Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Will You Be Coming, and Can You Spare a Dime? This is hilarious, and will be even more hilarious if they've got the date right. And this is even funnier, if only because it's more elaborate. Where do people get the time to come up with stuff? [Links courtesy of GMSV.] 6:26:33 PM     What do you think? ()

What to Make of This? The growth among conservative religions is an interesting trend indeed. Perhaps most startling is the fact that reported membership in the Roman Catholic Chruch grew by 16.2 percent during the 1990s. This apparent sharp conservative swing among church members, if not entirely surprising, is troubling for anyone who wants to see religion play a positive role in society. My impression is that there is a gulf opening between organized religion and other civic institutions. As the membership of "mainstream" religions become increasingly secularized, their churches fade into irrelevance, making mainstream society less religious. The loss of that normative community force, coupled with the increasing complexity and transparency of society, leaves many people shaken and in need of direction and comfort. They gravitate to the stricter, more structured religions as a response. This leaves the vast center of mainstream society increasingly drawn to secularism on the one hand or regressive religions on the other, opening an adversarial schism right through the middle of society. We need some normative community force to hold everything together, to give us a society balanced by a large center rather than one with no center balanced by various opposing groups (right and left, rich and poor, secular and religious, etc.). The former is stable; the latter will fly apart. 6:24:00 PM     What do you think? ()

Are You Ready For Some Football? In the same day that I watched Real Madrid beat the snot out of A. S. Roma at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, I read Tim Parks's description, in A Season With Verona, of his arriving at the Stadio Olimpico for Verona's game against Lazio. My wife and I saw Roma play Vicenza in that same stadium almost four years ago. It was one of the high points of our trip to Italy. I know that stadium; I remember the smoke bombs like the ones I saw on television last night; and I remember the walk to the stadium from the Vatican and through the Olympic Park that Parks describes. And a little more than a month ago, I saw Madrid and Roma play at Giants Stadium. Generally, being a football fan in the U. S. means being cut off from the best football, watching it only on television, and at odd hours at that. But sometimes, through a strange confluence of events, one can feel a bit more connected, and that's a happy moment. 8:26:42 AM     What do you think? ()

Hear That? It's the sound of another floor of the mansion that was network television collapsing. The first floor collapsed with the proliferation of new networks. Then the total audience for the networks shrank to the point where it was no longer the majority of the viewing audience. Next came TiVo and similar devices that allowed viewers to decline to watch commercials. And now, a premium channel, available in only one-third of viewers' homes, has had a program outdraw all network programming in prime time. What will be the next floor to collapse? 8:12:16 AM     What do you think? ()

Tracing Your Genealogy? If, like me, you are interested in exploring your family tree, here are some helpful hints from The Onion. 7:54:30 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:28:13 AM.

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