Saturday, September 26, 2015

Papal thoughts

Re the wonderful papal mass at MSG it would have been such a nice touch if that great cantor got to sing the Prayer of St. Francis.  I have a somewhat more positive view of Francis after his trip to the States although he needs to get off the climate change.  What's up with Boehner?

46 comments:

  1. Climate change; I take it you are with the Donahue crowd? Ol Bill argues
    that climate is outside the Pope's expertise, a sociologist throwing stones at a chemist, if we dig beneath the conflicting theological POVs, IMO. It is notable that
    this is the first Pope who has gained the respect of the agnostic/atheist crowd and I suspect quite a number of disaffected lapsed Catholics. I personally know a few of
    these, driven mostly by the pedophile scandals of the last few years. It is hard to criticize a Pope who eschews a state dinner to be with the poor for lunch, ya know?
    ..and yes, that cantor was remarkable. Trivia in that regard, we note the case of
    Myer Leon, cantor & opera star, admired by all faiths of that time and composer of
    the loved Anglican hymn The God of Abraham Praise .

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    1. Income inequality strikes at the heart of the Gospel. Climate change? dunno. Then again if I find myself agreeing with Donohue too much I worry I might be on the wrong page.

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    2. Climate change disproportionately affects developing countries and the poor. It's no surprise Francis is concerned about it.

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  2. I get the impression Francis doesn't like to use the English too much and feels more comfortable with the Spanish even when addressing English-speaking audiences. Look I've got no problem but I'm a little surprised Trump hasn't chided him on this yet.

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    1. Haven't seen much of Trump lately. Either he is resting on his laurels or stalking Megyn Kelly ? BTW, what did Francis do to Boehner?

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    2. An overly tan man who cries alot, somehow it's incongruous.

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  3. Couple more remarks. Last Saturday evening the pastor at our parish came out and gave a special speech about how we should increase our weekly donations. Then there's Catholic Charities which I usually write two checks to per year. No sooner do you send in your donation mine usually being $100 you get another letter from CC a week later asking for more money. You barely get a thank you then two weeks or three weeks later CC is bothering you again and this goes on throughout the whole year.

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    1. Give what you can, or give what you want. Sort of a freedom of choice issue, no?

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    2. That's not how he explained it.

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  4. Recently finished the fascinating book The Vatican Prophecies by John Thavis. Basically it's how the RC Church investigates and sometimes finally pronounces on things like prophecies and Marian apparitions and how they rule on miracles and the Devil and anything else supernatural you can think of. The turnoff came for me in the overall gist of the book, the RC Church wants to be in control and have the final say over what God says. Probably most Marian apparitions and messages from God are false but even the other ones the Church vets very carefully to see that Mary or Jesus toes the line on Church doctrine among other things. Interesting but irritating book.

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    1. The Church is a bit over 2000 years old, so they have a well organized
      bureaucracy. One which from the beginnings concerned itself with maintaining 'orthodoxy', eg. the beliefs of the membership must be standardized. Such a state of affairs has its pros and cons and is one
      which is lethargic about change; but one which IMO, rightly attempts to
      separate religion from superstition.

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    2. Which came first, Catholic theology or God? God of course but the Church acts like God is circumscribed by Catholic theology.

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    3. The entire Catholic church is premised on the idea that God IS circumscribed by Catholic theology. The ex cathedra pronouncements, the writings of the Church fathers supersede the Bible. This is what the Reformation was about: the entire point was that the Bible trumps the Church doctors. (I'm on Volume 3 of "The Reformation of the Church in the Sixteenth Century"). This is why in Catholic schools you learn the Catechism and not the Bible.

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    4. Well said and welcome back.

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  5. Yogi Berra died. Took part in D-Day, part of the shrinking Greatest Generation. He
    played some baseball as well.

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    1. Yogi: "We're lost but we're making good time."

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    2. I caught the last part of the Berra funeral on a sports network. Cardinal
      Dolan was glad-handing folks and reached across the aisle with his
      shepard's crook and got some guy by the neck. Less dignified than the
      Navy flag portion of the ceremony, but no doubt Yogi would have approved.

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    3. The thing I've always admired about Ted Williams is he didn't have to serve in Korea after his tour of duty in WWII. Cut his statistics short.

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    4. Cpt Williams, USMC; flew an F-9 Cougar jet fighter (575mph). 39 missions over Korea, half of them as wing man to John Glenn. At least
      Yogi can RIP while Ted's body and separated head sit in cold storage someplace in Arizona. Yogi liked to chat from behind the plate to the
      batter. Only one player ever told him to 'shut up", and that was Ted Williams.

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  6. Kind of a strange day. Went for my walk, looked at my phone and saw a missed call from my doctor. Called him back and he went over my recent bloodwork which was generally good. Then after about three minutes talked about the Colovantage test. Something about protein levels and said I should schedule for a colonoscopy which I did. The gastro doc is heavily booked and so I made an app't for early December which surprised me. I mean if it's so important why is it so far in the future? If I have two full free months how urgent can it be? IMO if it can wait that long it's important but not pressing. Maybe they use ambiguous results of the test to steer people towards the gastroenterologist, dunno.

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    1. It sounds like test results protocol:
      "ColoVantage detects circulating methylated DNA from the SEPT9 gene which is involved in cytokenesis and cell cycle control." There is probably
      an established baseline for 'normal', typically some range. While colorectal
      cancer would give extremely high results, something a bit high would be
      considered suspicious enough to check further. So the colovantage test
      maker protocol reads "A patient whose ColoVantage test result is positive may be at increased risk for colorectal cancer and further evaluation should be considered." A few years back I was having a lot of digestive problems
      and my NP got me in within two days for a colonoscopy, so we can guess that if your test was not that alarming, but it is their job to cover all the bases. Not to worry unless you have a family history of CRC, or have
      symptoms (which unless it is far progressed, are typical of all other sorts
      of non-cancer causes). But yeah, makes it hard to focus on Christmas
      for sure.

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    2. I originally thought such a test would chip into the colonoscopy business. Ironically it may have the opposite effect. Alot to mull over. It's hard to debate with your doctor when you don't have a medical degree.

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    3. I'm on my second walk today and I'm mulling the same kernel. A two month waiting period seems very long to me. I know a gastroenterologist does many other things but I have trouble believing colonoscopies have suddenly become incredibly popular.

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    4. Given that there is quite a flock of GI Docs in you area, you are probably being referred to the one or two that your physician ordinarily deals with.
      If you could argue the case, he could probably get one much earlier.
      Are we talking Yonkers MD-GI Dr. Katz here?

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    5. No but another with a high reputation. Actually there's no hurry.

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    6. Sometimes it's ridiculous. When I was trying to get an appointment for a hematologist back in August the earliest appointment Duke could give me was APRIL 2016. Seriously, April. I was able to get in at UNC in a matter of two weeks. It's just a good thing I don't have leukemia.

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    7. Here's the thing about doctors, you talk about weight loss, sciatica, tinnitus, insomnia, hip pain etc. and they don't offer much. Re colonoscopies and they're suddenly a veritable geyser of information. Strikes me as current medical knowledge is somewhat buttcentric imo. Get the colonoscopy but you still have that noise in your head and can't sleep but hey at least you don't have CRC!

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    8. Need some medical advice. If my Colovantage test score isn't a definite OMG and I currently have severe sciatica in my left leg and fairly moderate intermittent pain in my left hip WHY am I making an app't with a colonoscopist? I'm in a bit of a bafflement and am reevaluating my relationship with my primary caregiver.

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    9. Well, why are you? You don't HAVE to. You're in the end responsible and the one who makes the ultimate decision. If I was you I would be making an appointment with a physical therapist. Also, you might want to look into a tens unit. I have one, a cheap one I got for $15 on Amazon but I was having some sciatic type pain, and I put it on, and what it did was it took care of the pain enough so that I could walk.. and walk.. and walk... and all that walking ultimately fixed the pain. But more to the point, yes, evaluate your PCP. In the end you're the one who has to make the decisions.

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    10. The doc needs to explain the test results in plain English w/o the jargon. It's frustrating when you're not on the same page with your doc. You're talking about sciatic nerve pain and he swings it back to the ass probe. BB I'm suspecting he resents my resistance to the classic colonoscopy and is using vague test data to be the one in control.

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    11. You're totally right, ultimately I'm the one in control and make the final decisions. What I'm rather surprised about is when I talked with him about my chronic pain issues he'd still strongly urge such an invasive procedure. I'm no medical authority but in my mind a herniated disc and a full-bore colonoscopy doesn't jibe very well.

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  7. Switching gears did you see the blood-red moon the other night?

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    1. Indeed. No Apocalypse though; we were dining out with relatives from
      Alaska. Much extended drinking etc. Wait, maybe that was a traffic light
      I saw.

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    2. A total solar eclipse must be cool though. I've never lived through one.

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    3. Saw the one in 1954 . I was about 12, we were vacationing at a northern
      WI lake, went out in a rowboat and watched through 3 layers of exposed
      photographic film. (Try that in the age of digital cameras). Kind of neat, it gets eerie dark outside, sort of like it got when Mt. St. Helen's ash made
      a 10 hour cloud over Idaho. The Babylonians figured out how to calculate the 223 mo periodicity and predict when and where the solar
      eclipse would occur. Might check with your nearest Babylonian and find
      out when the next one is.

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  8. Replies
    1. I did. Not you but it's too snarky over there at times. Some threads don't get the right traction or something. Maybe BB will take my place.

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    2. You didn't even warn me. I had to like do searches to figure out you were gone. I felt so abandoned. :P I'll get over it, but still.

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    3. It was building over time but sorry for the lack of a headsup.

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    4. Sampled a couple recent Patrick M FB posts. Usually seems angry.

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    5. He's always been like that. I don't engage with it.

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    6. Whazzis? A reunion? Where's Soap, Lista and Dave M?

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    7. I have to say I miss Lista's input. Did she close up shop or something?

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  9. Beth was on Facebook but had some kind of freaky privacy setting so I couldn't see her comments. I imagine her friends list is smaller than mine and that her settings keep everyone except those particular people from seeing anything she posts. I was all excited about the prospect of seeing how she was doing given that the evil liberals seem to be gaining ground in the wider picture, but she wasn't having any of that. I should have known from past experience that she can't cope with any type of disagreement.
    And yes, is a reunion. Hi to you!

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