All Else Confusion

Check out Barbara Stanwyck as she teaches Gary Cooper and his seven companions American slang in Ball of Fire. Stanwyck plays a stripper, Sugarplum O'Shea, who needs to hide out from the law for a while. What better place to hide than with a group of old professors (and one young one, played by Cooper) who are researching slang? Sugarplum teaches the professors how to cha-cha and teaches Cooper the meaning of "yum-yum"! Besides Stanwyck and Cooper, this film features delightful characters like S.Z Sakall, Dan Duryea, Elisah Cook, Jr., and a young Dana Andrews. Stanwyck is lots of fun as the jiving Sugarpuss, and Cooper is great as the nerdy, but very attractive, professor.

Labels: movies

Sidney Poitier was born 2 months premature, weighing just 3 pounds, to a poor Bahamian tomato farmer and his wife. His father went to the undertaker and returned with a coffin the size of a shoe box. His mother went to a fortune teller where she was told, "He will be rich and famous. Your name will be carried all over the world."

Poitier left the Bahamas at 16, heading first to Miami, where he encountered racism, and eventually to New York, where he encountered snow. He lived in train stations, bathrooms, under newspapers. He would listen to radio announcers and imitate them to improve his accent. Finally, after three years in America, he won a place as a student in the American Negro Theatre. Three years later, he was seen by a Hollywood talent scout and given a role in No Way Out with Linda Darnell and Richard Widmark. In 1958, he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Defiant Ones with Tony Curtis. In 1964, he was again nominated, and this time he won for Lilies of the Field, the story of German nuns who come to America and build a chapel, with the help of a drifter, on nothing but faith.

In 1997, the Bahamas appointed Poitier Ambassador to Japan. His name was carried all over the world.

Check out In the Heat of the Night with Rod Steiger. Poitier plays Philadelphia police detective, Virgil Tibbs, who is asked to help investigate a murder is a small, southern town. Steiger is the local sheriff, Chief Gillespie,who must keep peace among the town's racist population, and deal with his own racism. Tibbs poses several problems to the towns people besides his race. He is an outsder and his knowledge of forensics threatens to make the local police look ridiculous. Tibbs and Gillespie are finely drawn characters; as they work together they slowly come to the understanding they they have more in common than they want to admit, and even develop a grudging respect for each other. Thus, instead of an obvious movie with heavy-handed stereotypes, it is a subtle, wonderfully played gem.

Labels: movies

My nephew headed off for his first day of 1st grade this morning. He looked so cute with his newly cut hair, clean black shoes, summer uniform (grey shorts, white polo shirt), and new Red Sox backpack that's almost as big as he is.

He told me, "They're going to invite me in and teach me things."

I know he's going to have a great time at school!

Labels: family

I wonder if there's something in the air? Every time I'm thinking of a post, Dom posts it. This weekend, I already had Fr. Cantalamessa's comments on Ephesians picked out for comment, when I found Dom's post. Not so surprising you say, since it was the main topic of conversation this weekend.

But, now Dom's commenting on Hollywood and asking why Hollywood is so liberal. I've been thinking about the same idea, though from a little different angle for a few days. While doing research on all the classic movie stars being featured on TCM this month, I've been amazed that the number of stars who gave of themselves to their country in different ways, especially during World War II.

Many stars enlisted in the military, especially the Air Force. Jimmy Stewart was the first Hollywood star to enlist. He enlisted as a private in the Air Force after being reject by the Navy for being underweight. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and seven battle stars, becoming one of the most decorated stars in Hollywood. Stewart would stay in the Air Force Reserve after the war, eventually becoming a brigadier general, the highest ranking military officer in Hollywood. Clark Gable enlisted as a private, though he was over draft age, and flew missions over Nazi Germany; Tyrone Power joined the Marines and flew wounded Marines out of Iwo Jima; Alan Ladd thought it his duty to go to war, considering it "embarrasing to be living in the lap of luxury in Hollywood when other men were out dying"; Eddie Albert earned the Bronze Star for his action as a naval officer aiding the Marines at the battle of Tarawa; Lee Marvin was a U.S. Marine sniper/scout and was wounded on Iwo Jima; Leslie Howard was killed when his plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe.

Not all stars could join the military, but they helped out in a variety of ways. Carole Lombard was killed when her plane crashed returning to Hollywood after a bond drive in her hometown. Kay Kyser, Bette Davis, and John Garfield started the Hollywood Canteen where soldiers stationed on the West Coast could socialize and maybe bump into a movie star volunteer. Marlene Dietrich ignored Hitler's summons to go back to her native Germany and instead entertained American troops all over Europe - as close to the front as she could get. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and many others conducted USO tours. Frank Capra directed a series of military films called Why We Fight, while other stars who remained at home, like John Wayne, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland made movies that portrayed America as noble and winning the war or light-hearted movies for the troops and those they left behind. Hedy Lamarr invented "frequency hopping" with George Antheil as well as working on many bond drives; one story goes that she raised $7 million in one day selling bonds - by offering a kiss to each buyer. James Cagney brought the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, to Hollywood. Murphy starred in The Red Badge of Courage and To Hell and Back (where he played himself).

These stars gave of their time, their celebrity, their fortunes, and their lives to serve their country. As I think about Hollywood today, just 60 years later, there aren't many stars I can picture who would be willing to do the same.

Labels: movies

I love being Catholic! Where else do you celebrate the beheading of a saint!?

Collect:
God our Father,
You called John the Baptist
to be the herald of Your Son's birth and death.
As he gave his life in witness to truth and justice,
so may we strive to profess our faith in Your gospel.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Labels: Feast Day

Ingrid Bergman is best known for her role of Ilsa opposite Humphrey Bogart's Rick in Cassablanca. But, she could play a variety of roles, and even some comedy. In 1945 Bergman had starring roles in such various films as Saratoga playing a New Orleans vixen with Gary Cooper, in Hichcock's Spellbound as a pyschiatrist with Gregory Peck, opposite Bing Crosby as a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's. The next year, she played the extremely complex role of a woman who is bent on self destruction until she is redeemed by the love of a federal agent, played by Cary Grant, in Hitchcock's espionage thriller, Notorious. Ingrid Bergman won three Oscars - for Best Actress in Gaslight and Anastasia and Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express.

Fun fact: Bergman was 5' 10" so she especially liked working with Gary Cooper - she didn't have to take off her shoes!

Check out Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower with Walter Matthau and Goldie Hawn, in her screen debut (which won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar). In this farce, Matthau plays a dentist whose young girlfriend, Hawn, believes that he's married with children. When he finally agrees to leave his wife and marry his girlfriend, he runs into all kinds of problems. You see, he's not really married, but his girlfriend wants to meet his wife! Matthau persuades his receptionist, Bergman, to play the part of his wife, causing the prickly receptionist to blossom like the cactus flower of the title.

Labels: movies

What's a girl to do when she has 5 uncles who graduated from Notre Dame?

4 days, 23 hours, 02 minutes, and 41 seconds

Labels: college football

Hedy Lamarr, the Viennese beauty, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was more than just a pretty face, though she once famously quipped, "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." Through her first husband, Hedy had been personally aquainted with Hitler, whom she hated and feared. After she escaped from her husband, she wrangled a contract from Louis B. Mayer and began to make her way in Hollywood. There, she met George Antheil, a composer. Together with Antheil, Lamarr invented a way of radio controlling torpedos using "frequency hopping", called spread spectrum. The invention used slotted paper rolls similar to player-piano rolls to synchronize the frequency changes in transmitter and receiver and it was cumbersome. When the transitor was invented, the technology could be applied more easily. It is still in use today in secure military communications and cell phones.

Interesting fact: Hedy Lamarr owned the house used in the filming of The Sound of Music at the time it was filmed.

Labels: movies

Today is the Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine was the son of St. Monica. He is known for his conversion from a wicked life to the life of a saint, following years for persistent prayer by his mother. There is a famous story about St. Augustine's conversion. He was in the garden and heard a child saying, "Tolle et lege" (Take and read). He took up a bible that was laying there and read the words of St. Paul, encouraging the Romans to leave sin and put on Christ. This was the impetus he needed to finally leave his former way of life for good. St. Augustine became a famous preacher (many of his sermons still survive) and author of many works, most famous being The Confessions and The City of God.

Collect:
Lord, renew in your Church the spirit you gave Saint Augustine.
Filled with this spirit, may we thirst for you alone as the fountain of wisdom and seek you as the source of eternal love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Labels: Feast Day

This Sunday's second reading, Ephesians 5:21-32, generates discussion and controversy as no other reading does. Fr. Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, offered a reflection on the passage that is reproduced by Zenit. In his reflection, Fr. Cantalamessa, while recognizing that St. Paul's words are written in the context of his culture's rules for women, highlights the underlining truth of the words. Dom objects, calling Fr. Cantalamessa's opening words apologizing for St. Paul. We've been friends for a long time, so I'm sure he won't mind if I disagree with him on this one.

Here is the passage in question:

Reading Paul's words with modern eyes, one immediately sees a difficulty. Paul recommends to husband that they "love" their wives (and this is good), but he also recommends to women that they be submissive to their husbands, and this -- in a society strongly (and justly) conscious of the equality of the sexes -- seems unacceptable.

In fact, it's true. On this point St. Paul is conditioned in part by the mentality of his age. However, the solution is not in eliminating from relations between husbands and wives the word "submission," but, perhaps, in making it mutual, as love must also be mutual.

In other words, not only must husbands love their wives, but wives must also love their husbands. Not only must wives be subject to their husbands, but also husbands to their wives, in mutual love and mutual submission.

However, if these words are an apology for St. Paul, then John Paul II is as guilty as Fr. Canatamessa. John Paul II writes that some of the concepts in the passage are “characteristic of the mentality and customs of the times.” But, he goes on, “Nevertheless, the fundamental moral principle which we find in Ephesians remains the same and produces the same results. The mutual subjection ‘out of reverence for Christ’ . . . always produces that profound and solid structure of the community of the spouses in which the true ‘communion’ of the person is constituted.”

To those people who complain that talking about "mutal submission" is just a way to dilute St. Paul, I have a question. The husband is commanded to love his wife. Does a wife not have to love her husband as well? I don't think that anyone would argue that it's not necessary for a wife to love her husband, but St. Paul does not tell wives to love their husbands; instead he tells them to be submissive. The entire passage starts with the line, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21). It all starts with "mutal submission". St. Paul then goes on to explain how that submission is expressed through the love of the spouses for each other. This "mutal subjection" is found in the different ways in which men and women express their love for each other. Jennifer Ferrara, in the April 2003 issue of First Things explains the difference in this way:

Men have the more active role in the relationship: the husband is the one who loves while the wife is she who is loved and in return gives love. This special capacity to receive love is what is meant by feminine submission and is the basis of the image of the submission of the Church to Christ. Submission here means to be subsequent or responsive, not necessarily obsequious or subservient. For the man, a love modeled upon Christ’s self-sacrifice leads to a desire to provide and protect to the point of a willingness to give one’s life, both literally and figuratively. Men represent Christ in a way that women cannot because men’s relationship to creation is one of detachment and distance. They cannot fully share in the intimacy that women have with their children. Therefore, they better serve as an image of transcendent love, a love that is wholly other but seeks only the welfare of the other. As primarily relational beings, women are images of immanence and ultimately of the Church, which is prepared, at all times, to receive Christ’s love. The result is a mutual submission, even mutual dependence, that does not undermine the role of men in church or home.

In this reading of the passage, the submission of women to men does not mean that a woman gives up her capacity to think and make decisions when she marries, or even as is commonly touted, that a man always makes the final decision, especially when the couple has a disagreement that seemingly cannot be reconciled, but that the woman is second in the "order of love," receiving love from the man and returning it to him.

Labels: men, women

What can you say about "The Duke"? His presence was larger than life. You could say that, in a sense, he personified the American Spirit, fighting his way through the Old West and nearly every war America ever entered. While other stars of Hollywood's Golden Age entered retirement, the Duke never quit, working steadily through the '60's and into the '70's. His final film The Shootist is about an old gunfighter, who has learned that he has cancer and is looking to live out his last days in peace and quiet. Like his character, J.B. Books, Wayne died of cancer 2 years later. On June 9, 1979, the Archbishop of Panama arrived at the hospital and baptized Wayne into the Roman Catholic Church. He died 2 days later and was given a Catholic funeral service.

He once said, "I don't want ever to appear in a film that would embarrass a viewer. A man can take his wife, mother, and his daughter to one of my movies and never be ashamed or embarrassed for going."

Check out John Wayne with his most famous leading lady, Maureen O'Hara tonight in McClintock!. This western take on the Shakespeare classic The Taming of the Shrew is Wayne and O'Hara at their comedic best in an all-out battle of the sexes. Wayne plays George Washington McClintock and O'Hara is his wife, Katherine. G.W. is a land and cattle baron whose wife, Katherine has packed up and moved back East to "civilization", but returns to greet their daughter returning from school. Fireworks ensue between G.W. and Katherine as he attempts to learn why she left. The feud eventually ends in a decidedly chauvanistic (but still lots of fun) finale at the town's Fourth of July picnic. Look for sparks to fly between McClintock's daughter, played by Stefanie Powers, and his new hired hand, played by the Duke's son Patrick Wayne as well. This boisterous, raucous western is filled with laughs.

Labels: movies

Suave and debonair, Cary Grant excelled at screwball comedy, romancing the ladies, adventure, and arousing fear and suspicion - not for nothing was he one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite leading men. Grant even brought class to the one role in which he played a "drunk, disgusting, irasible, misanthropic character", Walter Eckland in Father Goose; even then he won over the girl (and girls).

Check out Grant at his screwiest in Arsenic and Old Lace with Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, and Jack Carson. Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a New York drama critic, whose family is...well, a little derranged. His younger brother thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, his older brother looks like Boris Karloff, and his aunts are full of compassion for those who are alone in the world...to the point of sending them out of the world. It all adds up to a black comedy with lots of laughs.

Labels: movies

I have been enjoying Joseph Pearce's musings on things English on the First Things blog during the month of August. If English eccentricities amuse you as much as they do me, you'll enjoy them too.

Among other things, he has commented on a ban on foxhunting:

I’m sure that many Americans were, and remain, somewhat bemused at the passions aroused in England over the subject of foxhunting. Those passions raged in the months and years leading to the ban, culminating in an enormous pro-hunt demonstration in London. The passions remain, embedded in bitterness, in the ban’s wake. I trust, therefore, that my bemused American friends will indulge me while I comment on the subject, and I hope that, after I have done so, they might even understand that the passions are more than mere English eccentricity and that, on the contrary, they go to the heart of the modern malaise affecting my homeland.

And the Englishman's fondness for the eccentric by telling the story of "King" Anthony Hall:

Looking to the future, “King” Anthony promised to pay off the national debt while building millions of homes for the working classes, whose houses would be of Tudor robustness and stateliness as befitted the dignity of the greatest nation on earth. He also promised to popularize portrait painting and planned to establish a ministry of pleasure that would revive public pageants, and would encourage manly pursuits such as boxing and wrestling. As a former police inspector in Shropshire, he claimed to have been the first policeman in the county to have secured a conviction on a fingerprint; he hoped to be the first policeman to become king, he said, and hoped also that he would become the first policeman to cut off the king’s head (presumably King George’s, not his own).


“King” Anthony’s desire to reign was quelled by the threat of two months’ hard labor in prison, after which very little else was heard from him. We know that his wife Ethel divorced him in 1938 for desertion and that he died in 1947, leaving no male heir. Such was the rather pathetic end to a rather grandiose, if neglected, dynasty.

Jimmy Stewart's aw-shucks, country boy demeanor may have seemed odd at first for a star, but his shy, engaging manner soon won the hearts of the movie-going public.

Stewart's country boy, idealistic appearance made him a natural for Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Stewart plays a naive man who is chosen to fill a vacant spot in the Senate left by the death of the junior senator. He idolizes the senior senator, but soon finds out that the senator is part of a graft machine in his state. Stewart refuses to fall in with the wishes of the machine leading to one of the best David and Goliath fights on screen. The fight culminates in the famous fillibuster scene which served to cement Stewart's on-screen persona as the common man with dignity, striving to live up to his ideals.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a must see. It has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and is number 29 on the AFI top 100 list.

Labels: movies

Rod Dreher links to a Forbes.com article that advises men not to marry career women. The article cites studies that show two-career marriages are more stressful and are more likely to head for divorce than traditional marriages. The author of the article, Michael Noer, sees this as a problem for men because they are attracted to women with similar goals - that is career men, especially successful career men, are attracted to career women. This leads to problems - if the woman gives up her career she's unhappy. If she stays at work, there's the problem of competition.

Rod isn't buying it that men have to marry a woman with nothing upstairs to be happy.

I'm really lucky that I ended up with a woman who is interested in many of the same things I am, and who loves to read and talk about books and ideas. So I don't have the trade-off that Noer sees, namely between an intellectually engaging career woman, and a boring homemaker. In fact, we know lots of traditionalist young couples in which the wife stays home to look after the kids, and in every case the woman is the intellectual equal of her husband. That Noer even thinks in terms of this (false) dichotomy betrays a commonly-held bias about modernity: that the more educated and intellectually advanced you are, the less interested you are bound to be in traditional social arrangements, traditional religion, and so forth. It may well be true as a statistical matter, at least in the US, but it isn't a Law of Existence. Quite a few educated men and women have used their smarts to discern that our ancestors really were on to something, and that what we take to be progress is actually regressive in important ways.

I'm on Rod's side. I also know lots of young couples where the wife stays home to take care of the children and I wouldn't consider any of those wives boring homemakers. One of these days, I hope I get to be just that kind of housewife and stay-at-home mother myself.

Who are you?

My sister sent me this quiz a while ago and I thought I would post it now - it seems to fit in with the Summer Under the Stars theme of August.

There's only 10 questions so it doesn't take long. Answer each question with
the choice that most describes you at this point in your life, and then add
up the points that correspond with your answers and find out which movie star you are.

1. Which describes your perfect date?

a) Candlelight dinner for two
b) Amusement Park
c) Rollerblading in the park
d) Rock Concert
e) Have dinner & see a movie
f) Dinner at home with a loved one

2. What is your favorite type of music?

a) Rock and Roll
b) Alternative
c) Soft Rock
d) Classical
e) Christian
f) Jazz

3. What! is your favorite type of movie?

a) Comedy
b) Horror
c) Musical
d) Romance
e) Documentary
f) Mystery

4. Which of the following jobs would you choose if you were given only these
choices?

a) Waiter/Waitress
b) Sports Player
c) Teacher
d) Policeman
e) Bartender
f) Business person

5. Which would you rather do if you had an hour to waste?

a) Work out
b) Make out
c) Watch TV
d) Listen to the radio
e) Sleep
f) Read

6. Of the following colors, which do you like best?

a) Yellow
b) White
c) Sky blue
d) Teal
e) Gold
f) Red

7. Which one of the following would you like to eat right now?

a) Ice cream
b) Pizza
c) Sushi
d) Pasta
e) Salad
f) Lobster Tail

8. Which is your favorite holiday?

a) Halloween
b) Christmas
c) New Year's
d) Valentine's Day
e) Thanksgiving
f) Fourth of July

9. If you could go to any of the following places, which would it be?

a) Reno
b) Spain
c) Las Vegas
d) Hawaii
e) Hollywood
f) British Columbia

10. Of the following, who would you rather spend time with?

a) Someone who is smart
b) Someone with good looks
c) Someone who is a party animal
d) Someone who has fun all the time
e) Someone who is very emotional
f) Someone who is fun to be with



Now total up your points on each question:

1. a-4 b-2 c-5 d-1 e-3 f-6
2. a-2 b-1 c-4 d-5 e-3 f-6
3. a-2 b-1 c-3 d-4 e-5 f-6
4. a-4 b-5 c-3 d-2 e-1 f-6
5. a-5 b-4 c-2 d-1 e-3 f-6
6. a-1 b-5 c-3 d-2 e-4 f-6
7. a-3 b-2 c-1 d-4 e-5 f-6
8. a-1 b-3 c-2 d-4 e-5 f-6
9. a-4 b-5 c-1 d-4 e-3 f-6
10. a-5 b-2 c-1 d-3 e-4 f-6



NOW, take your total and find out which Movie Star you are:

(10-17 points) You are MADONNA: You are wild and crazy and you know it. You
know how to have fun, but you may take it to extremes. You know what you are
doing though, and are much in control of your own life. People don't always
see things your way, but that doesn't mean that you should do away with your
beliefs. Try to remember that your wild spirit can lead to hurting yourself
and others.

(18-26 points) You are DORIS DAY: You are fun, friendly, and popular! You
are a real crowd pleaser. You have probably been out on the town your share
of times, yet you come home with the values that your mother taught
you. Marriage
and children are very important to you, but only after you have fun. Don't
let the people you please influence you to stray.

(27-34 points) You are DEBBIE REYNOLDS: You are cute, and everyone loves
you. You are a best friend that no one takes the chance of losing. You never
hurt feelings and seldom have your own feelings hurt. Life is a breeze. You
are witty, and calm most of the time. Just keep clear of back stabbers, and
you are worry-free.

(35-42 points) You are GRACE KELLY: You are a lover. Romance, flowers,
and wine are all you need to enjoy yourself. You are serious about all
commitments and are a family person. You call your Mom every Sunday, and
never forget a Birthday. Don't let your passion for romance get confused
with the real thing.

(43-50 points) You are KATHERINE HEPBURN: You are smart, a real thinker.
Every situation is approached with a plan. You are very healthy in mind and
body. You don't take crap from anyone. You have only a couple of individuals
that you consider "real friends". You teach strong family values. Keep
your feet
planted in them, but don't overlook a bad situation when it does happen.

(51-60 points) You are ELIZABETH TAYLOR: Everyone is in awe of you. You
know what you want and how to get it. You have more friends than you know
what to do with. Your word is your bond. Everyone knows when you say
something it is money in the bank. You attract the opposite sex. Your
intelligence overwhelms most. Your memory is the next thing to
photographic. Everyone admires you because you are so considerate and
lovable. You know how to enjoy life and treat people right.

Labels: movies

Check out Brother Orchid with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in his last supporting role. (Only leading roles for Bogie after this movie.) This spoof on gangster movies has the lead character, Johnny Sarto, hiding out in a monastery until he can find a way to take control of his rackets back from his second-in-charge, the ruthless Jack Buck (Bogart). Sarto thinks he can put one over on the monks, but soon learns the value of their way of life. Sothern steals the show as Sarto's dim-witted girlfriend, a gangster moll with a heart of gold.

Labels: movies

The recent column by Bishop Doran of Rockford, IL has caused quite a furor on a local Young Adult list serve. One member of the list wrote to complain that posting the letter to the group was bringing "partisanship" where it didn't belong. He went so far as to accuse the bishop of mistaking his facts. For example, he points out that there are pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans and many Democratic states have abortion rates lower than the national average. And finally ends up by pointing out that the Church is also concerned with the death penalty and war (which Republicans are more likely to support). The War in Iraq was not justified and the Democrats were on the right side of that one. (You had to know that was coming)

One of the respondant e-mails included the observation that this was "moral vacillitude," causing some posters to decry those who make personal attacts and a reminder from the moderators of the "ground rules" for playing nice on the list serve. Thus, what started out as a discussion of the "partisanship" of the bishops words and his advisibility in writing them has turned into a vigorous discussion concerning the rules of civil discussion.

I found the quickness with which the list moderator jumped into the debate somewhat puzzling. Maybe I'm just insensitive, but I didn't find the offensive remarks to be all that awful. Perhaps it's just that I've been desensitized by these guys, but I don't see the need for all these calls for more friendliness. A little contention, even if it is very pointed, spices things up a little. Personally I find all this "hearts and flowers" type of charity a little too bland to take.

By the way, the orignal writer did apologize...for not presenting his ideas in a more loving manner. Bah!

The blond, freckled boy-next-door almost didn't become a star. While working on A Guy Named Joe, his first major role, Johnson was in a car accident. He suffered critical injuries to his head, requiring a metal plate and 4 months of rehab. Co-stars Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunn refused to finish the film without Johnson, and so they waited the 4 months to end filming.

Van Johnson played roles in musicals, romantic comedies, and war dramas, perhaps most notably 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. He was often paired with everyone's girl-next-door, June Allyson.

Johnson and Allyson are two of the last remaining MGM stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Van Johnson will turn 90 in 2 days on August 25.

Check out the Johnson/Allyson magic tonight in Two Girls and a Sailor with Gloria DeHaven and the very funny Jimmy Durante. Two show biz girls start a canteen at their home for servicemen. Unbeknownst to them, one of the servicemen is the heir to a fortune, and makes sure their dreams of a canteen "large enough to let them all in" come true. The canteen plot of the movie gave it a chance to showcase some great musical talent including Jose Iturbi, Harry James, Xavier Cugat, and Gracie Allen along with many other cameos.

UPDATE: June Allyson died on July 8 this year. I missed it while I was at school.

Labels: movies

If you're single, I'm sure you've been asked this question.

I get it all the time and I never know how to reply. There doesn't seem to be any reason - at least not one that can act as a real explanation. Is it just that I haven't met the right person yet? It sounds simplistic, but maybe that's all the answer there is.

Sometimes, instead of the question, people offer suggestions about why it is that I haven't yet found a man to marry. I've heard everything from "Men are intimidated by smart women" to "Men must be pretty stupid". For the record, I don't believe either! Though, maybe I can use one of those lines next time someone asks me "The Question".

Even though I'm sure the question isn't meant to be hurtful, it often leaves me feeling that I need to examine myself to find the reason that I'm not yet married - that there must be something there that other people can see and I can't. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough. Maybe I've been too busy. Maybe...oh, I'm tired of thinking!

I'm wondering how other single people react. Feel free to chime in.

Today's start is Rita Hayworth, nicknamed "The Love Goddess", another star of Separate Tables (see David Niven below) which is unfortunatly not playing today either. But, you can see her sizzle in her most famous movie Gilda with Glenn Ford.

Glenn Ford stars alongside Hayworth in Charles Vidor's erotic drama as a luckless gambler rolling dice on the Argentinean waterfront who accepts a job proposition from an elegantly dressed, mysterious Buenos Aires casino owner, Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Johnny (Ford) quickly becomes Mundson's indispensable right-hand man. But their intimate trust is soon shattered in the form of a beautiful woman from Johnny's past, Gilda (Hayworth). Gilda has married Mundson after a one-day courtship and now it is Johnny's duty to keep tabs on the straying newlywed. Gilda tortures former-flame Johnny by flirting with a string of available men. Hayworth plays the role of the jaded temptress to the hilt, even vamping at one point, "if I'd been a ranch, they would have called me the Bar Nothin'!" It was that often racy, sordid aspect of the film expressed in dialogue and Gilda's sexually provocative demeanor that caused a Variety critic of the time to note Gilda's "intriguing, low-down quality."

Gilda demonstates that sexy doesn't mean baring all. During the famous strip-tease scene, Gilda removes....her gloves! Amazingly, Hayworth played her sexiest role pregnant!

Labels: movies

In his Angelus address yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI stressed the importance of taking time for prayer and contemplation.

Addressing several thousand people gathered today in the courtyard of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo to pray the Angelus, the Pope suggested that prayer and contemplation take precedence in the "surge" of daily life.

The Pope warned of getting lost in the excessive business of daily activities, in a life which does not leave any time for leisure and contemplation. Sounds good to me!

Both debonair and comedic, David Niven became a star by being such a fun and entertaining guy that everyone wanted to have him around. But, just because he had a great sense of humor, don't think that Niven wasn't great at drama. In fact, he won an Oscar for playing a supposed army major, whose daring deeds were mostly made up in Separate Tables.

But, back to the comedy - Niven made such fun, witty, and light-hearted gems as Bachelor Mother and The Bishop's Wife and the Pink Panther.

Check out Please Don't Eat the Daisies with Niven and Doris Day. Rising New York drama critic Larry McKay moves out of his small NY apartment with his wife, Kate, four sons, and dog to a big house in the country. While Kate becomes a suburban housewife, dealing with kids, dog and dilapidated house, Larry continues to enjoy New York night life - and find more success as a critic. The results are very entertaining!

Labels: movies

The WSJ post on Fumare had this interesting comment:

"And the stuff about forcing a professor to recant statements in order to have his contract renewed is just despicable. "

Thanks for the words of support, Joel.

I can at last say openly that I am the professor in question. And not just a professor: a departmant chairman and dean, as well.

The reality of the situation was much worse than Ms. Riley summarized in her article.

The fact is that I (and most of the other faculty) _had_ a contract, signed by AMC president Ron Muller in 2004, good until 2007. I should, in fact, still be employed there. But for reasons I do not understand, the AMC Board denied the validity of these contracts, even though every lawyer to whom I have shown these contracts has prounounced them valid. Instead, the AMC administration pursued a curious fiction of issuing faculty one year "contract renewal" letters, acting like we were only on year-to-year contracts. Each letter had a line in it noting that our Faculty Handbooks contained restrictions that we were not to "embarrass" the institution. I must admit to having found this language particularly galling: as one of the founding facutly of AMC, I had a hand in the creation of the Handbook in the first place, and that language was put in to the Handbook to deal with professors who fell into public heterodoxy, not to muzzle faculty who had legitimate complaints about how the institution was governed or mis-governed. If Original Intent matters, I can tell you what it was, since I was there, and was one of the framers.

And yes, I will admit that I am one of the people responsible for complaining to the IG wing of the Department of Education about the mismanagement of financial aid monies, and other matters, by the Ave Maria administration. And when it came down to "buy-out" deals for the final year of AMC (as though our 2004 Muller contracts weren't valid!), I can confirm that my and my wife's "contract" insisted that we surrender all legal claims against the institution, in return for the institution surrendering NO claims against us.

When we pressed for a mutual release of claims instead, we were told by AMC president Dan Guernsey that AMU president Nick Healy did not want to allow the institution to give a mutual release of claims, as he believed that it doing so might interfere with his ability to sue us for libel _personally_. His point of contention was over the 2004 complaint that we and others made to the IG wing of the Department of Education: we were told that he said that he had felt "hurt" by it, and that it might be damaging to him and his future earnings. Finally, I can confirm that as of last month, my wife and I were told that we could get some elements of a mutual release if we agreed to retract the statements we had made to the Department of Education, and indicate that we had no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing on the part of President Healy.

The sad thing, for us, anyway, is that most of the other AMC faculty we spoke to afterwards said that when they had asked for mutual releases of claims, they received them. As nearly as we can tell, only my wife and I were denied them, and we wonder if it is because we were whistleblowers. In any event, we were personally and professionally insulted by the retraction request. I am a historian, and it is my job to preserve the past, not bury it. My wife is a librarian, and it is her job to provide information, not supress it.

We may as well have been asked to deny who we were.

In the end we found ourselves in an untenable situation. We knew that we had the law on our side, and that we could win if we stuck it out. But we also knew that if we tried, the Ave Maria leadership would make our lives miserable in many petty ways. So, like many other people, we left Ave Maria, and, indeed, the state of Michigan, suddenly and without warning. We did this in part for our own and our family's protection. But we left with our souls intact, and with our freedoms--to speak, to litigate, or just to walk away--unimpaired. We are poorer, but we are free. And that is a reward above price.

And for anyone who is new to this controversy, some advice. From a guy who knows. I was the first faculty member hired by Ave Maria Institute, back in 1998. I was there before just about anyone else was. And I'm an ex-Department Chair and an ex-Dean.

The people you want to listen to? That would be folks like Charlie Rice, Andy Messaros, Jay McNally, Kate Ernsting, and anyone else on their side.
Christopher Beiting

Labels: AMSOL

A Wall Street Journal piece on Tom Monaghan confirms what Fumare and other blogs by Ave Maria School of Law alumni have been saying all along. There is no reason to move the school, the only reason the move is being considered is because it would be good for the fledgling town and university in Florida, the tactics being used by the administration of the school to deal with anyone who voices dissent about the move are less than Catholic, etc.

Monaghan is quoted as saying: "I'm in favor of the law school moving to Florida, and I think it would be a good thing for the university to have a law school on its campus." Hmmm. Best interest of the law school or of the university?

Attempts to unionize at the school were vigorously blocked:

When I ask if he sees a contradiction in trying to block such a move, even though unionization is supported by the Catholic Church, he says, "I think that [the church] hierarchy doesn't know as much about those things as they do about their theology."

And thus he disparages over 100 years of Catholic Social Teaching on the right of employees to unionize. This is the kind of thinking that leads women to stage fake ordinations and senators to claim that they are "good Catholics" while championing abortion and homosexual marriage. The "I know better than the Church, why don't they just stick to talking about God" approach.

Responding to a question about the protests by professors, students, and alumni the article states:

Mr. Monaghan takes all this in stride. In Ann Arbor, he played racquetball with some academics and determined they liked to "complain about the most meaningless things." And board members of his schools have rushed to agree with him, suggesting, as theologian Michael Novak did recently, that "if it weren't Monaghan, it would be dissatisfaction with whomever."

Apparently, the concerns about fiduciary duty, attaching the law school to a speculative deal in Florida, lack of faculty input (as required by the ABA) are all just "meaningless things".

The article ends: Still, Mr. Monaghan does not see much difference between this venture and his previous ones: Higher education is "90% like business." To deal with the 10% that is unique to higher education, he has enlisted the help of administrators and board members. "I've always believed in hiring people smarter than I am. I should be the dumbest one in the room." He's not.

Draw your own conclusions.

If you haven't been following this story, a timeline might be helpful(adapted from comments from thelawdog on Fumare):

In 2002-2003 word begins to circulate about a possible move to Florida to join Ave Maria University. Charles Rice expresses concerns that the Florida move is not in the best interests of the school.

December, 2004, An article is published in Naples that says the law school is moving Florida.

January 2005. Charles Rice writes a letters to the paper saying rumors the school is moving is not true.

Mid -2005, the Board Committee that renominates Board of Governors quickly votes "yes" on a number of governors, but refuses to act on Charles Rice's nomination.

September '05 the Board votes 12-2 in favor of term limits on Board Members. Rice is one of 4 to go in this. Note: Monaghan, who should also be affected by the term limits, remains a chair of the Board.

Dec. '05 - Rice states desire to become life governor as provided for in the bylaws.

Early '06,- Dobranksi claims that life governor position, as Rice is requesting it, is not how it was envisioned. Was only intended to be used as a way to get governors who were over the age limit to still serve rather than retire. Now with term limits, makes sense to do away with the position. Rice does not become Life Governor.

April '06 - votes of no confidence in Dobranski as Dean of the Law School are submitted to the Board by the Faculty and Alumni Association. The students submit a petition signed by more than 50% of the student body.

May '06 - Charles Rice sends a letter to Dobranski and Monaghan remarking on the no confidence votes and suggesting a solution to the turmoil which is damaging the school.

August 11, 2006 - Dobranski sends Rice a letter declining to continue his status as visting professor.

August 17, 2006 - Dobranski has Rice's office packed up and sent UPS Next Day Mail to Rice's home in Indiana.

Labels: AMSOL

Check out My Fair Lady. In a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Hepburn plays Eliza Doolittle, a cockney girl who is taught to speak with impecable English by Henry Higgins, a phonetician with a decidedly callous outlook on people and life. In the role, Hepburn proves that she can play a variety of parts, playing at one and the same time a cockney girl with great comedy, and the elegant transformed Eliza. Hepburn even dances well, though her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon. An interesting aside - Stanley Holloway, who played Eliza's father had played the role on Broadway and was making his Hollywood debut at the age of 74. The film was a huge success, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Rex Harrison who revived his Broadway role as Professor Higgins for the film. Ironically, the Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews, who had played Eliza with Harrison on Broadway. After losing the part to Hepburn, Andrews signed on the the Disney production of Mary Poppins. Andrews famously thanked Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros., the studio that made My Fair Lady, "for making this happen" when she won. Tonight at 8.

Labels: movies

A friend sent along this column from the Toronto Sun by Michael Coren. Coren takes the very unfashionable position that "a woman's place is in the home."

There is no compelling case that the world would be a better place if more women were lawyers, bankers, soldiers or engineers. There are many such arguments, however, that the world would be a far better place if more women were mothers. Which means more than the mere act of procreation. It means devotion, sacrifice and time. Not quality time, just time. Lots of it. It means refusing to accept that self-esteem can only come through a boss, water cooler gossip and a generous pension scheme.

Happily, some women are coming to the same conclusion.

During the month of August, the First Things blog has invited friends to contribute posts. The result, in my opinion, has been great. My only complaint is that the posts are mostly pretty long, requiring somewhat of a time investment. But, if you have the time, there are some great conversations and observations to be found. For example, there was a post yesterday by Edward T. Oakes about my favorite authoress, Jane Austen:

She could manage that neat trick of transposing the Cinderella plot into six undoubted masterpieces because her chosen marriage theme gave her the perfect background for analyzing character and investing her stories with remarkable drama. How could it be otherwise, given the almost absolute necessity for a woman in Regency England to find a suitable mate and the consequences that befell her if she made a bad choice? And what with the stylized rituals of behavior that governed society at the time, how could a marriageable young woman assay gold from dross? How might she distinguish reality from appearance, or authenticity from artifice, when society ran on the machinery of artifice to begin with? Operating inside these constraints, Austen’s talents allowed her to analyze the complexity of human behavior, the subtle variations of motivation, and the difficulty of judging true character from false in a world of deceptive appearances. For an unmarried woman could easily be led into a disastrous marriage based on her poor reading of a young man’s character—which itself would mean a ruined life for her, although rarely for him. In other words, Austen took Plato’s insight—that politics will lead to disaster unless it can distinguish truth from its simulacrum—and domesticated it. And is that not an artist’s chief claim on the attentions of future generations: to teach us how to distinguish the true from the deceptively true?

Two days in a row with one of my favorites!

Lombard was one of the top comediennes of the 1930's, starring in such comedic gems as Nothing Sacred, My Man Godfrey, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She could also play dramatic roles, for example a dedicated British nurse in Vigil in the Night.

Lombard died in a plane crash at the age of 33. Her final film was To Be or Not To Be, a satire about a group of Polish actors who outwit the Nazis, with Jack Benny. The film was in post-production at the time of her death and was edited. The film's producers decided to cut a scene at the end of the movie in which her character asks, "What can happen in a plane?" as they felt it was in poor taste, given the circumstances of Lombard's death.

Check out Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which really has nothing in common with the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie movie of 2005.

A couple finds out that they are not really legally married. When the husband decides to have some fun with this knowledge, it has disasterous (and hilarious) results. Starring Lombard and Robert Montgomery. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Tonight at 11.

Labels: movies

Today TCM is featuring one of my favorite actors - Joseph Cotten. Good-looking, charming, with a quiet sophistication that allowed him to play roles in almost every genre, he was in parts a character actor, leading man, romantic hero and even the occasional bad guy. In a career spanning 40 years, he appeared in a remarkable number of films that received high aclaim: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Gaslight, The Third Man, Shadow of a Doubt, Niagara, Portrait of Jennie, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and The Farmer's Daughter just to name a few. He was quoted as saying, "Orson Welles lists Citizen Kane (1941) as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Sir Carol Reed chose The Third Man (1949) - and I'm in all of them."

My favorites include, The Farmer's Daughter, Since You Went Away, Gaslight, The Third Man, I'll Be Seeing You. Only The Third Man is playing today, so that's my pick of the day.

Holly Martins arrives in Vienna to find that his friend Harry Lime was killed in mysterious circumstances. As Holly investigates Harry's death, he finds that Harry wasn't all he seemed to be. With Cotten, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard, written by Graham Greene, this classic Film Noir thriller is number 57 on the AFI Top 100 movies of all time list and tops the British Movie Institute list of the 100 best British films.

Labels: movies

The ark which God has sanctified,
Which He has filled with grace,
Within the temple of the Lord
Has found a resting-place.

More glorious than the seraphim,
This ark of love divine,
Corruption could not blemish her
Whom death could not confine.

God-bearing Mother, Virgin chaste,
Who shines in heaven's sight;
She wears a royal crown of stars
Who is the door of Light.

To Father, Son and Spirit blest
may we give endless praise
With Mary, who is Queen of heaven,
Through everlasting days.

Labels: Feast Day

Unbelievably, an actor that I've never heard of and a line up of movies that I've never seen. I think I'm going to check out The Whistler at 9:15pm.

Plot Summary:
A man, despondent over the death of his wife, wants to commit suicide but can't bring himself to do it. He hires a man to hire a professional killer to do the job. However, he soon finds out that his wife isn't really dead - but the man he paid to hire the hitman is, and he has no idea who the man hired or how to get him to call off the hit.

Sounds interesting!

Labels: movies

Fumare is reporting that Dr. Charles Rice has been fired as visiting professor at Ave Maria School of Law, because of a May 5, 2006 letter he wrote to Tom Monaghan and Dean Bernard Dobranski after the submission of no convidence votes to the Board of Govenors by the Alumni board and the faculty, and a petition by the student body. In the letter, Rice argued against the current actions of the Board which are creating division and unrest in the school community and presented, as a solution to the upheaval, the creation of 2 schools. It is interesting that the letter was not sent to the Board of Govenors. Rice includes this interesting line:

I am confident that the Board will agree with whatever Tom decides.

This line seems to back up assertions made at Fumare that the Board is merely "helping Tom spend his money."

Prof. Rice, a founding member of the Board of Governors, was removed from the Board last fall after a change in the rules was voted to create limit terms for BOG members.

It is hard to imagine what the Dean hopes to accomplish by firing Charles Rice. He is extremely well respected for his legal expertise and his defense of the Catholic faith. As such, he was a huge draw to the school. It doesn't say good things about the school if it does not want a professor of Rice's caliber and reputation connected to it.

Labels: AMSOL

Courage, my sons, Don't you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Labels: Feast Day

Check out Imitation of Life

Turner plays Lora Meredith, a poor widow with a daughter, struggling to make it in New York as an actress, who takes in a homeless black woman, Annie Johnson, and her daughter. Annie stays to keep house and watch Lora's daughter, the two become friends and their daughters grow up together. Eventually, Lora does become a famous actress and the two mothers with their daughters move to better housing. Both mothers have problems with their daughters, especially Annie, whose daughter is light skinned and passes herself off as white.

An excellent example of 1950's melodrama, this film stars Turner, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, and Juanita Moore in an outstanding performance.

Tonight at 8pm.

Labels: movies

Jason at Sirach 40:20 points out the story of a Mennonite doctor refused to prescribe emergency contraception for a Catholic girl who alleged she was raped.

He quotes from the article:

The Pennsylvania Catholic Health Association said the Catholic Church allows emergency contraception in the case of rape if tests for pregnancy and ovulation are negative.

And then goes on to respond:

To me this sounds like a complete crock. Besides the fact that this "Catholic" agency is obviously not in touch with the Church, it is also apparently not in touch with reason either. What exactly would be the point of administering "contraception" (abortafacia) to someone who is neither pregnant nor fertile?

But, it's not a complete crock. The Catholic Church does allow for the use of emergency contraception in the case of rape if ovulation has not already occured. Why? Because the Church does not view rape as a voluntary act of sexual intercourse. Humanae Vitae states, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil." Notice that the prohibition of contraception is for the "conjugal act". Rape involves sex, but it is not the "conjugal act." It is an act of violence which cannot, by its very nature, include the mutual self-donation of the conjugal act that is necessarily open to life. Therefore, the Church allows the use of emergency contraception to prevent ovulation in the case of rape.

If, however, tests show that ovulation or pregnancy has already occured, emergency contraception cannot be administered because it would then act as an abortifacient. A human life is a human life, no matter how it came into existence and must always be treated with dignity.

Today is the 18th anniversary of my sister's death. I can't believe it's been that long.

There have been a lot of "what would's". What would she be like? She would be 24 now, she would have graduated high school and college. She might be starting a career, maybe have a boyfriend, or be planning a wedding.

The first time I heard Kenny Chesney's song Who You'd Be Today it was as if someone had gotten inside my head. I'm sure everyone who has lost someone felt the same way. These lines especially struck me:

Would you see the world
Would you chase your dreams
Settle down with a family
I wonder what would you name your babies

Sometimes, even years later, I would lay awake and cry at night telling myself that it really had happened. There really was a hole in my family between my brothers where she was supposed to be. She would never be there for Christmas again, or go to high school or college. Or be there to share all the joys, pains, and secrets that siblings share with each other.

But, with the light of day came reassurance, even if there was still sorrow. I don't know why sister died at 6. But I know that she's with God and that He has his reasons. And I have to trust that.

May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

Labels: family

To Dom and Melanie Bettinelli!

Today I will be here.

Tommorrow I will be here and hopefully will not come back looking like this.

Have a great weekend.

Check out Written on the Wind with Hudson, Robert Stack, Lauren Bacall, and Dorothy Malone. Malone won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Stack's amoral sister. Tonight at 8.

Douglas Sirk puts the opera back into soap opera in this exquisitely baroque melodrama, the epitome of Technicolor gloss. Rock Hudson (as wonderfully wooden as ever) and Lauren Bacall play stalwart examples of altruism, clean living, and good old American ambition, but Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone steal the film as white trash millionaire siblings stewing in self-pity. The plot reads like an episode of Dallas: Texas oil-baron playboy Stack steals good girl Bacall from best friend Hudson while Stack's sister Malone puts her slinky moves on Hudson, the strapping poor boy made good. Toss in impotence, jealousy, alcoholic binges, emotional blackmail, and backstabbing nastiness, mix vigorously with high style and expressionist flourishes, and you've got the most potent melodrama cocktail of the 1950s. Stack twists his arch delivery into the practiced bravado of a boozing womanizer nursing an inferiority complex while Malone sashays and flirts her way through an Oscar-winning performance as a slutty, sassy good-time girl. It's so over the top that it might seem kitschy at first glance, but former theater director Sirk subtly shades his vision in the shadows of film noir and uses the portentous angles and gaudy color to create a vivid, vivacious world of glossy surfaces and social masks cracking under the pressure of responsibility and the pain of lost love. --Sean Axmaker

Labels: movies

Kip Lurie: Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called in-breeding; from this comes idiot children... and other lawyers.

Just saying...

Check out Adam's Rib 6:15PM eastern.

Hepburn and Tracy play lawyers (Adam and Amanda Bonner), married to each other and on opposite sides of a courtroom battle over Doris Attinger (played by the hilarious Judy Holliday) who shot her philandering husband (not seriously wounding him). A battle of the sexes ensues with Amanda defending Doris, claiming a double standard between the sexes in infidelity cases. Adam, the district attorney assigned to the case, disagrees, correctly pointing out that crime is crime no matter the perpetrator.

What I like about the film is that though it examines feminist issues questioning the right of a woman to be judged the same way as a man, in the justice system and society, it does not end in a supposed "triumph" of woman over man. In fact, there's a real recognition that if society treats men and women differently (though sometimes unfairly) it is because they are different.

Amanda Bonner: What I said was true, there's no difference between the sexes. Men, women, the same.
Adam Bonner: They are?
Amanda Bonner: Well, maybe there is a difference, but it's a little difference.
Adam Bonner: Well, you know as the French say...
Amanda Bonner: What do they say?
Adam Bonner: Vive la difference!
Amanda Bonner: Which means?
Adam Bonner: Which means hurrah for that little difference.

Labels: movies

Today is the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi.
She is the patroness of television because she miraculously saw and heard Mass, even when she was too sick to attend!

Collect

God of mercy, you inspired Saint Clare with the love of poverty. By the help of her prayers may we follow Christ in poverty of spirit and come to the joyful vision of your glory in the kingdom of heaven. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Labels: Feast Day

I just e-mailed my New Testament paper: Mary in St. John's Gospel: A Study of John 2:4 and John 19:26 to my professor. One down, two to go.

Labels: school

I think I've mentioned before that I love classic movies. So, it should be no surprise that my favorite station is Turner Classic Movies. And, my favorite thing at TCM is their August Summer Under the Stars. Each day in August, they pick a different star and play only their movies all day long. So, if you love Joseph Cotten you'll want to tune in on August 16 - or maybe you'll want to see Ann Sothern on August 24. There's even a whole day dedicated to Bela Lugosi.

Unfortunately, with moving back to Massachusetts and trying to finish my paper, I missed the first week, but I caught Jane Powell Day yesterday.



Today's star is the tough yet sensitive, and extremely handsome John Garfield.


Before Clift, before Brando, before Jimmy Dean (and long before Pacino and De Niro), there was the dynamic John Garfield. When he made his first movie, the folksy 1938 family drama Four Daughters, little did he know - little did anyone suspect - that his on-screen persona in that single film would change forever the perception of what a Hollywood leading man could be.

Check out The Postman Always Rings Twice with Garfield and Lana Turner. 11PM eastern tonight.

Labels: movies

I travel a lot. I never realized how much unitl a co-worker asked where I was jetsetting off to for the weekend. Reflection revealed that I had visited France, Rome, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Virginia, Pittsburgh, Denver, Alabama, and Oregon in the past year. Guess that does qualify me as a jetsetter (sounds so exotic!)

All total, I've visted 39 states and the District of Columbia. Looks like I need to plan a trip to the South....



where have you been?

Thanks to Thursday for the map.

Labels: Quiz

Someone's got his head in the sand.

In Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns, former New York Times religion editor Kenneth Briggs blames the decrease in women religious in the United States on efforts of the Church hierarchy to quash renewal efforts despite the fact that following Vatican II most religious communities left off wearing habits and moved out of community.

He finds the fact that those orders which still wear the habit, live in community and generally follow a more traditional prayer life are growing unconvincing. He thinks the growth of these communities is “fleeting and illusory”.

Sister Mary Biatta of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George knows what is attractive in religious life:

Young women considering religious life, [Sister Mary Biatta] said, are looking for an order with a great love for the church manifested by acceptance of its teachings, a visible witness, which most often means a habit, and a life of prayer and community.

A sister from Martyrs St. George, was the professor for my Honors class my freshman year at Steubenvile. During my years at FUS, several of my friends left school to join them, as well as the Nashville Dominicans. I know many women who entered religious life, but none have joined an order that doesn't wear a habit.

Liberals can deny it all they want, but traditional orders are attractive. It isn't a fluke or fleeting and illusory that the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist started with 4 sisters in 1996 and 10 years later have over 40 sisters.

Lord, God of our fathers,
you brought Saint Teresa Benedicta
to the fullness of the science of the cross
at the hour of her martyrdom.
Fill us with that same knowledge;
and, through her intercession,
allow us always to seek after you, the supreme truth,
and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love
ratified in the blood of your Son
for the salvation of all men and women.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Labels: Feast Day

Hobbs recounts our (not so very) cordial meeting with a deer.

Lord,
let the holiness and teaching of St. Dominic
come to the aid of Your Church.
May he help us now with his prayers
as he once inspired people by his prayers.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect for Mass on the Feast of St. Dominic









Happy Feast Day to Dom Bettinelli and to all my Dominican friends, especially Srs. Elizabeth Ann, John Paul, Mary David, and Ave Maria of the Dominican Sister of Mary Mother of the Eucharist and to my classmates Srs. Mary Edith, Mary Ellen, Mary Barbara, and John Paul of the Nashville Dominicans (Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia)

Labels: Feast Day

With television shows, I'm usually a step or two behind everyone else. So, I have to admit that I've never watched Lost. That is about to change.

First, I saw this rave review at Sirach 40:20, then I heard about the show for 6 weeks at school (there was a weekly group watching season 2). When I got home, there was one of the producers (I think - anyway, he was somehow connected with the show) giving an interview during a Red Sox game (he's a life-long Sox fan!) It's safe to say that my curiosity was piqued.

The final confirmation that I really need to watch this show came just now when I found this picture over at Happy Catholic. Put that DVD at the top of my Netflix list!

Seven year-old Marygrace had a beautiful dream about her little brother Joshua Michael.

The Proud 2B Catholic Music Festival will be held this weekend (August 12) at the Marist House in Framingham.

Here's the schedule:

12:15 Rosary in the grotto led by the Daughters of Saint Paul
12:45 Eucharistic Adoration procession starting from the chapel,
at the Lourdes Statue to the Adoration tent (Aaron Fouhey, music)

STAGE
1:00 Welcome: MC Andy – intro Sarah Bauer as co-MC/overall
1:10 Sarah Bauer
2:00 Righteous B
3:00 Bob Rice
4:00 Sean Forrest
5:00 Bernie Choiniere and the East Coast Band
6:00 Ayla Brown
6:15-8:00 Holy Mass (celebrant – Bishop Richard Malone of the Diocese
of Portland, ME -
Music by St Angela’s Choir of Mattapan)
8:00-8:55 Fr Stan Fortuna
9:00-9:30 Eucharistic Adoration Exposition/Benediction (Music: Martin
Doman)

UNITY STAGE – STAGE 2B
1:05-1:40 Zealous
1:50 Paul Savageau
2:50 Ryan Meyers
3:30 Cross Pollen with speaker Chris Faddis (combined set)
5:15 John Flynn Band

ADORATION TENT
12:45 Procession (music by Aaron Fouhey)
!;00 Exposition
1:30 Susan Bailey
2:10 ROCK Music Ministry
3:00 Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy: Chaplet of Divine Mercy
3:30 Martin Doman
4:30 John Polce
5:30 Benediction

BREAKOUT TALKS (now in the auditorium)
1:10-2:00 Stephen & Kari Colella of the Family Life and Youth Ministry
offices of Boston:
Theology of the Body
2:10-3:00 Eddie Cotter, Dead Theologians Society: Saints of yesterday
inspire Teens of today
3:10-4:00 Fr Daniel Hennessey and Fr Michael Harrington of the
Vocation office of Boston:
How to Build a Vocation Culture in your Youth Ministry program
4:10-4:50 Al Getler, Ventriloquist: Youth Ministry for Dummies
5:00-5:50 PM Former Ambassador to the Vatican, Raymond Flynn:
Exercising our Faith on
the Public Square

CONFESSION
From 1:00-5:30 PM

INFLATABLE GAMES SECTION (additional cost)
12 noon – 6:15 pm

FOOD AND PRODUCT VENDOR SECTIONS
12 noon – 6:00 pm AND RE-OPEN from 8 PM – 9:30 PM
Only bottled water available during Mass.

While at school, under the instigation of Homer, a group of us summer resident graduate students at NDGS, decided to take a shot at blogging. We thought that it would be a good way to continue all the interesting discussion we had over lunches (though, if I see one word posted about distributism.....). We hope that some of our ramblings might prove interesting to you also. So, if you have some time wander over and check out Theological Downpour.

I see that Hobbs at Dirdy Wadah has finally posted again. Actually, he's put up 2 posts, which takes away my guilt free non-posting!

I got back from school (though I'm still desparately trying to finish a paper - not to mention those other 2 that I need to start!), started back to work again, and finally got Verizon to fix my DSL (Hallelujah!!). All of which means, no more excuses!