The Anchoress

I’m kinda pooped from all the Benedict blogging of late. Meanwhile, a quick lookaround:

From the Dept. of Silly Quesitons:

Q: Did Laura Bush wear white to host the pope at the White House because she believes she is a monarch’s wife or because she is signaling an assent to the rampant rumors that President Bush will become a Catholic when he leaves office?

A: Cueing the Twilight Zone music, I’m going to hazard a guess: Mrs. Bush and Jenna Bush both wore black skirts to meet Benedict at the airport, and then Mrs. Bush changed to what I would call a creme-colored pantsuit. I’m betting she got back to her house and decided to slip into something more comfortable and that’s all it meant, except to snippy reporters desperate to snark.

Q: Why don’t we hear any more gnashing of teeth about the government not funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

A: Because ADULT Stem Cells are proving to be wildly promising and successful - so much so that the dismal and nightmarish failures of Embryonic SCR are going to simply be allowed to fade away from memory. Here is a simple rule to remember: once a bat is no longer useful for pounding on W, it is summarily retired and not heard from again.

Q: Does the whole nation hate President Bush?

A: Doesn’t seem like it. Not the whole nation.

Q: Who gave Bill Clinton the idea of putting his offices in Harlem?

A: Actually, it was Jonah Goldberg. Recall, Clinton’s first instinct was Central Park West.

Q: Does Rush Limbaugh owe Bulldog Pundit some props for the concept of Operation Chaos?

A: Well, he BP has been supporting Hillary for a while!

Q: Would you vote for Obama if he were Adlai Stevenson?

A: Well, I wouldn’t. My birth dad - a staunch Democrat and classical liberal - loved Adlai but voted Ike. Twice. E.J. Dionne asks a thoughtful question and Brian Saint-Paul takes it further.

Q: Have we really thought-through socialized medicine?

A: No.

Q: Does the NY Times have honest issues with their front page?

Q: Are bloggers prisoners of their venue?

A: Speaking only for myself, three days into going wall-to-wall on Benedict’s visit I felt like I would stroke out if I didn’t move around, get some fresh air and look at something different. For others, it appears to be worse.

Q: Is Stephen Colbert hard to make laugh?

A: This priest seems able to do it pretty easily.

Q: Hey, How ’bout those BoSox?

A: Bite me you miserable bastard!

Q: Do the rich snobs who support the likes of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Obama realize how ironically this plays?.

A: What do you think?

Q: Is “Manmade” Global Warming still hoo-hah?

A: Why yes. Yes it is. And Entrepreneurial Gore still won’t suffer impertinent questions or debates over it. Terrorists, however are getting onboard with the greenies, while some greenies are jumping ship.

Q: How come you don’t post in crotchety prospector speech anymore?

A: So wearying. Maybe for Christmas.

Q: Heard any good jokes lately?

A: Well, only one, and maybe its not that good but I’m a little punchy, and I laughed:

From a Danish associate:

“We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election. On one side, you have a b*tch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a b*tch who is a lawyer. On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?” H/T reader Pianogirl

Improv Everywhere turns a little league baseball game into a big-league event with jumbotron and Goodyear Blimp to boot! You’ll want to read it all.

Very cool cats, those IE guys - and never mean-spirited.

ADDENDUM**Take prescribed medicines only as prescribed.**

Sigh.

Well.

So, my back has been bothering me and making it difficult to sit for any length of time, and moving around has also been a pain. No major problem. I did begin a new exercise regime, though, and that plus another situation and my muscles are spasming. Spasm.ming… My muscles are in spasm. My back.

Oh, the pain.

But muscle relaxants are nice. I mentioned to the doctor that the low dose pill he gave me didn’t seem to affect me at all. Even though I am very fond of the pale pink color of said pill. I like pale pink I think it’s pretty. And restful. So he upped the dosage a little.

Sigh. So, the back feels better but clearly I cannot drive, and I feel all deletorius amourphous… I feel all bloopy. Yes, of course bloopy is a word. It is an onomantopea… you know what I mean. It’s a word that sounds like the bubbles from pop-up-video if that sound was the feeling in my arms and legs. Bloopy. Grin. But then again maybe they’re just bloopy because I’m chubby. They feel bloopier today.

So, blogging will be giddy, random and drug-addled if indeed there is blogging at all. Somehow I am confident that the world will continue to spin in its sphere whether I drop my vulgar and simplistic deathless pearls here or go lay on my bed with Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract which is today the greatest book I’ve ever not written. There are many, many great books I have not written, both fiction and non. Many great columns, poems, speeches and recipes I have never written. Because I am a sad uneducated failure of a girl and I have no discipline and the damdest case of introverted shyness in the whole world ever.

But today, in this mood, A Civil Contract is the greatest of them. Those books and things I have never written. When I am off the muscle relaxants then maybe it will be another book. I once wrote a very nice romantic scene in which a hero managed to get a bummed-out heroine to eat a meal without her noticing. It was very sweet and nurturing part of a novel I’ve never had the balls to try to publish and it languishes now in a desk drawer and it probably says something that I find it romantic to be fed. Is everything about comfort food? No wonder my arms and legs are bloopy. But even then, Joe Torre’s stupid, stupid, stupid stupid what were you thinking, Joe, to bring in Wang on three days rest when he’s never, ever pitched on three days rest before and starting him in this incredibly important game, instead of Mike Mussina? Stupid! WHAT were you thinking? You pushed aside experience and emotional steadfastness for a kid who will probably now be convinced that he sucks in postseason forever? And who never it can’t be said enough, stupid, pitched before on three days rest? If you’d started Mussina we could have won that game; we could have been contenders! Instead of bums with one way tickets to palookaville which is what we are. Stupid! I hate baseball. I hate it like I hate when my kids are fresh because I love them but want to smack them across the mouth Irish-style, with the backhand, so the wedding ring leaves a mark, but I never do because I love them, and that’s how much I hate baseball. It is my favorite game, and I especially love it because it has no damn timeclock, but Bart Giammanti was right when he said it breaks your heart. It does break your heart. But Giammatti’s son is a good actor. I liked him in Cinderella Man which also had the very good Russell Crowe who has nice eyes and one of those voices I like to listen to. But I think Christian Bale would be better to play Thomas Merton if they ever make a movie of his life, which someone should.

Alright. I have a headache. I’m going to go eat lunch and be very depressed about the Yankees and go read Heyer and you should too. Somehow I think all the cares and troubles of the world about which I can do nothing will still be here tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time and… and I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume and what Whitman described is in a weird way pretty much what the world has become, isn’t it? Especially the blogging world? A singing and celebration of self and an urging toward all to think like I think dammit and assume what I assume? But as Felix Unger proved in court: when you assume you make an ass out of u and me. You’m and meme.

This the problem, too many memes. Too many people who cannot distinguish between tuum and meum. Or worse, nobody gives a damn about anyone or anything anymore except themselves and their pathetic little opinions and conclusions and I count myself among the pathetic and small. And you should too. Or, maybe not.

I hate to tell anyone they should do anything. I have always, always hated the language of the shouldists. You know the shouldists. They’re the ones who should all over you. They love to say “every person in America should think this way or feel that way or be concerned about thus and such.” So here I find myself becoming a shouldist, and that is a damnably sad and unforgivable thing but sometimes maybe a should needs saying. I personally think every American should be concerned with her press - the great and remarkable treasure of her free press - which is being subsumed by advocates and partisans who do not seriously question anyone whom they do not hate, and who therefore betray the public trust (and themselves) and leave the whole nation wide open for something which by the prickling of my thumbs something wicked this way comes. And I’m not even talking about Hillary although some of you likely think I am.

No, I’m talking about the pain I feel every day when I sit here and read stories in the press that don’t jibe with what my own eyes and ears tell me, or when I see the press completely fall in line with a narrative (”Bush wants little children to get sick and die”) that is intellectually insulting and untruthful, and never ask a politician, “hey, why are you suggesting that 25 year olds are ‘children,’ and how can you say he’s cutting the program when he’s trying to add 4 million poor kids to it” why doesn’t someone like Russert ever say stuff like that to anyone? Why have journalism and politics and the academy all sunken into a kind of vague slog whereby every piece of reality and history is laid onto a stagnant wadi of settled muck that we all have to haul ourselves through, every day, until we’re all so tired of it and looking for a way out of it or a stupid distraction that we - everyday - allow more and more to be lain on the muck and absorbed and distorted and finally disregarded because one can’t possibly keep track of everything. The sheer volume of added muckery each day overwhelms and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry…and lose the name…of action. I love Hamlet. God, I wish I could write like that. I wish I could just write at all. I wish I could drown in such words.

Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. As Bill Murray advised in Meatballs: “it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. Even if we win! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days - even if God in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field - even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win it just wouldn’t matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Camp Mohawk because they’ve got all the money! It just doesn’t matter if we win or we lose. It just doesn’t matter!”

Heh. MacBeth and Meatballs, do you see the crap that rolls around in my head at any given moment and how the sublime lies immediately akin to the ridiculous and it all crashes together into a roiling cacophony that leaves me stupid and paralyzed and thus conscience makes cowards of us all? Am I an unholy mess of a girl or what? “An unholy mess of a girl,” one of my favorite lines from The Philadelphia Story. James Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant why don’t they make movies like that anymore? With actors that likable? Ah, well…it just doesn’t matter.

Because, as I’ve said, half of what we see is illusion and the other half a passing trend. It’s so hard to figure out which is which, isn’t it? But as Julian said, all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. And if it’s not, then still don’t worry because as Teresa of Avila said, “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things pass away. God never changes…” and as our late great John Paul II said and the angels continue to tell you, every day, “be not afraid.”

Be not afraid. We are in autumn, beautiful, crisp, fragrant autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. But still, always be aware. Childe Roland to the dark tower came. My Elder Son loves the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. My son Buster declares if he ever has sons he will name them Roland, Edgar and Dante. I’ll have to live through it. I love everyone.

Thanks to March Hare, this shot of Derek Jeter riding in the All Star Parade, and bringing Mom and Dad along for the ride.

A good boy who loves his mother and father. I’m just middle-aged enough to adore him for it!

I don’t get it. I’m watching the Yankees/Bosox game on ESPN. Derek Jeter hit a monster three-run homer - way over the wall, something you just don’t see enough in Fenway Park.

So far ESPN has shown the homerun twice more…and both times, they showed the DUGOUT reaction, instead of the soaring home run every fan of baseball (well, except a Bosox fan) would want to see again.

I can see doing that once. But twice? Showing the team cheering instead of the home run?

I don’t get it. I don’t claim to know the tv biz, but…just seems like an odd choice to make - twice - to me.

UPDATE: Yankees win, but a nerve-wracking 9th. I love and hate this game.

:::Scroll midway to update:::

I got an email from a fellow a few days ago, urging me to read Bill Whittle’s latest entry into his collection of remarkable essays, over here.

As it happened, I was actually printing out the two-parter, entitled “You are not alone,” as I’d opened the email, and I wrote back to the reader telling him, essentially, “thanks, I’ve got it.”

Today the reader wrote back saying, “Interesting that you’re not writing about it.”

That’s when I noticed that the header on the email said, “Conservative Anger.”

Oh. I guess I’m supposed to write about Conservative Anger, or something. Shrug.

As I noted yesterday, I’m in the middle of doing the reading-for-pay thing which must be done to pay the bills…so I haven’t been spending a whole lot of time contemplating Conservative Anger…but I’ll show you what I wrote to this reader off the top of my head about both Whittle’s essay and Conservative Anger, with a few lines edited or expanded:

I love Bill’s work, - he is a tremendous writer and thinker - but his latest didn’t hang in my memory and urge me to respond. The game-theory, tit-for-tat stuff was very interesting, but nothing I would write about because it’s too smart for me. The “Remnant” writing was less interesting, possibly because I’ve been aware of the Remnant for an exceedingly long time, and I’m also aware that you do not bring the remnant together and organize it in anticipation of something - then it ceases to be The Remnant and simply becomes a movement.

The Remnant is much deeper than any movement, and it will surface on its own - full of surprising and surprised people - in due time, when it must, and that may be soon, but neither you nor I know the day or hour. The thing about remnants is that they identify themselves after a carpet has been laid or a robe has been cut, not before.

Remnants do not stop a construct from happening…they survive it.

“Conservative anger” doesn’t particularly interest me, any more than “liberal anger” interests me. Anger is an emotion and when parties are running on emotion, they’re useless. We’ve watched the liberals run on emotion for 6 years and seen how nuts it has made them…if the right wants to now run on emotion, well…it won’t serve them any better.

Organized anger on either side leaves the masses ripe for manipulation. Matters are much too serious - throughout the world and in our country - to allow emotionalism to seize and carry the day. I think Abraham Lincoln said something like that, back in the day:

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

“We must disenthrall ourselves…” That means moving beyond all the sputtering rage, to clear thinking and problem-solving rendered with respectful tongues and open minds.

::::UPDATE::::Interestingly, something like that is happening in the comments section here.

My blog is my little world of freedom in which I indulge my own leanings. On my blog I blog about the things that interest me at the particular moment that I am sitting down and writing - whatever grabs my passion, so to speak - and when I write, I hope it is interesting to others as well, but I am writing for myself. I never allow others to dictate to me what I will write, or when. When people ask me why I’m not writing about this scandal or that headline-grabbing bit, or the latest missing blonde girl getting saturation coverage on FOX, the answer is always the same - I write what interests me.

Curiously, although I have plenty of thoughts in my head about the unhealthy Yankees and the dreaded Red Sox, I have not written about Baseball, this year, either. It’s simply that my time is at a premium right now, and what little breath I get to catch at my “anchoress window” needs to be one that can keep me centered, sane and focused in a world increasingly off-balance, quite mad and layered in illusion. Sometimes that means paying no attention at all to the huffing and puffing of every passerby as they get completely stuck in the world and its winds (forgetting that sometimes therein reside angels), looking around and - before getting back to work - spending a little time with the breviary. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing.

In the huge reading pile I am currently attacking none of the pieces are touching on immigration or “conservative anger.” I am myself trying - between chapters - to collect my thoughts on Bush, immigration, etc…but whether I post on it or not completely depends on how I feel when I sit down to write - if my head is full of a psalm, I’ll end up writing about that, instead.

So if anyone hopes to induce me or tease me into writing something he wants on his schedule, well - good luck. My editors can’t do it, either!

Related: The Remnant: To Worship Underground

I can’t believe he’s only won three.

Derek Jeter added another piece of hardware to his trophy case on Thursday, capturing his third consecutive Rawlings Gold Glove Award.

Jeter also won this year’s Hank Aaron Award in the American League and is a front-runner for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award.

He’s toting up some impressive career stats, too.

Come on, MVP! He’s earned it!

A beeeyootiful start to the post season, and Jeter was so impressive last night that even this Boston sportswriter had to admire him and admit that he deserves to be MVP this year.

There are slicker fielders, and shortstops who hit for more power, but none can control a game like the Yankee captain. Remember the night he dived into the stands going after that foul pop against the Sox? The extra-inning game in New York in 2004? That was the play that ultimately made Boston realize that Nomar Garciaparra (he was sulking on the bench when Jeter put himself in the hospital) had to go. Jeter also had a pretty significant hit in the back-breaking fourth game of the five-game sweep in Fenway last summer.

Another reason he should be American League MVP.

If you are not familiar with the “catch and relay play” referenced above (aka “The Flip”) it is about 35 seconds into this video, and it’s downright spooky how Jeter, like a savant, seems to recognise what is happening a split second earlier than everyone else on a ballfield.

But, as the Yankee Captain says…5-for-5 don’t mean nothing, if they don’t win tonight.

I used to think Jeter put that on, that he pretended to be less interested in his own stats than in winning the World Series. Now I’m becoming convinced that he means it. For 11 years he’s said the same thing; sportswriters even make fun of it, (so does Buster, who is convinced that Jeter is the greatest player alive, but that he can’t possibly have much of a life outside of the game) but he’s been consistant.

And Jeter has been a consistant player, championship season or not. You don’t get 2,000 hits at his age without being consistant…and by the time he’s done, perhaps no one but Robinson Cano will be able to touch his post-season records.

Cano is going to be as great or even greater than Jeter, I think.

I’m working on a project with a looming deadline. I don’t even like it. It’s kind of like homework, no fun at all, but I’ve got to do it because at the end of the drudgery lies a bit o’ the green stuff.

Because I’ve picked up some new readers, I thought I’d offer up a “getting to know you,” link, all about, well…me in all my whiney glory.

If you’re not interested in hearing me whine, you might prefer this rambling bit on Merton and Stargazing from a sleepless night.

Or, you know…there was that time I got mad…liberals making an endrun around the constitution.

If you’re not interested in any of those, this you’ll like: one of the most entertaining baseball stories of all time!

Hope to be back into the fray later today. Thanks for looking in.

Not that you’ve seen it anywhere in the press (if we had, I might have been nicer to Alex Rodriquez a few weeks ago…) but some baseball players are thinking of our troops.

From Newsbusters:

Imagine if you will a group of Major League Baseball’s top stars getting together to donate money for Iraqi citizens injured during the war, or for Lebanese civilians injured as a result of the recent bombings by Israel. Do you think America’s media would pay a lot of attention to such a charity? Probably every hour on the hour, right?

Well, at the beginning of the 2005 season, Cy Young award winner Barry Zito started a charity to raise money for American soldiers being treated at various military hospitals such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital. In the past couple of years, he and other stars like Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling, Chipper Jones, Jermaine Dye, Tim Hudson, and Dontrelle Willis have contributed several hundred thousand dollars to Zito’s “Strikeouts For Troops.” And yet, in the eighteen months since its creation, virtually no media outside of the San Francisco Bay Area where Zito plays and lives have bothered to report the existence of this marvelous charity.

Pitchers are donating per their strikeouts, hitters per their homeruns. Very nice. Testimonials here.

The website is here, and baseball has given me so much pleasure this year…particularly, ahem, during a particular 5-game sweep up in Beantown…and maybe in some reparation for my meanness toward A-Rod, that I think a check is in order! (H/T Larwyn)

Also, here is a really nice story I meant to link to earlier this week - about seniors who greet returning troops, from the NY Times!

Related: A letter to any American soldier, but especially in Iraq.