G as in Good H as in Happy

Beauty Queen, the sequel

May 31, 2005

The long arm of the bounty hunter. The world is so full of a number of things.  Grumpy, as we so often demonstrate, can be good.

See Marginal Revolution.

Hoc est

May 30, 2005

Over at Amy Welborn's, Catholic worshippers talk about the liturgical state and practices in their parishes Sunday by Sunday. A lot is inside-Latin dope, but universal haunting moments arise out of the fragrant smoke, like this one from the University of Chicago campus.

There was a procession across the campus from the Chapel (which is interdenominational and attached to the Divinity School) to Calvert House (the Catholic Center). Some workmen were laying sod in preparation for graduation in a couple of weeks. (U of C, on the quarter system does not finish until mid-June.) As we passed by, singing Pange Lingua, a middle-aged worker, Mexican, I think, stopped working, (he was already on his knees for his work), placing his hand over his heart, and watching us silently for about two minutes. I found this very moving.

Yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi in the Western Church, and 2005 is the Year of the Eucharist.  A double whammy.

In the same vein, for pure cloistered sweet sounds, you can click here. Wait for the voices.

Courtesy the Anchoress

Long rumination from the relentless Porretto, probably palatable only to the already-convinced.

Corpus Christi photos from Compostela, courtesy Mangan's Miscellany. We think the comment was praising the blogger's good writing about good things. Always the goal, isn't it? 

You're cheating, we're making money. Works for us.

May 29, 2005

Hysterically clueless college essay-writing service. Comments ensue.

Every Book Has Its Reader

May 29, 2005

Public libraries for Nepal. A need, plus a well-thought, generous, practical, sustainable solution.

Like kids in the proverbial candy store, Jomson's young people flooded the reading room the instant the doors opened, pulling books from the shelves, cooing over the educational toys, spinning the globe.

But there was not pandemonium. The children carefully and lovingly handed each book to the next set of waiting hands.

Katmandu has them. Now rural children do, too.

Via mirabilis

Dr. Neubauer is spreading not only the joy of reading, but inspiration to find our own READ-like undertaking. Good will, means, and ingenuity. We all possess some measure of all three, to combine, apply, and offer.

Update:
Here's someone's offering. His eyes were open, his heart was touched. He is a bicyclist of some prowess. It's a good enough story to catch our attention. So he's off. Yesterday.

We'd like to think the unknown slave-saints who finished their sufferings in the Gulags will keep an eye on him, and  bring him safely home.

Via Done With Mirrors

Usury

May 27, 2005

Most interest on loans was prohibited by the Church for 1400 years. It is sometimes claimed that because the rules on lending have changed, dogma should therefore be subject to revision in line with contemporary practices.

A Nebraska priest and canon lawyer's thesis for the M.A. in theology considers the history of usury and lending.

Usury is condemnation of profit on a loan - as long as one recognizes there may be payments which are not profit on the loan, payments made because of some just title of loss or cost to the lender....[Some] Catholics see interest on loans as still condemned by the Church as sinful, and thus use the usury teaching to convict the modern banking system of being the source of all economic problems today....While one part of the Church's usury prohibition was always her concern for the poor, the attempts to revive this prohibition [on lending at interest] are not helpful in combating today's social ills.

Via comments at Pontifications

One-Minute Vacations

And no suitcases to unpack.

A gift from The Quiet American:

Puget Sound bagpipes.

   A Cancun kindergarten.

Rain in New York City.

   Buenos Aires birds.

Did Borges walk in the company of the ancestors of these birds?

"What kind of bird are you?" [Borges was] asked.

"I am the bird egg, in its Buenos Aires nest, unhatched, gladly unseen by anyone with discrimination, and I emphatically hope it will stay that way!"

[Update:
Link repaired.]

Up in Front

Tom Peters' slides -- and comments -- on excellent presentations. Here in a Word file, courtesy of uneekNet.

At least one life coach [   :)  ] also offers message-refinement, design, and rehearsal of presentations. Whatever it takes, if it's important...Even in-house, get help. Be kind to your audience. You will be appreciated for a good presentation. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, you likely will be punished for a dreary one.

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”  —George Bernard Shaw

Enchanting Cornish Garden Revived

May 26, 2005

Paradise is a garden.

Via Mirabilis

Small Differences that Matter

May 24, 2005

Economists need to put on different glasses, according to Brad DeLong in the Taipei Times.

The real sources of growth are not to be found in supply and demand and the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses, but in technological and organizational change...How, exactly, did these accomplishments occur? What were the small differences that turned out to matter so much?

It's not "stuff," it's insight, a different perspective, how we do what we do, creative verve in analysis. It's the nature and paths of emergent systems, whatever that turns out to mean.

Via Econopundit

Update:
This seems to be the discussion du jour, based on Macroblog's chart from The Financial Times. The Eclectic Economist points out that labor productivity in the U.S. has grown considerably since 1987, and goes on to focus on supply chain improvements via Thomas Siems of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:

In our increasingly interconnected and interdependent global economy, the processes involved in delivering supplies and finished goods—including information and other business services—from one place to another are mind-boggling. But through information engineering, supply chain improvements have resulted in a reduced bullwhip effect, lower inventory levels, reduced logistics costs and streamlined payments.

We notice also the information advantage to our understanding of finding a resource like QuickMBA.

More on Small Things

A particularly modern psycho-heresy comes from our being pumped full of pseudo-knowledge about other lives, roles, and histories. Mundane and spiritual ambition* run amok in one's thinking. Well, it has to be something big, worthwhile, full of glory and importance. Or I won't do it. "If I can't be Hemingway, why blog?"

This post from Trevor Romain's blog, especially the sketch, is a good reminder. Trevor's work with children seems a true calling. See for instance, the beautiful young model for a day.

Via Dawn Eden.

*Spiritual ambition: the earnest desire for some spiritual achievement and distinction and the willingness to strive for it; a desire to be seen and counted among the mature.