God Love the Math Geeks

Using a network of 75 computers running a Windows XP program, a group of mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a thirteen-million-digit prime number. It is the 46th known Mersenne Prime, named after the 17th-century French scholar and Minim Friar Fr. Marin Mersenne, who came up with a partial list of these apparently remarkable numbers. This discovery qualifies the UCLA group for a prize of $100,000.00 offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the first discoverer of a Mersenne Prime exceeding ten million digits.

This is the first I have ever heard of Mersenne Primes, and after trying to find out exactly what they are, I feel like I know even less about them now than I did before they intruded upon my blissful ignorance. My particular brand of geekery runs along other than mathematical lines, so I just simply do not get what Mersenne Primes are -- other than that it is unknown whether there is an infinite number of Mersenne Primes.

But since greater minds than mine think Mersenne Primes are worth at least a 75-computer network and a $100,000.00 prize, I take it they are something special. I therefore offer my congratulations to the UCLA team.

Things I Have Never Understood

I can't come up with anything exciting today. But I can always come up with stuff I don't understand. In fact, that list grows daily.

So. Ahem. I have never understood:

-- Algebra, or any kind of math, or why anyone would enjoy math, especially algebra. (Though I'm very glad some people in the world do enjoy math, because otherwise civilization would grind to a halt.)

-- Jacques Derrida. The day this guy starts making sense to me, I'm going to check myself into the nearest asylum.

-- Why James Fenimore Cooper was listed amongst the greats of American literature. (For the record, Mark Twain didn't get it, either.)

-- The Code of Federal Regulations. And I'm a lawyer.

-- Why, in James Bond movies, the female leads wear stiletto heels on dangerous and physically demanding missions requiring a speedy retreat, like, say, burglarizing and sabotaging the bad guy's center of operations. (Example: Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies.)

-- Why, when I subscribe to a cable service, I have to pay for a bunch of channels I don't want, instead of being able to pick channels I do want; and why cable companies think they're being family-friendly by telling parents they can "block" channels they don't want their kids to have access to, even though said parents still have to pay for "blocked" channels.

-- Why, when a new English translation of the Mass is up for deliberation, the bishops assume that I need to be protected from big words, even though I majored in English and have a doctorate-level degree, and even have Merriam-Webster Online bookmarked on my web browser. (And many others of the faithful have more degrees than I do, and perhaps just as many as the bishops themselves -- if not more.)

-- Prairie oysters. Who was the first person to look at that and think that would make good eats? Same thing with caviar, with or without champagne, and snails.

-- Body piercings other than in the earlobes. Especially in the tongue.

-- What it is that's so attractive about shoes with extremely pointy toes. They look like witch shoes. (Though I guess they could come in handy in socially compromising situations...)

-- Women who form romantic relationships with, and even marry, guys on death row.

-- Why women who are extremely pregnant have to run around in skin-tight clothing.

-- Why couples who are willing to have children together and buy homes together are nevertheless unwilling to get married.

-- Why anybody would think Obama-Biden is a winning combo for America.

Another Book Meme!

I wasn't tagged for this, but what the hell. I was an English major; I love to read; and this is about books. The ones I've read are in bold, the ones I'd like to read are highlighted. I did make one modification: for the sake of space, any book I haven't heard of I took out. Fr. Erik has the full list.

1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Hated it when I had to read it in high school, loved it when I read it later as a mature adult. Could care less that Mark Twain hated Jane Austen's writings, even though I really like Mark Twain.

2. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lost count of the number of times I have read this at about 35. The movies drove me nuts because of all the deviations from plot and characters.

3. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. Read it and appreciated it more in adulthood than during my kid years, but it is still quite a dark story.

4. J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter series. Haven't read them, don't particularly want to.

5. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved this when I was a kid, though I haven't read it for years and years.

6. The Bible. If I haven't read it, I'm in a lot of trouble.

7. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is a sociopath.

8. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four. Had to read it in junior high. Every kid should have to read it in junior high.

9. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

10. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women.

11. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Angel Clare, like others of Hardy's characters, is a dink.

12. Joseph Heller, Catch 22.

13. Complete Works of Shakespeare. I have read from them; not read all of them.

14. Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca.

15. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit. Of course!

16. J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye. Read it in high school. Hated it. Found it tawdry and sordid.

17. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

18. Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind. I think the movie was enough for me.

19. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. Read it in high school. Jazz Age sophisticates making a complete hash out of life for themselves and others.

20. Charles Dickens, Bleak House. Though I like Dickens, I haven't read this one.

21. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. The length of the book doesn't deter me; just haven't got a huge desire to read it.

22. Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Read this in college (not on the reading list, just wanted to). I don't remember much about it except that it was quite funny.

23. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited.

24. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment. Just haven't got the urge to read Russian novelists.

25. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Read it in high school; found it and all the other works of John Steinbeck that I had to read depressing.

26. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. Never saw the movie, either.

27. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows. Tried to read it, couldn't get into it.

28. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Once again, just not into Russian novelists.

29. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. Read it in adulthood and found it excellent.

30. C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia. Nope, haven't read it, though I like C.S. Lewis.

31. Jane Austen, Emma. One of these days, I hope to get around to reading this, as I really like Jane Austin.

32. Jane Austen, Persuasion. Haven't read the book, but I really liked the movie with Ann Rice and Ciaran Hinds.

33. Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha. Zero desire.

34. A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh. Never read this. Did read the Raggedy Ann books.

35. George Orwell, Animal Farm. Four legs good, two legs better!

36. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code. I saw the movie, and it was crap. That was enough of a waste of money.

37. Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White. The only thing I really know about Wilkie Collins is that Mark Twain once upbraided him for praising James Fenimore Cooper, which frankly, he deserved.

38. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. Never read the books, saw the miniseries.

39. Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd. Thomas Hardy wasted enough of my time with Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure for me to want to read any more of his stuff.

40. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale. I actually had to read this in (Catholic) high school. I wasn't old enough to read it then, and I'm still not old enough to read it now.

41. William Golding, Lord of the Flies. Zero desire.

42. Frank Herbert, Dune. Saw the movies, of course.

43. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Excellent book; the movie wasn't so bad either, even though Emma Thompson was a little long in the tooth to be playing Eleanor.

44. Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities. Another excellent Dickens classic.

45. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. I'm very much afraid there are a lot of people who would like to live in it.

50. John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. Read it in high school; hated it (see The Grapes of Wrath above).

51. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. I couldn't have put it better than Fr. Richsteig: "I avoid porn even when it masquarades as literature."

52. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo. I tried to read this after reading The Three Musketeers, but failed.

53. Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure. Had to read this for my Victorian Lit class in college. Couldn't stand it. Was especially maddened by the fact that I was being propped up to sympathize with complete morons who were presented to me as tragic-romantic heroes, when what they really were was arrantly stupid.

54. Herman Melville, Moby Dick. No real motivation to read it.

55. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist. Read and enjoyed it in adulthood.

56. Bram Stoker, Dracula. Vampires really aren't my bag.

57. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.

58. James Joyce, Ulysses. I think I had to read this in high school, but I remember nothing of it.

59. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. No desire.

60. William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair.

61. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Who hasn't seen one of the many movie adaptations? But oddly enough, I have never actually read the book.

62. Alice Walker, The Color Purple. Pure filth.

63. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day. Saw the movie, never read the book. Thought the characters in the movie were too stupid for me to want to read the book.

64. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary. Read it in high school. Hated it, notwithstanding Flaubert's le mot juste.

65. E.B. White, Charlotte's Web. Loved this so much as a kid, and read it so many times, my parents tried to take it away from me.

66. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Some of my absolute favorite bedtime reading -- I actually have a volume of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. My five favorites: The Hound of the Baskervilles; The Sign of Four; "The Musgrave Ritual"; "The Adventure of the Priory School"; "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton".

67. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Just have no desire.

68. Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince.

69. Richard Adams, Watership Down. No desire.

70. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers. Read this in adulthood; actually had to labor to get through it.

71. Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Never had a desire to read this.

72. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. Never read the book, never saw the play.

73 Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Who didn't have to read this in high school?

Anybody who wants to be tagged, go for it. (I'm sure somebody I know would have a different list.)

Another One for the TMI Files: Uses for Afterbirth

Matthew McConaughey, goofball actor and father out of wedlock of a newborn son, has big plans for -- the placenta.
McConaughey, who cannot be troubled to marry Camila Alves, the mother of his child, has neveretheless gone to great pains to preserve the afterbirth so that, pursuant to purported ancient custom, he can plant it in an orchard.
"It's going to be in the orchards and it's going to bear some wonderful fruit," claims McConaughey in a CNN interview. "When I was in Australia, they had a placenta tree that was on the river ... and all the placentas of all that tribe, all that clan, whatever aboriginal tribe that was, all the placentas went under that one tree and it was this huge behemoth of just health and strength. This tree was just growing taller and stronger above the rest of Mother Nature around it. It was gorgeous."
Yes, trees do tend to grow taller and stronger than all the rest of Mother Nature around them; that's part of what makes them "trees." After having apparently claimed that the "ritual" of placenta-planting is found in "several cultures," world-renowned anthropologist McConaughey can cite to only one such alleged culture, whose name escapes him. For a second, reading the above transcription, I thought he was saying he believed that trees actually grow from placentas. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if the natives managed to sell him on that idea, and keep him going on it for at least a while.
The AP story records McConaughey's comment that, for the foregoing reasons, the birth of his son will one day bring joy to others. If the kid's afterbirth is what's needed to bring joy to the world, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the kid himself.

Fragrant Namesake, Fetid Industry

Pornographic film-maker David Allen Crawford and alleged prostitute Agnes Jenges pled not guilty in federal court today to charges of visa fraud and perjury. Jenges, a Hungarian national, and Crawford are accused of entering a sham marriage so that Jenges could stay in the country and ply her trade out of a disorderly house in Sherman Oakes -- which, say authorities, was run by another foreign national who is also accused of entering a sham marriage for similar purposes. The sole reason this story attracts attention is that the pornographer -- known in the industry as "David Lord" -- is based in my hometown of Reseda.

Along with most of the rest of the porn industry, a fact I never knew until after the Northridge Earthquake struck the Valley on January 14, 1994. Starting in about the 1970s, the San Fernando Valley went from being a leader in the aerospace industry to being a huge player in the porn racket, to the tune of several billions of dollars a year. Apparently, a big part of it located itself in Reseda.

Meanwhile, I quietly grew up and pursued my own innocent interests, utterly oblivious to the vice and sleaze lurking just within arm's reach. Then, after the earthquake (actually centered in Reseda) devastated the Valley, the porn people, anticipating the Christian take on events, came out and notified the media that this was not in fact God wreaking His vengeance on the community for tolerating the smut capital of North America in its midst -- as if they would know. And now, instead of turning over a new leaf, this David Crawford character has used up the 14 years since the earthquake to get into hot water with the feds, in furtherance of his scuzzy career.

Reseda odorata is known for its beautiful fragrance, while the area named after it is known for emitting a rather different aroma in the moral order. Let's hope that amid the good work the citizens of Reseda are doing to beautify their streets and storefronts, they make the time to start doing something about the moral blight that has contributed, in the worst possible way, to Reseda's notoriety.

It Didn't Work

36-year-old Katherine Gunther of Lebanon, Indiana conducted a Wiccan good luck ceremony in a local cemetery. Result: two days in the hospital after stabbing herself in the foot.

In a ritual involving candles, incense, the full moon, a three-foot-long sword, and trespassing in a cemetery after posted visiting hours, Gunther tried to plunge the sword into the earth, but missed the earth and nailed her foot instead.

I bet the handsome gentleman pictured below didn't miss what he was aiming at. If Katherine Gunther wants to wield swords, maybe she ought to try following his example.

Filthy Lucre

A guy in Davenport, Iowa is going to spend a week in jail for contempt of court. His crime: he tried to post a $100.00 bond in dirty pennies and singles.

When the man opted to go to trial on a case of driving with a defective tire, the court required him to post a $100.00 bond. So he arrived at the courthouse with a box of allegedly bug-ridden bills and a bucket of gooey pennies. The clerk of the court said they had to use rubber gloves to count out the filthy lucre. When the judge found out what was going on in the clerk's office, she ordered the guy arrested for contempt of court.

Here is the Iowa statute defining acts of contempt:

665.2 ACTS CONSTITUTING CONTEMPT. The following acts or omissions are contempts, and are punishable as such by any of the courts of this state, or by any judicial officer, including judicial magistrates, acting in the discharge of an official duty, as hereinafter provided:

1. Contemptuous or insolent behavior toward such court while engaged in the discharge of a judicial duty which may tend to impair the respect due to its authority.

2. Any willful disturbance calculated to interrupt the due course of its official proceedings.

3. Illegal resistance to any order or process made or issued by it.

4. Disobedience to any subpoena issued by it and duly served, or refusing to be sworn or to answer as a witness.

5. Unlawfully detaining a witness or party to an action or proceeding pending before such court, while going to or remaining at the place where the action or proceeding is thus pending, after being summoned, or knowingly assisting, aiding or abetting any person in evading service of the process of such court.

6. Any other act or omission specially declared a contempt by law.

So which one of these subsections does posting a filthy bond come under? The only ones it might conceivably be stretched to fit under would be 1 and 2. But then there is the problem of intent, which the statute requires in its plain terms: who deliberately keeps a box of yucky money around, just in case they want to express their displeasure at having to post a trial bond? And if you charged with contempt every single person who comes into the court clerk's office with bad hygiene or a complicated, time-consuming problem, you'd have to let all the real criminals out of the jails to make room for them.

I remember, when I was eight or nine years old, my parents bought a Chevy pickup, and made the down payment almost entirely in singles they'd saved and kept in an old wine jug. Lucky for them the auto dealership didn't have contempt powers.

Dipped in Gold

Who knew a 23-cent pizza could cost so much?

When LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers complained about "hard fouls" during a playoff series against the Washington Wizards, a Papa John's pizza franchise in D.C. responded by marketing T-shirts with the word "CRYBABY" over James' jersey number, 23. The shirt was a hit with Wizards fans, but Cavaliers fans were not amused. Amid angry complaints, as well as the realization that Papa John's has a large number of stores in the Cleveland area, the pizza company decided to make it up by offering large, one-topping pizzas for $0.23. It will also donate $10,000.00 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

The amazing thing about this whole affair is not the large amount of money Papa John's is losing by giving away cash and virtually free pizzas. What is amazing is the incredible cost Papa John's customers are prepared not only to absorb but to disregard almost completely in order to get something they neither needed nor probably even wanted only a few days ago. Consider what a $0.23 pizza has cost:

-- Hours of waiting in line. People wrapped up in blankets in Cleveland to wait in a line that wound through the parking lot and across a lawn; lines in University Heights were two blocks long. One guy waited nearly four hours for a pepperoni pizza. Time spent waiting in line is a cost; in order to devote time to waiting in line, it is necessary to sacrifice some other and probably more worthwhile activity.

-- Ill will. People got into arguments about cutting in line. Ill will is costly as an emotional and physical drain; it is also costly in the erosion of good will, and its replacement by an increase in cynicism. As the next point demonstrates, the containment of ill will is a drain on the resources of society.

-- Police intervention. In University Heights and Springfield township near Akron, police had to intervene in line-cutting incidents. One regional manager felt obliged to called the police to help close his stores in Columbus. All of this is on the dime of the thousands of customers waiting in line for their "23-cent" pizzas.

Admittedly, not everybody put up with all this purely for the purpose of getting a virtually free pizza. Some customers did it to defend LeBron James. "I did it for the principle of it, said Jennie Moore (no relation) of University Heights. "The principle of it is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it." It is one hell of an expensive principle.

Then there are those who are just plain clueless. "It's worth it,"declared Patrick Mone of Westlake. "All the money is going to charity, and obviously, it's bringing new business to Papa John's. Even though there is a line, I think it's pretty cool ... 23 cents, you can't beat it." Where the "new business" is actually a drain on Papa John's resources, and people are going to such excruciating lengths to get a 23-cent pizza they never knew they wanted before, this is on the order of spending a thousand dollars on lottery tickets and then crowing over winning a hundred bucks.

The most valuable service Papa John's has rendered in this whole business is not providing the hungry with all-but-free pizza, but demonstrating clearly and concretely that there really -- and literally -- is no such thing as a free lunch.

About Telemarketers

Recent events compel me to say a few words about telemarketers and telemarketing, a job that I myself have actually done, and which I rank as one of the Two Most Repellent Jobs I Have Ever Held (it runs neck-and-neck with a job I once had pulling weeds at a long-neglected, dreadfully overgrown condo complex). Herewith some helpful facts and hints about telemarketers for the targets of annoying sales calls:

1. For all you business owners out there: if you're really serious about putting the kibosh on all sales calls for all time, quit advertising your business. Sales calls are part of the price you pay for publicity. Also, next time you go to a sales or trade convention, don't sign up to get free information about anything. Last time you went to the Acme Annual Shower Curtain Ring Sales Convention in Vegas, you took a few too many spins at the roulette wheel, downed a few too many highballs, and then signed your name to a few too many lists. That may be a huge factor in why you are now being besieged by telemarketers trying to get you to sign up for a free subscription to a trade magazine. Booze and mailing lists just don't mix.

2. That pestiferous person on the other end of the phone line, trying to push something on you that you don't need, or pester you with survey questions about your medical conditions, is not annoying you for his health. It is his job -- possibly the only crummy job he could get at that particular moment in history. Some telemarketers have been in the business for years, and love it. You mustn't grudge them that, since it enables them to earn their keep and get through their workdays in peace -- a considerable benefit not only to them, but also to their families and friends and everybody who has to put up with them in person. Others, however, are just struggling, and would jump at the chance to shovel out stables, scrub floors with a toothbrush, clean bedpans, or do just about anything else besides telemarketing. Telemarketers' time is highly regimented and closely monitored by computer: they get dinged for being five minutes late to work; they get only 20 minutes for lunch; they can spend a total of no more than 12 minutes a day on bathroom and drink breaks; and they put up with all this in exchange for peanuts. That person you are about to tell to go take a flying leap may be a lifelong housewife whose philandering husband suddenly left her destitute, or a young widowed mother, or just a kid trying to earn his way through school. Your real quarrel is not with the working slob making the sales call, but with the company that hired the telemarketing firm he works for to push the magazines or take the surveys. Or maybe, the person you really should be mad at is yourself -- see Point No. 1 above.

3. The telemarketer has no control over whom he calls, and has no way of knowing that you have been called three or four times today already. The calls are all placed by computers, into which have been fed your contact information, which was provided by the telemarketing company's client, which in turn came from -- well, you (see again Point No. 1 above). The telemarketer just sits in front of a computer screen, waiting for the calls to come up. The calls are sent to whichever telemarketers are logged in and have their phones on: they must be logged in in order to get paid, and they are not allowed to turn their phones off without a good reason. If you keep getting unwanted calls, it is not the fault of the person on the other end of the line.

4. The telemarketer reads his sales pitches from scripts. He is required to read the script as written. After you have said no, he has another script that he is required to read, and then another script that he is required to read after you have said no again. He has to do this, however annoying you find it, and even though you tell him not to bother. All his calls are monitored and recorded, so if he makes a habit of not following the scripts, and especially of not making his second or third effort, he will get canned.

5. If you want the telemarketers to stop calling you, you can (a) put yourself on the National Do Not Call Registry; (b) sign up for the free subscriptions the telemarketers are hawking; or (c) ask them to stop calling you, at which point they will put you on the do-not-call list (which may or may not actually end the calls immediately, depending on the company's system and procedures). Don't just tell them you're unavailable or too busy, because then you won't be taken off the call list. Just hanging up on them is also not a sure-fire way of stopping the calls. Threatening to press charges will have no effect on the telemarketer, who is not ultimately responsible for your being on the call list in the first place (see again Point No. 1).

Telemarketing is a plague and a nuisance, a sure sign that we have not, and will not, achieve Paradise on Earth. The only good thing that can be said about it is that it at least provides a sort of financial lean-to for some who otherwise would find no shelter at all against the economic storms that batter their lives. Telemarketers are merely annoying, not sinful. Cut them some slack.

The Birthday Bunch

I can't really think of anything much to blog about right now, so I think I'll shine a tiny spotlight on some of the interesting crowd of people who (at least according to Wikipedia) are celebrating birthdays today (or would be if they were still living):

Joseph Lister, the guy who made the connection between dirt and infections, and brought us the wonderful world of antiseptics.

Booker T. Washington, a freed slave who became a prominent teacher.

Spencer Tracy, one of the great actors and portrayer of Fr. Flanagan in the Boys Town movies.

Melvyn Douglas, another great leading man, my favorite of whose movies is Ninotchka, opposite Greta Garbo.

Bette Davis, a great movie villainess (though she also played some great good guys too).

Gregory Peck, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (which was one of my favorite books as a kid).

Michael Moriarty, Ben Stone on Law and Order, who is outspokenly pro-life.

Max Gail, who played Stan "Wojo" Wojeciehowicz on Barney Miller (I know that's before some of your times).

And it also happens to be the feast (i.e., birthday in heaven) of Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican saint of extraordinary coolness.

Anniversaries and Feast Days

It occurred to me earlier that it was twenty-four years ago today that I received the Sacrament of Confirmation (almost immediately after which, I am sorry to say, I quit going to church for about six years).

Today is also (usually) the feast of the Annunciation, as well as the feast of St. Dismas, the Good Thief who repented and was promised Paradise that very day.

When I was in law school in Moscow, I boarded at the local Ursuline convent. The superior of that convent, Sr. Bernadette, had a devotion to St. Dismas, and swore that he had helped her out of many difficulties. One day, I was out on the road during a fog after a heavy snowfall. After turning onto one of Moscow's rather ill-plowed side streets, which turned out to be worse than it looked, my little Chevy LUV pickup got stuck in a snow drift. I couldn't move, I couldn't see, and this was before the ubiquity of cell phones, so I had no ready means of calling for help. I wondered how I was going to get out of this. Then I remembered what Sr. Bernadette always said about St. Dismas.

So I prayed to St. Dismas to help me out of the snow. Before the fog from my breath had dissolved away, a great big truck with tow equipment suddenly loomed up out of the snow just ahead of me. Without any ado, three people jumped out, hitched up my pickup, and towed it out of the snow drift. It was as though they had come on orders. Within a minute, they were gone and I was safely back on my way.

How's THAT for service? And chivalry?

Prayer to St. Dismas

Glorious Saint Dismas, you alone of all the great Penitent Saints were directly canonized by Christ Himself; you were assured of a place in Heaven with Him "this day" because of the sincere confession of your sins to Him in the tribunal of Calvary and your true sorrow for them as you hung beside Him in that open confessional; you who by the direct sword thrust of your love and repentance did open the Heart of Jesus in mercy and forgiveness even before the centurion's spear tore it asunder; you whose face was closer to that of Jesus in His last agony, to offer Him a word of comfort, closer even than that of His Beloved Mother, Mary; you who knew so well how to pray, teach me the words to say to Him to gain pardon and the grace of perseverance; and you who are so close to Him now in Heaven, as you were during His last moments on earth, pray to Him for me that I shall never again desert Him, but that at the close of my life I may hear from Him the words He addressed to you: "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."

How I Spent My Afternoon

!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!
!!!DISGUSTING PICTURE ALERT!!!

Do

not

scroll

down

unless

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really

really

really

REALLY

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something

gross.

Don't say I didn't warn you...

(...though at least I cleaned them up a little before photographing them...)

Yes, today I had a date with the oral surgeon, who, after cranking up the nitrous oxide as high as it would go, proceeded with great gusto to yank out an abscessed molar (right) and the broken wisdom tooth right behind it (left). He had to stitch up the holes these things left, and I feel pretty raw, but I have (a) some really far-out dope for the pain, man, and (b) the consolation of being rid of these tormenters. I unite this pain to the pain Christ felt when the high priest's servant struck Him in the face.

Why -- you may well ask -- am I keeping these disgusting things? Because the need to have them out arose at a time when it was beyond my resources to have it done; nevertheless, Divine Providence arranged to meet this need in spite of my lack. So from now on, they will serve as a reminder that God does provide. Being the weak creatures that we are, we all need to keep the reminders of Providence before us, even after we have had proof after proof of it. Look at the children of Israel: after the plagues upon Egypt, and the deliverance from slavery, and the pillar of fire, and the pillar of cloud, and the parting of the Red Sea, it still took them all of about thirty seconds to forget Whose Hands they were in. I can't honestly say I'm any different.

And in case the above pic "grosses" out anybody in particular, then I respectfully remind him whose idea it was to post it.

(Even if I did go along with it.)