I have a day off from normal journalistic duties to think about them. It's a kind of Professional Development Day, or PD Days, as we called them in Toronto in the 1980s when our elementary school teachers had them.
This PD Day as usual I'm going to see my priest for confession and spiritual direction. Sometimes I write to someone about my work: a nun friend or a young person interested in journalism. Sometimes I read a book about doctrine or a book about journalism. Sometimes I get a massage and ask the masseuse to concentrate on my arms.
One thing I do not do is read the news: we're strictly forbidden to read the news on our Desert Days. We're also not to use the day to catch up on housework.
Hilary White used to write about how sad it was to write about pro-life and Church news all the time and how she'd rather write about marine biology. It certainly can be sad; it's important to find the happy stories, too. There are lots of happy pro-life stories for those who want to read them. I really enjoyed reporting on the young man with Downs who made such an impression on "The Greatest Dancer."
Happy or sad, it's also important work. Incidentally, I would never permit a child to watch television or use the internet unsupervised. Never, never, never. I know homeschooling parents who will pop a 100% safe children's film in the DVD player to get a break, but that's as far as I would go myself. Yes, I know that that would be a sacrifice. Yes, I know how tiresome children can be. However, the number of girls whose reaction to hitting (admittedly horrible) early puberty is to seek sex change "therapy" is skyrocketing, and they get the idea from online chatrooms and youtube channels. Allowing a 12 year old girl to place herself before the internet is like sending her into a village teeming with bubonic plague.
I definitely hated early puberty. And when I was 13 or 14 I had my hair cut as short as Annie Lennox in the "Sweet Dreams" video, and dressed up as a boy for Halloween. That's as far as that went, though. Oh wait--no, it wasn't. I also had a crush on a female summer camp counsellor, and I adopted a male persona in a writing project. Although it is decidedly unfashionable to use the expression, it was a phase. What a very good thing no adult came along to interrupt my phase or turn it into something else.
Boxing in my late 20s wasn't a phase, however. It was an interesting pursuit and taught me a lot about women's athletic capacities and our physical limitations. I learned that getting punched in the face by a man won't necessarily kill you. It could, though, if you're very unlucky, so avoid it if you can. However, chances are that a single punch--especially by a 130 pound or less non-boxer--won't kill you, so if you can't run away, stand your ground and put up a fight, that's what I say. Don't submit to violence like a sheep. Take a self-defence class. Keep your chin down and protect your head.
Incidentally, women should never get into a contact sporting contest with a transgender athlete. If the transgender athlete is genetically female, she's taking testosterone, which should be banned. If the athlete is genetically male, he's probably had all the permanent physical advantages that come with having been a teenage boy. Although a female athlete could leave a male non-athlete in the dust, competing with male or testosterone-using female athletes is a whole other boxing match.
Uh oh. Look at the time. I have to go. Talk to you later, and stay rooted in reality.
Friday, 25 January 2019
Monday, 21 January 2019
Was I born for this?
I should at least apply. I am putting the news here so I don't forget where to find it.
Love is Stronger Than Death
What a day! New restructuring at my husband's work, the oven isn't working, the plumbers have been in and said our boiler pipe is rubbish ... and it's just gone noon.
But a moment of quiet in the midst of the storm now to remember my Canadian grandmother Gladys, who was born on this day over a hundred years ago. The love of her descendants for her should outlive her for at least forty more years, I hope--perhaps fifty.
It may seem odd to refer to the Song of Songs when contemplating one's grandmother. However, the Song of Songs is about love, and of all family and friends who have died, the one I loved best was Gladys. Perhaps because I saw her at least once a week until I moved away from Toronto, she was also the family member I knew best.
A not inconsiderable piece in the puzzle of my Christian hope is the chance of seeing my grandmother again. It also is, incidentally, the taproot of my affection for Protestants and the hope that despite error having no rights, etc., all will be well with them.
One should celebrate love with great gusto when one's loved ones are alive because the grief when they aren't doesn't entirely wear off. I burst into tears on Christmas Eve, thinking of my grandmother. I'm sure I'm not alone in that sort of thing.
My grandmother was a quote "unplanned pregnancy" unquote, and my great-grandmother left Scotland to have her quietly in Canada. Given my current publisher, that is important to mention although I'm afraid my grandmother would have hated that fact to be widely known. It was a scandal of unmentionable proportions 80 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, of course. She referred to her mother as "Auntie" until the day she died, and indeed when the rest of us have cause mention my great-grandmother, "Auntie" she remains. In the long roll call of family prayers, that name was wedged in between her daughter and me.
Anyway, whereas Auntie was a Modern Woman, a single woman who "adopted a child" out west before joining her family in Toronto, and embarking on a Career, Gladys was a cheerful mid-century housewife who sometimes worked behind the counter at the local "smoke shop" for pin money. She was a classic example of an Old Toronto person, the kind of woman who greeted, chatted with and then thanked bus drivers, and when people (including Anthony Bourdain) belittle that sort of mid-century Scottish-Canadian Torontonian, I go out of my mind with rage.
This is because I am rather more like my red-haired grandfather than like my placid grandmother, which is too bad, really. My grandfather had a temper, my mother had a temper, and now I have a temper. Instead my grandmother had Nerves, which I inherited, so I have both a temper AND Nerves--a dangerous combination. But I do not sit at the kitchen table, lost in my thoughts, smoking, however. Nor do I stay up all night reading trashy novels. ( Gladys: "They're not trashy. They're family sagas.")
One of my nephews once innocently remarked that when I am away in Scotland, it's as if I didn't exist. He was only seven or eight when he said that, so no hard feelings, although obviously it froze my soul. I'm sorry I can't be a steady, cheerful, cookie-bringing presence like my grandmother. However, I am very grateful that I had my grandmother so long, and that an enduring childhood memory is rushing to the sidewalk in front of our house on Sunday afternoons, to see if she was coming yet.
And there she would be, beret on head, high-heeled sandals on feet, vinyl shopping bag in hand, very happy to see her grandchildren running to meet her on the last leg of her walk from her house to our house.
Love is stronger than death.
But a moment of quiet in the midst of the storm now to remember my Canadian grandmother Gladys, who was born on this day over a hundred years ago. The love of her descendants for her should outlive her for at least forty more years, I hope--perhaps fifty.
It may seem odd to refer to the Song of Songs when contemplating one's grandmother. However, the Song of Songs is about love, and of all family and friends who have died, the one I loved best was Gladys. Perhaps because I saw her at least once a week until I moved away from Toronto, she was also the family member I knew best.
A not inconsiderable piece in the puzzle of my Christian hope is the chance of seeing my grandmother again. It also is, incidentally, the taproot of my affection for Protestants and the hope that despite error having no rights, etc., all will be well with them.
One should celebrate love with great gusto when one's loved ones are alive because the grief when they aren't doesn't entirely wear off. I burst into tears on Christmas Eve, thinking of my grandmother. I'm sure I'm not alone in that sort of thing.
My grandmother was a quote "unplanned pregnancy" unquote, and my great-grandmother left Scotland to have her quietly in Canada. Given my current publisher, that is important to mention although I'm afraid my grandmother would have hated that fact to be widely known. It was a scandal of unmentionable proportions 80 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, of course. She referred to her mother as "Auntie" until the day she died, and indeed when the rest of us have cause mention my great-grandmother, "Auntie" she remains. In the long roll call of family prayers, that name was wedged in between her daughter and me.
Anyway, whereas Auntie was a Modern Woman, a single woman who "adopted a child" out west before joining her family in Toronto, and embarking on a Career, Gladys was a cheerful mid-century housewife who sometimes worked behind the counter at the local "smoke shop" for pin money. She was a classic example of an Old Toronto person, the kind of woman who greeted, chatted with and then thanked bus drivers, and when people (including Anthony Bourdain) belittle that sort of mid-century Scottish-Canadian Torontonian, I go out of my mind with rage.
This is because I am rather more like my red-haired grandfather than like my placid grandmother, which is too bad, really. My grandfather had a temper, my mother had a temper, and now I have a temper. Instead my grandmother had Nerves, which I inherited, so I have both a temper AND Nerves--a dangerous combination. But I do not sit at the kitchen table, lost in my thoughts, smoking, however. Nor do I stay up all night reading trashy novels. ( Gladys: "They're not trashy. They're family sagas.")
One of my nephews once innocently remarked that when I am away in Scotland, it's as if I didn't exist. He was only seven or eight when he said that, so no hard feelings, although obviously it froze my soul. I'm sorry I can't be a steady, cheerful, cookie-bringing presence like my grandmother. However, I am very grateful that I had my grandmother so long, and that an enduring childhood memory is rushing to the sidewalk in front of our house on Sunday afternoons, to see if she was coming yet.
And there she would be, beret on head, high-heeled sandals on feet, vinyl shopping bag in hand, very happy to see her grandchildren running to meet her on the last leg of her walk from her house to our house.
Love is stronger than death.
Saturday, 19 January 2019
A Winter Walk
One of the nice things about living near Edinburgh is that it doesn't take us very long to get out into the countryside. There are all kinds of river walks and disused railway lines that have been turned into bicycle and walking trails.
Today B.A. and I went for a long country walk, ending up in the town of Dalkeith. Unfortunately, I spent the first two miles or so having a meltdown about double-taxation. We are hoping to pay off the mortgage early and invest for retirement with my salary, but so far my salary seems to be subject to the taxes of two countries, plus National Insurance contributions for them both.
My meltdown was caused by B.A.'s tax statement, which said that both he AND his employer had contributed to the National Insurance, the combined sum being larger than his taxes. As my North American employer, obviously, doesn't contribute to the British NI, how much NI am I going to have to pay?
It makes me frightened and angry and sure something must be wrong. Canada and the UK have a tax treaty, apparently to prevent people like me from being taxed twice. I got an (expensive) accountant to cope with the UK tax laws, and now I think I'll have to get a (guaranteed less expensive) tax firm in Canada to wrestle my money back from Revenue Canada.
Meanwhile B.A. swears up and down that the UK National Pension will not disappear when we are old and that being a pensioner is not the same thing as being on "benefits" (i.e. welfare). "We're paying into the system, and it's our money," he says.
B.A. clearly has never tried to draw on unemployment insurance, which I used to believe was "our money". I have, in Canada, and it was an utterly humiliating experience. I also worked in a Canadian welfare office, and I probably signed a confidentiality agreement*, so all I'll say about that is that you never, ever, ever, want to be dependent on The State for food, warmth, and a roof over your head.
Meanwhile, ending up in a nursing home can also be very unpleasant, not only because of neglect but also because of this.
Anyway, B.A. begged me to stop ruining our country walk with catastrophic thinking, so I turned off that part of my brain. Naturally I wish I hadn't stopped caring about money when I went to theology school, but regrets don't reduce taxes.
It was cold, but the countryside was nevertheless green and beautiful, for this is Scotland after all, and eventually I cheered up. We reached Dalkeith (chipped but charming to Canadian eyes) and looked around for somewhere to get bacon rolls. Greasy spoons being absent from the High Street, we investigated the in-store cafe of Morrisons, which is a national cut-price grocery chain. Result! Morrisons was serving breakfast items (like bacon rolls) until 3 PM.
We got our bacon rolls, a pot of tea, and a mug of cappuccino for the low, low price of £7.60 ($13 Canadian), which might not strike you as a low, low price, but this is the UK. And the amusing thing, when we looked around, was the large number of couples also amiably munching on breakfast items and drinking from mugs. Many were old, but some were middle-aged, and it struck us that this could be the Saturday afternoon "dating" venue of choice for the married denizens of Dalkeith.
I didn't think it was a particularly tasty bacon roll, but I did enjoy the idea that married couples can contentedly eat out as cheaply as possible whereas dating people have to stick to sophisticated joints, so as not to look cheap, or indeed like the sort of boring people who will end up eating bacon rolls in Morrisons.
(Incidentally, the next-door-neighbours, who are long-term renters, are loudly singing pop songs again. It must be Saturday night.)
Anyway, as B.A. says, we have at least another 20 years of employment before us, so I should not worry about being taxed into poverty or sexually assaulted in a U.K. nursing home before I am inevitably euthanised. Also I admit that getting the old-age pension from the government cannot really be like collecting Canadian unemployment insurance benefits because nobody chivvies the elderly to go back to work ASAP.
Bus fare home was £3.40 (£5.80 Canadian).
*Update: Worst memories from working in welfare office:
5. A male cop supervising cheque day told me that one of our clients, a pleasant woman, used to be a "crack whore."
4. A man I knew was on trial for murder that day showed up at my window. (Manager: "So why do you need a break now?")
3. Realising that the shell of a woman at my window was the mother of a famous murder victim.
2. A formerly employed, formerly solvent woman, now very ill, saying over the phone, "But that was my nest-egg" after learning that as a dependent on the state she wasn't allowed to keep it.
1. A female cop screaming at a lunatic to "apologise to these ladies" for his bad language when we had the situation well at hand, thank you very much.
We dealt with homeless people, mentally ill people and actual crooks all the time, but the only client who upset me as much as those two cops was the killer. (He was acquitted--to the shock of almost all involved--minutes before he arrived at my window.)
Update 2. The killer suddenly died a year to the day of his acquittal, I have just discovered.
Today B.A. and I went for a long country walk, ending up in the town of Dalkeith. Unfortunately, I spent the first two miles or so having a meltdown about double-taxation. We are hoping to pay off the mortgage early and invest for retirement with my salary, but so far my salary seems to be subject to the taxes of two countries, plus National Insurance contributions for them both.
My meltdown was caused by B.A.'s tax statement, which said that both he AND his employer had contributed to the National Insurance, the combined sum being larger than his taxes. As my North American employer, obviously, doesn't contribute to the British NI, how much NI am I going to have to pay?
It makes me frightened and angry and sure something must be wrong. Canada and the UK have a tax treaty, apparently to prevent people like me from being taxed twice. I got an (expensive) accountant to cope with the UK tax laws, and now I think I'll have to get a (guaranteed less expensive) tax firm in Canada to wrestle my money back from Revenue Canada.
Meanwhile B.A. swears up and down that the UK National Pension will not disappear when we are old and that being a pensioner is not the same thing as being on "benefits" (i.e. welfare). "We're paying into the system, and it's our money," he says.
B.A. clearly has never tried to draw on unemployment insurance, which I used to believe was "our money". I have, in Canada, and it was an utterly humiliating experience. I also worked in a Canadian welfare office, and I probably signed a confidentiality agreement*, so all I'll say about that is that you never, ever, ever, want to be dependent on The State for food, warmth, and a roof over your head.
Meanwhile, ending up in a nursing home can also be very unpleasant, not only because of neglect but also because of this.
Anyway, B.A. begged me to stop ruining our country walk with catastrophic thinking, so I turned off that part of my brain. Naturally I wish I hadn't stopped caring about money when I went to theology school, but regrets don't reduce taxes.
It was cold, but the countryside was nevertheless green and beautiful, for this is Scotland after all, and eventually I cheered up. We reached Dalkeith (chipped but charming to Canadian eyes) and looked around for somewhere to get bacon rolls. Greasy spoons being absent from the High Street, we investigated the in-store cafe of Morrisons, which is a national cut-price grocery chain. Result! Morrisons was serving breakfast items (like bacon rolls) until 3 PM.
We got our bacon rolls, a pot of tea, and a mug of cappuccino for the low, low price of £7.60 ($13 Canadian), which might not strike you as a low, low price, but this is the UK. And the amusing thing, when we looked around, was the large number of couples also amiably munching on breakfast items and drinking from mugs. Many were old, but some were middle-aged, and it struck us that this could be the Saturday afternoon "dating" venue of choice for the married denizens of Dalkeith.
I didn't think it was a particularly tasty bacon roll, but I did enjoy the idea that married couples can contentedly eat out as cheaply as possible whereas dating people have to stick to sophisticated joints, so as not to look cheap, or indeed like the sort of boring people who will end up eating bacon rolls in Morrisons.
(Incidentally, the next-door-neighbours, who are long-term renters, are loudly singing pop songs again. It must be Saturday night.)
Anyway, as B.A. says, we have at least another 20 years of employment before us, so I should not worry about being taxed into poverty or sexually assaulted in a U.K. nursing home before I am inevitably euthanised. Also I admit that getting the old-age pension from the government cannot really be like collecting Canadian unemployment insurance benefits because nobody chivvies the elderly to go back to work ASAP.
Bus fare home was £3.40 (£5.80 Canadian).
*Update: Worst memories from working in welfare office:
5. A male cop supervising cheque day told me that one of our clients, a pleasant woman, used to be a "crack whore."
4. A man I knew was on trial for murder that day showed up at my window. (Manager: "So why do you need a break now?")
3. Realising that the shell of a woman at my window was the mother of a famous murder victim.
2. A formerly employed, formerly solvent woman, now very ill, saying over the phone, "But that was my nest-egg" after learning that as a dependent on the state she wasn't allowed to keep it.
1. A female cop screaming at a lunatic to "apologise to these ladies" for his bad language when we had the situation well at hand, thank you very much.
We dealt with homeless people, mentally ill people and actual crooks all the time, but the only client who upset me as much as those two cops was the killer. (He was acquitted--to the shock of almost all involved--minutes before he arrived at my window.)
Update 2. The killer suddenly died a year to the day of his acquittal, I have just discovered.
Friday, 18 January 2019
Professor Stephen Lewis on why he assigned "The Kingdom"
If you read about the Franciscan Blasphemy Scandal, read Professor Lewis' essay in First Things and post it far and wide.
Postcard from Caligula's Court
Cuminia Marcia, scribe, to Iosephus her father, Secondus her brother and Anna the bookseller her mother, hail!
I pray that you are in good health night and day, and I offer great sacrifices that you may be preserved from the misfortunes that are befalling our hapless people. I think often of childhood when the virtues of our ancestors and the Republic were honoured by almost everyone, and the shamelessness I now observe at court was accounted as something unknown or never to be mentioned by the pious.
O, our Rome! It seems to me that the nightmares of madmen have infected all the people of the city, the senators in their purple as well as the tradesmen who in times past were as pure and homely as wheat bread newly baked and fresh water from the fountains.
Here you may now find parents of no mean origin who allow their young sons to go through the streets painted and bewigged and even to dance for men late at night in the lowest of the taverns.
Here too you may find also, even in the temples, young men taking each other as wife and presenting as their child to the gods an infant one or the other has begot, through devilish means, upon some poor woman hired to breed, like a cow brought to bull. So shameless are these men that as the child is growing in his nameless mother's womb, they describe themselves as pregnant. A mother's love for her baby, and his for her, is set at naught today in Rome.
But enough of this, for although it is my poor lot to record all this for my employer the illustrious historian, it is not my wish to think on it from the first vigil to the fourth.
If you are well, I am well.
I pray that you are in good health night and day, and I offer great sacrifices that you may be preserved from the misfortunes that are befalling our hapless people. I think often of childhood when the virtues of our ancestors and the Republic were honoured by almost everyone, and the shamelessness I now observe at court was accounted as something unknown or never to be mentioned by the pious.
O, our Rome! It seems to me that the nightmares of madmen have infected all the people of the city, the senators in their purple as well as the tradesmen who in times past were as pure and homely as wheat bread newly baked and fresh water from the fountains.
Here you may now find parents of no mean origin who allow their young sons to go through the streets painted and bewigged and even to dance for men late at night in the lowest of the taverns.
Here too you may find also, even in the temples, young men taking each other as wife and presenting as their child to the gods an infant one or the other has begot, through devilish means, upon some poor woman hired to breed, like a cow brought to bull. So shameless are these men that as the child is growing in his nameless mother's womb, they describe themselves as pregnant. A mother's love for her baby, and his for her, is set at naught today in Rome.
But enough of this, for although it is my poor lot to record all this for my employer the illustrious historian, it is not my wish to think on it from the first vigil to the fourth.
If you are well, I am well.
Thursday, 17 January 2019
Gillette Ads
I'm actually working, but I thought I would drop in to say I checked our medicine cabinet, and B.A. uses Bic 2s.
Whereas I suppose some women buy their husbands razors as part of a weekly shop, I don't remember my mother ever buying my usually clean-shaving father razors.
This leads me to wonder how many men prefer to buy toiletries (and other things like shirts and shoes) for themselves.
The best (albeit only other) razor ad I ever remember seeing (let alone writing about) was the one in which a middle-aged son shaves his infirm father in a nursing home. I cried. America cried. Everybody cried.
That was a good ad.
Naturally as a wannabe Eco-Trad, I would be better pleased if B.A. used a hipster-type razor with replaceable blades, but that's his business.
"Why would a TV advert cause such a fuss?" I hear you asking. "Why care?"
Clearly American men have become fed up with negative stereotypes about American men and the demonisation of things they like, like barbecuing meat in the backyard (if they have a backyard) on a warm sunny day, oblivious for a precious moment to fighting children. (Frankly, I don't remember any fighting in our backyard without my Dad yelling "You kids cut that out. Cut it out or I'll paddle you!")
Also it's interesting when a company that caters to men starts preaching to men instead of selling them a product. A bit of a commercial gamble?
In possibly related news, I also came across articles today about young "feminist" women who are sexually fascinated by serial killers and aren't afraid to say so on Twitter. Jeepers.
I spend hours a day trudging through the word-sludge of human sin, and I must say that anyone who thinks at this point that Western-women-in-general are somehow morally superior to Western-men-in-general is intellectually dishonest.
Finally, I am looking forward to B.A. grilling things on the barbecue in our new-to-us back garden. It is fun to see him do stereotypical man stuff. The men in my family do a lot of stereotypical man stuff when they're not watering plants, playing Chopin on the piano, or studying German. All of it involves being useful or becoming stronger, and none of it is oppressive by any stretch of the imagination.
Whereas I suppose some women buy their husbands razors as part of a weekly shop, I don't remember my mother ever buying my usually clean-shaving father razors.
This leads me to wonder how many men prefer to buy toiletries (and other things like shirts and shoes) for themselves.
The best (albeit only other) razor ad I ever remember seeing (let alone writing about) was the one in which a middle-aged son shaves his infirm father in a nursing home. I cried. America cried. Everybody cried.
That was a good ad.
Naturally as a wannabe Eco-Trad, I would be better pleased if B.A. used a hipster-type razor with replaceable blades, but that's his business.
"Why would a TV advert cause such a fuss?" I hear you asking. "Why care?"
Clearly American men have become fed up with negative stereotypes about American men and the demonisation of things they like, like barbecuing meat in the backyard (if they have a backyard) on a warm sunny day, oblivious for a precious moment to fighting children. (Frankly, I don't remember any fighting in our backyard without my Dad yelling "You kids cut that out. Cut it out or I'll paddle you!")
Also it's interesting when a company that caters to men starts preaching to men instead of selling them a product. A bit of a commercial gamble?
In possibly related news, I also came across articles today about young "feminist" women who are sexually fascinated by serial killers and aren't afraid to say so on Twitter. Jeepers.
I spend hours a day trudging through the word-sludge of human sin, and I must say that anyone who thinks at this point that Western-women-in-general are somehow morally superior to Western-men-in-general is intellectually dishonest.
Finally, I am looking forward to B.A. grilling things on the barbecue in our new-to-us back garden. It is fun to see him do stereotypical man stuff. The men in my family do a lot of stereotypical man stuff when they're not watering plants, playing Chopin on the piano, or studying German. All of it involves being useful or becoming stronger, and none of it is oppressive by any stretch of the imagination.
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