Friday links! Unexpected results edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 0 Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_MJM_V82T8

Everything makes sense in retrospect, which instills the false confidence that the world is an ordered place. Consumed in real time, however, life is unpredictable and curling irons are suddenly, inexplicably hot. The distinguishing feature of human experience is incoherence, because what are we distinguishing it from? Fiction, the realm of ideas, religious narratives, rocks—all the things human experience isn’t make perfect sense to us, for the simple reason that they are products of our understanding. Life is the part we understand backwards, and so it surprises us anew. Today is Friday, and all manner of unexpected stuff has happened. Won’t you say you knew it all along with me?

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In which I blame the Rainbow Gathering for sabotaging the Griz

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment
Deposed UM athletic director Jim O'Day

Deposed UM athletic director Jim O’Day

Those not fortunate enough to live in Missoula may be unaware that the NCAA handed down a raft of sanctions to the Montana Grizzlies last week, finding that boosters improperly provided players with meals, transportation, laundry services and free legal services. That last one was the most valuable. Griz players get accused of crimes a lot. They get arrested nearly as often—slightly more than they get acquitted. Missoulians love the Griz, mostly in a good way but sometimes like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. It therefore stands to reason that they could not possibly be at fault in the recent NCAA fiasco, and I blame it on the Rainbow Gathering instead. Nothing is sacred to those filthy hippies. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

In “pink mass,” Satanic Temple turns Westboro Baptist founder’s mother gay

By Dan Brooks in Church People 2 Comments
Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps with what I presume is a poster for a hardcore band

Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps with what I presume is a poster for a hardcore band

First of all, constantly yelling about how other people are going to hell does not give you an evil face at all. Second, the face of evil broke into a wry grin this weekend, when The Satanic Temple performed a “pink mass” over the grave of Catherine L. Johnston, intended to turn the spirit of the Westboro Baptist Church founder’s deceased mother gay. Obviously, Phelps’s mom is in heaven, because she did such a great job with Fred. Also, according to Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves (real name: Todd Feldman,) a Pink Mass properly performed at a gravesite “changes the sexual orientation of that person in the afterlife.” So now a gay person is in heaven, which is a real coup for Satan. Or it’s satire from a source you’d least expect. Probably the second one.

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On resenting the homeless

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 7 Comments
Kitty Meow, née Robert Brewer, of Caras Park since July. Photo by Kurt Wilson of the Missoulian.

Kitty Meow, née Robert Brewer, of Caras Park since July. Photo by Kurt Wilson of the Missoulian.

It is fashionable in Missoula at this moment to blame every petty nuisance on the Rainbow Gathering. That annual conflation of freedom and self-indulgence met near Dillon, Montana earlier this summer, and much of the overflow has lived in Missoula ever since. Specifically, they live in Caras Park and outside the grocery store. The sight of a dozen twentysomethings lying in the park drinking beer every day should not bother me, just as being asked for money whenever I buy milk is not really an inconvenience. All I need to do is ignore it. Yet somehow, I am bugged.

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Figurative expression watch: Pope says arrested monsignor “resembles the Blessed Imelda”

By Dan Brooks in Church People 1 Comment
Everyone looks more devout as a statue.

Everyone looks more devout as a statue.

Like a lot of people, I dig the new Pope. I do not like Popes generally, and most of what appeals to me about Francis are his deviations from papal norms—his asceticism, his emphasis on helping the poor, and his tendency to do things like telling a bunch of Italian reporters that he will not judge priests for being gay. Good work, Pope. If you read to the end of that article, though, you will also find this:

Francis also commented on the case of Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, who was suspended as an accountant in the Vatican after being arrested in June for his alleged involvement in a plot to bring 20 million euros from Switzerland into Italy with the help of a former secret service agent and a financial broker, both of whom were also arrested. Francis said, jokingly, that the monsignor had not been jailed “because he resembles the Blessed Imelda,” using an expression that means “he’s no saint,” The National Catholic Reporter reported.

So that’s something you can say when you want to baffle people.

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