The Emperor's New Lack of Clothes

The Emperor has no clothes on.  He's naked for all to see, but not all want to see it.

The World's Most Zealous Defender of Christopher West writes

Is it "possible" to look upon someone naked not your spouse without lust? Not only is it "possible"--it's "required" for purity of heart. It's *necessary* that we be able "see rightly" in this regard if ever we are to pass through the active and passive purgation of the senses and toward the deeper "illuminative way" of the spiritual life. 

Now he's not saying merely that lust is a sin and that we should mortify it.

He's saying that in order to approach mystical union with God, one is required to look at naked ladies without lust.   

That's your homework, in other words.  Get to it.

Theological Rewrite

I've been hired to rewrite the above ad to reflect a greater theological accuracy.

"Sadly, many of our beloved senior customers have gone to heaven.  Or possibly to hell.  Old Lady Bernice - yeah, she's in hell.  Purgatory for some, I imagine - though von Balthazar would suggest that there is the outside shot that all of them are in fact in heaven; personally, I knew these women well and old Hans can Ur my Von Balthazar, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, we need some new angels to fill our chairs.  Not angels, per se, who don't have hair - at least not physical hair (after all, how many angels can dance on the end of a hairpin? ha ha - but I digress); but moral angels, by which I mean people of good behavior who tip me well.  In brief, we need new customers.  OK?"

The Great Evil of Daylight Savings Time???

My Conspiracy Theory friends are (strange as it sounds) very angry at Daylight Saving Time, claiming it's the government's way of asserting arbitrary power over us, that it represents man's insane assertion of human will over Nature.  After arguing with them all day yesterday, I've finally come up with a post that should suffice.

You might say I've sprung forward to the truth and fallen back on a handy explanation of it ...

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If you're using anything other than a sundial (and we've been using mechanical clocks since the 13th Century), noon by the clock is almost NEVER noon by the sun at any place on the earth on any given day. Perhaps twice a year sun noon will correspond to mechanical clock or digital clock noon within a few seconds.

And this correspondence is rarely on the days of Spring or Autumn Equinox. This is because your location on earth will never be matched up with the "time zone" to the exact minute. Solar noon for Eastern Standard Time Maine will be far earlier than noon for Eastern Standard time Indiana. For that matter, solar noon for western Maine will be later than solar noon for Eastern Maine.

My point is we count hours for the sake of convenience, so that we can all plan things. The hours we count have some relation to the sun, but not an exact correspondence. This has been the case for about 700 years. Therefore Daylight Savings Time is really no big deal. It's just a way of adjusting a somewhat arbitrary system that is never in exact accord with nature to begin with.

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But even making this case has been a struggle.

We live in strange times, whether Daylight or Standard.

Salisbury Cathedral, home of the world's first mechanical clock.