Box Turtle Bulletin » Uganda’s Daily Monitor’s Most Remarkable Editorial

Box Turtle Bulletin » Uganda’s Daily Monitor’s Most Remarkable Editorial

David Kato

An editorial posted online for this morning’s edition of Kampala-based Daily Monitor addresses the brutal murder of LGBT advocate David Kato. While noting that police have not officially determined the motive for his killing, Daily Monitor editors say this murder “reminds us of the homophobia that is widespread in our country and society – and the deadly consequences of not dealing with it.” The editorial goes on to touch briefly on several salient points: the deterioration of the overall atmosphere following the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, the role that “foreign actors” play in the debate, and the “extreme positions of moral self-righteousness.”


But the editorial makes the mistake of presenting both sides as though there were an equivalency between the two. The editors ignore the overwhelming disparity of power and influence between the two sides, with one side wielding the power of state, culture, faith and media; and the other side scrounging for whatever scraps of safety and dignity they can muster. Instead, they pretend that there is some sort of equivalency or parity between the two side. We’ve seen this before, not only in Africa but here in the U.S. and in Europe. This editorial is not particularly remarkable in the way it tries to take a sort of a “pox on both houses” position. These notions of false equivalence intended to reinforce the fiction of two opposing and equally valid arguments do very little to shed much light on the debate.

After having set up that false equivalency, the editorial also draws this unremarkable conclusion.

People like David Kato and others who might be gay are Ugandans and enjoy the same rights and protections of the law as heterosexuals. We cannot send them into exile neither, lock them away, or hang them.

We need to have an honest discussion about how to ensure that their rights are upheld without violating the rights of other Ugandans.

Peaceful and stable societies only emerge when we understand and try to accommodate those who are different from us, or who disagree with us – not by ostracising or killing them.

And yet, this editorial is among the most remarkable editorials I’ve read in years. What makes this editorial remarkable is that it is being printed in Uganda’s largest and most influential independent newspaper, and it expresses the need to ensure the rights of LGBT people are upheld in a nation whose leadership refuses to recognize gay people as humans beings deserving of human rights. That’s remarkable, and a most welcome addition to the debate.


Update: GayUganda also sees this editorial as “a real big deal.”

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany: Beati Mundo ("Blessed are the pure in heart....")

Beati Mundo is the Communion Song for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany; here's a lovely version in mp3, from JoguesChant. (That singer is really good....)

The text comes from the Beatitudes (Matthew 5):

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Here's the chant score, from the Brazilian Benedictines:

Here's a lovely motet based in this text, by one Zieleński Mikołaj:



Wikipedia has this about him:

Mikołaj Zieleński (Zelenscius, birth and death dates unknown) was a Polish composer.

Zieleński's only known surviving works are two 1611 liturgical cycles of polychoral works, the Offertoria/Communes totius anni. These were dedicated to the Archbishop of Gniezno, Wojciech Baranowski. The sets consist of large-scale double- and triple-choir antiphons, as well as some monodic works typical of the Seconda pratica style of early Monteverdi. Zieleński's music is the first known Polish music set in the style of the Baroque.

That says, if I'm not mistaken, that this composer wrote polyphonic versions of all the Offertories and Communios for the whole church year! And that's all we've got of his. That is pretty amazing, really.

I expected to find many more polyphonic versions of this chant! But there don't seem to be many; William Byrd wrote one, but there's no online version of it that I could find.

The Orthodox, however, seem to be much bigger on Beatitude music! Here's a gorgeous (Russian, it says) version, for instance (embedding has been disabled, so that's a link to YouTube).

Here's another nice version, "The eight beatitudes," in Georgian Orthodox chant:



Here's a terrific Arvo Pärt version, sung in English:



There are lots of modern praise versions of these, too! I suspect - although I don't know for sure (maybe somebody reading does?) - that this song, "Osiem blogoslawienstw" ("Eight Blessings") sung in Polish, is a version of the Beatitudes as well. In any case, it's quite lovely, so here it is:



Its' interesting that the West did not, apparently, do as much with the Beatitudes in music, isn't it? They would seem to make up a perfect text for singing. Here they are, in full, from the Gospel reading for this Sunday:

Matthew 5:1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Collect for the day is this one:

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here's Fra Angelico's "Sermon on the Mount," one of the frescoes he painted on the cell walls of the San Marco Convent in Florence:

Prolific dead people

I have the blog "Things I want to punch in the face" in my Google Reader, and it always makes me laugh. This post more than any other so far! Prolific dead people:

I see dead people…everywhere.

As if I didn’t already have enough self-loathing, dead people are churning out more stuff than I am. Tupac seems to have a new album of unreleased tracks dropping every other year. Michael Jackson had barely settled into his cryogenic chamber before the posthumous output kicked in. Jeff Buckley and Stieg Larsson didn’t cash in until they checked out. Like another day at the office, the late David Foster Wallace has yet another new book coming out that none of us will be smart enough to understand. They may have flatlined, but the status quo seems curiously unchanged.

I think I’m a pretty useful member of society. I knock out words, articles, blogs, books. I create. But I’m a sad-ass somnambulant snail compared with these pulseless workaholics. Why do I even try when I’m getting lapped by corpses? Please folks, give it a rest.

Box Turtle Bulletin » Ugandan LGBT Advocate Murdered; Had Been Named By “Hang Them” Tabloid

Box Turtle Bulletin » Ugandan LGBT Advocate Murdered; Had Been Named By “Hang Them” Tabloid

David Kato (via Facebook)

We have learned that Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato Kisulle was murdered today at his home in Kampala. Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) has confirmed that the David’s body was identified at a hospital.

Update: I have also confirmed this with SMUG’s Pepe Julian Onziema, who identified David’s body in the hospital morgue. Police are investigating.


The details surrounding his murder are unknown at this time. He was reportedly beaten in the skull with a hammer at his home. We do not yet know whether it was a single assailant or a group of people, nor do we know any other circumstances surrounding his death.

Update: More details from Human Rights Watch:

Witnesses told police that a man entered Kato’s home in Mukono at around 1 p.m. on January 26, 2011, hit him twice in the head and departed in a vehicle. Kato died on his way to Kawolo hospital. Police told Kato’s lawyer that they had the registration number of the vehicle and were looking for it.

Front cover of the Sept 2, 2010 edition of Rolling Stone, featuring a photo of David Kato (left) and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (right). (Click to enalrge)

David Kato was a spokesperson for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and one of the plaintiffs (or applicants) in the successful lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. publication of the same name). Kato was one of three applicants who had been named by the tabloid under a headline tagged “Hang Them!” His photo appeared on the tabloid’s front cover.


LGBT Ugandans have lived under a menacing atmosphere for more than a decade. The anti-gay hysteria has increased significantly since the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill into parliament in 2009. That bill, which remains under review Parliamentary committee, would impose the death penalty on LGBT Ugandans under certain circumstances and criminalize all advocacy by or on behalf of LGBT people. It would also criminalize even knowing someone who is gay if that person fails to report their LGBT loved one to police within 24 hours. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 18, and the bill is expected to be considered after Parliament returns for a lame-duck session before the new Parliament begins in May.

This horrendous murder adds to the fears that LGBT Ugandans regularly face over their safety. Brenda Namigadde, a lesbian asylum seeker in the U.K. has been threatened with deportation back to Uganda. Just yesterday, she received an ominous message from M.P. David Bahati, the author of the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in which he said that Brenda must “repent or reform” when she returns home:

Brenda is welcome in Uganda if she will abandon or repent her behaviour. Here in Uganda, homosexuality is not a human right. It is behaviour that is learned and it can be unlearned. We wouldn’t want Brenda to be painting a wrong picture of Uganda, that we are harassing homosexuals.

M.P. Bahati may be technically correct. They are simply killing homosexuals, not harassing them.

David has served as the Advocacy and Litigation Officer for SMUG since 2004, according to his facebook profile. He also attended the University of York where he studied Human Rights.

Update: Mourners are posting message on David’s facebook wall.

Royals Pitcher Gil Meche Retires, Tossing Away $12 Million Guaranteed - NYTimes.com

Royals Pitcher Gil Meche Retires, Tossing Away $12 Million Guaranteed - NYTimes.com

The guaranteed contract is a fundamental principle of Major League Baseball, as much a part of the game as balls, strikes and outs. No matter how a player performs, or how his body holds up, he must be paid in full. Only in rare cases — an injury sustained off the field, gross personal misconduct — does a player forfeit his paycheck.

But the case of Gil Meche is rare for an entirely different reason. Meche, a 32-year-old right-handed pitcher, had a contract that called for a $12 million salary in 2011. Yet he will not report to Surprise, Ariz., with the rest of the Kansas City Royals for spring training next month. He will not have surgery to repair his chronically aching right shoulder. He will not pitch in relief, where the workload is lighter.

Meche retired last week, which means he will not be paid at all.

“When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche said this week, by phone from Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

Meche’s decision plays against type — the modern athlete out for every last dollar. There have been, over the years, athletes who took less money to play for one team over another, Cliff Lee the latest. And yes, Ryne Sandberg retired from the Chicago Cubs in 1994, forgoing nearly $16 million.

But there are very few parallels to what Meche did.

Sarum: The Reconciliation of Penitents

Here's a video of a lovely rite, via Derek. I know very little about it at the moment - and still find it extremely affecting. There is a bit of brief explanation in the first few seconds, and then the rite begins.



"Venite, venite, venite, filii; audite me : timorem Domini docebo vos." ("Come, children, hearken to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.") The movement and the words are beautiful, I think - as is the chant. Derek also points to a PDF about it; I'll post again as I learn more.

Anglican Chant XI: Bampton - Anglican Church: Psalm 150 - "O Praise God In His Holiness"

A terrific Psalm 150; will let you know the composer as soon as my Anglican Chant commenters have arrived! Here's the Coverdale text:

Psalm 150. Laudate Dominum
1. O PRAISE God in his holiness : praise him in the firmament of his power.
2. Praise him in his noble acts : praise him according to his excellent greatness.
3. Praise him in the sound of the trumpet : praise him upon the lute and harp.
4. Praise him in the cymbals and dances : praise him upon the strings and pipe.
5. Praise him upon the well-tuned cymbals : praise him upon the loud cymbals.
6. Let every thing that hath breath : praise the Lord.

EDIT: Scott, in the comments, says this is a "Double chant in C major by the Rev. Robert Philip Goodenough (c. 1776-1826)." Thanks so much as always, Scott!

The Global Chant Database

I've posted on this before, but here's an updated version, at a new web address.

This is a beta version of the new Global Chant Database - Gregorian Chant Research Interface. The old version is available at www.globalchant.org.

The main ideas of the Global Chant Database:

• Everyone searching for a concrete chant or medieval manuscript should find the information on what is the content of the manuscript, in which editions the repertory can be found, which publications concern with the manuscript and which scholars have done research on this manuscript.
• Everyone doing research on a plainchant manuscript can share the results with the scholar community.
• The database aims to follow the principles of the Cantus Planus Study Group, concerning the free exchange of data in electronic form.

Please register to access the full content of the database. Only registered users can add a new data.

More:

The Global Chant Database was developed by Jan Koláček - PhD student of the Institute of Musicology at the Charles University in Prague. The database is intended as an easy tool for scholars and students to search and identify plainchant melodies with a possibility of displaying the sources. The purpose of the database is to comprise the chant incipits of all important editions of plainchant and medieval manuscripts.

Well, here's a program already! Whaddya know?

It's called "The Rule of St. Benedict." And it's 1400 years old, yet.

Just a thought. It's not such a wild idea to propose some sort of concrete program of action to assist Christians in their quest for enlightenment (AKA, sometimes, "theosis"), after all.

Obviously parts of the Rule were meant to work on the problem of unrelated people living together in groups - but there is plenty there aimed at the individual and his/her soul. So the precedent exists, in fact, and it wouldn't be a strange idea to work out a Step-like program (which, BTW, also derives from Christianity) for churches.

Because the bizarre arguments we're having in religion these days just ain't the way, IMO. I'm getting fed up with the church myself, and am on the verge of leaving - and I'm one of those people who are kind of hard-wired for spirituality! And I'm fascinated by the Bible and love the Book of Common Prayer and the beauties of the liturgy.

So if the church seems like utter dullsville to me, imagine how it appears to people not already involved in it. Really: the spiritual life is supposed to be one of adventure and excitement. Spills, chills, and thrills.

You'd never really know it, though, most of the time....

Hmmmm....

I've come to realize lately that in fact what's wrong with the church is that it doesn't have a program.

I went through the whole "deconstructing the 12 Steps" thing awhile back - I'm still not finished with it - but I'm beginning to see that it's a case of "not seeing the forest for the trees." It isn't a case of what the church does that's like the 12 Steps; it's a case of what the 12 Steps do that the church doesn't.

And that's this:  they give people a discipline to work through in an orderly fashion.  The church doesn't do this at all; it doesn't say to its newcomers:  "Listen, we found this group of principles that works really well in helping people 'lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in their fellows.'"  (That's another quote from A.A.)

No, the Church, lamely, doesn't do anything, really.  It hires a weekly speaker and a musician, and asks people to fork over some money.  Not really a formula for success, I'd say; no wonder it's losing members right and left and going extinct. 

Well, it's time to develop a program, I'd say.  And I think I should do it in reverse:  see how the 12 Steps can best be adapted to what the church is doing.  We know they work (although I'm a little worried the whole concept might be debased at this point, after 40 years of "self-help" industry promotions).

So that's what I'm going to do.  I think the "deconstructing" series might help - got to finish that - but I was really looking at the whole thing backwards....

Laetabimur

The Communion song for the Second Sunday after Epiphany is "Laetabimur in salutari tuo": "We shall rejoice in your salvation."

Here's the mp3 from JoguesChant, and the score:

Lovely, eh? The text is from Psalm 20:5:

5 We will rejoice in your salvation,
And in the name of our God we will set up our banners!
May the LORD fulfill all your petitions.

And here's a gorgeous thing! It's "Exaudiat te Dominus" by André Campra, which I believe comes from his "Motets for the Royal Chapel." The fourth movement (beginning at around 5:40) is a version of Laetabimur; it's well worth your time to listen to the whole thing, though. It's a truly fine musical ensemble performing a splendid piece. I adore the Grands Motets style.  Here's the playlist and etc.:

1 Exaudiat te Dominus
2 Mittat tibi auxilium
3 Memor sit
4 Laetabimur in salutari tuo
5 Impleat Dominus
6 Hi in curribus
7 Ipsi obligati sunt
8 Domine salvum fac regem
9 Et exadui nos

Les Arts Florisants
William Christie
sopranos: Amel Brahim-Djelloul y Emmanuelle de Negri
contratenores: Toby Spence y Cyril Auvity
bajos: Marc Mauillon y Alain Buet
Salle Playel, 17-11-2009

"Michael Oakeshott on the Modern Religious Man"

Via Mockingbird:

From the great philosopher's early (1929) essay "Religion and the World" expounding on the idea that "Pure religion is to keep unspotted from the world" (James 1:27), ht MS:

This, then, is the character of the religious man today, as I conceive him.

Unlike the typical medieval saint, he makes no attempt to leave the beauties and attractions of the visible world unseen, to subdue the flesh and curb the mind; unlike the primitive Christian, he is moved by no fantastic expectations; unlike the children of his age he is fascinated by no hope of a Good Time Coming. The world's ideal is achievement, it asks for accomplishment, and regards each life as a mere contribution to some far-off result. The past reaches up to the future, and the present, and all sense and feeling for the present, is lost. From all these the religious man seeks nothing but escape; they are forms of the secularism which is the death of religion. He will keep in age youth's refusal to take life as it is, and the present condition of society will always cause him discontent. What governs him is not the world's ideal of visible achievement; life, for him, will mean more than a career, and he will not measure his success by the place he fills in some hypothetical development of evolution. The world and its 'careerist' ideal presents a whole miscellany of possible purposes for life, but all these the religious man will view as no more than distractions from its real business.

             The world
             Is full of voices, man is call'd and hurl'd
             By each:

but the religious man, undazzled by these glories and unimposed on by these values, seeks freedom, 'freedom from all embarrassment alike of regret for the past and calculation on the future,' freedom from the encumbrance of extraneous motives and parasitic opinions, which is the sole condition of the intellectual integrity he values more than anything else. Life to him is not a game of skill, people and events are not counters valued for something to be gained, or achieved, beyond them. In the extemporary life he deserves to live, nothing is of final worth except present insight, a grasp of the thing itself, and the only failure to fall back on that 'anodyne of muddledom' by which men seek to substitute mere extent of knowledge, or a career, or this idea of a contribution, for the too difficult task of attaining a personal sensibility.

Memento vivere is the sole precept of religion; and the religious man knows how easy it is to forget to live. But he has the courage to know what belongs to life, and, with it, steps outside the tedious round of imitation by which the world covers up it ignorance of what it is alive for...

"Egyptian Muslim leaders asked Muslims to go to church"

HT Christopher, via Episcopal Cafe

Updated. In the aftermath of recent attacks by militant Muslim groups against Coptic Churches in Egypt, Egyptian Muslim clerics and intellectuals have called on ordinary Muslims to stand outside Christian Churches during their Christmas celebrations both as an act of solidarity and to function as "human shields" against further violence.


Arhamonline reports:

“Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,” Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online. The Coptic priest was commenting on the now widespread call by Muslim intellectuals and activists upon Egyptian Muslims at large to flock to Coptic churches across the country to attend Coptic Christmas Eve mass, to show solidarity with the nation's Coptic minority, but also to serve as "human shields" against possible attacks by Islamist militants.

Mohamed Abdel Moniem El-Sawy, founder of El-Sawy Culture Wheel was among the promiment Muslim cultural figures who first floated the bold initiative.


“This is it. It is time to change and unite,” asserted journalist Ekram Youssef, another notable sponsor of the intiative, in a telephone interview with Ahram Online. She added that although it is the government’s responsibility to act and find solutions to bring an end to such violations, "it is time for Egyptian citizens to act to revive the true meaning of national unity."

Update: They were as good as their word. Arhamonline reports on the many Muslims who came to church to protect Christians from extremist violence. Word got around via Twitter and Facebook, and many Muslims changes their profile picture to a cross or a cross and a crescent together to show their solidarity with the Christian minority.

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.


“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.


Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.


“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”


In the days following the brutal attack on Saints Church in Alexandria, which left 21 dead on New Year’ eve, solidarity between Muslims and Copts has seen an unprecedented peak. Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.

The New York Times said that the Egyptian government laid on extra security to prevent violence and that the attacks are seen as a wake-up call on the deepening sectarian divide not only between Christians and Muslims but within the Islamic community itself.

After the bombing and the ensuing riots, political experts, politicians, commentators, opposition leaders and average citizens said that the very steps taken by the president in the name of stability — including preservation of an emergency law that allows arrest without charge — had produced a state with weak institutions, weak political parties and a bureaucracy unable to resolve the social, political and economic problems that helped cultivate extremism.

“It is very clear that the government totally lost control — of everything,” said Muhammad Aboulghar, a professor at Cairo University medical school and a liberal activist. “The only control they have is on the security of the president, the group around him, and few other party figures. That’s it.”


But for all the criticism it unleashed, the blast appears to have forged a consensus that Egypt, despite its historic tradition of moderate Islamic thinking and multicultural tolerance, has in recent years become overwhelmed by fundamentalist religious identification, a position that until now the government strongly denied.


That view has reinforced the growing belief that President Mubarak was not ready to surrender the reins of power, people here said. Mr. Mubarak underwent surgery in Germany last year, and appeared frail for months afterward, leading to speculation about who might succeed him. But people who have recently met with him said that he appears to have regained his strength and seems to have no intention of giving up power.

Virgin Mary Statue Crying For No Good Reason | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Virgin Mary Statue Crying For No Good Reason | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

WORCESTER, MA—Nearly a week after a statue of the Virgin Mary began shedding what appeared to be actual tears, worshippers at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church told reporters Wednesday they had lost patience with the figure's nonstop whining and carrying on.

"Like everyone else, I got sucked in at first," said the Rev. Paul Doherty, the pastor of the church, who admitted he had once kissed the tears streaming from the eyes of the 5-foot wooden altarpiece. "But now it's just too much—crying in the morning when I come in, crying during baptisms, crying, crying, crying all the time. I've called around to other parishes, and all of their Marys are doing fine, even the cheap plaster ones that have to stand outside in the wind and rain. There must be thousands of Marys in the Greater Boston area, but ours is the only one who can't hold it together."
"To think I actually thought it was a miracle," added Doherty, looking up at the statue's glistening, tear-slicked face. "The real miracle would be if Old Faithful over here would turn off the waterworks for five seconds."

Longtime church organist Agnes Wright told reporters that the weeping statue had become a distraction and that she now privately hoped someone would lay a drape over the self- indulgent figure or at least turn it so it was facing the wall.

"I know she's sad, but c'mon, she's acting like the world revolves around her or something," said Wright, adding that Mary's incessant sorrow had made receiving communion a "chore." "I just spent the past 10 years watching my husband slowly die from Alzheimer's, and I cried on my own time. I didn't make it this endless production."

"Show a little dignity," Wright continued. "The statue of Jesus has nails through his hands and feet, for God's sake, but you don't see him crying."

Despite warnings from church officials that any pilgrimages to the statue would only encourage its blubbering, thousands of faithful from around the world have converged on the church in hopes of getting a glimpse of Mary and her extraordinary appetite for drama. Day and night, visitors have been standing in lines a quarter of a mile long in order to witness the statue's breathtaking self-absorption firsthand.

"I came all the way from Oklahoma City because I had to see Mary's big pity party with my own eyes," said Jen Gammons, 53. "When I finally got up close enough to get a good look, I just wanted to smack her. We've all got problems, okay? But we don't all break down and start bawling like a bunch of babies."

At press time, church officials said they planned to continue services as normal for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that the statue's weeping continues unabated.

"I don't even want to deal with it at all, frankly, so I'm just going to ignore her," Doherty said. "Why indulge it, you know? I'm not going to debase myself by going over and consoling her and saying, 'Oh, you poor, poor thing, what's wrong?' Screw that. I'm going to read my sermon, and if she wants to cry all through it like some kind of grade-school prima donna, then she can be my guest, but I refuse to so much as even look in her direction."

When reached by reporters, a Vatican spokesman said Pope Benedict XVI would be arriving in Worcester next week to "give that statue something to cry about."

Man uses computers to discover four planets | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

Man uses computers to discover four planets | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

How do you expect to achieve immortality?

Well, should sporting prowess have passed you by, or should you have suffered an unfortunate career-ending injury on a night out with some foreign language students, perhaps you might might use your computer to discover a planet or two.

Or, in the case of British utility worker Peter Jalowiczor, four.

The Daily Mail reports that Jalowiczor is something of an astronomical enthusiast, despite not actually owning a telescope. If you want to discover a previously unknown planet, you don't apparently need the technology enjoyed by Admiral Lord Nelson.

Jalowiczor told the Mail that he used two home computers--and much of the spare time of his last three years--to analyze data released by the University of California's Lick-Carnegie Planet Search Team in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Jalowiczor, who does have a couple of college degrees, used Doppler spectroscopy to locate planets that are too far away to be located by telescopes or Richard Branson spacecraft.

And now planets HD31253b, HD218566b, HD177830c, and HD99492c all have Jalowiczor as their co-Columbus.

He described his technique to the Mail: "I look for faint changes in stars' behaviors that can only be caused by a planet or planets orbiting about them. Once I identify likely candidates, I send the details back to Santa Cruz."

In the countless nights that he spent searching he was, he told the Mail, looking for a very simple phenomenon: "If a planet orbits a star it causes a tiny wobble in the star's motion and this wobble reveals itself in the star's light."

So tonight--and perhaps for the next year or two--perhaps you should put aside your video games and deny yourself the pleasures of your DVR recording of VH1's "Basketball Wives."

Instead, you could go to your computer and discover your own planet far, far away. And when you do, please appeal to those who name planets. Please encourage them to stop using those dull nomenclatures that look like emergency passwords sent by online retailers.

Planets are not just a number. They are personalities. And, for all we know, they have feelings. I feel sure Pluto, the ousted planet, certainly does.

"Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong"

Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong | RD10Q | Religion Dispatches: an article about a new book, The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages, and an interview with its author, Nancy Marie Brown.

What inspired you to write The Abacus and the Cross?


I was introduced to The Scientist Pope through an act of grace. Writing my previous book, The Far Traveler, about an adventurous Viking woman, I found myself making an imaginary pilgrimage to Rome just after the year 1000. Wondering which pope (if any) Gudrid the Far-Traveler had met, I discovered Gerbert of Aurillac, Pope Sylvester II.

I was astonished. Nothing in my many years of reading about the Middle Ages had led me to suspect that the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day.

Nor was his science just a sidelight. According to a chronicler who knew him, he rose from humble beginnings to the highest office in the Christian Church “on account of his scientific knowledge.”

To my mind, scientific knowledge and medieval Christianity had nothing in common. I was wrong.

I felt as if I had stumbled into a parallel universe, an alternate history of the Middle Ages that had been perfectly crafted for me: For most of my career, I have worked as a science writer, but my heart had first been captured by medieval sagas. The story of The Scientist Pope—one scholar called him “the Bill Gates of the end of the first millennium”—was a story I needed to tell.

It didn’t hurt that from about 70 years after his death in 1003 until today he was known (if at all) not as a scientist, but as a wizard—a sorcerer who had sold his soul to the devil. According to a thirteenth-century writer, he was “the best necromancer in France, whom the demons of the air readily obeyed in all that he required of them by day and by night.”

This legend inspired fantasy writer Judith Tarr to include Gerbert as a magical character in two of her novels, Ars Magica and The Eagle’s Daughter, both of which I loved.

But I found the truth about Gerbert’s life, once I unearthed it, even more fascinating.

A professor at a cathedral school for most of his career, Gerbert of Aurillac was the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero. He devised an abacus, or counting board, that mimics the algorithms we use today for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. It has been called the first counting device in Europe to function digitally—even the first computer. In a chronology of computer history, Gerbert’s abacus is one of only four innovations mentioned between 3000 BC and the invention of the slide rule in 1622.

Like a modern scientist, Gerbert questioned authority. He experimented. To learn which of two rules best calculated the area of an equilateral triangle, he cut out square inches of parchment and measured the triangle with them. To learn why organ pipes do not behave acoustically like strings, he built models and devised an equation. (A modern physicist who checked his result calls it ingenious, if labor-intensive.)

Gerbert made sighting tubes to observe the stars and constructed globes on which their positions were recorded relative to lines of celestial longitude and latitude. He (or more likely his best student) wrote a book on the astrolabe, an instrument for telling time and making measurements by the sun or stars. You could even use it to calculate the circumference of the earth, which Gerbert and his peers knew very well was not flat like a disc but round as an apple.

Much of this science Gerbert learned as a youth living on the border of Islamic Spain, then an extraordinarily tolerant culture in which learning was prized. Born a peasant in the mountains of France in the mid-900s, Gerbert entered the Benedictine monastery at Aurillac as a boy. He learned to read and write in Latin. He studied Cicero, Virgil, and other classics. He impressed his teacher with his skill in debating. He was a fine writer, too, with a sophisticated style graced with rhetorical flourishes. To further his education, his abbot sent him south to Christian Barcelona, which then had diplomatic ties with the Islamic caliphate of al-Andalus.

In the caliph’s library in Cordoba were at least 40,000 books (some said as many 400,000); Gerbert’s French monastery owned less than 400. Many of the caliph’s books came from Baghdad, known for its House of Wisdom, where for 200 years works of mathematics, astronomy, physics, and medicine had been translated from Greek and Persian and Hindu and further developed by Islamic scholars under their caliph’s patronage. In the world Gerbert knew, Arabic was the language of science. During his lifetime, the first Arabic science books were translated into Latin through the combined efforts of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars.

Science was of such importance, I was surprised to learn, that these scholars were willing to overlook all their religious and political differences. Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, Arab or French, Saxon or Greek, they sat down together to translate books, to make scientific instruments, and to further their understanding of mathematics, astronomy, and logic. Many of these scholars were churchmen, and some became Gerbert’s lifelong friends.

The story of Gerbert of Aurillac made me realize that the major conflicts in our world today, between Christianity and Islam, between religion and science, are not inevitable and inescapable.

His story taught me that a world based on peace, tolerance, law, and the love of learning was not a fantasy world—not an alternate universe after all. For a short period of time around the year 1000, it did exist.

Quite a bit more at the link, including this:

Most books about the Dark Ages skip the science, implying medieval people had no interest in it. Books that do address medieval science are often dense and technical, written by experts for experts. They focus too closely on one subject—the history of geometry, the history of the astrolabe—failing to give the broader picture of a vibrant scientific curiosity.

Even these books usually overlook Gerbert’s era (950-1003), jumping from Charlemagne’s school reforms in the 800s to the first full Latin translation of Euclid’s Elements in the mid-1100s, for the good reason that the manuscripts and instruments attesting to Gerbert’s accomplishments as a scientist and teacher have only been identified in the last 10 years. News of them has not passed beyond the smallest of academic circles; most discoveries have not been published in English.

Ecce advenit: Behold the Lord the Ruler is come (The Epiphany Introit)

This is the Introit for Epiphany. Here it is sung by the Westminster Cathedral Choir (lovely!  and this vid also includes the Gloria from Claudio Monteverdi's Messa a 4 da capella - not a bad twofer):



Here's the chant score:

The text comes from Malachi 3:1, I Chronicles 29:12, and Psalm 72:1, 10-11, say the Benedictines of Brazil:

Behold the Lord the Ruler is come: and the Kingdom is in His Hand, and power, and dominion. Give to the king Thy judgment, O God: and to the king’s Son Thy justice.

Here are those texts in full, via the English Standard Version:

Malachi 3

1 "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

1 Chronicles 29:12

12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

Psalm 72

1 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!

10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute;
may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!
11 May all kings fall down before him,
all nations serve him!

William Byrd wrote an Ecce advenit; a video of that is here ("Singers from the Marchmont St. Giles Church choir, Edinburgh, Scotland - UK" - but they've disabled embedding). It's very pretty.

Epiphany, as I've noted on this blog before, has been over the centuries a celebration not only of the Visitation of the Wise Men, but also of Christ's baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist and his first miracle at the wedding at Cana.  These were all "manifestations" of Christ in the world.  Tribus miraculis, the Magnificat antiphon for second vespers of the Epiphany, describes this trifold aspect to the day:

Tribus miraculis ornatum,
diem sanctum colimus:
Hodie stella magos duxit ad praesepium:
Hodie vinum ex aqua factum est adnuptias:
Hodie in Jordane a Joanne Christus baptizari voluit,
ut salvaret nos,
Alleluia.

Three are the miracles we celebrate this day:
On this day by a star the wise men were led to the manger;
On this day wine out of water was brought forth for the wedding feast;
On this day in Jordan's waters by Saint John's hand Jesus chose to be baptized,
That he might save us. Alleluia.

Here's Jacobus Gallus' (1550-1591) Tribus miraculis à 12 - splendid!



And here is the Gregorian Vespers antiphon itself - also exquisitely lovely:



This year I'm happy to show some depictions of the Magi, though. One I hadn't ever seen before is this piece by a "Follower of Jheronimus Bosch."  I really like it:

And here's a lovely - and very old! - mosaic of the three Wise Men; the text at Wikipedia says 'English: Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy: The Three Wise Men" (named Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar). Detail from: "Mary and Child, surrounded by angels", mosaic of a Ravennate italian-byzantine workshop, completed within 526 AD by the so-called "Master of Sant'Apollinare".'

Here's the Epiphany Office.  It also has a very interesting history, and from it you can get the flavor of how important Epiphany has been considered to be in the past (even though today it's something of an afterthought - an unfortunate situation).

"The House of Christmas," By: G. K. Chesterton

The House of Christmas

By: G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.