Back Online

Well, I've been away for a while. No, it wasn't a great vacation. Nope, it's not that I didn't have anything to say. It was because I spilled tea on my Macbook, and had to get the keyboard replaced.

So, here I am, 10 days since a post and there's almost too much to choose from for topics. Baseball and steroids. Or maybe the stimulus. Maybe I should post a couple of the drawings I finished with all of the free time I had without a computer to suck me in. It's like trying to begin Thanksgiving dinner. So much good stuff you can't choose where to begin.

So I choose the lima beans.

FR. BARRY has recently written about 'Lost in Austen', a NEW FLICK about a Jane Austen fan who time travels to get swap lives with Austen's fictional character Elizabeth Bennett...

OK, I like Jane Austen. The books, that is. I don't like watching the silver screen versions. At all. Let alone the bazillion take-offs. I'd much rather watch something based on Flannery O'Conner. You know, they weirdness, the freakishness. I'm thinking 'Temple of the Holy Ghost'.

But alas, somebody is trying! I wander what Fr. Barry will think of 'Pride and Predator'. Yes, that's right. Elton John's production company is doing a version of 'Pride and Prejudice', except that the main protagonist isn't Mr. Darcy, it's our favorite 7 foot tall alien armed with a nuclear warhead:

It might prove something of a boon to those who reach for the remote control when yet another costume drama comes on television: Elton John's Rocket Pictures is developing a new spin on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, this time featuring a nefarious seven-foot extraterrestrial with hideous mandibles and a penchant for human blood. Yes, it's Pride and Predator.

"It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect..."

That sounds...awesome. Finally an Austen movie with something men can enjoy. Why wasn't this thought of before? Maybe the sequel should be Charles Mansonfield Park.

Of course, if you can't stand watching the Predator for the images it conjures of Arnold (and as a conservative Republican in California, I'm constantly trying to distance myself from thoughts of him), you can always pick up A COPY of 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'. Because, well, the author of the article put it best:

"I've always said the problem with Jane Austen's novels is that there simply aren't enough zombies."

The 10 Books That Screwed Up the World

One of my favorite professors in undergrad was Dr. Benjamin Wiker. He is, in my mind, a great leader of young men and women, for many reasons. Firstly, he's extremely amiable. Very few people are agreeable to all. Wiker is one of those few. Secondly, he's incredibly intelligent, and during many a seminar discussing Spencer or Aquinas, Virgil or Plutarch, he could pierce through the conversation with a pointed question that would immediately and correctly guide the course of a misdirected discussion. One can only do this with a thorough understanding of the text. Thirdly, he genuinely cares about the moral and intellectual development of his students, and this is probably his most rare trait, given today's rampant atheism and intellectual pride in academia. Last, but certainly not least, he has a fantastic sense of humor, laying down great pun after great pun. It was truly a sad day for Thomas Aquinas College when he left for other, more barren fields to plow.

No, this is not a eulogy for Dr. Wiker. He's still alive and well. But I'm compelled to write about him because I JUST READ A POST OVER AT SALVO by the post-Darwinian warrior Denyse O'Leary, about a book Dr. Wiker has recently written: 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help. Learning that Mrs. O'Leary is a fan of Dr. Wiker makes me an even bigger fan of both.

Trust me when I say that Dr. Wiker writes like he leads a seminar: unpresuming but unrelenting, humble but confident, funny but quite serious.

While, without a thorough grounding in political theory beginning with Aristotle and carried through de Toqueville, it may be a little difficult to see all the reasons why Marx & Engels' Manifesto screwed up our world, but Dr. Wiker will quite simply explain, in the language of common sense and without pre-fabricated vocabulary, why it is so. And so it will be with his dissection of the other evil books of Western Civilization, whether their subject is natural philosophy, scientific method, psychoanalysis, or political theory.

If you are still requiring a little push to drop the whopping Twenty Bucks on the book, I recall a line from Dorothy Sayer's FANTASTIC ESSAY (Seriously. Print this out and read it) entitled "The Lost Tools of Learning":

"We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished"

So please, pick up a copy now. Read it. Learn from it. Absorb it. Share it. Then go read the original texts yourself. That is how we will destroy the beast that has become intellectual apathy rampant in American society.


You owe me a beer, Ben.
Actually, I owe a good deal of my intellectual life, and a great deal of my sense of wonder, to you.

What's in a name?

First off, thanks to Fr. Barry for giving up this topic for me to post in his stead.

In a bizarre twist of historical artifacts which will surely generate interest in fields as varied as psychoanalysis to genetic biology, it's been determined that the father of President Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was the authentic author of a letter written to President Andrew Jackson, threatening to kill him. Truly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree:

'London-born Junius Brutus Booth was a famous Shakespearean actor and a manic public figure. He had three sons in the theater, including John Wilkes Booth, who later would murder President Lincoln in April 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington.

"(Junius) Booth was well-known for acting up, acting out, as well as acting," Feller said.'

Whoa! Check that... His middle name was Brutus? How fitting is that? That my friends, is called an 'aptronym'- when a person's occupation matches his name. Some other noteworthy (and very real!!) aptronyms:

Anger Management
Dr. Richard Madden (Hudson, N.Y.)

Astronomers
Alan Heavens (University of Edinburgh)

Cabinet Secretaries
Margaret Spellings (Secretary of Education)

Clergy
Jaime Lachica Cardinal Sin, former archbishop of Manila

Dentists/Orthodontists
Ngoc Quang Chu, DDS (Bethesda, Md.)
Dalbert Fear, Jr., DDS (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
Ken Hurt, DDS (Albuquerque, N.M.)
Kenneth Krowne, DDS (Brookline, Mass.)
Les Plack, DDS (San Francisco, Calif.)
Anthony J. Puller, DDS (Richmond, Va.)
Randall Toothaker, DDS (University of Nebraska Medical Center)
Barth, Lacy, and Craig Toothman (Columbus, Ohio)

Food Critics
Jamie Maw (Vancouver magazine)

Football Players
Brian Baldinger (former defensive lineman, Dallas Cowboys, Indiana Colts, and Philadelphia Eagles)
Joey Goodspeed (former running back, St. Louis Rams)
Quentin Jammer (cornerback for the San Diego Chargers)

Gastroenterologists
Angel Colon (Annapolis, Md.)

Gynecologists
Dr. Bonnie Beaver (West Hills, Calif.)
Dr. Harry Beaver, retired (Fairfax, Va.)
Sheldon H. Cherry (New York, N.Y.)
Dr. Hyman Meltzer, deceased (Chicago) Too bad it's not Metzger-German for 'butcher'.

Leadership Expert
Jack Christ (Ripon College, Ripon, Wis.)

Lobbyists
Leon Billings
Robert Cashdollar

Musicians
Linda Toote (Flautist, Boston, Mass.)

Novelists/Essayists
Francine Prose (New York, N.Y.)

Office Supplies and Equipment
Dean Boring, president, Boring Office Supplies (Lakeland, Fla.)

Opthalmologists
Dr. Kevin Blinder (Washington University)

Ornithologists
David Bird (director, Avian Science and Conservation Center, McGill University, Canada)

Podiatrists
Dr. Allen Korn (Washington, D.C.)

Police
John Lawless (Haverstraw, N.Y.)

Psychologists/Psychiatrists
Dr. Jules Angst, emeritus professor of psychiatry, University of Zurich
Roberta L. Nutt, Ph.D., director, Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program, Texas Women's University

Race-car Drivers
Scott Goodyear
Scott Speed

Rapists, Convicted
Robert Raper (Boston, Mass.)

Realtors
Ann Greathouse (Pittsburgh, Pa.)

Religion, Professors of
Terry Godlove (Hofstra University)

Risk Management
John C. Chicken (author, The Philosophy of Risk)

Sexual Misconduct Researcher
Charol Shakeshaft

Spokespersons

Am Rong (Khmer Rouge spokesman, Cambodia)
Tony Snow (Washington, D.C.)
Larry Speakes (Reagan White House flak)

Urologists
Dr. Richard ("Dick") Chopp (Austin, Texas)
Dr. Dennis Peters (Pensacola, Fla.)
Dr. Alexander Philpott (Wheat Ridge, Colo.)
Dr. Keith Waterhouse, retired (New York, N.Y.)

Disassociation in Communicatory Patterns of Loquacious Assholes

Put away your thesauri, sesquipedalians! There are a plethora of plethoras in your writing. At least this is ACCORDING TO Daniel Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton. According to Oppenheimer, using big words actually lessens the level of intelligence portrayed in your writing. His solution: use small, simple words that everyone knows and you won't sound like an idiot.

It's tempting to pretend you know your professors' own jargon to be considered in the know, but you only succeed in convincing others you're either full of shit or don't want to actually communicate ideas. While your tenured professors are hopelessly long lost and like Gulliver's flappers can only communicate with eachother, please do not try to partake in the isolation of the audience, because you'll just become another one of those jerks that speaks a lot but doesn't say anything. As George Bernard Shaw put it: "every profession is a conspiracy against the layman".

Sorry Kant. This is reason 618 why I hate you.

If you're interested in reading the original paper by Mr. Oppenheimer on the importance of using small, easily understood words, it can be found under this very clearly stated title:

Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly

Cicero Was Right

It's all about friends.

Generally, I have a hard time keeping them. But a few patient souls have stood by me no matter how depressed and moody I get, and lift me up with their hope. My wife is amazing that way, whose first concern this morning was getting me out of the depressed funk she knew I'd be in after last night. She sent me THIS from the Priests for Life. I shudder to think where I'd be without her.

Another true Ciceronian friend is Father Barry, whom I have known for a decade but have only gotten to know recently, a fact that is a testament to the good of Instant Messaging, as it allows friends to remain so even when living 1000s of miles away, a situation Cicero advised against not having had the technology to chat.

Today, Fr. Barry once again PUT IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE, and for that I thank him again. As he says, look to today's reading for an eerie feeling of appropriateness:

My beloved, obedient as you have always been,
not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent,
work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
For God is the one who, for his good purpose,
works in you both to desire and to work.
Do everything without grumbling or questioning,
that you may be blameless and innocent,
children of God without blemish
in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,
among whom you shine like lights in the world,
as you hold on to the word of life,
so that my boast for the day of Christ may be
that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
But, even if I am poured out as a libation
upon the sacrificial service of your faith,
I rejoice and share my joy with all of you.
In the same way you also should rejoice and share your joy with me.

Why Reading Kant Is a Waste of Time

Gravy Trains & Gravity Trains

Eoin Colfer, known for such distinguished intellectual masterpieces as "Eoin Colfer's Legend of the Worst Boy in the World", and "Going Potty" is going to be FINISHING UP Douglas Adam's 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy'.

I say that as if before today I knew who he was, or even care at this time. But I didn't and I don't. In fact, I think that only Douglas Adams could follow up a non-sequitur such as Douglas Adams. So, while I always wanted The Guide to be finished, I'm very unhappy The Guide will be done by this poser, because more than likely, it'll be done for by virtue of being a palimpsest . Then again, it's not like it should take a lot of effort. Write funny jibberish for 300 pages, occasionally poking fun of the eccentricities of British introverts. Easy money.

On the other hand, this kind of thing makes me very, very happy to be thinking about The Guide:



Cool, huh? Unfortunately, it takes 42 mins 12 seconds, not exactly 42 minutes like the video makes it seem, and this is only true for straight line tubes. Curved tubes can generate varying times, and depending on the tube shape, can get you from A to B in much less time than 42.2 minutes. Nevertheless, it really bugs me that the Gravity Train misses the murine 42 by 12 seconds. I would love a nice round 42, which would validate my geocentric tendencies via the relationship between Earth and the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

So check out my solution to the problem killing OCD sufferers everywhere:

WARNING: DUCK ABOUT TO BORE YOU (even more than usual)

From Newton's law of Gravity, we have:

F=GmM/r²

The density of the Earth is:

ρ=3M/4 π r³

Substituting, we get:

F=4 G π m ρ r/3

Gravity through mass being what delivers the force to drive the object throught the tube, and is dependent on the mass of the two objects and their distance apart. Assuming the mass of the Gravity Train car stays constant, we see that the only variable in the formula is density (ρ), so the greater the density, the greater the force.

Filling in the blanks of the arguement, we apply Newton's second law of motion:

F=ma

The greater the force, the greater the acceleration. The greater the acceleration, the greater the speed. The greater the speed, the less time. And believe me, I really, really want to shave off that 12 seconds. (Hehe, can you feel it? It's like a pinewood derby race...slight alterations shaving off split seconds here and there...woohoo!)

So, the currently mass of the Earth is 5.98 x10²⁴kg, and the current density is 5.52g/cm³: that number being what determined not only the 42 minutes but also the 12 evil seconds. If, the process of aging, Gaia can put on enough poundage around her hips and fat butt to measure in at 5.55g/cm³, she will have increased her density by enough to reduce the Gravity train time by the needed 12 seconds.

Now, the Earth is actually getting more massive day by day through the accumulation of matter from space, from the likes of asteroids, meteoroids, interplanetary dust and even solar wind, to the order of 10⁸kg of nickel/iron blends per year. The average density of that new matter is 7.0g/cm³. Because the density of the new stuff is more than the current stuff, the density of Earth is rising. But, because more stuff is accumulating, this also means that the earth grows in volume by 14286m³/year, and therefore slows down the rate of change of density:

ρ_new=M_o+∆M₁+∆M₂.../V_o+∆V₁+∆V₂...

or:

ρ_new=((M_o+x(∆M))/(V_o+x(∆V)))-M_o/V_o

Where M_o/V_o=5.52g/cm³, and the integer value of indices represents the number of years needed to reach 5.55g/cm³.

Applying this, we see Earth's density rises by around 2.11 x 10^-9g/cm³ per year. In order to satisfy the need to raise Earth's density by .03g/cm³, this will take a lot of time. 14,218,009 years and 6 months, to be exact. But then the Gravity Train will actually run at 42 minutes even, and I will finally be happy, if only for an instant. And that would be just gravy.