyng for rough trayd

(Whom Nature hath anon depryved of braynes!)

Than longen folk to run polityckal campaygns

And pollsters for to scanne ye publick moode

By telephoun and questionnaire intrude.

And specially, from every countys ende

Of Golden State, to Sacramento wende,

The Governour's fyn castel for to wyn

And dwel with powre and glorie ful therein.

Derb should be kept busy “translating” this new find — I think that

Chaucer had less pilgrims than California has candidates.

Victor Lams Goes Off His Meds …

… due to

overexposure to Marty Haugen:

So before Mass today Herr Gottesdienstfuhrer approaches the microphone and says that today there’s “something familiar — and a little different” which in Liturgical Director speak means “bend over — and this time, no lube”.

Really, Victor, don’t hold back — tell us how you really feel.

Actually, buck up (or should I say “offer it up”?), it could be

worse. You could be <a

href=”http://www.anglican.tk/”>Episcopalian.

Time to live up to the blog name

It was not my intent to turn Eclectic Amateur into the “All Gene Robinson,

all the time” channel. It’s done (<a

href=”http://mcj.bloghorn.com/74″>dissembling by Frank Griswold to the

contrary), and there’s nothing to do but mourn. And wait to see

what the October meetings bring, but that probably won’t matter to me,

no matter what the Primates decide or what happens to ECUSA.

On to other topics!

Yes, I was here when The Lights Went Out™. Minor adventures,

finally got my generator working but not in time to save most of the

freezer items. Nothing serious. Detroit did not spontaneously

combust or otherwise descend into chaos, much to the chagrin of

newshounds worldwide.

NOAA has a very nice page with <a

href=”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s2015.htm”>images of the

blackout from space. Here’s an annotated view:

<img

src=”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/nightlights/blackout081503-7hrsafter-text.jpg”

alt=”big dark sky image”>

I’m impressed at the lights in Albany; must be from the generator that

Senator Clinton had running.

Also, I found an <a

href=”http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/emergency_management/em_05052003wallcloud”>article

and online picture of the <a

href=”http://www.zfrey.com/blog/030505.html”>wall cloud sighting

that I blogged back in May:

<img

src=”http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/emergency_management/assets/em_05052003wallcloud”

alt=”not a tornado, but it sure looks like one”>

Comments have been eliminated, because (a) I never got Haloscan

properly integrated with Blogmax anyway, and (b) I never got any

comments anyhow. I’ll hope that’s because of (a) and not because I’ve

never written anything comment-worthy.

Went with the whole family last Sunday to the open-air service and picnic afterwards at our old parish, St. Martha’s on Joy Road in Detroit.

While it was good to see the old place again, and to catch up with family and friends, it was a bit unsettling at the same time. On the grounds of St. Martha’s, everything is mostly the same. The signs of physical decay are subtle — a large tree fallen from some storm, and obviously not dealt with for some time. Grass starting to grow in the cracks of the sidewalks and parking lot. The cement chips from the crumbling in the east entrance that nobody ever uses any more (and that have been there for years now anyway). The furniture on the sidewalk from the tenant they had to evict from the old rectory, and knowlege that the deadbeat S.O.B. has left the church with a remodelling bill they can’t possibly afford to pay.

Nothing much, really. Certainly not compared to the blight that is the surrounding neighborhood. That’s pretty much the same as it was, too. Oh, a couple of the storefront churches have new paint jobs, some more buildings are empty, a few have changed hands, the usual. The sign by the open field at Southfield and Joy is by now a cruel joke — this is where the Herman Gardens housing project used to be. Now, there’s grass, and the tall trees that used to line the streets are still standing. That, and the “Herman Gardens Revitalization Project — Coming Soon” sign behind the fence that’s been there since the demolishion back in 1996 or so. (See this Freep article for some of the story behind the housing project delay. Meanwhile, I wonder what happened to the people living there when they decided to tear it down and (not) start over.)

I found an image of the old project apartments titled Row Houses at Herman Gardens. This is pretty much how I remember them:

The other signs were not encouraging, either. Some of the old regulars are still there (but so few, so few!). Some of the little kids I remember are now unrecognizable teenagers. The numbers are still depressingly low; there are not nearly enough in this parish to support such a facility, especially given the age of many. The most hopeful sign was to see that there had been Vacation Bible School that week, and to learn that the Sunday School was still operating.

There was mention of the current controvery which is fully expected to consume the General
Convention starting tomorrow, other than a generic prayer for wisdom and unity which studiously avoiding any appearance of taking sides. Whatever. I could not help but wonder how St. Martha’s could possibly survive if there is a general implosion of the Anglican
Communion in general, and the Episcopal Church in particular, this year if the advice
of the Archbishop of Canterbury is not heeded and the General Convention insists on triggering full-scale schism in the church. (So much for “dialog”. Or respecting the opinions of the Africans.)

Remember that tree I mentioned? Its fall has left a gap in the windbreak on the east side of the church grounds. Now that it’s gone, the minaret of the next-door Islamic Center of America
is clearly visible, looming over the parking lot:

It was not a hopeful omen.

(Images of St. Martha’s and the Islamic Center are from DetroitYES – The Fabulous Ruins of
Detroit, a wonderful and heartbreaking site.)

Don’t try to FUD IBM, they probably have the patent

Don Marti has an excellent idea:

for the current SCO vs. IBM dispute over Linux, make sure every

link to SCO actually references <a

href=”http://sco.iwethey.org/”>http://sco.iwethey.org/, which

contains a metric slew of information on Unix, SCO, IBM, and the

assorted cast of characters.

This should help bump up the Googlejuice of some actual data on the

whole SNAFU, rather than just the SCO corporate spin.

My tiny resume of free software contributions improves by one mote:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-June/msg00031.html

Victor Lams, Twisted Genius

I decided to take Victor

Lams up on his offer to create a customized “<a

href=”http://www.victorlams.com/blogtones”>BlogTone” for

Eclectic Amateur.

Here’s what I got:

“Eclectic Amateur ‘BlogTone in .rm format”

Victor, I don’t get it. I like it, but I don’t get it.

A Dilemma for the Politically Correct

Same-sex marriage ‘alien to us,’ Inuit tell Commons committee.

They oppose same-sex marriage, so they must be troglodytes.

Oh, but they’re Inuit, opposing the imposition of white society’s

values on their traditional ways, so they must be heroes.

Heh.

Sadly, the people who should be bothered by this are experts

at maintaining contradictions inside their heads without their brains

exploding, so I don’t expect any light bulbs to come on.

(Story via MCJ.)

Answer: “No, David, that’s what a tornado looks like.” Followed by

“Kids! To the basement, now!“

Happily, it was a not-quite-a-tornado. We got a very nice closeup
(does a mile count as “close” for this? I think so) of a funnel cloud
just hanging down toward the ground. But it wasn’t spinning,
so I guess it doesn’t count as a tornado. I think. I’ll see if the
National Weather Service agrees with me.

Update: According to the paper, it was a “wall cloud”, not a tornado.
It was still impressive.

Light Blogging

Real Life™ is just too frantic to support much blogging these

days.

Rest assured, I’m still opinionated.

Just tired.