11 January 2021

VARIA

(1) Donald Trump's manner may not be mine, but I am concerned that he is being banned from certain "Platforms". You remember that precisely and beautifully targetted sentence about "They came for the Jews, but I did nothing, because I am not a Jew. They came for the Communists, but  ... etc..

Well ... they shut down Trump, but I did nothing, because I am not a Trompista. What will I say when the NeoGestapo stop my mouth because I sometimes contradict what the Thought Police dictate?

(2)  I have said this before, I think ... Why do we now hear rather less about Biodiversity? Here we are with an immensely mutable virus with fantastic, inbuilt, capacity to change and renew itself though innumerable variant versions in order to follow the paths so lucidly laid out by Mr Darwin. Why is PF not shouting across the airwaves about the relevance of this glorious, paradigmatic covidvirus to the teaching of his Laudato si, in which he so praised "Biodiversitas"?

But, if PF is silent, this very morning it has been announced that Prince Charles is launching a new campaign for Biodiversity. As the rest of our country struggles to hunt down and destroy every mutant variation of the Coronavirus, I find it surrealistic to imagine this strange eccentric calling out "Camilla! Yippee! Wonderful news! Three more new variants this morning of Our Virus! And ... time for a Quick One ... they're getting more and more transmissible!!!"

(3) Why has the CDF not condemned the neo-Dualists who describe the virus as "evil"?

(4) Not long ago, much praise was heaped upon the Silly Swede for persuading children to follow her order to give up 20% of their education to a 'School Strike" which would Defend the Planet. Currently, in this country there is much debate about whether schools should be open or shut. Why not shut them all with the obvious formula that this is being done as a vibrant expression of Solidarity with the Environment? If the Virus eventually were to go away, we would be able to point out that X number of potential pupil days had been devoted to the School Strike, so that Education could then carry on uninterrupted.

(5) All the experts who appear on our screens to talk us through the Pandemic (do they get fees for their generosity with their time?) seem to have the style "Professor". 

When I was an undergraduate, 'Professors' were immensely rare and majestic phenomena ... all of them, from the august, godlike 'Regius' Professors downwards. Now, everybody except me appears to be a Professor. Is this another glorious example of the multiplicative power of Biodiversity? Does Professority spread like a virus? Is 'Professorial load' a factor in transmission? If I spend more than a few moments in an enclosed space with a number of Professors, will I later discover that I have fallen victim to the condition myself??

Are there vaccines against professority? Can you get it twice? Can you catch it off lavatory seats?



27 comments:

Simon Cotton said...

My experience with the BBC, both TV and radio, is that interviewees are unpaid.

B flat said...

Dear Father,

You are a blessing from God for a heart grown heavy with sadness at the evil being wrought in our world! I do not wish to be maudlin, but with your various considerations on matters of considerable gravity, you lead us deftly to the very portal at which all this evil belongs.
Wishing you good health and strength to share your wisdom for many years with your readers.
Ad multos annos!

Pete said...

Many moons ago I heard that the 500 British Professors had multiplied to 10,000 or so; no doubt they have continued to multiply with ever more fanciful titles.

Mary Kay said...

In my observation I believe that you are an unsymptomatic professor. My theory is that at some conference or another you were in contact with just that professorial load that gives you the title. I don't believe that you can spread it, but science is ever-changing, so someone should come up with a list of signs of the condition, so that those concerned will know if they have caught it.

John Patrick said...

PF was probably distracted from biodiversity by the recent win by "Catholic" Joe Biden in our Venezuelan-style election here in the US.

Ansgerus said...

Just for a Quick One - is lèse-majesté still punished in your kingdom?

dk pintar said...

Just a word to say I received my copy of your ORDO last week.
An excellent job as usual and a great reference for use in my prayers.

william arthurs said...

This is all about attending academic conferences, or contributing to academic journals, connected with or run by American professors.

if they don't know what a "fellow of Balliol College and University Praelector" is, they assume it is like being an "assistant professor" at an American liberal arts college.

I was assured by the head of an Oxford college that "more than half our fellows would be professors if they were in another university, so of course they should be styled 'Professor'. Then they will be taken more seriously when they meet their American counterparts at academic conferences."

Having worked in the City I should compare this to the American banks where complaining customers are always demanding to speak to a 'vice-president', so all the staff above the level of trainees become 'vice-presidents'. Our joke about our business clients was that "the secretary is the lowest person in the organisation, while the executive is the highest: but in the civil service, the secretary is the highest, while the executive is the lowest. Does this tell us what the world of business thinks of the civil service, or is it the other way round?" I had to become a civil servant before I could answer that question ...

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear father. Few Christians or conservatives understand the ideology of the left and how that ideology derives from the ideas of Herbert Marcuse and so they think that the same standard of judgment, the same standing even before the law, ought apply equally to all.

It is important that Christians and conservatives understand how the left (which controls America) thinks and acts.

It is even more important to know that the left hates you as a Christian and will not even tolerate you.

This is a fact, a truth, that must be repeatedly studied so one will not slip back into making the mistake of thinking erroneously or being unprepared for what is coming - massive and punitive punishment of any and all who dare publicly oppose the left .

https://macris.substack.com/p/repressive-tolerance-in-action

Paulus said...

Euge, euge!

Arthur Gallagher said...

Dear Fr.,

I am always somewhat puzzled by Catholics who wan't to make clear that there is a distance between themselves and Donald Trump.

While it is good to see you defending him, I wonder do you ever consider, or even know, how downright aggressive he has been defending the Catholic faith? Protecting nuns from having to pay for contraceptives, affirming the dignity of the handicapped, ill, and infirm; protecting the unborn, and the new-born from being killed; rejecting the eugenicist killers and rationed-care zealots who are part and parcel of socialised medicine. Actually doing something about human trafficing, including child sex trafficing? Asserting the central place given to the family as the cornerstone of society as a matter of government policy? He is a great man indeed, and one who is hated by the enemies of everything decent.

Meanwhile, seeing thrice divorced politicos foam at the mouth as they rage against Trump's admitted adultery, is neither uncommon, nor hard to understand. He did cheat on his wife. He has been divorced. But he has never defended those very personal failings, and it appears, to me at least, that he chose to pay expensive child support over cheap abortions. Even the faithless Mr. Cohen asserts that Trump has never been involved in any abortion.

So, no, Donald Trump is, like the rest of us, a sinner, but not a killer. He has been a lover of peace, and has refused to be lead by the nose into wars and other dangerous military adventures. Which, is WHY he has to go!

By defending the weak, the defenseless, and the innocent, he has rendered himself un-acceptable to the establishment.

And his opponents? Grown rich at the expense of the over-burdened taxpayers,and squandering their ill gotten gains on every vice?

I stand with Donald J. Trump the man, and firmly believe that God has sent him as an answer to prayer. Another Constantine. The future will tell if I am correct.

Oliver Nicholson said...

There was a time when those with a D.Phil. were referred to as Mr..

Gillineau said...

It's simply a reference the amount of research funding they get. Professorships and increasingly all promotion in Higher Ed, is solely tied to the acquisition of external sources of money. You can write the best books and papers in the world but it won't get you a professorship. And fair enough! Someone has to fund the VC's pension!

PM said...

Legend has it that, when a Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office visited Tokyo, a Japanese newspaper translated his title as 'immortal junior typist'.

PM said...

I suspect that Oxford doesn't breed characters these days like the late Freddy Beeston, Laudian Professor of Arabic. Freddy would bristle at being addressed as 'Professor'.

Simon Cotton said...

Very fair comments from your correspondent Gillineau. I might add that in some disciplines no credit is given to academics who write books.'Street cred' is cutting edge research alone.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

If you are a Catholic, now is a good time to prepare and contact your local priest and have contingency plans to secure a safe house where Mass can be celebrated because the left is coming for you Catholics especially.

Thomas Beyer said...

Dear Father,

While I very much agree that religious freedom is under siege here in these States no less than the rest of the developed world, and while I recognize that the Left as an ideology presents its own very real dangers, not least of which is a hatred of tradition and religion along with it, the question of what to do about Mr. Trump is not a matter of Left versus Right. The man has autocratic ambitions and, despite whatever good he may have done, hasn't hesitated or ceased since coming into power to work to undermine every last norm of our political system, which are, it is becoming increasingly clear, at the end of the day, the only real checks against authoritarianism and demagoguery we have. I am not saying that the Left doesn't have its own tyrannical tendencies. I am saying that, at the very least, they seem moderately committed to the notion of democracy, a republican system of governance, and checks against unlimited executive power. Donald Trump isn't being silenced because he represents a threat to the Leftist agenda; he is being silenced because last Wednesday he proved yet again he is a very real and immediate threat to our Constitution, law and order, and peace in the streets.

Greyman 82 said...

The proliferation of professors in British universities seems to be following the pattern of so much in this country - Americanisation! When I was an undergraduate in the mid 1980's one of the departments whose courses I took had no professor. Presumably none of the senior lecturers were regarded as worthy of the position. At that university now, almost all teaching academics are some sort of professor. It's "job description inflation", a cousin of grade inflation, and it's not restricted to academia. When I worked as an auditor, the person who was in charge of the audit field work was an "audit senior": now all such bean counters seem to be blessed with the exalted title of "assistant manager".

dunstan said...

But Covid19 is not a naturally occurring organism. It was manufactured in the Wuhan Institute of Virology by the doctor they call Batwoman. It is therefore not an example of biodiversity but of bioengineering.
Roberto de Mattei relates this event to the warning of Our Lady of Fatima about Russia spreading its errors through the world here:-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/renowned-historian-evidence-suggests...

Scribe said...

Dear Father, Many cultural TV programmes nowadays are peopled by young ladies with green hair, some with peculiar accents, all claiming to be 'Professors'. They are what in my day would have been called junior lecturers. In my Oxford days (1950s) professors were revered and rare. In case anyone thinks I am misogynistic, I recall with great respect and admiration the women dons at Oxford, fiendishly learned, sometimes amiably eccentric, none of them professors, and none with green hair.

Arthur Gallagher said...

William Arthurs seems to think that Americans are a vast collection of Boobs!

Arthur Gallagher said...

Dunstan is correct in saying that the Covid-19 virus is not naturally occurring, and that it is an engineered virus.

Arthur Gallagher said...

Thomas Beyer makes little senser in his comments above.

Donald Trump did NOTHING wrong last Wednesday. He did not plan, direct, encourage or participate in the events at the capitol.

The election, as any honest person can see, has been a massive fraud, with complicity from courts, and corrupt politicians at every turn. Not to mention the cowardice of a fallen-away Catholic vice president, who should have returned the certifications to the state legislatures, because of the UNCONSTITUTIONAL manner in which the certifications were made.

It is perfectly understandable that some of his supporters would have been upset enough to commit a civil trespass, and it is clear that they were egged-on by agents provocateurs, who together with the Capitol Police were responsible for the limited number of bad things that happened. Even at the capitol building, the majority of the people entering the building were waved in by the police, walked through the halls respectfully, left the building directly, were not arrested, and never even witnessed the very limited vandalism and violence complained of. Why, one wonders, were the soldiers the were activated the day before by the President not there, not the D.C. Police, or the majority of Capitol Police? The event has the wiff of the Reichstag Fire about, in all honesty.

Mr. Trump has been the most law abiding of presidents. He abides by the laws as enacted, obeys judicial rulings, and even seeks judicial guidance. Most tellingly, he has not purged the civil government and armed forces of his opponents. It took massive provocation and insubordination in each and every case where he has been forced to terminate any official or government employee.

Under Mr. Trump, there have been no perjured warrant applications, illegal wiretaps, or revenge prosecutions. He has not attempted to interfere in criminal prosecutions, and has been sparing in his pardons and commutations, all of which have been eminently just.

Maureen Lash said...

Whether Mr Trump incited the storming of the Capitol or not, surely the simple fact that it happened on his watch is a sufficient indictment of his presidency for his resignation to be expected?

Banshee said...

First off, the Capitol has been "stormed" plenty of times, as it's a standard thing that leftist protesters try and are allowed. It's also a standard thing that happens at state capitol buildings during protests. What's not usual is that people on the right engage in such foolery; if they do, and there's nobody from the left there, said buildings usually wind up cleaner than when the right arrived. If it's the left, they usually make a big mess.

Second, it is only "sufficient indictment of his presidency" if all the governors of states having their capitols "stormed" would also resign promptly. This year... that would be about thirty or forty governors, and maybe all of them. Puerto Rico, I think, but I don't know about the other Territorial governors.

Everyone in the US who is of age and not suffering amnesia should be well aware of these facts. They should also be well aware of who owns capitol buildings: namely, the citizenry of the United States, severally and together.

coradcorloquitur said...

Amateur Brain Surgeon is, I fear, totally on target. It shocks to hear ostensibly sane people give the Left any kind of benefit of the doubt or even a defense regarding civil unrest and violence: it is in the Left's proven, criminal history in many parts of the world since at least the 19th century of verbal and physical violence where the greatest crimes against humanity have been committed: 100 million dead by conservative, serious sources; hundreds of millions more exiled, abused, hounded, imprisoned, and ostracized---all the hands of socialist and communist movements (and here the National Socialist Party of the Nazis must be included, as Nazism was a statist movement of the Left at one time in collaboration with the Soviets, widespread propaganda notwithstanding). And for some Catholics to absolve them (or mitigate their culpability), as some do above, of the malevolent destruction of many American city centers during the spring/summer of 2020 (nb: the mayhem practically stopped in time for the election) and the abuse, injuring of innocent citizens (some of them elderly, as video evidence from Portland, Oregon, shows) as well as the obliteration of honest businesses is indecent. The persecution of Catholics is here and will intensify---and those who whitewash our persecutors are complicit in the betrayal of their brothers and sisters in the Faith---and, worse, of Christ the King.