I actually agree with this

Every once in awhile, I agree with something posted over at the Caelum et Terra blog. Here's an example; well, mostly this little excerpt at the end (I have to admit that I skipped the part about farming in the middle.):

I can think of no stupider tool than the leaf blower.

It is loud. It is stinky. It consumes finite resources. It is not one whit faster than using a rake. The person wielding the blower does not get much in the way of exercise at all, and this in an age of concern over obesity.

And what is lost: the graceful sweep of the rake, the lovely sound of the leaves, like the sound of waves, the health benefits of the dance of raking, the conversation and camaraderie.

Sometimes technology makes sense, at least in terms of time and effort saved.

I posted awhile back the only really good use for leaf blowers.

Father Kevin Estabrook's homilies are online

Earlier I linked to a post about priests blogging from our friend, Dymphna. She mentioned that it okay its strictly "homilies, apologetics and other writing." I think she would approve of Father Kevin Estabrook's blog which is a collection of his great homilies along with some related Catholic art. Here is an excerpt from his sermon on St. Francis from today's Mass.

The night after meeting Francis, Pope Innocent had a dream. Pope Innocent dreamt he stood looking out over the Lateran Church and watched with fear as the proud and ancient building shook, the tower swung, and the walls began to crack, it was in danger of collapsing in on itself. Suddenly, a small common looking man came towards the Lateran. He was dressed in peasant garb, was barefoot, and wore a rope around his waist for a belt. Rushing to the falling Church, he set his shoulder in under the wall and with a mighty push straightened the whole falling church, so that it again stood aright. The pope then recognized the man as Francis of Assisi.

The Pope interpreted his dream to mean that St. Francis would been instrumental in reforming and strengthening the Catholic Church.

This story is very interesting, especially in light of the story where St. Francis knelt in prayer in the crumbling San Damiano chapel. As Francis knelt and prayed in front of the crucifix, Jesus began to speak to him, saying, “Francis, rebuild my Church.”

Father Estabrook is the newest priest at my parish, St. Angela Merici. So I was happy to find his homily site. I actually remember hearing this homily from two Sundays ago. I didn't know the meaning of the name Amos was "burden-bearer". The man definitely puts effort into his homiletic work. Kudos to him!

What I read first today

...and what I will likely be thinking about for the rest of the day is Oengus Moonbones's latest work in progress, The Relics. For some reason, the man from the "Land In-between" just draws me into his stories. There's an honesty in his fiction that you don't always see in the non-fiction of others. Here's how The Relics begins:

The story I want to tell you begins with a funeral, my funeral actually.

It's funny how the end of your life can circle back around to near where you began. That was the case with me when they held a funeral for me at the Crystal Cathedral, over in Garden Grove. It is a nice town, much like the rest of the towns you find in southern California. When I was very young, my grandmother Edith would take me to Sunday school at a small church not far down the road from where the Cathedral is located. Back then I would never have dreamt that just down the street they would finally bury me. But I guess you don't think about those kind of things when you're little.

Anyhow, my funeral was a sight to behold. I mean it was a really big funeral, bigger than anything I could imagine happening. All sorts of people came. There were some that I knew in life, but most of the people who came I had no idea who they were or where they came from. Isn't it strange that when you're still around, not many people will even talk to you. Once you're gone, though, you discover you've got all these friends you never knew you had.

The story isn't finished, but I hope he writes more. I remember a few years back reading his quirky and very humorous Belinda at Starbucks, which I can't seem to find on Lunar Skeletons anymore. What's up with that, Oengus?

Whence Rayne?

I was discussing some recent matters this morning with some of the veterans of the original Contra Crunchy blog when the name of a mysterious commenter on said blog came up: Rayne. A circumstantial email correspondence back in 2009 informed me that commenter Rayne is female. Here are several of the comments which she made about Crunchy Conservatism at the time.

Here's her first insightful comment.

Now this is rich. The rest of us are "soft" - but Dreher et al - padding about in their lesbian sandals on the cobblestone paths to their artsy-crafty bungalows fretting about their profiles in the Style section of the Washington Post - THEY are the poster boys for Alpha males. Is a Crunchy Con anything but a disaffected metrosexual with a ludicrous passion for food and an unhealthy preoccupation with home decor and ugly, expensive footware? I cannot wrap my head around Dreher hailing from Southern Louisiana - it just doesn't seem possible. No wonder those guys love homeschooling - they probably got the living crap beat out of them on the playground.

Bwa-ha-ha. Next:

Oh my - you're right! The New Pantagruel is Stegall's (aka Fr. Jape, IMO) little self-created soapbox where guess who? James Rovira! is a contributor. Shocking! You're right about the jig being up, Contra Crunch - looks like Dreher's biggest cheerleader, Frederica Mathews-Something, just threw him a rope with which to climb up from that hole he was trying to shovel his way out of:

"Rod... would you answer a question? Earlier today you said:

'I’ve learned a lot from critics of the book.'

Like, what, fr'instance? Care to list off a few? Or is there anything you would change or present differently in the book, from your current perspective?"

Would an accurate translation be: "Rod, you've dug your own grave and there's no graceful way up. Let me help you climb out & then back away slowly; otherwise, they'll bury you."

Here's a third

Great expose - now Whole Foods & Birkenstock should fire their entire PR departments for this colossal advertising failure! Dreher has only served to repulse everyone except his Crunchy Choir with his sanctimonious and hypocritical I'm-so-much-better-and-holier-than-you attitude; basically, just being a crashing bore. What does Dreher care that it's all a scam? - he's laughing all the way to the un-crunchy bank. Anyway, no one is even pretending to dignify it anymore by responding on the NR blog - only Dreher and a new poster (Amy Welborn) already in his Crunchy Corner have appeared today. Not surprisingly, Ms. Welborn has posted 2 nonsensical and irrelevant musings in attempt, I think, to be profound. Someone wake me when this is over...

...and on the same page, a really interesting one...

It's just that the Weinkopf guy didn't say anything remarkable - in WHAT sense is drinking organic milk, staying at home with the kids, and working less than 80 hours a week crunchy? LOTS AND LOTS of nuclear families across the political, social, economic & religious spectrum live exactly this way for a myriad of reasons - but QUIETLY without making exhibitions of themselves and demonizing anyone else who doesn't share their lifestyle choices.

Now Dreher drags in my beloved Benedict to support his self-aggrandisement. Has he NO shame?!

No shame indeed, especially since Dreher admitted today that he was on his way out of the church at the time of Pope Benedict's election, which was 10 months before the publication of Dreher's book Crunchy Conservatism, widely embraced by many Catholics at the time—for some reason. One wonders if that would have been the case if he had left the church before the publication date.

Well, I actually feel confident that Rayne might show up again on this here Est Quod Est blog. She and her wise contributions shall be welcomed by all of us.

Ubiquarian presents "A Decade"

Owen White gives us ten points to ponder, or perhaps to chew on, over at his blog which has become regular reading for me. My guess is that Owen and I disagree completely on a long list of particulars which are all ultimately inconsequential, but that we are true brothers of the drinking variety.

My favorite points are numbers 3 and 6. Three because I can only think of certain topics through a Pieperian lens. Six because it's simply too accurate, like the archer who splits the arrow, and simultaneous laugh-out-loud funny, like maybe the arrow is wearing Groucho glasses, or lets out a fake fart noise... or something. Excerpt:

My favorite religious blog posts are the ones where some guy waxes on and on (drowning in the affect of a strained world weariness, even though he seems like the sort who would struggle to get through two beers and probably still feels all ex-Evangelical guilty when he swears) about the dangers of internet religious blogging - noting the irony that he himself is doing it, while admonishing presumably less wise readers as to what sort of things should be avoided. It reminds me of that time when I was a kid and Mac Davis sang Lord It's Hard to Be Humble on the Muppets.

But please read the whole thing. It's a keeper.

Virtual Interplanetary Travel

Some of you might be interested, amused, irritated, irrigated or exasperated to read the exchange I had near the end of the combox here. I don't claim to know what kind of serious conclusions to draw from it, so anyone can help me out who wishes to.

I don't know if I'll continue the discussion. The truth is that the primary reason I engage certain people is to attempt to understand how they think, or at least to find out what they think. When someone questions many of the things I take for granted I always seek to clarify, but never to persuade. The opinions one finds voiced on blogs can be an endless source of entertainment.

For those who lack the time to read Little Green Footballs

Little Green Footballs is a blog with so much bloviation information, it's hysterical unreal. But if you are like me, you don't have time to read everything. LGF Watch is kind of a "best of" site, a Reader's Digest version which interprets the Brilliant Sayings of Charles Johnson for ordinary pedestrian types like you and me.



UPDATE: Noticed that these folks are for the most part attacking LGF from the left, but no matter. It's fun to watch cat fights. As J. P. Sartre famously stated, "Hell is other people."

A Very Interesting Disputation

Tom's latest insightful commentary on Mary Kochan's analysis of Cd. Rigali's reaction to President Obama's reversal of the Mexico City policy is a good example of why we're happy that all those internets were invented by Al Gore.

There are good points on both sides, to be sure, but my favorite is the one with which Tom concludes.

Cardinal Rigali's use of "disappointing" is not the baffling mystery Kochan paints it to be. I think it's time that we―by "we," I mean not honest, plain-spoken people, but the tiny fraction of Catholics who read USCCB statements―stop pretending that we expect USCCB statements to be indistinguishable from fiery sermons, and simply admit, honestly and plain-spokenly, that we just want them to be fiery sermons (by "we" I mean the people who want USCCB statements to be fiery sermons). Then we can move on to the question of whether we should want that.

Emphasis mine. Because I think a fiery sermon should be a fiery sermon, and diplomatic language should be diplomatic language. Certainly if there is a "time to be silent", shouldn't there be an appointed time for both of these contrasting modes of speech "under Heaven" as it is written? Obviously the question is one of prudence and not one of belief. Back on October 29, I linked to this article written by Cardinal Rigali in my "Pile of Stuff" section in the sidebar. Excerpt:

The transcending issue of our day is the intentional destruction of innocent human life, as in abortion. We wish with all our hearts that no candidate and no party were advocating this heinous act against the human person. However, since it is a transcending issue, and even supported in its most extreme and horrific forms, we must proclaim time and time again that no intrinsic evil can ever be supported in any way, most especially when it concerns the gravest of all intrinsic evils: the taking of an innocent life.

I'm with Tom with regards to the word disappointing. There are definitely many implications to it. Like, for example, if you're an Arizona Cardinals fan, you're probably very disappointed that they lost the Superbowl. One could say "Well, you shouldn't be disappointed; they were expected to lose by 6-1/2 points by the oddsmakers." But the person saying that is probably planning to study Icelandic instead of actually watching the Superbowl, so they will never experience the moment when Arizona is up by 3 points. Similarly, Barack Obama's promise to sign FOCA on his first day as POTUS should not give us false hope, but we may hope guardedly since this has not happened quite yet. And pray.

If the Cardinal had used the word "appalling" rather than "very disappointing", don't you think someone could make a similar accusation of naivete, and "You should have been prepared for this"? The comeback is the same, that is "Of course I'm not completely surprised, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm completely appalled / horrified / dismayed / very disappointed, etc."

And just for the record, I wouldn't mind a fiery sermon from a bishop with regards to abortion. In fact, I'd welcome it. Obama would probably deny he heard it as he's done in the past vis-à-vis fiery sermons, but it would provide more evidence to the bystanders that a prophetic voice has spoken on the matter. I think there's plenty of evidence already, but that's just me.

Joseph Bottum on the Father Neuhaus Obituaries by Dreher and Linker

Joseph Bottum says he felt as if he needed to say something about Damon Linker's snot-nosed obit and Dreher's "attack", as he terms it. I'm glad he did. If you haven't read Linker's pitiful obit and don't want to, he basically calls Father a two-faced son-of-a-bitch. Here's what Bottum says about Dreher's:

The second consists of Rod Dreher’s postings over at Beliefnet. Again, if you’re interested and want to read a reasonable response, Alan Jacobs has taken on the burden. My own reaction is much like Alan’s: The duties we owe to the dead are different from the duties we owe to the living; if you’re going to attack someone with a personal story, you need to do it while they are alive. I made a parallel point about parents last year, in a long essay called “The Judgment of Memory,” which may be worth quoting:

Every memoir of childhood is necessarily overshadowed by parents, and I could find, were I to turn my mind that way, stories of my father’s drinking, his pretension, his bounce.

But my father, being dead, is not here either to be triumphed over by my telling of those stories or to defend himself against them. The death of parents leaves their honor in their children’s hands, and the cruel accuracies we might fling in anger against them while they are alive seem even more wrong to use against them once they are gone. “To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, only truth,” Voltaire once opined. It’s a good line: high-minded, confident, sententious in the way only enlightened French philosophes could manage with any aplomb. But it also feels exactly backward, particularly about those we knew and loved. To squabble with our vanished parents about how they lived their lives seems more than a metaphysical nullity. It is, in fact, a moral failing.

Rod and I were friends, I thought, or, at least, we spent some fun days together in Rome once. But then, a while ago, he used me as an occasion for an unpleasant column he wrote attacking Scooter Libby. I guess I should have understood, and, no doubt, he felt it all strongly. But, in truth, that cashing in of a friendship for the sake of scoring a transient political point was as painful an experience as I’ve had in public life, and Rod Dreher’s eagerness to do it weakened my ability to trust the kind of points he now wants to score by cashing in on his acquaintance with Fr. Neuhaus.

Whoa... I had to read that last paragraph a second time. Strong stuff. I wonder if Rod will go for a hat-trick with Bottum and say something about his mother.

But would Rod Dreher use people like this? Would he "cash them in for political points"? Ironically enough, Dreher wrote a rambling post yesterday semi-regretting what he called the "dust-up over my Neuhaus posting". You have to read it to believe it--he actually partially blames Damon Linker for his attack on Neuhaus. Then he claims that he has a sort of "writer's autism" which blinds him from foreseeing any of the consequences of his writing, then he compares himself to Truman Capote who lost friends by blasting at them in his gossip column....

Well, I just decided I'm not going to re-post any of it here, nor any of the comments which I found hilarious because frankly, and I'm completely sincere, it really made me feel pity for the guy. Furthermore I think I'm done with the man for awhile. That post was written after Bottum's; perhaps the Capote remark was occasioned by his reading it. And maybe he's realizing that you can't just write or say whatever you want whenever you want, something we should all take to heart.

I'm turning off comments to this post, something I rarely do.

Another ridiculous moral equivalency attack on Christianity

I have a new post on the Alexandria blog which I felt compelled to write after this little exchange in the comment boxes between Harvey Lacey and me, which I'll abbreviate here:

Pauli: I don’t know why it harms gays to be told they can’t have the same kind of relationship men have with their wives which we commonly call marriage. They can call their relationship what they want, they can even call it marriage, but it’s different. If you want to say it’s no different then that’s your opinion, your belief if you will. The belief of traditional Christians is that this could do more harm to gays to tell them this because it’s a lie.

Harvey: The only thing that supports your position on heterosexual marriage being superior to a homosexual one is your belief. And your belief has nothing but suspicion and myth to support you.

When you find yourself in a quiet place where you can hear clearly the discussions between your heart and your brain I would like you to think about believing what you do. Consider for a moment the motivation of the parents of the Indians who gave up their daughter for sacrifice. That’s believing my friend, that’s believing. Your belief doesn’t take near as much commitment. But it’s no less wrong.

So believing that gays can't have a marriage equivalent to a traditional marriage between a man and a woman is called "no less wrong" than committing human sacrifice by killing one's offspring. No less wrong. This is the disease called moral equivalency, and we see it everyday from the assertion that opposing "universal single-payer health care" is morally equivalent to being pro-abortion to the baseless assumption that Israel must be just as bad as the terrorist group, Hamas, since they are fighting them.

I go on to show that there is a lot more than merely "suspicion and myth" which supports accepting marriage as being defined traditionally by linking to David Benkof's "Phantom Past" which I recommended everyone should read last week. I reiterate this recommendation again because it shows the "gay narrative" to be as mythical as anything we Christianists ever came up with and it does so in the language of historical and anthropological research.

Being able in a small way to expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this sort of nonsense is one of the reasons that I accepted the opportunity to write―without compensation―for Alexandria, a blog featuring very few gold nuggets amidst the boring and nauseating dirt.

David Benkof Is Back

David Benkof's "Gays Defend Marriage" site is back again. He took the site down in mid-July 2008, citing disagreements with some of the rhetoric behind Prop 8. But he is back blogging again; most of his old stuff is still available. He sent me an email since I had been one of his fans of his bold, clear thinking in the past. And I still am.

David is a Jewish man who identifies as a bi-sexual, however he believes that gay sex is an abomination before God. So he has chosen celibacy for himself. As for everyone else, he is not afraid to tell them what he believes that God thinks about homosexual activity, especially gay male sexual relations. This obviously puts him at odds with many of the religious liberals of the world and probably all of the in-your-face gay activist community. Ironically, he is the type of person who will do the most good for the cause of gays by setting an example of boldness and unselfishness that unbigoted heterosexuals will be forced to respect.

As an introduction to David's philosophy and viewpoints on many gay issues, I recommend reading Selfless Agenda first. I can't agree with everything he writes, but I agree with a lot of it. Plus he's an incredible communicator and is always challenging. After you've digested that, time to tackle Phantom Past. It's very interesting, especially since it's the kind of stuff you never hear in the popular media. Here's an excerpt:

Clearly, all the research taken as a whole suggests that being gay or straight arises out of our specific social context, rather than being etched into our DNA. Of course, given the scant popular awareness about this situation, the idea that gays haven’t always existed can be completely unsettling. Many gays and lesbians have experienced their sexual orientations as unchosen and unchangeable, and therefore they are skeptical - and even hostile - toward anything that implies being gay isn’t part of human nature. And even lots of nongay people and organizations have built outlooks about homosexuality around a belief that the gay minority occurs naturally.

For example, the American Psychological Association (APA) argued in its Supreme Court brief in the landmark 2003 sodomy case of Lawrence v. Texas that “the sexual orientation known as homosexuality - which is based on an enduring pattern of sexual or romantic attraction exclusively or primarily to others of one’s own sex - is a normal variant of human sexual expression.”

Since the specific sexual orientation described is a recent, culturally driven phenomenon, it cannot be a “normal variant of human sexual expression.” Had the APA argued that homosexual orientation “appears to arise involuntarily among some people in our society,” it would have been closer to the mark. There were good, legitimate reasons (such as privacy) to oppose anti-sodomy laws. The supposed natural occurrence of homosexual orientation in the human species, however, was not one of them.

You really need to read the entire piece in which his scholarship on his topic is stunning. I include the excerpt so you can see how Benkof is not in sync with the standard P.C. mantra of "they're born that way", an assertion which he shows is not backed up by any anthropological or historical evidence. His last sentence asserts something I agree with fully: "It's a whole new conversation, one that’s touchy and hard to predict but long overdue."

La Shawn B on Obama's Invocator

Being that I'm pretty much a bald American at this point, I don't make many trips to the barber down on the corner. But I always check out La Shawn Barber's Corner, and here's an example of why, from her musings on President Elect Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation:

Homosexuals are a tad upset that their brother-in-arms chose someone who calls homosexual behavior by its proper name and shares my opinion about the slippery slope of allowing two men to call themselves married in the traditional sense of the word. People may be offended that I think such a mockery eventually would lead to atrocities like allowing adults to marry children. But look at it this way: I can’t believe in my lifetime, Americans are discussing allowing people of the same sex to marry. Whoever thought that would happen? You honestly don’t think it will lead to other perverted things? You’re either naive, imbecilic, or straight-up lying.

Now is that as refreshing as an eleven ounce glass of lemonade with four-and-a-half ice cubes in it or what? La Shawn inspires me because she really doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks about her beliefs, and we need more people like that―provided they're correct like she is, of course.

Why did Obama (who said he opposes homosexual “marriage,” by the way) choose a Prop 8-supporting man like Warren, knowing it would anger and confound his leftist base? To “reach out” to social conservatives who voted for John McCain, to skim off a few Republican-voting Christians who dig Warren – I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters that much.

I heartily agree. Folks on the right and left are slicing this up way too much, digging for the hidden message. "It's a brilliant move!" say some on the center-left. "Warren has sold out!" say some right-wing nuts. "Christians go to Hell, if there was a Hell!" say the atheists.

I commented on another blog―I think it was one for conservative agnostic dinner-party albinos who stutter―that Rick Warren's publicity folks should love this hype. Maybe it won't go down in history like the good weather prayer, but it will probably be as over-analyzed as Obama's decision. Long live the Internets.

Pearl of the Blogiterranean

I've been invited to join a group blog called Alexandria: Crossroads of Civilization. Disregarding the words of a wise man, I accepted the offer. I don't know what I have in common with the folks over there except approximate body temperature, but that's probably enough for a blog whose founding post waxed amusedly on blogging as the "entropic heat death of thinking".



We'll see what happens.

Ted K

Our favorite Bostonian blogger is covering the Ted Kennedy news so I don't have to. Heah's a teasa:

The second-biggest loser in Ted Kennedy's tragic turn of fate is Deval Patrick, who, thanks to a 2004 law change designed to prevent Mitt Romney from nominating John Kerry's replacement to the Senate, gets to do nothing but sit back and cast his one stupid vote just like the rest of us schmucks.

Oh, snap.

Only Andrew Sullivan is surprised about this

Big thanks to Bubba for this gem about Andrew Sullivan's readership.

Andy, your 54.6% liberal audience (and just between you and me, some of those self-identifying moderates are likely operationally liberal) is not a function of your Obama love, which borders on worship. Your liberal audience and your Obama love are both symptomatic of the fact that — despite your self-identification as a conservative — your writing appeals primarily to the left.

Oddly enough, someone who considered voting for Al Gore in 2000, endorsed John Kerry in 2004 and is admittedly in the throes of a mancrush on the candidate who is the most liberal member of the Senate is not seen by most people as conservative. Throw in the anti-Bush hysteria that has been a staple of your blog since Pres. Bush decided to support the Federal Marriage Amendment (pure coincidence, of course), and you end up with a disproportionately left-liberal audience. You are Keith Olbermann with an accent.

I have to hand it to Sullivan for admitting this about who reads him. Of course, he still labors under the delusion that he's a conservative, but as many point out, he's on a lot of medication.

Kickin' Sand Castles

The genius who created Is Barack Obama the Messiah?, Christopher, sometimes known as "blostopher", closed all the comment boxes on the site except for this one which is a sand-castle kicking blast. Haven't had this much fun since the that Nutrasweet overdose back in '06.


The latest find, discovered by commenter Ninja Pirate, is by a Deepak Chopra wanna-be named Saniel Bonder and is entitled "I Dreamt That Lincoln Had a Dream: Barack Obama, the American Theodicy, and the Spirit of American Democracy". You just have to read it, it's too priceless.

Doctor Mike

Since I've known him since we were in grade school, I have enough embarrassing stories about Dr. Michael Coulter that he'd have reason to be really scared -- if he didn't have more dirt on me.

But enough of that. He is now blogging over at Catholicism and Politics since he's Catholic and a Political Science professor. So go give him some hits -- you surely don't have anything better to do if you are reading my blog.

Also -- he's one of the editors behind the big Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought of which I recently saw a blurb in the latest issue of Catalyst.

If ye hath ever read Gibran...

...this poetic review will be very funny unto all y'all. Excerpt:

At the second opening, these words:
“You the talkative I have loved, saying, ‘Life hath much to say’; and you the dumb I have loved, whispering to myself, ‘Says he not in silence what I would fain hear in words?’”

At the third opening, these words:
“Work is love made visible.”
To which I reply, You must have been pretty lucky in your job,
If you ever actually had a job,
But then I recall myself to myself,
And I discern that my task at the moment is but to open the book,
Not to comment thereupon.

Therefore I turn, and cause the Book to be opened a fourth time:
“Men do not desire blessedness upon their lips, nor truth in their bowels” _
— And I make no comment about the bowels,
But rather allow the completion of the thought, such as it is—
“For blessedness is the daughter of tears, and truth is but the son of pain.”

Reminds me of a great scene in Elvis Meets Nixon where the King is sitting in his Graceland bedroom reading The Prophet and he throws the book across the room in anger. Then he goes to his his walk-in closet, puts on a purple cape-suit and starts pigging out on Hershey bars. Priceless.

The Saga Continues

Here's a stupid question: would the readers of this humble blog be interested in a story involving a Latinizing hippy chick, Pentecostal Gypsies, a BDS-ridden dot-com casualty, a sycophantic Marxist monkey fetishist, Gayh-C.L.U attorneys and other assorted colorful members of the MOONBAT‡ party gathered to imbibe the caffeine chalice beneath the watchful gaze of the glowing corporate mixoparthenos in drippy Seattle, WA?


I thought so. That's why you are so fortunate that former United States VP Albert Gore foresaw the possibility of making the works, factual and fictional, of Oengus Moonbones available to the public and therefore took the initiative of inventing the internet. Thus he made it possible for anyone in the world to read Melinda at Starbucks, the ongoing internet serial written by the same Mr. Moonbones.

Following is a chapter listing to aid in reading all the posts which comprise the story in order:

Melinda at Starbucks
§ 0.0 (prologue)
§ 0.1 (prologue)
§ 2.2.0
§ 2.2.1
§ 2.2.3
§ 2.2.4
§ 2.2.5
§ 2.3.0
§ 2.3.1
§ 2.3.2
§ 2.3.3
§ 2.3.4
§ 2.4.0
§ 2.4.1

I find the story to be fun and engaging. The dialogue is hilarious socio-political commentary which deftly avoids being (too) over-the-top. The acronyms are extremely clever and the archetypical profiles of the coffee-house characters are dead-on. I'd compare the style sort of a mix between Doug Coupland and Kurt Vonnegut, but less depressing than either. Plus any story where someone gets his ear bitten off has got to be good by default.

I should also mention that Oengus, having obviously suffered a sudden fit of glasnost, recently opened up comments on his blog, so if you enjoy the story as much as I do, please encourage him to continue telling it.

(Just for the record, I want the part of the narrator, Melinda's "interlocutor", when the film is made. I'm perfect for it. The Nehru jacket is on order. I'm scouting locations, I've got some other casting ideas as well and I'm working on some connections at a zoo for the monkey cage scene.)

-----

‡ Acronym for Multicultural Organization Of National Basic Attitude Transformation, a progressive political movement that began in the Seattle Area.

Sully's Blog

Mark Sullivan, a writer/friend of mine who has real material published on dead wood, has a blog now so he can slum with the rest of us blogospheric hacks. A former house-mate in the 'Burgh, Sully is responsible for coming up with my nickname and rescuing me from a situation in a rather insane living situation in Lower Saint Clair. We had many adventures together before I bolted and moved to the Mistake on the Lake back in '98.

So far his blog has been very practical. Yesterday he blogged on how to turn candy bars into MP3 files, a great and useful work of alchemy.

Welcome to the blogosphere, big guy.