The Vatican wants to erect a statue to Galileo, which is ironic enough. But to put the cherry on top, they plan to place it near the cell where he was held during his heresy trial. Do you think they’re doing this as a sign of papal humility, a sort of grand, ornate slap to the forehead and admission that “boy, did we make a boner”? Somehow, I suspect arrogance plays a bigger role.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
papal humility
Now THAT’S funny.
What about Giordano Bruno?
Will they make a statue that doubles as a BBQ?
buggers stole my hat!
(All hail Dagon)
As a Catholic-raised person, I must say this enrages me to no end. I wish I was in contact with my still-catholic friends to just annoy them on how this is just the Vatican being assholes, and desperate at the same time.
Those Vatican guys seem to inhabit another reality. Weird.
Are they saying that the Bible, God and they were wrong?
They’re going to be erecting a lot of statues near a lot of cells if they keep this up.
It’s a dangerous precendent, when one considers just how many of these episodes the Catholic Church has in its history…
Anyone want to start a pool on when they label him Saint Galileo?
reminds me of the part in Small Gods (Terry Pratchett, for anyone who didn’t know) where Vorbis is described as being more arrogant when humbled in prayer than most megalomaniacal despots can manage on their thrones…
Something like that, anyway…
I’ll take any positive developments I can from the Church after outspoken ID opponent Father George Coyne was dismissed.
Nicola Cabibbo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said: “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith.”
Good, but now close the affair for real and listen to people like Coyne instead of people like Cardinal Cardinal Schönborn.
-Cardinal…he’s not that much of a cardinal.
Quoted from someone who quoted it on another site.
No idea who said it first.
“When Science was in its crib, Religion tried to strangle it. When Science was in its infancy, Religion tried to abuse it. Now that Science is grown up, Religion wants to be in its good graces”
I like what Pontifical Academy of Sciences stated “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith.”
Translation: “We wish to sweep the whole sordid affair under the rug and pretend it never happened. At least until we can massage it into something which makes us look good and not like some retrograde buffoons”.
And the subtext of sticking the statue next to the cell – “We have still have some nice cells for you uppity science types if you disagree with us. Every time you look at this statue you will be subtly reminded of what we will do to you if we can get away with it. So sit down, shut up, and pray”.
“boy, did we make a boner”
Catholicism and boners…there’s a joke in there somewhere, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…
Maybe we should put up a statue of the pope. Near Auschwitz or something.
If I recall correctly, several years ago the Catholic Church expressed its regret for the Galileo affair, referring to it as a tragedy of mutual incomprehension. I can understand why they would want to paper over it like that, but it’s very clear that there was no incomprehension. They knew that he was challenging their view of the world, they didn’t like it, so they did what they had to do. Just another example of a powerful institution crushing a challenger. Or, to put it another way, just another example of religion suppressing knowledge.
The Catholic Church has been practicisng the art of cooptation ever since they took over the previously Mithraic domain of the Hill of the Prophets (rough translation of Latin root of “Vatican”) in ancient Rome.
Their Holinesses have sucked up everything from tribal nature spirits to Aristotle to imperialism and made them their own. Insofar as science can be captured by imagery and catchphrases (which can be quite a lot for the non-scientific), they could no more leave it alone than they could omit passing the collection plate.
They never did rehabilitate Giordano Bruno who was burnt at the stake by the RCC.
They also “lost” his file despite the Vatican habit of keeping good records. A summary has been found and is on the Vatican web site and translated into English.
Bruno had a lot of strange ideas. But the summary makes clear that his support for Copernicus was a big factor in his execution. Oddly enough, Bruno was an ordained monk.
There is a statue of him somewhere in Italy but the RCC had nothing to do with it. Bruno is one rug they don’t want to look under. Maybe in another 500 years.
“Papal humility” is always done up with major production values and played to the rafters. The quintessentially oxymoronic. I recall a waspish Jesuit telling me about a theology professor at his seminary: “No one could have been prouder than he was of his sublime humility!” Surely an occupational hazard.
It’s in the Campo de’Fiori in Rome. I made a point of visiting it the last time I was in Rome.
From the wiki about the Campo de’Fiori Here, on 17 February 1600, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt alive by the Roman Inquisition because his ideas were deemed dangerous. In 1887 Ettore Ferrari dedicated a monument to him on the exact spot of his death: he stands defiantly facing the Vatican, reinterpreted in the first days of a reunited Italy as a martyr to freedom of speech.
Where will they put the statue to commemorate Leonardo da Vinci being hounded off to France to escape ecclesiastical wrath for his anatomical research?
At least it ought to be pretty easy to find a suitable spot for a statue of Copernicus hiding his life’s work until he was on his deathbed.
The statue of Mendel will have to be smaller than the others, as he was unlucky enough to escape martyrdom.
The Catholic Church has been practicisng the art of cooptation ever since they took over the previously Mithraic domain of the Hill of the Prophets (rough translation of Latin root of “Vatican”) in ancient Rome.
like i said…
the buggers stole my hat.
The Galileo affair isn’t the story of a lone secular scientist attempting to bash religious authority. He seems to have thought himself a shrewd politician, and failed to maneuver the politics of the Vatican.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Galileo.html
Also, don’t forget that he was murdering (in cold blood!) two huge and flourishing industry – Astrology and Alchemy http://mousomer.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/astrology-why-it-used-to-be-resonable-and-why-it-aint-so-anymore/
In our civilized times, of course, it would be inconceivable for commercial and political interests to suppress science, right?
Just think about it as a positive precedent: like the Vatican before them, in 350 years we could see the Republican party erecting statues in Darwin’s homor. Who knows, maybe in 400 years they will even admit to global warming…
Considering that we now have a good idea that Moses was stoned out of his mind when he delivered the ten commandments, we have a pretty good idea that all of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are pretty much unadulterated bovine effluent.
That said I don’t give a rats posterior where they put it.
That’s more or less my take on Jesus’ encounter with the Devil in the desert. Lots of mystics have used dehydration, fasting and meditation to induce hallucinations. Early North Americans would seek their totem animal spirit in this manner. Naturally wherever hallucinogens were available, they were utilized as well.
Of course, since no-one can ever prove that you didn’t have a particularly impressive vision at all, this leaves lots of room for the spewers of bovine effluent to baffle the gullible in advantageous ways.
[tongue-in-cheek]”…erect…boy…boner…bigger”, I don’t expect anything less from the Catholic Church.
“Hey, Galileo, c’mon over here and see what we did for you. I think it’s a good likeness. No hard feelings, huh. It was just a little hazing….. Geez, you scientists just can’t take a joke.”
“The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith.”
Perfect. If the idea is to silence controversy by erecting statues, how about a whole football field of statues for all of the molested and abused children?
Paolo Galluzzi, head of the Florence museum, said that “even if Galileo had been wrong, you cannot judge scientific errors in an ecclesisatical court”. Giorgio Ierano, a cultural historian, said: “The wrong done to Galileo is being put right on the territory of his historic enemies. Wherever Galileo is in the afterlife, he must be enjoying this moment.”
The stupidity knows no bounds.
The Vatican’s repentance over its treatment of Galileo began in 1979, when John Paul II invited the Church to rethink the trial of Galileo.
Congratulations. 30 years of rethinking leads to a statue.
Galileo’s accomplishments make you look like a pea-brained moron, Ratzo. Foisting a bullshit statue onto the world is not going to “close the Galileo affair.” Go talk to a few non-church historians. There is no such thing as a definitive understanding of events in history.
I hope Galileo haunts your dreams at night.
You want to make a real difference?
Abjure the willful ignorance that is Christianity. Recant the lies that go by the name of Catholic Religion and stop walking around in your robes and pointy hat, conning people, you fuckwit. Now that would be deserving of a statue!
The RC church has always supported good science, just as we have always been at war with Eastasia.
If they want to reach a definitive understanding of the relationship between faith and science it is that they are incompatible at the basic level and no amount of posturing, slogans or statues is going to change that.
I’d like to see a memorial to the victims of the Inquisition. It could be like the Vietnam Memorial, only much, much longer.
Raven, “…the RCC had nothing to do with it. Bruno is one rug they don’t want to look under. Maybe in another 500 years.”
Do you think that this idiotic superstition will still exist, 500 years into the future? I’m feeling depressed, now, because you’re probably correct. Unless some other superstitious crap supersedes it, or global warming sends us back to an uncivilized state.
I am not really surprised, after the pope’s failed attempt to participate in the academic year inauguration of a secular university (Università della Sapienza, Rome) now that asshole is trying to gaining more public trust by playing the civilised. Yet he support ID, and he want to save life even though he hasn’t the slightest notion of biology.
I live in Italy and public TV dedicates to him some 5-10 min in the news almost every day :s. Which is one of the reasons I don’t watch TV at all.
OK, I’ll bite – precisely which part of “shut up or we’ll torture you to death” do they think Gallileo didn’t understand?
Which, as I recall, happened because Ratzo had previously remarked that Gallileo’s treatment had been “rational and correct”. Could he please make up his mind?
Given the people God has apparently chosen as his top PR guys over the years, never doubt that he has a sense of humour!
That’s not funny, that’s just evil.
I didn’t say anything about him having a nice sense of humour did I?
Shane going on pilgrimage to Bruno’s statue in Rome is perhaps the main reason I want to visit the city.
Erecting a statue of Galileo on vatican grounds is so
damn ludricous and offends the ideals of Science to
separate fact from fiction. Would we erect a statue of
Torquemada on the grounds of the American Association For
the Advancement Of Science? I don’t want religion’s puny
apology for past transgressions against reason. All those
insane actions cannot be undone, and therefore will not be
remedied by pathetic acknowledgement of having been so
ruefully indiscreet. The situation still prevails; Science
is for fact and reason, religion pervades as a continual
perpetuation of insanity and oppression.
If I can figure out a way to do it without inheriting Gallileo’s cell, having sex on the High Altar in St Peters is fairly high on my to-do list.
Recalls to mind Dr Samuel Johnson’s words:
“See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust.”
Pope RatzAss cuts the cheese every time he opens one of his orfices.
Well, are you an altar boy?
I’d like to encourage the church not to bother with a statue to assuage feelings and massage their image. The monument to Galileo has already been built by the success of his insight and the dazzling arts that have accrued thereunto. After all, churches don’t launch space probes, scientists and engineers do.
I am quite comfortable with the legacy that has already been built on Galileo’s observations and conclusions; anything the church might do would be mere pissing in the ocean.
It’s a threat: contradict the Bible with all that Science jazz and you too will end up in a cell. If you’re lucky, they’ll apologize a few centuries later by erecting a graven image of you.
If you are seriously interested in this topic beyond “evil church suppressed science” read “The Galileo Affair”
http://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Affair-Documentary-History-California/dp/0520066626
It contains the primary source documents relating to Galileo’s trial translated into english. It is a complex issue of national politics mixed with scientific politics mixed with religion that probably has more relevance and parallels to modern events than a fairly tail of Galileo and science vs. Religion. That fairy tail first gained prominence in a book book called “The War between Science and Religion” by Washington Irving (who is today known more for his actual fairy tails.)
Observations on Two Men
One is a devoutly religious man leading his people in a never-ending struggle between good and evil, treated as infallible by those around him.
The other is a former university professor, well educated in science, and philosophy, who promotes discussions on stem cell research, evolution, and the dangers of religious fanaticism.
One of these statements describes the President of the United States. The other describes the Pope. What’s wrong with this picture?
#39: Torquemada was cryto-jews and muslims, not scientists
Lily: That is so Borgia…
Let’s see: Bruno was a monk, got hauled before an ecclesiastical court, wouldn’t recant and got burnt for it. Par for the course in those days. I’ m glad we don’t do that anymore, and I bet James Watson is, too.
Lilly de Lure:
If you do that, you have to simultaneously use as many distinct forms of contraception as you can.
My mother-in-law and her sister visited the Vatican some time ago. At some point, they wondered aloud (perhaps too aloud) how many people the Vatican’s accumulated treasure could feed. They were tossed out. Troublemakers, the both of them.
Raven @ 18,
You beat me to my comment, good point. Le’s hear it for Giordano Bruno.
What is so surprising about this? It is not like they don’t wear a little instrument of torture around their necks…
bsci,
Yes, national politics and scientific politics played their part in the whole saga. However, remember that at that point, both the national politics and scientific politics were dominated and controlled by religion. It’s like trying to talk about art during the same time period and not acknowledging that in reality, the church (with a capital T and C) was the end-all be-all.
Take away the religious control and ideology of the time and we don’t even have a story.
Dahan,
Take away the religious control and ideology of the time and we don’t even have a story.
Agreed. I didn’t say that religion wasn’t an issue. In fact I said the exact opposite. Still, the story is much more complex than the church trying to suppress science that is often parroted. The problem with the pat story is modern evangelicals and Catholics can say the Catholic church was wrong and Galileo was right and we can make a statue and be happy that this is all settled. If this is framed as a problem of giving a religious ideology too much control over non-religious issues, then it is much more relevant today.
Yeah, it’s rather about the vatican trying to suppress anything and everything that didn’t agree with its own bullshit agenda.
Hey, who ever said you needed a belief in God to act morally?
Bunch of hypocritical shitbags.
Bob,
The Vatican was heavily involved in getting the book published that contained all the Galileo related documents – many of which that don’t present the church in a flattering light. Is that suppression? How is putting a statue in a prominent location suppression?
You may legitimately hate the church, but quality criticism usually requires critical thinking skills.
Well at least the Catholic church learned from its mistake and took responsibility for what happened. I suppose 400 years late is better than never.
And they have learned not to challenge reality most of the time. Pope Pius said it best, “One Galileo in 2,000 years is enough.”
How long until the Death Cult fundies acknowledge that the earth is a bit older at 4.5 billion years than their 6,000, evolution is a fact, and the universe started with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Judging from how long it took for the Puritans to acknowledge their mistakes with the witchcraft trials in Salem (IIRC they never did) and the RCC’s rehabilitation of Galileo, probably at least a few more centuries.
By that time optimistically we could be nearly immortal and colonizing planets in other solar systems. And they will still be stuck in their trailer parks in the tornado/hurricane zone of North America babbling on about Noah and his boatful of dinosaurs and vandalizing Darwin fish.
Denying reality and voluntary ignorance sounds like a long time loser strategy. Who wants to be a violent, hating, dumb, liar anyway?
The Vatican was heavily involved in getting the book published that contained all the Galileo related documents – many of which that don’t present the church in a flattering light. Is that suppression? How is putting a statue in a prominent location suppression?
It’s saying very manipulatively: we control how this story is going to be told. But that’s what they do for a living, so this Galileo thing was to be expected.
It’s also pure arrogance. If they really cared about what Galileo stands for, they would quit the Church en masse and confess to being blinded by their own stupidity.
That a Vatican exists, spewing the crap it spews, is a permanent stain on our species’ history.
If the Vatican is really opening up and coming clean, when are they going to unseal their records from WWII (as all other nations involved, even Russia, have already done)? 2508?
Depends on what you define as “suppressing science”. If you mean that its impossible for *alternatives* to things like big oil to undermine and completely replace the current world view as held by the blind and stupid, then yep, its proving damn near impossible, at least until it because obvious to even most of them that a) they can’t keep it working and b) the public isn’t, for the most part, falling for it anymore. lol
Galileo ALREADY has the very highest honor that can be bestowed upon a scientist.
He has a street named after him in Pisa.
All else pales in comparison.
I Like the Thomas Huxley quote:
“Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.”
And in other news, Beelezbub has chosen to mark this event by putting a devil aside for Galileo.
I just finished reading William Calvin’s How the Brain Thinks. In he noted that Galileo didn’t get in trouble for suggesting the earth move around the sun. He got in trouble because he had developed methods that were in complete conflict with the idea that the world was created and had known, revealed qualities.
The result of one set of observations wasn’t the problem. The problem, Calvin argues, is that he was setting up a research program that inherently conflicted with faith.
a statue raised in honour of bad taste.
this is like a killer attending the funeral of the person he killed and trying to act friendly with the family…
they need to go away and think about what they done…
Some of you are just as snide and mean-minded as many of the fundamentalists who disagree with you. Anyone who thinks that the heliocentric solar system has been a problem for Catholics in recent centuries is severely misinformed.
The Pope was hardly saying anything new when he supposedly “rehabilitated” Galileo, for Galileo has been rehabilitated in most everyone’s mind for centuries.
Apparently the statue is to be privately funded.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11992
As for the church being against science, well, many of you no doubt graduated from universities which began as religious institutions. Many of you really ought to read some of the recent re research in the history of science.
Congratulations to Abby Normal in post #47! Indeed the contrast is striking.
As children we are taught fairy tales, but folks frogs really don’t change to princes. Let’s look at some Scientific facts…No mutation has ever been observed to produce a more complex living organism, and this with all current technology. Fruit flys only had Existing DNA contorted, nothing beneficial occurred in the experiments. Again, and this is the Biggie- no New DNA has Ever been observed to develope as mutations happened naturally or in labs. Macro evolution is the greatest exercise of faith imaginable without this single issue being resolved.
Renowned doctors of science teach throughout textbooks, of a mysterious ‘Mother Nature’ who resembles Santa Claus. She works behind the scenes bestowing imaginative anatomies and behaviors freely upon all living things. Earth’s life forms were cleverly supplied, each according as it had need. Yet all change was said to be completely accidental- although in duplicate, as each male and female of all species co-evolved with no disruption in their procreative abilities. Though Mom Nature is promoted as somehow marvelously ‘innovative’, only ranking scientists can understand and interpret how her modifying activities occurred; but Nowhere Do They Explain Process Details. So we are simply to accept that the boundless and stunning variety of life on this planet appeared solely from time and happenstance; in short, “LIFE HAPPENS!” No one can point out positively a single transitional fossil. Neither is there an example of any mutation producing a beneficial change. The following information is taken from an ICR Impact publication (April 2002 article #346) normally devoted to scientific creation evidence. This article reveals the competence and influence of some of the scientists. To show the reader the esteemed prominence of the creation worldview, a few of these Genesis believing scientists are listed here. Kenneth B. Cumming (Dean and Professor of Biology) has a Ph.D. from Harvard where he studied under Ernst Mayr, “often considered the dean of living evolutionists”. Dr. Carl B. Fliermans (Microbiology) is a microbial ecologist with Dupont with over 60 technical publications. He is well known as the scientist who first identified the “Legionnaire’s Disease” bacterium. Dr. Kelly Hollowell (Molecular Biology) has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the University of Miami. She is also an attorney (J.D.). Dr. Hollowell’s work includes a number of publications in the fields of DNA technology, cloning, and neurobiology. Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, M.D. is an inventor, most notably of the M.R.I. machine. Dr. Kurt Wise (Paleontology) has the M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, having studied under the dedicated evolutionist, Stephen J. Gould. “Dr. Wise is currently in charge of the science division at Bryan College.” Dr. Duane T. Gish (Senior Vice President and Professor of Biochemistry) has earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Beyond his career as a research chemist, and 24 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Dr. Gish “is also known worldwide for winning over 300 scientific debates with evolutionists”. As you can see, many fully credentialed scientists deeply intimate with the varied aspects of evolution, have wholly rejected the ideas. There are many more scientists today numbering in the thousands, who have also turned away from the monkey-man conjecture, and who now likewise embrace the literal Genesis record of human origin.
Strange that there doesn’t seem to be any record of this on the interwebs. Could you be referring to History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science by John William Draper?
Some of the stuff on here is pretty remarkable proof that atheism often much resembles a religion. One of the dogmas of atheistic science is that Galileo was right and good and the Church at the time was wrong and bad. The facts, however, won’t support such a simplistic view!
The Galileo affair was much different than the common understanding would have it. Galileo’s arguments had a lot of empirical problems at the time. I’m no physicist, but, as I understand it, because Galileo presumed the sun was at the center of the universe and not just the solar system, his predictions of planetary motions were seriously inconsistent with the observed reality. (It was Kepler who got it right.) As a result, Galileo played fast and loose with a lot of stuff, and his positions would have had big trouble holding up to an entirely secular, empirical, rational examination. Perhaps the strongest part of the evidence against him in the church trial was purely factual, emprical evidence. This is perhaps why the philosopher Feyerabend — not a religious man — pointed out, in a book that was largely Feyerabend’s discussion of why Galileo was his hero, wrote: “The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism.”
It is perhaps also worth quoting Stephen Jay Gould, perhaps the most careful historian of science: “All agree that Galileo might have avoided his fate if any one of a hundred circumstances had unfolded in a slightly different manner. He was, in other words, a victim of bad luck and bad judgment, not an inevitable sacrificial lamb in an eternal war between science and religion.”
Hey, Epikt, when your mother-in-law and sister visited Yosemite or Yellowstone, did they wonder how much the government could get for uninsured health care by selling the parks to a resort operator? When they visited the Smithsonian, did they wonder how much the government could get by selling the entire collection to try to make a dent in the poverty of D.C. that is a national disgrace? When they visited the Met in NYC, did they wonder how much NYC could get to feed poor people in the Bronx if they sold all the art to private collectors? When they visited Harvard and Yale, did they wonder how much the universities could get by selling all their rare and antique books (photocopies could be kept for scholars) to pay for financial aid for poor students?
Just wondering myself.
What’s Sir Eddy been snortin?
did they wonder how much the government could get for uninsured health care by selling the parks to a resort operator?
*gack*
my brain gets stuck right about here, and it results in an endless loop repeating itself subverbally…
WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF…
What’s Sir Eddy been snortin?
I’d say the answer is in his handle, but having done coke myself, I’d have to say that can’t be it.
drain cleaner maybe?
As children we are taught fairy tales,
and some of us never outgrow them.
thanks for demonstrating, Michael, what happens when someone fails to do so, and ends up projecting that for all to see.
too cheesy, indeed.
I’d say the answer is in his handle, but having done coke myself, I’d have to say that can’t be it.
Let’s not be too hasty. He may have been awake and not eating food for a week. That’ll lead to some fucked up shit, but it won’t be the coke itself….
He may have been awake and not eating food for a week.
time to call 911?
time to call 911?
Hellz no. Give him some more. The problem will be over soon.
Hellz no. Give him some more. The problem will be over soon.
I’m tapped out.
you?
I’m tapped out.
you?
Shit; for years.
Believe me, if I’d had any for the past couple years, I’d have spent a lot less time commenting here :)
He was, in other words, a victim of bad luck and bad judgment, not an inevitable sacrificial lamb in an eternal war between science and religion.”
so sayeth the man who at the time was promoting the concept of NOMA.
guess what?
he was wrong about that, too.
Believe me, if I’d had any for the past couple years, I’d have spent a lot less time commenting here :)
…maybe.
I get even MORE chatty. (is that even possible?)
I could easily envision myself doing nothing BUT blogging for days on end…
too damn expensive, though.
OTOH, that’s the main reason i never took up smoking, don’t drink too much, etc.
fringe benefits of the high costs of luxury drugs.
OTOH, that’s the main reason i never took up smoking, don’t drink too much, etc.
fringe benefits of the high costs of luxury drugs
I miss cigarettes. Haven’t written a full 10 pages in one day since I quit.
James F, you are very wrong about Father Coyne. He was not dismissed. He was 73 when he left his post and has made very clear in public statements that he did so in order to retire — he had been asking for a replacement for years — and for health reasons. He is undergoing treatment for colon cancer.
Haven’t written a full 10 pages in one day since I quit.
oh, sure, blame the habit for your productivity.
that’s a good way to quit.
:p
on a more productive note, you probably just need a slight distraction while you focus on writing.
I always found some soft jazz or classical music playing in the background did the trick.
ever try that?
NN-DNA-HEBO! Humperdido!
ever try that?
Simpsons DVDs
I didn’t say I can’t write at all…just no more 10-page days (or 40-page weekends).
I’m actually looking for a nice quiet, warm place to spend spring break on a balcony writing and eating eggs benedict and drinking bloody marys.
music has never been good for me and studying and writing…my BA is in music and I get too lost, too interested in the music itself. I used to get in trouble as an engineering major during finals because I’d call in the local classical station and request some Mahler and say fuck my fluid dynamics assignment (the Mahler was far more interesting).
LOL Sir Edward’s last name is pronounced “cook”. If you look up his biography you could begin to speculate about why I used his name. Hadn’t thought about what else it might bring to mind. LOL
As for my Yosemite point, don’t know if you just didn’t look at the post to which I was responding or I was too indirect. Epikt seemed to be making the oft made point that, because part of the Church’s self-proclaimed purpose is charity, it should sell all its cultural treasures so it can use the proceeds for the poor. My point is that part of the self-proclaimed purpose of our governments is providing for people who need it, so the same reasoning should apply — sell all the cultural treasures owned by the governments so more is available for those who need it.
The obvious answer is that government has more than one purpose, and the holding of those treasures — whether parks or art — in trust for all of us and our descendants is a perfectly legitimate role for government. The same is true for the Church.
I’m actually looking for a nice quiet, warm place to spend spring break on a balcony writing and eating eggs benedict and drinking bloody marys.
sounds great.
shouldn’t be too hard to find in your neck of the woods, right?
http://www.ibbp.com/northamerica/usanewengland.html
on the west coast, I’d be heading up to some nice little b&b in the Carmel area.
Sir Edward’s last name is pronounced “cook”
we, uh, know that.
My point is that part of the self-proclaimed purpose of our governments is providing for people who need it, so the same reasoning should apply — sell all the cultural treasures owned by the governments so more is available for those who need it.
we do.
except for the fact that we often sell off large chunks of our national treasures (parks, forests, wetlands) for those who DON’T need it (timber interests, real estate developers).
as to the rest of your “point”, I hardly want to step further on the toes of who you directed it at.
let me re-emphasize the word “warm.” I’m traveling south, it appears (trying to do it on FF miles).
My original goal was to spend Spring Break playing and doing touristy stuff (well, going back to SF and doing shit I didn’t the last time I was there), but Northworst changed their FF program, so I can’t make it out there.
I still need to get out of Boston, so tomorrow is the day I make some reservations to get away to the sun, good food, good drink, and quiet time and space for writing.
oh…
*warm*
http://bandb.about.com/od/visitingintl/a/caribbean.htm
:p
there is MUCH good in the caribbean; I’d recommend Cozumel if you like big, empty beaches.
now if they could just get rid of the damn hurricanes.
(And frequent flyer miles…Northworst…limited destinations…:) )
Funny you should mention the Caribbean. My parents are leaving for a cruise on Sunday to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary (gift to each other) which was this past Saturday. My sister and I went in to get them a digital video camera, which they’ll be receiving from her tomorrow (I better get a damned phone call–it was my idea).
I so hope they have fun; they’ve become oddly interesting people as I’ve aged :)
And I HATE sand. I’m weird–give me steel, concrete, glass and quiet :)
Well, give me steel, glass, and concrete and I’ll find quiet where I can. I was raised in the country, but I have become a complete and total city girl.
Are you trying to confuse Gerald?! Cut it out!
Well, give me steel, glass, and concrete and I’ll find quiet where I can.
I have no advice at all then. Mars and Venus.
I love quiet, large, sunny, sandy beaches with aqua-blue clear water surrounding.
underwater, gabbing with the fishes for a couple of hours, followed by lying on a white sand beach in the sun, working on some good basal cell carcinoma, San Miguel or Dos Equis dark in my hand, listening to the waves lap the beach.
oh, wait, where am I?
*shakes head*
*sigh*
Are you trying to confuse Gerald?! Cut it out!
phht, like it’s possible to confuse that poor sod MORE.
phht, like it’s possible to confuse that poor sod MORE.
Giving it a good shot.
I grew up in Midwestern lakes and stuff. I HATE fishy things–especially swimming with them–unless they’re in an aquarium or on my plate. I didn’t even like eating seafood other than shrimp ’til my 30s. (Beer-batter-walleye sucks ass–and not in a good way–and I still can’t stand whiter salt-water fish.)
But, I also have Minnesota bratwurst shipped here to Boston twice a year because these fools don’t have any idea what a good sausage is.
did I mention a lot of sangiovese tonight?
I HATE fishy things
*shudder*
I can’t talk to you any more.
:p
I’m so urban that it’s too quiet at my parents’ house, so quiet that I can’t sleep. I have to put a dvd in my laptop just for noise so I can sleep when I visit. When I lived in Mankato, on one of the busier streets (Broad), it was the same way. I can’t sleep without sirens.
My parents live one block off the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway (Hgwy 14) in Minnesota.
I can’t talk to you any more.
Have fun with Gerry.
Have fun with Gerry.
too boring.
think I’ll just call it quits for tonight.
have a good vacation, wherever you end up.
spend some time reconsidering how valuable fishy things have been in your life.
:p
spend some time reconsidering how valuable fishy things have been in your life.
I did have sushi tonight (yay eel and tuna and salmon and shrimp, but they didn’t have ama ebi), and I know the sharky past of hernias thanks to Shubin :)~
(he still needs to explain the prostate massage as cure for tadpolish hiccups though)
enjoy the rest of the night. end of Kill Bill v2, then bed for me.