While exploring cyberhymnal.org — part of the explorations that’s following our conversation about the Latin Mass and church music — I was suddenly confronted by this Bible quote: “Behold, I come quickly. (Revelation 22:12)” I laughed out loud. How grubby.
Mac vs PC spoof ads
OK, so this morning I was going to write a rebuttal to Zern’s essay Dog food, exploding laptops and chlorine dioxide, but I got distracted by these wonderful spoofs of the Mac vs PC adverts.
There’s several, including that one about performance, plus others on security, gaming, upgrading, networking and portability. And if you watch any of them on YouTube, you’ll soon see links to other people’s efforts along the same lines.
Oh well, there’s 10 minutes of our lives we won’t get back…
iTrapped!
An “amusing trick” for owners of the over-hyped iPhone. If you take photos of your friends against some glass (or with a scanner) and make that their contact photo in your iPhone, then when they call it’ll look like they’re trapped in your phone! Thanks to The Apple Blog for the pointer.
Howard goes all passive aggressive
Yesterday PM John Howard’s supposed “frankness” was “appreciated” (according to anonymous sources), because he told the federal cabinet “If you have a problem with how I’m doing my job, don’t be afraid to say so.” But how could anyone respond meaningfully? To do so, you’d have to proclaim your disloyalty in front of the entire cabinet — and who’d dare to be first?
I’m surprised that no-one has reported this for what it is: passive aggressive behaviour.
Note the wording. If you have a problem. I’m doing my job. If you can’t say what you want then you are being afraid.
Actually, it’s interesting reading through the criteria for passive-aggression as a personality disorder: ambiguity; forgetfulness (“I don’t recall”); blaming others (the terrorists, the Muslims, the boat people, the Aboriginals); fear of intimacy (when did you last see John and Hyacinth hold hands?), procrastination (how long has it taken to do anything about, oh, global warming?), resists suggestions from others… There’s an essay in its own right!
Hubster: ultra-thin clients
As PCs get more powerful, it’s possible to run multiple users on each computer — just like in the mainframe days. Samsung’s new DisplayLink monitors make it easier — and here’s a video explaining how it works. Thanks to Memex 1.1 for the pointer.
The Return of the Latin Mass
That wonderful chap Father Bob Maguire has written a piece on the return of the Latin Mass in Catholic churches. As usual, he’s saying things the Vatican probably won’t like. Excellent.
Church music became popularist [sic] in the 1960s [after Vatican II] because it had been exclusivist for centuries.
The “Masses” so often “oo’ed and ah’ed” over by concert-goers and listeners to the ABC FM stations were performance pieces for the ruling classes (including the senior clergy). The language was exclusivist, Latin, to remind lesser beings and nationalities that all roads lead to Rome.
Guess what? There’s a revisionist plot on, right now, to restore Latin on demand. A Brisbane priest was quoted last week as praising the move back because he felt much more comfortable and spiritually refreshed if he had his back to the congregation and was the only one knowing what was being said! (Read article here on Latin Mass)
The musical style of a Cathedral or posh church, supportable by heaps of money, comforts upwardly socially mobile church-goers.
Suburban and rural area churches make do with less. Which worship style creates/supports genuine parish centres, souls of their neighbourhoods, beacons of hope?
As I’ve said before, Father Bob is a Catholic priest who actually gives Christians a good name.