Glorious mysteries

We attended a funeral for J., Karin’s kindly old colleague. “J. and I used to talk about hockey,” said the priest. “Sometimes joyfully, sometimes with a little griping.” That was about it for reminiscing about J. (Reminiscing is done at the wake, apparently.) The priest and mourners then prayed the Glorious Mysteries, in which are included:

• one Apostle’s Creed
• six Our Fathers
• six Glory Bes
• five Oh My Jesuses
• fifty-three Hail Marys
• other formulae

My heart sank around the thirtieth Hail Mary. Was the priest shooting for one hundred? Mercifully, no.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I finished reading the Adrian Mole series. It gave me much pleasure.

I’ve begun reading The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. It features Miss Jane Marple and is set in the classic murder-village of St. Mary Mead. When I finish, I’ll have read all sixty-six of Dame Agatha’s crime novels.

Daniel, somehow, is learning to speak in French.

Bonjour, Daddy, he grins. Ça va.

Not bad for not having been taught. His accent is spot-on, too.

How to beat the ads

My brown dress shoes didn’t quite survive the wedding we attended a few weeks ago. So, I’ve been glued to the computer, looking at new shoes.

I haven’t bought any. But the happy result is that now, all of my browser’s banner ads show pictures of elegant, brown, leather or faux-leather shoes. This is more pleasing to have in the background than the usual eye-popping fare.

It also has sparked an idea for making the web advertisements on one’s computer less painful to view – assuming, of course, that one’s ad-blocker doesn’t already keep everything out.

(1) You should choose something nice to look at.

(2) It has to be something you could buy (not, e.g., a fawn, or Mt. Fuji).

(3) But it should be something you have almost no desire to buy, so that it won’t distract you (much).

(4) Any one specimen should look like any other.

(5) Corollary: the object should come in a standard color (muted, not garish).

(6) Ideally, it should be a natural object. (Not a box of Brillo pads. Not a jug of laundry detergent. A transparent, full milk jug is better but not ideal; see, above, the third point.)

(This sixth point will be qualified later.)

(7) Visit lots of merchant’s websites and click on pictures of the object. Do this for several days.

(8) Voilà. This pleasant object, and nothing else, will appear where garish things once did.

I suggest looking at lots of merchant’s pictures of unadorned blue spruce Christmas trees. After a few days, your screen will be flanked by a lovely forest rather than by the Las Vegas Strip. If you can’t stomach anything to do with Christmas, browse cacti or cilantro or firewood instead. You get the idea.

Now I’ll qualify (6). You can get away with looking at artificial Christmas trees because they resemble the natural ones. Not all merchandise has this characteristic, however.

Canadiana

The dandelions have returned. Fewer lawns are infested this year. Ours is one.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

More reading:

• Agatha Christie, Death Comes as the End (her novel set in *ancient* Egypt)
• Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (supplement to MacIntyre’s book)
• George Grant, Lament for a Nation (see discussion, below)
• Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals (for the group)
• Stefan Zweig, novellas: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, and Journey into the Past (they’re great)

Grant’s 1965 book, summarized here, deserves some comment. What is Canadianness? North American Britishness, is the core of Grant’s answer. That is, Britishness nurtured as a tradition of political distinctiveness from the USA, featuring, e.g., a more serious commitment to federalism, as involving better treatment of and greater autonomy for minorities. Alas, when Britain itself was pulled into the U.S.’s military-economic orbit, Canada was pulled in, too. Canadian businessmen sold out first. Politicians followed. Nuclear weapons were brought to Canadian soil. Canada effectively gave up its nationhood and became a satellite.

(Lately, of course, the pendulum has swung the other way.)

A Canadian’s capsule summary, written two decades ago (scroll down the list to book no. 41):

Well, Canada is still here, but what, pray, is it? Grant wrote this brilliant, deep essay on the question in the early 1960s, in the aftermath of Diefenbaker’s political downfall. He wrote of a small “c” conservative society, respectful of tradition, that was disappearing under the pressure of continentalism. Forty years have passed, but Lament still speaks to us directly of important issues. It is a must-read for anyone interested in what might define a nation called Canada – especially given that the formula of “medicare with peacekeeping” is more glib than inspiring, and factually shaky as well.

Who in the U.S. knows about Prime Minister Diefenbaker? I’d guess less than one tenth of one percent (Canadian expats excepted). So, next month, I’ll read Desmond Morton’s Short History of Canada, which purports to make “acute observations on the Diefenbaker era.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another item of Canadiana: The Peanut Butter Solution (1985). It includes music by teenaged Céline Dion. We watched this bizarre movie as a family. I won’t say I didn’t like it – I did! – but it fed my suspicion that our admirable northern neighbors are, in fact, deranged.

April’s poem

Whenever we open the front door, Daniel – clothed or unclothed – runs outside and hollers:

Owwweee-ah-ee-oh! Owwweee-ah-ee-oh!

I was puzzled for weeks but finally came across the source: a scene from Peppa Pig. Peppa, her schoolmates, and their teacher, Madame Gazelle, travel to the Swiss Alps; Peppa’s voice echoes off the mountains; Madame Gazelle demonstrates yodeling to her charges. Later, they pitch their tents and sing campfire songs.

Daniel loves this sort of thing. He also enjoys Story Hour at the library. He’s ripe for pre-K.

He’s fairly advanced, mathematically, too.

If only he’d behave.

This month’s poem is from Peppa Pig.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Peace and harmony

In all the world

Peace and harmony

In all the world

Peace and harmony

In all the world

Peace

And harmony

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I’m glad that Daniel watches Peppa Pig, a calming influence.

Markup

From the New York Times:

“Train Tickets to 2026 World Cup at MetLife Stadium from NYC to Cost More than $100”

You’re free to stay home, I imagine free-market diehards retorting.

I’m also free to register my disgust.

🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮

One thing I like about Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? – Michael J. Sandel’s opinionated and popular introduction to political philosophy – is that it opens with a discussion of price gouging.

Not with such classic questions as:

Is there a duty to obey the law?

and

Can the state be justified?

– asked from a libertarian-friendly starting-point –

but rather with:

If a storm has cut off the electrical supply for many people, is it moral for merchants to double (triple, quadruple, etc.) the price of a bag of ice?

Unlike the classic questions, this one puts libertarians on the back foot.

Of course, there are differences between the scenario discussed in the book and the stadium-transport markup scenario.

(1) The exploitees in the latter scenario are pleasure seekers, not hurricane sufferers.

(2) They’re exploited by NJ Transit – a governmental agency – not by private merchants.

(3) They’re (mostly) foreign tourists, not members of the polis.

Sandel wants us to conclude that price gouging is wrong because it’s uncivil, or because it’s bad for the polis, or for some such community-based reason. (I’m pretty sure he wants us to conclude that. I haven’t read the end of the book.)

But in the World Cup transport scenario, price gouging (of foreigners, mostly) might actually be good for the community.

I leave it as a reader’s exercise to explain whether these differences matter morally and whether marking up the price is wrong.