Memorabilia, commentary

Skimmed off pages of life recordings . . .

8/13/17, Seen outside Coffee Studio on Olive, in the sun on Sun. morning, young father of twin infants talking to them in a stroller, waving little yellow stuffed duck, shaking it. Absorbed in same.

8/14/17, "Ride the Trails, Find a Brew, all roads lead to Kalamazoo" on Foster bus westbound at Ashland.

Ford Madox Ford: Story is the thing, all that matters. Writer, keep yourself "beneath the surfaces" of your work.

8/16/17, Ivereigh book on Francis slightly potted, with nary a mumblin' word of negative comment. He is being a good boy here. Nothing of the let-chips-fall newsman. Account tilts at all times toward the respectful and even adulatory. So be it.

But: he reports in Chapter 9, "Conclave," giving us the busily planning (plotting) and organizing Team Bergoglio prepping for the election that was to give us Francis.

8/23/05, Wall St. Journal has a remarkable interview with Oriana Fallaci, the Italian newswoman who faces prison for “vilifying” Islam.

In her mid-70s and cancer-ridden, she is extremely pessimistic about Europe, or “Eurabia,” as she calls it and finds her only soulmate in him whom she calls only “Ratzinger,” namely Pope Benedict XVI:

"I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger." [she told Tunku Varadarajan, the Journal’s editorial features editor, who] had asked her whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! [It isn’t.] There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion." [Yes and no.]

Ms. Fallaci, who made her name by interviewing numerous statesmen (and not a few tyrants), believes that ours is "an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century." Of George Bush, she will concede only that he has "vigor," and that he is "obstinate" (in her book a compliment) and "gutsy. . . . Nobody obliged him to do anything about Terri Schiavo, or to take a stand on stem cells. But he did."

But it is "Ratzinger" (as she insists on calling the pope) who is her soulmate. John Paul II--"Wojtyla"--was a "warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America," but she will not forgive him for his "weakness toward the Islamic world. Why, why was he so weak?"

The scant hopes that she has for the West she rests on his successor. As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself," from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: "The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."

"Ecco!" she says. A man after her own heart. "Ecco!" But I cannot be certain whether I see triumph in her eyes, or pain.

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Expecting bread, given a stone:

‘Many Catholics realize they are no longer being fed solid meat-and-potatoes Catholicism. . . . Some teachers seem to believe that the words of our Lord and the Church's doctrines need to be reshaped into something more palatable.

‘Recently I attended a parish program on the sacraments. It was taught by one of the religious sisters. One handout she presented stated that we are not sure how many sacraments there are and that the sacraments were "invented" by the Church. It also stated that "no serious person would any longer claim that only those who have been baptized will be saved."

'The sister and her handout performed a disservice. Catholics have a right to expect that what they are taught by a priest or religious in a Catholic setting is going to be what the Church has always taught down through the ages.’

— Catholic evangelist Victor Claveau, 7/20/22

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* Deep-end plunge into pool, feet first, is to re-enter the womb. Comforting!

* Ad for You Tube on First Slice cup sleeve: "Finally, get hooked while you get your fix." Next to this a phone (for live watching). While indulging one addiction, acquire another. Hmmm-moment ensues.

* Sign on Little Library box, Wayne north of Foster: "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." Which is attributed variously, I discover later. Of course.

* 7/18/17. My conversation is peppered with I-forgets. Is yours? asks senior citizen. Millennial, responding: Um . . . well . . . not exactly.

* NPR: National Passive-Aggressive Radio, where softly lands the Left, reassuring snowflakes throughout the land. Should be NP-AR?

* 8/8/19: “Anti-colonial Club” on tee shirt of somewhat Asian man with hair in pan-Pacific-style bunch. Members only? Have to look into that.