Catch as catch catechism.

This will probably be of no interest to you non-Catholics, so I'll be as brief as I can. The topic says something about the Church, yes, but also about yours truly and his ability to commit. 

On January 1, Ascension Presents started a new podcast/video series called Catechism in a Year. Last year they did a Bible in a Year series, which I had wanted to follow but never did. This year I am all in. 

Everyone knows what the Bible is; the catechism is more easily dismissed as the Catholic Church list of do's and don'ts. Since I was not Catholic growing up and did not have to spend my days being beaten by nuns (we just beat one another up instead), I don't have the dismissiveness toward the catechism that a lot of cradle Catholics I know do. The word catechism comes from late Latin (duh) via the Greek word katēchēsis, or oral teaching. So, the catechism of the Catholic church is a little light reading, 900+ pages of who we are, how we got this way, and what it all means. 

This series is a much deeper dive into the faith than I've ever done, and I sponsored people through the Rites of Catholic Initiation for Adults program for a few years. 

The Ascension series is hosted by Fr. Mike Schmitz, a campus priest with the University of Minnesota in Duluth and what my Catholic school wife and her schoolmates used to call a Father What a Waste. Meaning, he's way too cute to choose a life of celibacy. 

Before getting involved in Catechism in a Year, I'd followed Fr. Mike's own weekly podcast series for a while, and during the Chinese Death Lockdown we would watch his Sunday Mass online. He is a charismatic, enthusiastic priest, who was once on track marry a female person and become an actor. In fact, he was up for the part of Robin in Batman Forever, which means he would have been contracted to play Robin in Batman & Robin with George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which means God took mercy on him and gave him the calling. (I don't know what Chris O'Donnell ever did to deserve that.)

Fr. Mike is a dedicated guy. When he says he's doing these series in one year, he means it -- one 15-20+ minute podcast a day, every single day of the year. He reads and comments on a small portion of the catechism in each episode, and a new one appears to subscribers (all free) every morning. 

I don't know how he recorded all that. I'm finding it hard to keep up. Ideas like listening to the podcast while walking the dog -- something I do daily anyhow -- were rejected, because the topic is complex and requires focus. Best that I sit at the computer, have a copy of the catechism out, and pay attention!!!! Which, as I have the attention span of a toddler, has never been easy. Worse, I rely on caffeine now, which I did not as a toddler, so I may be even more scattered as an adult.

Nevertheless, I am enjoying the education. People may think that the Church does things for cruel or arbitrary reasons, but that's never been the case. It's interesting to learn more about why we believe this and that and where we differ from other faiths and denominations. 

The commitment thing is tough. I've already missed a couple of days and had to double up to get back on track. No idea if I can make it through the whole month, let alone the whole year, but I'll keep trying. I'm much better about staying on mission than trying to regroup and restart later. Wish me luck! 

Horrors of January.

The problem isn't walking the dog. The problem isn't even the cold. The problem is, it's freaking dark out there. 

I'm a morning person, have been since I became a grown-up. No matter how tired I am, or desperate I may be for a nap later, I gotta get up early. And if I'm up, puppy Izzy iz too. And then we have to go explore. Surfin' Sniffari! 

This time of year is the worst. Strange things lurk in the darkness of the morning. Weird, grunting beasts with no name, no language, no tongue known to man. Of course, I'm referring to the teenagers stumbling out of the house for the early bus. On our walks during the day, every kid up to age 13 wants to say hi to the dog, or just look at him; teenagers are surly and don't want anything to do with anything. Black hoodies up, faces shrouded in gloom, they slump off to the corner. 

In the dark, everything looks like a potential menace. Or perhaps something weird, or perverse. Like, I'm pretty sure I saw these shrubs in the original Wicker Man movie: 

What foul monsters lie behind these suburban doors?

Fortunately I have my trusty guard dog with me. He's very brave. Pretty brave. Well, not that brave. Kind of brave. He stood by me through it all, and then got scared of the garbage can back at our own house.

(Note: Unlike our late friend Nipper, Izzy is not scared of all garbage cans; in fact, I have no idea why he panicked that morning upon seeing our recycling bin and nearly took my hand off, bolting for the porch. What goes on in their heads? Anything? HELLLLLO!)

So, what's to do? Well, I comfort myself with the knowledge that the days are getting longer, 30 seconds or so at a time. And I remind myself that the stuff out there really isn't too scary. I always have a flashlight for such dark excursions to ward off bears and the like, and so far all has been well. 

In fact, none of that was really too scary at all, compared to what was waiting for me INSIDE THE HOUSE . . .

Later that morning . . .

When I opened . . .

. . . THE GAS BILL!!!!!!!

😱😱😱😱😱😱

AAIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!

WHO at work?

(Today’s blog entry is brought to you courtesy of guest blogger Theda Blurg, Ph.D., professor of Grievance Studies at Mailen University, whose pronouns are wa/hoo. I give you Dr. Theda.)

🏫🏫🏫

Shut up. 

So I'm riding the road on my electric bicycle because I don't drive some planet-killing machine from hell like you, and I see this:

I would like to hope that this so-called "utility work" was something really utile, like removing all natural gas hookups on the block, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. Then I saw something that was really disgusting -- the most offensive, the most foul, most rank pile of sexism to pop up in front of my face since the all-male remake of Mamma Mia! at the college. 

Can you believe it? MEN WORKING! Not only does this sign debase the contributions of women, but the other 29 genders as well! As if only cisgender, undoubtedly white men ever work! You can almost hear the sneers from those morons as a little girl or trans boy asks if they could grow up to run cable in freezing January weather. "Oh, no, little girly person," they'd say, sneeringly, "this is man's work!"

Of course I immediately ran over to the sign and set it on fire. Well, I tried to, anyway, but I don't use fossil fuels (did you know butane is a fossil fuel? No? You need to do better) and rubbing two sticks was getting me nowhere. I had to make do with kicking it over and doing my cleansing dance of destruction on it, which was such a hit at the library ball last year. Then I spat on it, but I forgot I was wearing my mask. Still, it was satisfying. 

So if you see a sign like this, remember to take action! Sexism, racism, homophobia, all the bad -isms and -obias will only thrive if we don't burn them to the ground! 

🔥🔥🔥

(Thank you, Dr. Theda. I took the liberty of cutting off the last 1,850 words of your essay. And I'd like to thank the example set for me by our federal, state, and local governments, wherein one hires crazy people and celebrates their craziness and then is shocked when they do crazy things.)

Change is good.

 

"It's just that, when you said you were looking for experts in change management,
I thought you meant something different."

All you gorillas.

The Daily Star, Britain's best newspaper for naughty news and using words like "boffin," reports that there may be a clue to the origin of baldy sours like myself, and thus a solution: 

Baldness could soon be cured after boffins discover the 'caveman gene'

Scientists claim that humans are only largely hairless because through evolution we have disabled the 'caveman gene' which would otherwise leave us with a full coat of hair

Sounds promising! 

Boffins reckon they can cure baldness following the discovery of a “caveman gene” which caused our ancestors to grow hair.

They found humans are largely hairless because although we have the genes for a full coat of hair, evolution has disabled them.

Scientists say the breakthrough could lead to ways to regrow hair in bald people, those undergoing chemotherapy or alopecia sufferers.

So now the situation becomes clear. We who suffer from male pattern baldness are not "freaks" or "losers" or "skinheads" or "cue balls" or "glabrous" or "chrome domes" or "chihuahuas" or "tile tops" or "balloon heads" or "necks blowing bubble gum." We're just farther along from the stinking hairy subhuman ancestors than you hairballs are. 

  

A typical meeting of hairy guys

I understand that the hair attracts the ladies more than the lack of hair does. Some chicks have always dug the cavemen. As Joanie Sommers sang in 1962's immortal "Johnny Get Angry," 

Oh, Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad
Give me the biggest lecture I ever had
I want a brave man, I want a cave man
Johnny, show me that you care, really care for me

At least she wasn't asking him to sock her in the nose. 

As we of the lesser-hirsute variety must endure the mockery, out loud or silent, of our fuzzy friends, it's not surprising that we hope for a genuine cure for our polished position. The Star story says that it could be just around the corner, thanks to some other boffins, and links to a piece about Concert Pharmaceuticals' deuruxolitinib, a "selective inhibitor of Janus kinases JAK1 and JAK2." The company announced successful phase 3 trials last November. Apparently it really helped a lot of people, young and old, regrow hair. (No word on whether it made them grow hair on their backs or anything.)

I think it would be lovely to have a pill that would help regrow scalp hair, especially for women who suffer from baldness. For men it can be a trial, but for women it's a disaster. 

I'd like it just because it would help me pass for one of you paleolithic types, which could be useful. But it's not a big deal either way. I have a lot of hats, and I know how to use them. 

Homeworkinator.

The Guardian (because we have to go outside New York for important news about New York) reports that New York City has banned students from using artificial intelligence for schoolwork:

New York City schools have banned ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot that generates human-like writing including essays, amid fears that students could use it to cheat.

According to the city’s education department, the tool will be forbidden across all devices and networks in New York’s public schools. Jenna Lyle, a department spokesperson, said the decision stems from “concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of contents”.

The first indication that artificial intelligence was being used was that some actual intelligence was being shown by the students. 

Meanwhile, in artificial intelligence news reported by the New York Post, a group using AI to make dirty pictures has been booted from Kickstarter and Patreon. This was interesting to me, because I thought Kickstarter and Patreon only booted fund-raisers from conservatives. 

But getting back to the school situation. This has gone much differently from what I was expecting as a kid. Take, for example, the kids' book Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, from the series of science fiction books by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams. This 1958 book was still in the library when I was a kid, and it was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. The hero, Danny, and his pals are given access to a new supercomputer, which they proceed to use to write their homework for them. But (spoiler alert!) in the end they find that since they had to enter the data for the computer themselves, they wound up learning anyway. Darn you, computer! Making us learn!

The book's authors could not foresee an Internet, a place with so much information so easily within reach. There is still a catch -- a kid who used a computer to retrieve data from the Internet and write his papers would find that his papers contained a lot of garbage information. However, considering its probable nature and the positions of teachers ("January 6 was worse than the Civil War! Herbal supplements can cure cancer! Men can menstruate!"), the kid would probably still get good grades. 

I guess if kids want to get through school and be as ignorant on the other end as they were going in, that's becoming more likely, and for a variety of reasons. I would have warned against that in the past, but as Tommy Grey once wrote, “Where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise.” Good ol' Tommy, always making with the epigrams. 

Meme Joe Greme.

Yep, we're forced by circumstances to rely on memes again today! But in a way, isn't everything just a meme? Isn't a movie just a long-form meme? Aren’t serial TV shows just one, long, punctuated meme?