Class Meme

From Lutherpunk and Anastasia:

Bold all statements that are true.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college

Sidebar--My mother would answer these questions like I would. My father wouldn't bold any of them.


5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed
Close enough.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school Oh yeah. Run by Quakers. So it was a religious school with a completely different dynamic from Lutherpunk's high school.
17. Went to summer camp

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. (And camping, bed and breakfasts, and cottages. And extremely dirty motels in South Carolina.)

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child Provided that originals of editorial cartoons and my uncle's artistic photography count.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home. My father is one of the most enthusiastic homeowners on the planet.
25. You had your own room as a child
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. Mainly for ethical reasons.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college. Does owning stock count?
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. I've flown on airlines that no longer exist. Like Piedmont. I had a passport as an infant.

31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. Um, no, I was quite familiar with the size of the heating oil bill. That's why those ads offering poor people in the Northeast Venezuelan heating oil burn me up. Our own government really should be doing more.

Il Papa E La Sapienza (E La Scienza)

Through a couple of episodes of the narrative, Michael Flynn has suggested in his recent novel, Eifelheim , that heresy trials are the aitia of academic peer review. In the first, a brilliant physicist is accused by the chair of her department of trying to use physics to justify young earth creationism whereas her ideas about slight variations in the speed of light and the quantization of the observed galactic red shifts stem from the desire for elegance and simplicity in an area of cosmological mathematics. But all the while she notes how much the encounter feels like a heresy trial. In the second, William of Occam indicates his disdain for Durandus of Mende and excoriates him especially for sitting on the tribunal that condemned some of his Commentary on the Sentences , to which a colleague replies, "Peer-review is the the fate of all philosophers worth reading."

Flynn's suggestion brings insight into Benedict XVI's disinvitation from Universita La Sapienza in Rome as mentioned in places such as Entangled States . I need to go off to work soon, but let me quickly sketch the tensions. The Pope is very much an academic, but his present office theoretically is unaccountable to earthly critique or authority and claims a potentially universal and perpetual jurisdiction over truth. Moreover, those who sought to disinvite him are clearly disturbed by his justification (through another philosopher, Paul Feyeraband) of Galileo's condemnation for heresy as supremely rational and just. Feyeraband, I should note, is chiefly known as a proponent of "scientific anarchism," in which science proceeds not by falsification or logical positivism but by ad hoc procedures that aim toward a particular consensus about the beautiful and the good (which is not necessarily beautiful or good.) Theology, I should add, might as well be a science in Feyeraband's critique. So as far as I can tell, Benedict XVI is being criticized by Italian physicists for viewing science as fallible on the same grounds on which theology might be considered fallible, yet suggests the theological community in the form of the Roman Catholic Church thus had the right in the 17th century as now to assess the fallibility of science without any consideration for the fallibility of theology and certainly without any peer review. Goose meet gander, I suppose.

Such a man must be allowed academic freedom so that his risibility may be exposed to the world entire. Shame on you, physicists of Italy.

History Meme

It seems that all memes die with me, so if you want to do this meme, count yourself as one of the seven.

I always have been interested in social history, so I've never been obsessed with one particular historical figure (such as Ben Franklin) as others I know have been. I was going to do my history meme on a geologist, but I just had a better idea.

Link to the person who tagged you. (that would be Derek of Haligweorc
List 7 random/weird things about your favorite historical figure.

The historical figure I'm going to choose is William Smith (not the geologist...common name):

1. William Smith was hired as the first provost of the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania.) His major qualifications were an essay he had written on education amd a degree from the University of Aberdeen. Only the former really mattered to Ben Franklin, who essentially hired him. But this was a good thing, because he was not a graduate of the University of Aberdeen. Talk about lying on your resume.

2. Though this theory probably appears nowhere in the historical literature, I'm fairly sure that William Smith left Aberdeen without a degree after four years, because he was an Episcopalian and was thereby disqualified from teaching school or being ordained according to the penal legislation that went into force after the '45. Oddly enough, many of his new bosses (Trustees) were Presbyterians.

3. In America, Smith did not stay out of trouble with the law and was imprisoned in 1758 for seditious libel. He lectured students from his jail cell.

4. Smith preached the inaugural sermon of St. Peter's, Third and Pine, in Philadelphia. Utterly insignificant to you, but I was baptized there.

5. Smith founded Washington College in Chestertown, MD and St. John's College, Annapolis as part of the original University of Maryland.

6. Smith was elected the first Bishop of Maryland but was not confirmed by General Convention because he was (sadly) a rather notorious alcoholic.

7. Given #1 and #2 (ironically enough), it's even more surprising that Smith received an honorary S.T.D. degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1759.

While Waiting For Evening

I currently am at my parents' house, who are sufficiently plugged in that I can do some work remotely and read blogs.

While trying to find out about the latest instance of a college student fabricating an incident in which they were violently attacked for their conservative beliefs, I shuttled over to the First Things blog, where I read this little mal mot from Thomas Sieger Derr, who apparently is professor of environmental ethics at Smith College ,

P.S. #2, on reading statistics with a viewpoint: The World Meteorological Organization reports that 2007 was one of the ten hottest years on record, most of those ten years being in the last decade. But it also seems that 2007 is on track to be the coldest year since 1998, the year of the large El Niño surge. And those who watch the sun’s behavior report a quiescent period with no sun spots, possibly presaging the return of a cooler earth – even, heaven forbid, a period like the “little ice age” of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Naturally, no mention of this happened at Bali.

Examining the relationship between the Sun and climate is a very important part of the work done by one of my research groups. And I'm one of the three people in the group who do work on the Sun and past climate. What those who watch the Sun's behavior know is that we are near the trough of the ~11 year solar cycle (the 11 year solar cycle is a name for convenience...it varies between 9 and 13 years). Looking at this handy-dandy record of the last 16 years from the Space Weather Prediction Center , we note that solar activity is about the same level as it was in the autumn of 1996, which was nearly exactly eleven years ago. What an amazing coincidence? The Little Ice Age (strictly should be called the Maunder Minimum), it's true, was a cold period with little solar activity. So little solar activity that northern European scientists were not familiar with the aurora borealis until the late 18th century. I'd wager someone has seen the aurora borealis in southern Norway recently.

Oddly enough, the next solar maximum is scheduled for 2012-2013 or so, the same year that permanent sea ice is currently forecast to vanish from the North Pole. For your further edification, some people have been trying to figure out how well the impact of the 11-year solar cycle is simulated in climate models .

Specious Ranting

I just watched Lonnie Thompson's Frontiers of Geophysics Lecture at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Fall Meeting. It was an excellent talk. Thompson is the world's leading expert on tropical glacial climate records, and his work has given him perspective on the Earth's past and a fear for Earth's future as he watches the glaciers he samples melt all around him. One of the more interesting points was that tropical glaciers currently are about as extensive as they were ~3200 BC, which depending on your exact chronology is the time of Noah and other evidence of mass disruption of the climate system. It reminded me that the Lord's promise was that He would not destroy all flesh again. Our free will now exceeds the power of the natural releases on the climate system by orders of magnitude. We may become our own destruction if we don't engage in some major metanoia . I'm glad to see that almost all Presidential candidates of both parties (John McCain was especially good) proclaim with their lips how serious an issue this is. Let us pray the seriousness of the crisis does not exceed the seriousness of our leadership in finding solutions. The Lecture has encouraged me to write the paper about low-frequency ocean variability one of my bosses wants me to write.

Some comments on bls's blog by our favorite Quebecois about the brevity of the election cycle has made me seriously think about the possibility of drastic reform in the frame of government in the United States. I would suggest we adopt a Commonwealth-style parliamentary democracy with nationally-drawn constituencies in the House of Representatives and state-based constituencies in the Senate with six or seven year bounds on the length of Congresses. Such a reform would have advantages such as a more responsive executive and a potentially longer election cycle. But the most immediate advantage would be in budgetary matters. Commonwealth constitutions either mandate in law or convention that the government must pass the budget to stay in power. Currently, the funding of many agencies (including my beloved NASA) is very much on hold due to horse trading in Congress. They call it a "continuing resolution." Of course, such a system probably would move much of the pork to the proposed budget, but it would allow more time for popular outrage to be heard and less doubt in government agencies about what projects can be funded each year. At present, one of my bosses is awaiting a decision about whether a mission he helped to propose is being funded. But NASA can't announce the decision, because the budget that funded the mission has languished for two years.

Despite my viewing of Thompson's lecture, I am not in San Francisco at AGU. One of my colleagues came into my office and asked me why I wasn't there, praising to the skies the parties, the available women, and the amazing ability of one of my other colleagues to attract non-conference attendees during conference travel. And, yes, reading the many blogs from AGU, I discovered all sorts of interesting folks with whom I could be spending time instead of sitting in my office being less productive than usual thanks to the emptiness of the building. But I can't go to every conference, and it's worth remembering that very few graduate students can go to two conferences per year with the level of effort I expend.

This week marks the first anniversary of my first and only visit to Fresno, the seat of the Dioceses of San Joaquin (that isn't a typo). I've gone through many waves of thought on this issue, especially reading the thoughts at Thanksgiving in All Things, Haligweorc, AKMA's Random Thoughts, Carioca Confessions, and the ENS coverage. My conclusion is that the parishes (and missions) should go where they wish, but that Bishop Schofield should be deposed and deprived of control of the temporalities by civil process. It seems harsh, I know, but I argue that the bishop should not be the only person in the Diocese with a conscience unbound by his prudence. Knowing the example of Bennison in Pennsylvania, it's fairly easy to see what mischief a bishop can do with a majority of the Diocese quite uninspired by his leadership. A bishop can intimidate vestries by restricting their choice of rector, those in the ordination process by sending them to a particular seminary, the clergy by countless other means. Liberal bishops use these means. Conservative bishops use these means. They have the most power under the canons. They deserve the greatest penalty for their violation. I'm betting I could get agreement from both Chrysostom and Winthrop on that score. As for the parishes and missions, the mission of parishes for and against the bishop likely has been hurt by this illegal fiction of secession. The gospel will be furthered by a free choice. The diocesan corporation (sans Schofield) should forgive or maintain mission debts on an equal basis no matter their affiliation. That will be justice tempered with mercy.

Notorious Sin

So *Christopher sent me an e-mail today wondering about my thoughts about the Scotist’s post on use of the disciplinary rubric in connection with the War in Iraq. I will admit initial admiration for the tinderbox quality of the question, since I know priests very strongly opposed to the war who have children that very directly participated in it. Scotist’s question stands very much at odds with the “Oppose the war! Support the troops!” ethos of many American liberals (and liberal preachers). That the question is implied by a controversial interview with the stochastically outspoken Archbishop of Canterbury gives it all the richer germanity.

Unfortunately, I was about to give a talk this afternoon and was not particularly amenable to reflection and so threw Article XXXVII across the continent and scored a glancing blow somewhere in the vicinity of Orlando, FL.

Scotist first asks if the War in Iraq is a just war. Oddly enough, I always have thought the War in Iraq is just. I initially supported it on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had fought an aggressive war in Kuwait and the survival of his regime after the Coalition forces had slaughtered his armies mercilessly (there are a few mass graves in that country that are to our nation’s credit after all) was predicated on an agreement supported by the United Nations but ultimately in the “equity jurisdiction” (as we say in the Imperium) of the United States and the United Kingdom. In retrospect, it was a poor agreement in that it allowed a manifest criminal against humanity and his own fellow citizens to enhance human misery between the Tigris and Euphrates for further years. Moreover, the lightness of its terms probably reflected old associations between Saddam Hussein and members of that Administration. I would not be surprised if a future historian showed that the ties between the United States and Osama bin Laden and between the United States and Saddam Hussein were far more significant than the ties between the two men themselves. But ultimately, the covenanters were bound before themselves and God to keep the agreement (tainted and indirectly formal as it was).

And so I believed that Saddam Hussein was making WMDs/ABCs etc. in violation of the agreement and therefore we were quite justified in removing him from power and ensuring the establishment of a popularly sovereign government. Of course, it wasn’t true. But once he was removed from power (no matter the justification), it is certainly just to ensure his government had a suitably legitimate replacement. My objection to the war lies in that the people currently in charge of its prosecution have practiced deceit on two nations and the world, providing an apparent legitimacy to the regime they removed. Give me a multinational mostly Muslim peacekeeping force (and a decent rebuilding plan, q.v., *Christopher) and I will admit the justice of continuing military action.

But as I said in comments to the Scotist, I don’t think baptized combatants in our tradition ought to be considered any more implicated in the sinfulness of the war than the rest of us, for each of us contribute to the legitimacy of the civil jurisdiction under which they fight.

But what of this issue of notorious sin? How should the disciplinary rubric be used? Our first clue comes from the older Prayer Books in the opening of the Commination:

BRETHREN, in the Primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend.

This liturgy harks back to the church discipline of the Patristic era and the early canonical penitentiaries. It’s not quite clear what era exactly is meant, since degrees of excommunication varied with location and era. But it at least gives possible definitions of notorious sin: notorious breach of the moral law. I’m afraid the notoriety is important, because it recalls the teachings of the Apostle on scandal. The discipline is in part medicinal for the object of excommunication, but its greatest importance is its instructive value for the other communicants:

But if we really want to understand the disciplinary rubrics, we ought to consult the Canons of 1604 ( which are now online )

26. Notorious Offenders not to be admitted the Communion.

NO Minister shall in any wise admit to the receiving of the holy Communion, any of
his cure or flock, which be openly known to live in sin notorious, without repentance-
nor any who have maliciously and openly contend ed with their neighbours, until they shall
be reconciled; nor any Church-wardens or Side-men, who having taken their oaths to
present to their Ordinaries all such publick offences as they are particularly charged to
inquire of in their several parishes, shall (notwithstanding their said oaths, and that their
faithful discharging of them is the chief means whereby publick sins and offences may be
reformed and punished) wittingly and willingly, desperately and irreligiously, incur the
horrible crime of perjury, either in neglecting or in refusing to present such of the said
enormities and publick offences, as they know themselves to be committed in their said
parishes, or are notoriously offensive to the congregation there; although they be urged by
some of their neighbours, or by their Minister, or by their Ordinary himself, to discharge
their consciences by presenting of them, and not to incur so desperately the said horrible
sin of perjury.

27. Schismatics not to be admitted to the Communion.

NO Minister, when he celebrateth the Communion, shall wittingly administer the
same to any but to such as kneel, under pain of suspension, nor under the like pain to
any that refuse to be present at publick Prayers, according to the Orders of the Church
of England; nor to any that are common and notorious depravers of the Book of Common
Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and of the Orders, Rites, and Ceremonies
therein prescribed, or of any thing that is contained in any of the Articles agreed upon m
the Convocation, one thousand five hundred sixty and two, or of any thing contained in
the Book of ordering Priests and Bishops; or to any that have spoken against and
depraved his Majesty's sovereign authority in Causes Ecclesiastical; except every such
person shall first acknowledge to the Minister, before the Church-wardens, his repentance
for the same, and promise by word (if he can write) that he will do so no more; and except
(if he can write) he shall first do the same under his hand-writing, to be delivered to
the Minister, and by him sent to the Bishop of the diocese, or Ordinary of the place.
Provided, That every Minister so repelling any, (as is specified either in this or in the
next precedent Constitution,) shall, upon complaint, or being required by the Ordinary,
signify the cause thereof unto him, and therein obey his order and direction.

28. Strangers not to be admitted to the Communion.

THE Church-wardens or Quest-men, and their assistants, shall mark, as well as
the Minister, whether all and every of the Parishioners come so often every year to the
holy Communion, as the Laws and our Constitutions do require; and whether any Stran-
gers come often and commonly from other parishes to their Church; and shall shew their
Minister of them, lest perhaps they be admitted to the Lord's Table amongst others,
which they shall forbid; and remit such home to their own Parish-churches and
Ministers, there to receive the Communion with the rest of their own neighbours.

109. Notorious Crimes and Scandals to be certified into Ecclesiastical Courts by
Presentment.

IF any offend their brethren, either by adultery, whoredom, incest, or drunkenness, or
by swearing, ribaldry, usury, and any other un-cleanness, and wickedness of life, the Churchwardens, or Quest-men, and Side-men, in their next presentments to their Ordinaries, shall faithfully present all and every of the said offenders, to the intent that they, and every
of them, may be punished by the severity of the laws, according to their deserts; and such
notorious offenders shall not be admitted to the holy Communion, till they be reformed.

110. Schismatics to be presented.

IF the Church-wardens, or Quest-men, or Assistants, do or shall know any man within
their parish, or elsewhere, that is a hinderer of the Word of God to be read or sincerely
preached, or of the execution of these our Constitutions, or a fautor of any usurped or
foreign power, by the laws of this realm justly rejected and taken away, or a defender of
Popish and erroneous doctrine; they shall detect and present the same to the Bishop of the
diocese, or Ordinary of the place, to be censured and punished according to such Ecclesi-
astical Laws as are prescribed in that behalf.

In other words, in Merrie Olde Englande, the disciplinary rubrics originated as a prelude to a form of indictment or libel for presentment in the ecclesiastical court. As such notorious sins are only those that would be within the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court. But there also seems to be concern for parish harmony in these canons, so that those barred in their own parishes wouldn’t wander to others. The other link in these offenses is that they are scandalous. They disturb the integrity of the local members of the Body of Christ. I’m afraid that in an age of moral uncertainty, they provide adequate license for double standards. What plays in San Francisco won’t play in Fresno. And while I disagree with the moral aesthetics of Fresno, I can’t say they are misinterpreting the disciplinary rubrics. They just should feel overjoyed to be welcomed in Sam Francisco, shall we say?

Which brings to bls’s latest post on another post of the Scotist. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but nothing is settled and nothing is worth ignoring until we determine how the property is to be divided. In a dense urban area like the one in which I live, the parishes fall into their little ideological niches. It’s easy for me to let a parish in La Crescenta go when I know Altadena or Pasadena or Beverly Hills are within reach. It’s harder for me to say such things in sparser areas where churches may be quite divided. How many Episcopalians already feel estranged in the rangelands west of Ft. Worth? Even in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, I know straight allies who became Lutherans because they felt unwelcome in their home parishes. Dividing the property in those cases injures both sides, no matter the division. Moreover, in this carbon-haunted world, I would like to stand up for the ideal of a parish within reasonable travel distance. I have lived my life within a half hour’s walk of an Episcopal church. I dream of jobs that will allow me close proximity to Anglo-Catholic parishes. But it’s easy for us to feel guilty about wanting the property. Isn’t it just property and assets and worldly pomp? No, it’s a part of our everyday world set apart for the public worship of God. It’s connected to a place. If you go to St. Edmund’s in Chicago, you’ll notice the affordable housing they’ve financed all around the church. The local soup kitchen for the homeless in my town started in a little house on the north end of my parish property. When we decide who gets the property, we decide how mission and place are going to be bound together. For while the disciplinary rubrics seem to belong to another age where the dirty laundry of villages like Frocester and Staleybridge and Spofford found itself aired in the parish, the modern parish still is very much in community with its surroundings. When we divide the property, we will shape little bits of America. It’s a question that shouldn’t be ignored.

Five Days Short of 25 But Pass for 20

1. Journal that accepted an article of mine (my first senior author publication) will not explain why the third of the fifteen steps remaining until publication is presently delayed. Oh, well, the article probably will not appear in print for a year anyway.

2. Graduate students of my option and year organize the seminar series for the department, which so far mainly has involved me introducing my fellow graduate students to give seminars as a sort of handshaking exercise. (We have other handshaking exercises, but this one puts the most pressure on us. I'm in the midst of preparing mine at the moment.) But recently, I invited about ten relatively local scientists to give seminars. I've received several replies, but my favorite one was the one that addressed me as "Dr. Caelius." Between the journals and seminar invitees, I now hold a Ph.D. by courtesy.

3. I went to Thanksgiving Dinner at my committee chair's home yesterday. It's the second time I've been there for Thanksgiving, and I have to say I enjoy it greatly. My committee chair has a very interesting set of family and friends: a mix of scientists, entertainment industry professionals, and tech entrepeneurs.

Pullman Loses II (q.v. Haligweorc)

From a Maundy Thursday sermon of mine:

Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury has caused some controversy by praising a dramatic adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. These books are especially notable for portraying God not as the real creator of the universe, but as a fraud and a tyrant, who consigns the souls of the dead to a “prison camp” that prevents them from being reincorporated into the world soul, and whose favorite angels conspire to use the Church as an instrument of human misery.
Pullman’s Subtle Knife, the second book of the trilogy, is especially disturbing. By the end of the book, it is clear that a conspiracy has been hatched to kill God…and for some reason, I, at least, was rooting for the assassins. So perhaps it is unsurprising that the Archbishop of Canterbury has earned such flack. He’s condoning deicide. However, Pullman’s God is not God. He is not the Creator, who yearned (as Dionysus the Areopagite puts it) to make us and all we see and don’t see. Pullman’s universe, though Christ is once or twice mentioned, is Christless. We are not so loved that God gave his only son for us. It is not Christ, but the brave young man who wields the subtle knife who enters the prison camp to set the captives free. And it is a truly a Christless universe in which deicide is so exciting and novel. In our universe, it has happened all before. Tomorrow, nineteen hundred and seventy, give or take a few years, ago and ever more, God dies.

RIP Norman Mailer

I can't say that I know Mailer's wide oeuvre well. I have read Executioner's Song which I didn't find particularly compelling. But despite its flaws, I absolutely love Mailer's account of Apollo 11, Of A Fire on the Moon , which I think is the best literary work ever written about any aspect of the American space program. Take that, Tom Wolfe.

Church Today

One of the statements below is untrue.

1. The music mostly was Durufle's Requiem.
2. The only congregational hymn was Sine Nomine.
3. The (sung) Eucharistic Prayer and much of the rest of the liturgy was slightly redacted Rite I. (We do this every year and the redaction was the least yet, though one particularly notable phrase was softened.)
4. The Gospeller was Giles Fraser, Vicar of Putney.
5. Madpriest preached.

Actually, the Rector preached a sermon that for the first ten minutes I could imagine Madpriest preaching, that is, a sermon on the communion of saints that extends sainthood omnibus fidelibus defunctorum . Then the style changed too much for it to be Madpriest. But the rest indeed happened. Giles Fraser is visiting for a couple of weeks. He's apparently preaching next week.

Seeing Into the Future

I heard today from a friend in the Diocese of Pennsylvania about the last few days. Apparently, Bishop Bennison was cracking jokes about his impending departure throughout Diocesan Convention, leaving various people in great awkwardness about what to say to him, "We're sorry that your past has come back to bite you???..." My friend thought, "We'll pray for you" is about the best that can be said. The Presiding Bishop appears to have appointed a retired bishop of Eastern Maryland as Episcopal Visitor for the time being. She also has appointed two bishops as Administrators to clean house, especially in the Diocesan finances. These appointments quite surprised me, because I was under the impression that the Standing Committee was the Ecclesiastical Authority in this type of interregnum and could act like a Council of Regents or something.

Sadly, I suspect the Presiding Bishop sees Pennsylvania as a dry run for what she may have to do in the near future for certain Dioceses of the Church that do not appreciate being named in this context. The only difference will be the removal of the Standing Committee, which is not necessary in this case.

Two Brief Items

Bishop Bennison of Pennsylvania Inhibited and Ordered Presented for Trial

Neither for heresy, nor for financial malfeasance, but for improper handling of his brother/intern's sexual abuse of a teenage parishioner in the 1970s. Pray for the Diocese, which remains in the midst of a leadership crisis.

Just Heard the Veni Creator on Private Practice

As part of an insomnia treatment...

Comic Book Immortality By Association

MIT's alumni magazine put together an entertaining comic strip history of the alternately depressing and exhilarating post-Pathfinder era in Mars exploration. I know many of the characters personally, including the instruments... and have heard many footnote stories.

For the Record

I was here yesterday. The celebrants of the union wore muted semi-formal attire and well-groomed white beards. There was a flower girl. The service began with the Shehechyenu, since one of the celebrants was born into a rabbinical family (several of whom were obviously present). The Psalm was 139 1:14, a psalm about the inexorable reach of God that in the middle has, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well." The Epistle was 1 John on the necessity of loving the brethren in order to love God. The Gospel was Matthew 5:13-16, which while appointed in the BCP for weddings, seems even more appropriate for adelphopoesis.

The Rector said in his sermon today that people e-mailed him from far-off places, telling him they had awoken in the watches of the night and gone to holy places (such as Canterbury Cathedral) to pray for the couple. Amazing.

TV Priests I Dislike

Forget the Book of Daniel. The Episcopal priest of the moment is Brian Darling of ABC's Dirty, Sexy Money . I like the show. One of the characters bought his chauffeur a copy of Anabasis . Cool beans. But Brian Darling is a complete degenerate. My game during the last two episodes has been to determine whether he's an Episcopalian or not. He dresses in a style I only can call Anglo-Papist, but he apparently has a wife and daughters. He also has an illegitimate son who he's doing everything to avoid acknowledging. (Poor child. His mother is just as irresponsible.) I think he's supposed to be Rector of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue (a church is shown in the first episode that looks quite familiar...).

Surface Pressure

The week has been full of ups and downs. Some of the downs were beyond my control, others not so much. Perhaps the most amusing of these setbacks happened a couple of hours ago when I noticed that a certain type of simulation I thought I finally had managed to figure out had some very high surface pressures (>100 times than they should be). I think I've tracked down the problem, but I feel rather embarassed...

Meme from Lutherpunk and Anastasia

4 crushes (ones I can talk about):

1. Liz – 3rd Grade. We met at summer camp. We once thought we had made a growth enhancement drug out of baby oil and other secret ingredients. She's an environmental chemist now...


2. Katherine– 12th grade. Sophomore girl utterly wrong for me, though her poetry was good. I later learned that my mother conspired to get her as my prom date.

3. Carole – Between high school and college. She had a shampoo or something whose odor I always will remember.


4. Andrea – College. I wrote her an extremely embarassing mash note on whose account my ex-girlfriend still makes fun of me.

4 Pieces of Clothing I wish I still owned (and/or that still fit):

1. My father's Hobart wrestling shirt. It's a little too worn now.
2. My green sweater. It disappeared one night after a very good dinner with an old professor of mine.
3. My bar mitzvah suit. (The one I wore to my friends' bar mitzvot.)
4. My old field hat. Lost in the Guadalupe these three years.

4 names I’ve been called at one time or another:

1. Encyclopedia
2. Info[my name]
3. Green Pimple (a church secretary nickname as a matter of fact)
4. Godboy (there were two other Godboys...and yes, there was a Trinity reference...)

4 Professions I secretly Want to Try:

1. Judge
2. Hurricane forecaster
3. Baseball statistician (actually a friend of mine does this)
4. Television writer

4 Musicians I’d most want to go on a date with:

1. Vanessa Carlton, circa 2002
2. Kate Ryan, circa 2004
3. Kylie Minogue (whenever she appeared on Vicar of Dibley)
4. Natasha Bedingfield.

4 Foods I’d rather Throw than Eat

1. Eggplant
2. Most pork.
3. Shrimp, most of the time.
4. Brie.

4 Things I Like to Sniff

1. Olive oil.
2. Hair.
3. Bengay.
4. Clean clothes.

201! Woot!

No Unpleasantness Here

The only thing Michaelmas will mean around here is a school year beginning, drinking with colleagues taking their qualifying exams (after they take them), and a little angelic doulia . I have better things to do like forming a Thesis Committee. Oh, wait, that took about a half hour today. I need that "Easy button" my aunt gave me right about now.

EDITED TO CORRECT BOTH ERRORS. THANKS, READERS.

Yes, The Content on This Blog Has Degenerated

Blame it on the five things I'm trying to do at the moment and can't make progress on at the moment.

So let's have a little fun with the Prayer Book. The other day I was looking at the kalendar in the front and noticed once more the letters "A, b, c, d, e, f, g" that cycle next the days from Holy Name to Holy Name Even. The year begins on A and ends on A. What are these letters for? Well, I had a hypothesis. I remember from my childhood looking at the Tables and Rules for Finding Easter Day. They always mentioned the necessity of two parameters, the Sunday Letter and the Golden Number. Well, could the letters be related to the Sunday Letter? Indeed. the Sunday letter is defined as the letter next to the first Sunday of the year, except in March-December of leap years in which the Sunday letter shifts backward, A to g, g to f, etc.

So what's the Golden Number? Take the year, add 1, and divide it by 19, then find the remainder. If it's zero, the Golden Number is 19. Then look at March and April and find the Golden Number next to the date. That's not the date of Easter, but the Sunday Letter of the year following the Golden Number date is. In this way, you can calculate the date of Easter in a year not given in the Tables on pp. 882-883.

Let's work an example. Suppose you want the date of Easter in 2161 (points if you know why that particular date). The Sunday Letter is d. 19 into 2162 is 113 with a remainder of 15 (Golden Number!) (I forget long division for some reason now...). So we find that the Golden Number day is April 10, meaning that Easter will be April 12. The commenters correctly calculate the date in 2168.

This has been Liturgical Math 101.

My Outdoor Thermometer of Doom

My outdoor thermometer of doom is attached to my bike and is thus on my somewhat covered balcony. It presently records 111 F. This is not the scientific air temperature (I don't have a black hood for it etc.)...the closest reliable station records 98 F. Did I mention that the air conditioning in my building is broken?

Shameless Graduate Student Update

As you might be able to tell from my last post, it's been a week. The bad part of it really isn't mine to tell, but let's just say that I have appreciated Derek's trial offices for the dead.

I think I was complaining a few weeks ago about being overcommitted. Well, I'm trying to clear my plate a little at the moment by the best route possible: I'm writing papers. My first first author paper is currently under review at one of the big journals of my sub-field. Today, I sent around my next paper for internal review, which hopefully will be submitted to a journal that doesn't hear much from my sub-field but has a fairly wide reach. So I just may submit two papers of my own this summer.

Monday, I learned that an abstract of mine was accepted for oral presentation at a big conference in October. To most readers of this blog, this will not mean much. But I've been submitting abstracts to conferences for more than three years now and I always have to present posters. Poster sessions frankly are depressing. They tend to be sparsely attended and repetitious. But worst of all, presenting a poster is a sign that your work is not particularly interesting. Speaking at a oral session is proof that I finally do something that a large number of people might find interesting. And that's kind of cool.