Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

Just a clue to the BBC, only deacons, priests and bishops are “ordained” in the Catholic Church. In this article, they clearly say that Blessed Alphonsa of Kerala was “ordained”. But what happens when a religious brother or sister becomes such is not referred to as “ordained”, but rather as taking a “profession of vows”.

She persisted with her religious vocation despite serious health problems, and in 1928, she was ordained, taking the name Sister Alphonsa.

[From BBC NEWS | South Asia | Vatican to canonise Indian woman]

Now while I am sure that no one from the BBC would stoop so low as to use the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the Oxford dictionary requires an account to look up words. So I’ll use MW instead. They define “ordain” as:

1: to invest officially (as by the laying on of hands) with ministerial or priestly authority

[From ordain - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary]

Other wise this was great article, until it got an agenda.

Indian Christians have been accused by hardline Hindu nationalists of “forced conversions” - especially among low-caste and tribal peoples.

They are also accused of making conversion to Christianity a condition for receiving treatment at medical centres they run.

[From BBC NEWS | South Asia | Vatican to canonise Indian woman]

UM…OK….While I don’t know if this may or may not be happening, I’m not sure what it has to do with the subject of this story. And, if it is happening, it is deplorable and what Christ wanted out of us. Our Blessed Lord offered the woman at the well the water of life before she converted, not after.

Not since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand has a single volley of gunshots so threatened world peace. If Pakistan falls into civil war, what happens to their nuclear arsenal? What will countries like India, Russia and the NATO countries do to ensure those nukes don’t fall into the wrong hands? This could get very ugly, very fast. Let’s pray that cooler heads prevail this time.

Technorati Tags: news, war

I must have missed this in my last visit to the greeting card section at Wal-Mart. Maybe that’s because it’s on the way to the aisle where they keep the gourmet chocolate. Who knows. Anyway, it seem that Hallmark has a new line of card that parody the celebrity of certain famous people, including Paris Hilton. Well, I guess Paris wasn’t too happy about a greeting card with her image on it. I think her image has been in a lot more places, but whatever.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday, the card is titled “Paris’s First Day as a Waitress” and shows a photo of Hilton’s face on a cartoon of a waitress serving a plate of food to a patron. In a dialogue bubble she says, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot.” The customer cartoon asks, “What’s hot?” She answers, “That’s hot.”

The suit says Hilton owns the trademark “That’s hot,” which was registered on Feb. 13, 2007.

First of all, how can she register “That’s hot” as a trademark? I mean c’mon! Plus we get this little snippet which describes the complaints in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims commercial appropriation of identity, invasion of privacy, misappropriation of publicity, false representation that Hilton endorses the product, and infringement of a federally registered trademark. The damages would be based on profits from the $2.49 cards, said Hilton attorney Brent Blakely.

Invasion of privacy? In the way she has lived her life and allowed people into her most intimate moments, does she really have any “privacy” left? Besides, I don’t really understand how this is an invasion privacy. Of course I’m not a lawyer….

Yahoo also has a copy of the card you can view it here.

Now my question is doesn’t this really count as parody? I’d love to hear some input on what you think.

Technorati Tags: hilton, law, lawsuit, news, Pais, Hallmark

…In Iran.

Iran arrested more than 200 music fans at an underground rock concert that one official called a “satanic” gathering and authorities accused the youths of breaking Islamic law.

A witness said Sunday that police raided the concert as it was ending late Wednesday near the town of Karaj, some 30 miles west of the capital.

Technorati Tags: music, news, politics, freedom, religion, rock

Instead of “man bites dog”, it’s “dog shoot man”.

Police say King George, a 150-pound Great Dane, accidentally knocked a .22-caliber pistol off his owner’s end table around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The gun went off, hitting his 21-year-old owner in the back, MyFOXMemphis.com reports.

OK…Reality just warped into something I can’t begin to describe.

Not only that, but Frayser has a Wikipedia entry.

Technorati Tags: Memphis, news, dog, redneck

What kind of world are we living in?

A baby sitter accused of allowing a man to have sex with a 12-year-old girl in her care for money was charged with pimping, police said.

What really bothers me about this story (other than the fact it happened in the first place) is the lack of charges against the babysitter. Is “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” enough for what took place? This little girls care was entrusted to the babysitter. She abused that and used the little girl to make money. Shouldn’t some sort of child endangerment or abuse charge be in order. I look at the difference in bonds set between the molester and the “pimp” and I think how can that be. I think they should be closer to the same. Don’t get me wrong here either. I am not saying the guys is being punished too much either. I think whatever punishment he gets, is probably not enough. I just think the babysitter needs to be held a little more responsible for this crime.

Technorati Tags: news, rant

Now this one at least respects as the woman you’ve become Danica!

“When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible,” the 32-year-old McKellar told Newsweek for editions to hit newsstands Monday.

“But I want to show them that being smart is cool,” she said. “Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life.”

To me it’s really refreshing to see her out there trying to be a positive role model. Trying hell, she’s doing it. I really wish she got more press over this. Unfortunately, a story about “some math geek” probably won’t be top on the list of the CNN’s and FoxNews’ of the world. It’s shame.

Technorati Tags: news, winniecooper, rant, tv, wonderyears

Everyone lately it seems is down on bottled water. They complain that the plastic bottles are bad for the environment. I’ve heard many arguments against drinking bottled water. Some of them I agree with. One I don’t is that bottled water is no more or less healthy than drinking tap water. Then I read this today.

Unsafe levels of toxic chlorine pollutants were found in 40 percent of the District of Columbia tap water samples tested during a spring chlorine surge, according to a study released Thursday.

Obviously the folks that compare bottled water to tap water have also never tried the water in Austin. I travel a lot and usually use bottled water on the road. Even if the local water doesn’t upset my stomach, it could have local allergens I might not be able to fight off quickly.

I just found it interesting that there seems to me to have been a recent uproar over bottled water, then this news story came out. Timing is everything….

Technorati Tags: news, water

Well, they came out today. A lot of folks are upset. I’m a little surprised that there weren’t more nominations for Lost. I felt that Matthew Fox deserved a best actor nod for more than one of his performances. I also thought Dominic Monaghan gave more than one nomination worthy supporting actor performances. On the other hand I do agree that Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emmerson deserved the nominations they got. Heck, I don’t care who he’s up against, Michael Emmerson deserves to win. He is just that cool. I’m also surprised that Battlestar Galactica didn’t get any nominations for acting. It is after all the best show on television.

Technorati Tags: BSG, celebrity, galactica, lost, news, tv

First off, what does “Motu proprio” mean? Well, Wikipedia describes it pretty well.

A motu proprio is a papal rescript in which the clause motu proprio (Latin, “of his own motion”) is used, signifying that the provisions of the rescript were decided by the Pope personally and not by a cardinal or other advisors. It is normally in the form of a decree, resembling a papal brief except that it is not sealed and countersigned. The first motu proprio was issued by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. It continues to be a common form of rescript, especially when establishing institutions, making minor changes to law or procedure and when granting favours to persons or institutions.

This one that Pope Benedict issued yesterday (7/7/7), is called “Summorum Ponificum“. Click on the the title for the full text. You can also click here for an explanatory letter from the Pope himself.

But does all this mean? I’ve seen an article that implied that Papa Ben was doing this just to upset so-called “liberals”, whatever a “Catholic liberal” is. I’m not so sure about that. Another headline I read said that he was “rolling back the clock”. I laughed. So what does it mean? Well, to be honest much smarter folks than me have already said a lot about it. I’ll just defer to these scholars.

• First off, Fr. Z of the blog and podcast “WHat Does The Prayer Really Say?” has some excellent commentary on the document itself.
• Fr. Z also has some commentary on comments made by Fr. Fredrico Lombardi, a papal spokesman which is a good read.
• Fr. Z (yes, I love the guy) also has some comments on Cardinal Ricard’s (who was responsible for communication with the group SSPX that has been at odds with the Vatican over the Latin Mass) reaction to the Motu proprio.
• Fr. Z (yes, him again) reacts to an AP article on the Motu proprio.
• Jimmy Akin (only one link???) has some comments on the document itself on his self titled blog.
• Jeff Miller on his blog The Curt Jester comments on the document. Expect some humor.
• Finally Fr. Martin Fox takes a little more guarded view.

So basically this does loosen the use of the older Latin Mass. I am concerned as is Fr. Fox about the possible resource strain this could cause for individual parishes. But the Holy Father was smart enough to give us some lead time. This document doesn’t take effect until September 14.

All in all I am excited though. I used to go to the Latin Mass back in Memphis, when Fr. Mike was still at Blessed Sacrament. It was awesome! I hope to be able to go somewhere here in Nashville really soon.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, christian, Latin, pope, Mass