At Home in Tucson.
22-Jan-12This Just Doesn’t Stop.
26-Jan-12The headmaster of the Delbarton School has been accused of sexual misconduct with the school’s boys. There are multiple accusers. The (former) headmaster, Fr. Luke Travers, is a Benedictine monk and was headmaster of the school while I was there. He was slightly creepy, but it is only fair to say that a large percentage of priests are slightly creepy and you just get used to that in priests.
And here’s the kicker: the abbey was made aware of the allegations last June. So what did they do? They sent him to Virginia, and apparently did not tell anyone in Virginia about the allegations. While in Virginia he “said Mass to children,” visited a high school, etc. When news of the allegations rocked the school - a very fancy and very expensive all-boys school on the grounds of a monastery - the abbot called the actions - sexual advances during a confession - “a minor boundary violation.” When the abbot’s letter became in itself a story, the abbey went with the “mistakes were made” line. No responsibility, no honor, and hence no religion.
For those who say “this is just a few cases, it’s all been blown up by the liberal media, it happens everywhere,” the Catholic Church earns the same distinction over and over again, for administrative sanction of sexual abuse: in this case by simply shipping the accused off someplace else to be with someone else’s children.
I’ve had associations with two Catholic high schools. The headmaster of the school I went to ended up going to jail for possession of child pornography; now the headmaster of the one I worked for is accused of this.
The 3:10 To Yuma.
22-Jan-12
I saw the Western The 3:10 To Yuma at the Fox Theater in downtown Tucson last night. The movie was good, though the “suspension of disbelief” requirements were a little high for me: the plot revolves around getting a notorious desperado onto a train to be hanged in Yuma. A fairly large number of people die attempting this, making me wonder why they didn’t just hang him on the spot; and when his men try to rescue him, they do not take any tactical advantage of their superior numbers but instead try to sharp-shoot their way to freeing him. Those problems aside, the experience was generally spectacular. The setting, the gargantuan Fox theater, was extraordinary. It was sadly underattended for a Saturday night show: the movie was certainly Film-Forum worthy, and the Film Forum would kill for a space like the Fox to show movies. (It also cost only $7; and these Westerns are really not bad family entertainment. There was an obvious sex scene in the 1950s style, meaning every adult would understand and no child would, which seems to me like a pretty decent way of doing things.)
Even more impressive was watching it in Arizona - the movie appears to have been shot in Arizona, as its vegetation and general setting is perfect, and the geography, which just a few weeks ago would have been utterly unfamiliar, here makes sense - Yuma, Tucson, Benson, Bisby.
The movie has an excellent theme song (youtube above), whose lyrics are universal enough to feel autobiographical:
There is a lonely train called the 3:10 to Yuma
The pounding of the wheels is more like a mournful sigh
There’s a legend and there’s a rumour
When you take the 3.10 to Yuma
You can see the ghosts of outlaws go ridin’ by (Ridin’ by)
In the sky (In the sky), way up high
The buzzards keep circlin’ the train
While below the cattle are thirstin’ for rain.It’s also true they say on the 3.10 to Yuma
A man may meet his fate
For fate travels everywhere
Though you’ve got no reason to go there
And there ain’t a soul that you know there
When the 3.10 to Yuma whistles its sad refrain
Take that train (Take that train) Take that train.So when you take the train called the 3.10 to Yuma
And leave the things you love
You leave with a silent prayer (Silent prayer)
Though you’ve got no reason to go there
And there ain’t a soul that you know there
When the 3.10 to Yuma whistles its sad refrain
Take that train Take that train.
The song seems to have an archetypal loneliness which allows an endless number of lyrics to be written for it. Hence another version goes:
I want to ride again on the 3:10 to Yuma
That’s where I saw my love
The girl with the golden hair
Not a word between us was spoken
No the silence never was broken
But before she left her eyes said a sad goodbye
Sad am I sad am I
To think of the chance that I missed
I could cry to think of the lips left unkissedPerhaps she’ll ride again on the 3:10 to Yuma
And I can meet my love and tell her how much I care
Though I have no reason to go there
And there’s not a soul that I know there
When the 3:10 to Yuma leaves if I have the fare
I’ll be there I’ll be there I’ll be there.
And this too seems pretty autobiographical.
Next week the theater is showing The Searchers. This is really the way to watch these movies, so I’ll likely be there, (if I have the fare).
Blessing of New Parents.
22-Jan-12This is from the “never saw that before” department: while at mass at San Augustin cathedral in Tucson, I was going up to communion behind a couple with a newborn infant. They were very cute: they were supposed to go up to communion in single file, but walked up half side-by-side as if unable to not be by each other’s side. The lay eucharistic minister, seeing them, put the wafer back in the bowl, put his hand on the face of the father, said something, then gave him communion; and he did the same with the mother. He did this only to these two people. I had never seen this before in any church. Neither, apparently, had this couple: they walked away obviously dumbfounded. They were white and the minister was Hispanic.
I have no idea if this was his momentary whim, his own personal practice, or a more longstanding tradition here. But in general, one of the deep strengths of the Catholic Church in a place like this, as in much of Europe, is that it is a living link to pagan traditions of great and immemorable antiquity.
White Sands.
11-Jan-12
Near Alamogordo. Oh my God. Astonishing.
Route 66.
09-Jan-12I’m driving long days and seeing friends in addition, so there’s not really time to write, but let me just say that I pulled off I-44 today to drive Route 66 from Miami, Oklahoma to Tulsa - and all I can say is wow. You would think that Route 66 would be a well-marked, touristy route - but in fact all the isolation, desperation, poverty, neglect, abandonment and ultimate loneliness you would hope to find in the road to Southern California are all there. In sections outside Miami it’s a dirt road!
Private Prisons. Great.
07-Jan-12It’s fabulous riding from state to state and getting some of the local news. Ohio’s Republican governor has begun implementing a plan to privatize some of the state’s prisons. America’s prisons are a national disgrace, a waste of human life and an outrage against human dignity. But privatizing them sounds like a transparently terrible idea. Why? Well, I was just riding through Pennsylvania, and here’s what you get from their private prisons - a judge who takes bribes from private corrections companies in order to send more juveniles to jail.
A Pennsylvania juvenile court judge was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for accepting some $1 million in bribes from a builder of two juvenile detention centers.
Judge Mark Ciavarella, Jr., 61, was convicted earlier of racketeering in a scheme where he sent juveniles as young as 10 to the detention facilities.
Look to be reading this about Ohio judges in a few years. The problem is obvious: if prisons are corporations, there are incentives for corporate executives to find a way to get more people in prison. The cheapest way to do this is to bribe a judge - he’s just one person, and he has fairly wide power to send people to prison. And sure enough, that’s what has happened in Pennsylvania.
The Dead Heart of It All.
07-Jan-12
Columbus is a well-swept, prosperous city, with large corporate buildings and the usual appurtenances of a state capital. There are public parks, immaculately kept, and solid-looking public institutions. There are twenty- (maybe even thirty-?) storey office buildings. I slept the night before in my tent, and while the weather is very mild, January camping is generally the kind of thing that makes you appreciate the indoors, so I drove downtown, parked my truck, and imagined I would find myself breakfast somewhere in the city. I walked around for about an hour and a half, and, not finding anything open anywhere - nothing at all - I returned to my truck and made a meal of the various things I have been carrying in my truck. I found a few cafes - open only on weekdays. Some other restaurants I presume will open for lunch. But there was no place to eat or sit anywhere downtown on a Saturday morning. After camping out the night before, I would have eaten almost anything.
The downtown is doing well, in general: everything looks fine, there are no empty buildings, there are large banks and office buildings. But there are no small businesses. The symbol of this is Main Street, which I presume at one point had at least some commerce. In fact, it probably had a lot of small shops. The large corporations and government offices which are now found downtown had no use, presumably, for the small shops on Main Street; and since this is a state capital, and you want to keep things tidy, as buildings got abandoned they were promptly bulldozed. Now there is basically nothing on Main Street: just the city’s dead heart. There being no homes anywhere nearby, there are no people, no neighborhoods, no children, nothing, just building and pavement and lights. Occasionally a car goes by.
There are two pawn shops on Main Street, and a bail bonds place - the courthouse must be near. The pawn shop windows are now the entirety of the holiday window shopping on Main Street in Ohio’s capital city. I especially admired the neon “Colt 45″ sign.
Needless to say, the “Lutheran Book Concern” is not only not there anymore, but the culture that produced such a billboard is gone with it.
Dawn at the Columbus Public Library.
07-Jan-12
Columbus - a substantial city, in feel about the size of Richmond, but with a great deal more architectural style. It’s also frighteningly clean and on a Saturday morning there is absolutely no one there. A city with everything but people. It has a fabulous old library.
“BIBLIOTHECA FONS ERUDITIONIS” - a library is a wellspring of refinement. The names of Virgil and Homer are also on the facade, as well as a “my treasures are within” inscription. Definitely a statement building.
Kings/Wise Men/Amigos/Stooges.
07-Jan-12
Picture from a Pennsylvania rest stop. No information given as to who these three men are, though of course we may presume. Just three pictures in a glass case outside a bathroom.
Trying to Keep a Straight Face.
24-Jan-12Some classic Greenwald cynicism:
An image which is, admittedly, not too difficult to imagine. As far as reality goes, hard work is taxed more than profiting from ownership (income taxes vs. capital gains taxes). Those are the dominant modern American values, apparently.
The difference between me and Greenwald is that unfortunately I get seduced by talk like this. I evaluate politicians I like by what they say, and politicians I don’t like by what they do. So I say to myself, “Why, Mr. Obama, that’s exactly the kind of country I want too!”