05.17.12
Posted in The way we live now, Uncategorized at 2:58 am by rhanrott
Dear Mr. Smith (I didn’t catch your first name),
I am writing to thank you most sincerely for your wonderful hospitality the other evening. I had a delightful time. The food was terrific and the ambience delightful. I particularly enjoyed the wine and have made a note not to try and get some locally.
But it is the conversation I will remember. I marvelled at your tour d’horizon of American foreign policy, your views on Manchuria and Bulgaria, your penetrating analysis of the election in Idaho, and your detailed survey of the decline of sales of dinner napkins in rural Arkansas.
But what I shall mostly recall is the fact that at the end of the evening you had not addressed a single personal word to me . You are none the wiser about who I am, what I think, or what hang-ups I have about being thrown out of my perambulator at age 9 months. Nor did you ask me about my current employment (for the record, drawing silly pictures of hippopotamuses), where I live, or what my name is (touche) .
A famous wag recently exclaimed, after being remonstrated with for not asking a single question about his guest at a dinner party, “Well, if you wanted to say something about yourself then I guess you would have said it.”
Quite. I arrived anonymous and left anonymous. And now we have to reciprocate your delightful hospitality.
It didn’t use to be this way.
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Epicureans take an interest in those they meet, or, if not, what is the point of getting together? If I fail to ask you about yourself, pull me up on it.
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05.13.12
Posted in Religion, Uncategorized at 11:57 am by rhanrott
In 1139 St. Malachy went from Ireland to Rome to give an account of the affairs of his diocese to the pope, Innocent II. While at Rome, he received a vision of the future that involved a long list of pontiffs who were to rule the Church “until the end of time”. Malachy is supposed to have given a written account of all this to the Pope, but the document remained unknown in the Roman Archives until its discovery in 1590 (Cucherat, “Proph. de la succession des papes”, ch. xv).
The last of the prophecies concerns the end of the world and is as follows: “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End.” It has been noticed concerning Petrus Romanus, who according to Malachy’s list is to be the last pope, that the prophecy does not say that no popes will intervene between him and his predecessor designated Gloria olivæ. It merely says that he is to be the last, so that we may suppose as many popes as we please before “Peter the Roman”.
Adapted from the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition). see
http://www.catholic-pages.com/grabbag/malachy.asp
Catholic Pages opines that ” The present pope is truly a burning fire of zeal (sic) for the restoration of all things to Christ. So he cannot be “Peter the Roman”. Can he?
The question is, will there be a Catholic Church still in existence when Peter the Roman finally appears?
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05.11.12
Posted in Epicurean ethics at 11:44 am by rhanrott
Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for ’tis a sign of a tractable and commendable nature: and in all causes of passion admit reason to govern”.
These are the words of the first American President.
I will leave the reader to draw his or her own conclusions as to what the American scene might be like were the most passionate defenders Washington and his Constitution to follow his admonition.
Meanwhile, he sounds quite Epicurean, like his friend Jefferson.
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05.09.12
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:21 pm by rhanrott
A video project completed by cultural anthropology students at Kansas State University, gives a bleak view of student life:
* I will read 8 books this year, 2,300 web pages and 1,281 Facebook profiles.
* I will write 42 pages for class this semester and over 500 pages of email.
* When I graduate , I will probably have a job that doesn’t exists today.
42 pages for class! I use to do that in two weeks! 8 books? But enough……
One day I hope further education will return to the globally focused, intellectual, and individually rigorous type of education that used to be the hallmark of good American and European universities.
Meanwhile, Epicureans will have to read the books and do the writing for these youngsters.
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05.08.12
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:09 am by rhanrott
The struggles German Catholics are having with changes in the eucharistic prayer will be familiar for U.S. Catholics whose Mass language changed in 2011. In 2013, Germans who are used to praying that Jesus died für alle (for all) will be praying that Jesus died für viele (for many).
And the order to make the change is coming directly from Pope Benedict XVI.
In a recent 2,000-word letter to bishops in his native Germany, the pope addressed the translation of the Latin phrase pro multis in the eucharistic prayer, in which Christ told his disciples at the Last Supper that his blood was poured out, according to literal translation, “for you and for many.” He said there had been since the 1960s an “exegetical consensus” built on the idea that the original Hebrew sources implied not “for many” but “for all.” However, Benedict wrote, this had been an “interpretation” rather than a “translation,” and the Vatican had since asked local churches to revert to the more accurate phrase “for many.”
While bishops in Germany had agreed, the pope said, other German-speaking churches appeared intent on keeping the phrase “for all,” thus risking “a fission in our innermost sphere of prayer.”
“In this context, the Holy See has decided the words ‘pro multis’ must be translated as such in the new missal translation and not simultaneously interpreted. The simple translation ‘for many’ must replace the interpretative ‘for all,’ ” Benedict told the bishops.
The pope’s move follows years of controversy over new translations of the Catholic Mass in Germany.
The lay Catholic spoke with NCR after the pope’s letter, which was dated April 14, was published April 24 on the German Bishops’ Conference website.
An accompanying statement by the conference president, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, predicted the letter would provide “an important impulse” for completing the new translations.
Disputes have occurred over phrases used in the Catholic Mass since Vatican II, which made the term “for all” common usage in the church to reflect the view that Christ died to redeem all mankind.
(By Jonathan Luxmoore on ncronline.com)
If Jesus died for “many” and not for “all”, you can bet that the many will be Catholics who agree with the Pope. Then rest are presumably consigned to hell. To the great credit of lay Catholics there is uproar about the Pope’s authoritarian and unilateral behaviour.
Forecast: within a few years the catholic “flock” will have reduced to a point that Catholic churches will be turned into furniture stores or supermarkets.
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05.07.12
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:10 am by rhanrott
The UK government recently told GCHQ (state security) that it could monitor all communication on social media, Skype calls, and email, and log every site visited by British internet users. (Guardian 27 April 2012).
As we now know the “security ” industry is the only fast growing industry in the Western world, but speaking for myself I would rather be unemployed than be paid to monitor the crass blatherings of people on facebook*, a service that represents the biggest waste of time ever invented, designed to take people’s minds off how lonely, poor and over-stressed they are. Good luck to the snoopers. May they, like, be bored out of their little minds.
I would rather be having a conversation about real life with a real person, in my real garden, surrounded by flowers and trees, and free of texting and gormless messaging. But then, I am old-fashioned.
Meanwhile the lack of privacy remains one of the greatest threats to the human race.
* Only 29% of the information facebook possesses on you is available to your friends who visit your site. Think about that. The wise will think twice about what they post.
A wag recently pointed out how disfunctional modern social interaction is when Mark Zuckerburg has to create a huge, worldwide network in order to connect with the guy in the next room.
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