Bill's Notes

I'll be away this weekend and at a conference in D.C. next week. I may post from there, depending on the set up in the press room. See ya.

Okay, now we all know soccer's a silly game. Here are two key reasons:

1. You can't pick up the ball and throw it or run with it, and thus, soccer has no analog in nature.

2. The offsides rule. This means that all members of the team with the ball cannot advance past both the ball and the next to last defender (that is, the last guy who is not the goalie).

So here's what I don't get about offsides. Just put all your guys on the opposing teams side of the field, and make sure your team never gets the ball. That will leave the other team trying to kick goals from 50 yards away at least. And they never will.

Am I wrong?

UPDATE: I'm wrong. You can move forward past the defenders WITH the ball. My scenario would leave a one-on-one situation of goalie versus one offensive player, and the offensive player would score about half the time. So yeah, Chris is right in the comments.

Nonetheless, the point stands. It's a dumb rule.

A better scenario would be hockey-style zones. Once the ball gets in a zone, all the offensive players can go where they want. That would liven up the game and make it interesting.

Of course, so would playing with an oblong ball, and allowing blocking, tackling, running with the ball and passing.

:)

By the way, yesterday morning there was a doe in my front yard. She was eating some ferns or some such. Very beautiful.

Too bad it wasn't the bear in my front yard. Sure, it would freak me out a bit. But it would be a better story.

So, this year: One fox. One deer. One bear. What next?

Much on the blogosphere about TEC (formerly ECUSA) general convention. Much has been made of last-minute deals, and the enormous stress, and the lack of time to build consensus. But the problem, IMHO, is NOT that there wasn't enough time. It's that there was simply nothing to discuss.

More Mark Shea on ECUSA:

Some readers have asked what I meant when I said the ECUSA is now manifestly an enemy of the gospel

Particularly since it's the PCUSA, not the ECUSA, that is monkeying with the creed in it's attempts to rename the Trinity "Me, Myself, and I", "Patty, Maxine, and Laverne" or whatever it is the Improvers want.

I tend to look a theological error and ask "Does this proceed from mere intellectual error or a from a hardened will?" Most theological error comes from the former. Somebody misreads a text. Somebody hears an idea that seems nice to them ("Women will find "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" offensive! We must be nice!") and they sign off on it. Without more information, I charitably assume that the ignorant functionaries staffing the PCUSA are probably bureaucrats who think only in terms of PR and demographics and have no clue of the theology they are ignorantly trashing. I suspect they mean well and may even have a desire to sincerely make Jesus "accessible" to more people.

I can't take good will seriously when it comes to the ECUSA, however. The actions taken this week were deliberate, defiant, draconian, and damnable. After ramming the approval of Robinson down the throats of the Anglican communion a couple of years ago, a communion that claims to take Scripture, Tradition and Reason seriously sat back while Robinson declared that, just because something is not supported by Scripture or Tradition doesn't mean it's wrong. When the Anglican communion pleaded for the ECUSA to respect the rest of Anglicanism, the ECUSA responded by *wilfully* electing as their head a crank and a quack who thinks John Shelby Spong's apostate musings are the last word in Sophisticate Theology. Her first act: a proud proclamation that Mother Jesus was making her and her arrogant little clique the Vanguard of History. Oh, and then they told the rest of the world that if you believe Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, you are basically a Nazi.

In short, while the PCUSA is being stupid, the ECUSA is, with immense pride, flipping off the whole of Christianity and declaring themselves it enemy. It's a difference between a defective intellect (a comparatively minor problem) and an openly rebellious will (a much graver issue). As far as I'm concerned, the best thing serious Piskies can do now is jump out and swim the Tiber before the ship sucks them under.

Very depressing to watch the communion that gave us Lewis and Sayers succumb to such pagan pride and folly.

Meanwhile, I hope the dolts in the PCUSA bureaucracy get their scalps handed to them by sane Presbys. Presby polity makes this more possible than Piskie polity. We'll see.

Saw a big old bear on the drive in this morning. I mean, a big bear. Like my size, but a bear. He was walking in a lane and had blocked traffic. Then he climbed up over the guardrail and went into the woods.

Big ole bear.

The U.S. just lost to Ghana in the World Cup. That puts us at 0-2-1 and we're gone. Other recent U.S. team sports finishes: Our pro's got knocked out of the running in the World Baseball Classic. Our pro's barely medaled in the Olympics in basketball. We didn't do shit in Olympic hockey.

Bottom line: We suck.

Sarah Hey of Stand Firm in Faith writes an extraordinary essay.

Here's a taste:

Inevitably in the times surrounding a fierce, heated battle a soldier must think occasionally "What on earth am I doing out here in the middle of nowhere, fighting for this silly little piece of land that my unit leader has told me to go out and take? It's not worth the bloodshed, I see no tactical or strategic merit to it, and besides, I could get killed for pretty much no reason other than taking that knoll, or traversing the river, or battling all day across this field. I have much better and even more useful things to do back in my tent."

I'll have more on this later.

Mark Shea's take:

My normal custom is not to comment much on the internal affairs of other communions

As you might have noticed, this week I've been tempted away from that policy by the extremist shenanigans of the ECUSA (which have all the grim fascination of a bloody car wreck in slow motion before your very eyes) and the craziness emerging from the more-insane-than-I-realized PCUSA.

For news on the Car Wreck, the Webelves are your guys, tracking the movement of every single flying body part and scrap of metal in nano-time.

For the single best quip re: the Presby lunacy, I vote for Rod Dreher, who remarked:

Ten years from now, they'll be proposing "Groucho, Chico and Harpo" with a straight face, so as not to marginalize the Slapstick-American community.

Read the whole thing.

Fans of action paintings may want to go here.

Left click to change colors. Hours of potential fun.

For those of you who signed up for email postings, I'm sorry, but I've had that functionality removed. It goes against an IndustrialBlog first principle, which is that all posts on this blog are by definition unfinished and subject to revision, deletion and/or reposting. This is IndustrialBlog, a work in progress, not Bill's Final Opinions on life, the universe and everything.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you.

The Management

Check out the news.

JOURNALISTIC IRRESPONSIBILITY OR "TWELVE WOMEN BECOME DUCKS IN ELABORATE CEREMONY" 6/15/2006

By Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On July 31, a dozen well-educated, experienced human women will pass into uncharted metaphysical waters on a boat cruising Pittsburgh's rivers.

On that afternoon, three women dressed in feathers and beaks will lay their hands on the heads of the 12 women and anoint their hands with oil during a "Water Fowl Creation Ceremony" that will be the first of its kind in the United States.

Among the participants is Joan Clark Houk, 65, of McCandless, who with seven other women are answering a call to become ducks and unite themselves more closely with nature; the other four are candidates to be ducklings.

It will be the fourth such ceremony in the world since 2002, all unrecognized by the conservation group, Ducks Unlimited. The women are part of a growing international movement to push for women's ability to become another species.

The Women's Water Fowl Conference, based in Fairfax, Va., will announce today its support of the Pittsburgh ceremony, which will be held aboard the Gateway Clipper boat Majestic. Pittsburgh was selected because of its central location.

In a three-page letter dated May 9, Mrs. Houk, a member of St. Alexis in McCandless, advised the President of Ducks Unlimited of her plans. She has received no response. Mrs. Houk also sent a copy of the letter to all 360 members of the organization in the region.

"It is a sin for Ducks Unlimited to discriminate against women and to blame nature for it. Today, women can be anything they want to be--even ducks out of water" Mrs. Houk wrote.

Jack Messer, spokesman for Ducks Unlimited, said the organization "has determined that women can't turn themselves into ducks, you idiot. That humans are humans is a part of the ways of nature. No one is free to change that. Why are you bothering us with this nonsense? You should be talking to a shrink about these women, not pestering me. The creation of other ducks is reserved to ducks, you dimwit.."

The participants in the July 31 ceremony, Jack Messer noted, are ignoring basic science. "I would say they have freely chosen to separate themselves from reality," he said.

Go read it all.

It's just a matter of time before the Piskies declare worship of the God of Abraham to be "exclusionist," "intolerant," and "bigoted." By resolution, they'll declare the worship of other gods to be part of a program of "increased inclusiveness" to "recapture the narratives of marginalized gods."

"I am the Lord Thy God who has brought thee out of Egypt; have no other gods before me." I mean, how high-handed is that? This jealous tribal god is apparently uncomfortable with power-sharing arrangements. Shouldn't the Piskies be up in arms at the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt, once again an effort to denigrate people of color. What about Shiva, Bwiti, Isis and the like? Isn't the patriarchal War-God of Israel nothing more than a justification of, well, patriarchy and bellicosity?

They shall no doubt re-write the 10 Commandments thusly:

1. Worship a god that makes you feel comfortable.
2. Do not be exclusive in your depictions of god as male.
3. Do not use exclusionist, sexist, racist or heteronormative language, or use language in a way that offends others, unless they are bigoted conservatives.
4. Remember a god you feel comfortable with when you can, at least once a week if you can.
5. Honor your parents, step-parents, and step-parents' partners, whatever their gender(s) or lifestyle choices.
6. Do not engage in any sexual activity that is exploitative of others, whether within marriage or not.
7. Do not kill anything on Gaia, ever.
8. Do not steal. Taxation is much more effective.
9. Thou shall not speak clearly or directly (oops, except after now.) Thou shall confound thy opponents with thickets of prolix verbiage.
10. Thou shall not permit inequities among material possessions to remain and do all thy can to assure equality of outcomes.

The great shrinking Episcopal Church decides to go down swinging. Elected as a Presiding Bishop is an amateur pilot and former professional oceanographer, who has been an Episcopal priest for the past 12 years, that is, since she's 40. She's been a bishop for about five years now, in one of the smaller dioceses. She has never been rector of a parish. Fascinating. They would have been hard pressed to pick a less qualified candidate.

Not surprising. In fact, it was inevitable.

As Captain Yips put it, if you haven't already, "Launch Escape Pods Now."

More here, here, here and here.

Glad I got out. In fact, too bad I stayed so long.

All I can say to the catholic, orthodox, evangelical and conservative Episcopalians: There are plenty of places you can go. You know where they are. Jump in, the water's fine.

My friend Paul Burgess has written a short story that's really intriguing. But I sort of missed it at the end ... what's going on? Someone help me out here.