Futurama: a little political parable that just goes in too many directions to make a point. It conflates the war with the tax refund and burning the Constitution. And at the end, when Johnny Z joins the bums, isn’t that the point of most libertarian Republican right-of-center economic policies, that it’s the people that best knows how to spend its money? I’m surprised no one within the first several pages (all I can stand, really) of the Can’t Get Enough Futurama discussion even mentions the political angle.

The whale biologist, Bender’s adventure, and Fry’s caffeine-induced apotheosis make up somewhat for what is a mostly scattershot episode. My real disappointment, though, was the failure to follow up the last several episodes’ development of Fry and Leela’s deepening relationship.
10:49:43 PM  #  comment []

Stalkin’ the ’hog

What was I saying? I saw it from above. It had come out and was standing on its haunches, looking over to where the neighbors were celebrating Father’s Day with loud music and patio partying. At the first shot of the bolt, it ran toward its hole.

I approached, and it went closer and closer to ground. I came within four feet of the hole and stuck my arm out, with the camera on max optical zoom. Eventually, it stuck its head out, and I snapped, no flash.

You can see the shadow of my arm above the li’l varmint. No flash, so some blurriness due to the longer exposure. Oh, one last thing:

License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit—ever. They’e like the Viet Cong—Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote.

—Carl Spackler
Caddyshack

Durn cute varmints.
10:00:15 PM  #  comment []

Speaking of literary things, tomorrow is Bloomsday. But it doesn’t look like I’m doing anything tomorrow either. Definitely on the centennial, though. Yeah, sure.
9:32:34 PM  #  comment []

Weldon Kees in the Chronicle, by way of Arts and Letters. James Reidel has written an autobiography.
9:17:17 PM  #  comment []

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The gospel was on the Great Commission.

Our guest speaker was a Philadelphia priest (bishop?) who had been living in the poorest sections of the Philippines for twenty-five years, fulfilling that commission. He spoke with great warmth and humor, but great somberness as well. The sudden departure from his family only a few days after ordination, the ever-lengthening time among the Filipinos in obedience to the Church, the trials and the faith that buoyed them all up. The recent Muslim massacre of two seminarians, their priest, and twenty-five early-morning worshipers.

I noticed how orthodox Fr. Panato’s liturgy became when the bishop was there.
7:35:02 PM  #  comment []

It surprises me how much it still, twenty years later, frustrates and enrages me to know that it is impossible to learn everything there is about everything one would want to know.

Humility. Every so often I need to re-learn it.
6:36:25 PM  #  comment []