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Return to Blogging? I Think So!: A Bullet List of Random Thoughts and Pictures

Return to Blogging? I Think So!: A Bullet List of Random Thoughts and Pictures

Last updated on: July 10, 2015 at 1:59 pm by Thomas L. McDonald

Return to Blogging? I Think So!: A Bullet List of Random Thoughts and Pictures 2015-07-10T13:59:44-04:00 Thomas L. McDonald

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Thanks for you messages and well wishes. My health’s improving, and I’m hoping to get back to work slowly.

What’s been happening since I’m gone? Did I miss anything important?

Good advice!

Let’s see, what’s been going on in my life for the past few weeks…

I was mostly vegetative on the couch or in bed for two solid weeks, watching a truly epic amount of Planet of the Apes, as in the entire franchise: movies, TV show, and cartoon. You know what? With the exception of Tim Burton’s movie, it all holds up amazingly well, and the TV show is far, far better than you might expect given its short life. Apes, Harryhausen, Universal Monsters, King Kong, Corman Poe movies, Hammer, and Doug McClure loomed large in my childhood. Star Wars was, relatively, a late-comer.

Jean Stapleton, Jean Simmons, Roddy McDowell, Alice Cooper

Since my brain was mostly pudding, I also spent a lot of time reading comics. Jack Kirby’s horror comics and New Gods, Alex Raymond’s and Dashiell Hammett’s Secret Agent X-9, DC Goes Ape (apes again!), and more. It was about all I could do.

And then, about a week or so ago, my brain came back online again. I completed Richard Bauckhams’ utterly essential Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, continued reading my Didache Bible from Ignatius Press, got through about half of Rod Dreher’s How Dante Can Save Your Life, began Claus Westermann’s huge three volume commentary on Genesis, and began a close study of the Epistles of John.

However, I wrote almost nothing. I just didn’t have any words.

I see that the Supreme Court reached into their collective buttholes and yanked out an imaginary Right to Gay Marriage. I can’t even pretend to be angry because it was always expected. This is what happens when a country is ruled not be sound reason or laws, but by All The Feels. This is the triumph of sentiment over sanity, and of moral relativism over reality. A person can no more “marry” someone of the same gender than he can marry a lamp. The doesn’t change because our Black Robed Overlords say it’s so.

He’s not quite gay enough, apparently.

My dog turned one year old yesterday. Happy birthday Ivy!

My Mastiff-Chihuahua.

I’ve been following Rod Dreher’s writing on the Benedict Option, which people continue to insist on misunderstanding as a “withdrawal to the hills” rather than as a building of intentional communities directed towards preserving and strengthening the faith. The idea, once explained this way, is so obvious and simple that only the most obtuse can continue to misunderstand it once it’s explained, but there’s no shortage of obtuseity. (It’s a word because I damn well say it is.)

St. Benedict

My father’s day presents from the best family in the world.

This is a book weight for keeping a book open while you’re doing research. It’s brilliant.

The staggering OPM hack may not be the Digital Pearl Harbor some are claiming it is, but it’s at least the Digitial Invasion of Manchuria. I have been saying, and saying, and saying again that we are heading for a global cyber-war and we are not prepared and not taking it seriously. We will feel the pain of this, right down to the household level. America is not serious about computer security, and it will hurt us more than all the Muslim fundies in the world put together.

St. Augustine’s finger is coming to Floridia. This makes me unbelievably happy. My religion is cooler than yours.

I like to imagine him making rude gestures with it.

I was finally back on the air with Mark Shea this week, talking about my struggles during Pon Farr and the eyewitness testimony at the heart of the gospels. Give a listen.

The Most Wicked Man in the Whole World

Did you know Samuel Beckett drove Andre the Giant to school because Andre couldn’t fit on the bus? True story.
Oh, what’s this? The pope is a Marxist! Because he scowled at an absurdly offensive and blasphemous hammer-and-sickle crucifix given to him by the little anti-clerical prick ruling Bolovia instead of dashing it to the ground and whizzing on it, because that’s what popes should do! Seriously, people: stop reading hysterical Catholic blogs and outrage-trolling social media. It’s bad for the soul.

Yeah, he looks thrilled.

Of course, there’s something grotesquely appropriate about the Lord being nailed to the symbol of communism, since so many hundreds of millions have suffered at the hands of leftist ideologies for so long. We are being crucified on a cross of progressive politics right at this very moment. We are being told to move to the back of the bus, bake the gay wedding cake, and STFU. I refuse. Now what are they gonna do? It’s their move.

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