Ditch Doc

I realized a few months ago, during a rather unproductive debate about homosexuality, what the average university student means by “strong opinion”. It’s an opinion that you actually think is true, at the expense of other opinions contradicting it. Regular-strength opinions are those to which you have some attachment, but for which you don’t have or want a rational account. Since they make no claims about real truth and falsehood, they’re impervious to any arguments supporting the truth of an opposing strong opinion. Ironically, that means you can cling to a regular opinion much more strongly than to a strong one. The marketing is flawless: “Opinion 2.0. Start generating low maintenance, energy efficient personal views today. Just as easy to act on as the original, but requiring only 10% the time and effort. Outsource your intellect.”

This is one of the funniest spoofs I’ve read. Rowan Williams should be proud to be the subject.

You are to understand that the next quotation is from our tiny, constantly smiling, soft-spoken anatomy prof with the white hair and the gentle very English voice.

“Now these muscles are the dilator muscles of the mouth, and they have very strange names. My favourite one is this one: the levator labii superioris alaeque nasi. It doesn’t even sound like a muscle. It’s more like a… a blessing.” And then he intoned it, to uproarious laughter on all sides.

To all my evangelical-off-the-cuff-praying friends: The Lord already knows you are speaking to Him. Your prayers are not made more efficacious by your use of His name as a comma.

This is possibly the best-written encyclopedia entry on Groundhogs that I’ve ever read. I wonder if it’s possible to find other entries by the same guy.

I didn’t follow the trial closely enough to have a very well formed opinion of Conrad’s guilt or innocence. I did follow it closely enough to get an idea what I thought of the standard news coverage of it, and whatever you may say about the verdict, you have to admit that there’s something deeply unsettling about a legion of reporters making fun of a former lord of their profession for having too big a vocabulary.

Now I’m all in favour of easily understood instructions that can be read by speakers of any language or none, but when I got stranded in Fort St. John, I tried to make coffee by following the pictures on the lid, and the results were unsatisfactory. Here’s what I thought the pictures said:

1. Open the coffee.

2. Place the pillow in the vegetable crisper and close it.

3. With the greens of a large carrot, stir the water. Then pour it down the storm drain.

4. Turn the switch to “ON.” Pour the coffee. Enjoy!

There’s a man in Fort Nelson General, (let’s call him Zechariah), who is slowly recovering from a stroke. Aside from the wheelchair, he is a comely gentleman, bald, with glittering eyes and a well-trimmed peppery moustache. He understands what is being spoken to him, but can generally only reply with “Yeah.” He speaks his one word with an amazing versatility of facial expression, intonation and head movement, so you can usually get a good idea what he means. The other day, the Fillyjonk and I went to say goodbye at the hospital, where Zach had wheeled himself to the door for his daily sit in the shade.

Fillyjonk: “Good morning!”
Zach: [Smiling and vigorously nodding] “Yeah!”
Ditch: “How are you?”
Zach: [More quietly, but contentedly] “Yeah, yeah.”
Fillyjonk: “We came to say goodbye.”
Zach: [Frowning] “Yeah?”
Ditch: “Yeah, I’m moving to Ontario, and FJ’s going to Vancouver.”
Zach: “Holy shit!”

And he turned completely red and looked ready to cry. The two of us nearly burst into tears on the spot. God bless him, and send us more friends like him.

The liturgy is the primary way by which we come to know God. God is three Persons. So go ahead and adjust the language, music and symbolism of the Mass to make them totally understandable on the first go. But only if you have previous experience of coming to know, completely, three people in the space of an hour. If, on the other hand, you’ve found that even your non-divine friendships continue to deepen for as long as they last, then give me a liturgy that I can chew on for eighty years or so.

From KOMO4’s evening news: 

“Scottish police say they had no intelligence prior to the attack…”