the Klopts' agenda

While editing my perhaps never to be finished Encyclopedia Xenologica, I return to pondering my favorite science fiction writer, Cordwainer Smith, for the umpteenth time. I discovered that his word "klopt" probably comes from the Dutch with his characteristic word play for the greatest enemy of (wo)mankind. It's ironic too because the Klopts have good reason for thinking of girl babies as a birth defect. It's ironic too because of how very relevant the dehumanization of women is now when Smith wrote his story fifty years ago.  It also ties in with recent blogging on the pregnant man hoax. He and his stories were definitely ahead of his time. I even learne a bit about genetics to add to my entry.

Klopts: [Dut. correct, true] “lost children of mankind”, “singing monsters” singing “We want in, in, in!”, “worst people ever to get loose among the stars”, surviving colonists on Arachosia transformed by Astarte Kraus into feuding, burlesque, misogynic heterophobes, opposed by legendary Catlanders (“The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal” by Cordwainer Smith), from XXY, XXYY and XYY Klinefelters to ‘neither male nor female” YY bleeders with steely-hair and red-green colorblindness, see psi-Klopts, Ptokls

The Third Steward

I feel compelled to ponder the contrast between the homily Sunday and today on the same Gospel passage. On Sunday the third steward of the parable was described as prudent, like many nowadays not trusting the banks, not wanting to risk what they cannot affort to loose.
Today the homily's point was from a completely different direction as an encouragement to increase the influence of the Word of God we have been given and not to "bury" it.
Could both be right? The Word of God is much more valuable than mere money yet we are to be good stewards of "little things" like money as well. We are told not to cast pearls before swine, not to share the Word of God to those who would not hear it. Perhaps we are called to be both kinds of stewards at once, guided by the Holy Spirit Who blows God only knows where.

St. Francis and the Renegade Refugee

I just watched the most interesting Perry Mason episode I've seen. As usual it was a complex tangle of a Nazi war criminal, a deserter, a couple blackmailers, an embezzler, a theif and a murderer. What made it different was that the victim was killed at St. Francis Retreat. Perry learns the life story of St. Francis from the priest. But it also had the Nazi revealing his identity to save Perry's client while holding a rosary and the client, as usual proved innocent of murder, but also a war hero. A very happy happy ending.

Personhood loses.

The defeat of Mississippi's re-redefinition of personhood as beginning at conception is a loss to all persons ever conceived. It reminds one of the civil-war-triggering mistake of making colored people unpeople. The rampant dehumanization in the world-wide culture of death is not an issue that will just go away. It reminds me also of "Logan's Run" where persons after a certain deadline were made eliminated. It's a fight-or-fight moment.

OMG! I agree with Sheldon!

I was surfing again and came across "Big Bang Theory" when Sheldon objected to Leonard turning off "the Deep Space Nine/Star Trek: The Original Series Tribble crossover" episode, better known as "Trials and Tribblations", which I could quite understand. Who wouldn't want to see Dax in a miniskirt! He also argues that the Crisis of Alternative Universes never happened. He's not as strange as I thought he was -- or does this mean that I'm stranger than I thought I was? It did get me to switch to watching my own copy of the classic Trek episode, maybe even a Tribblathon with animated Star Trek's "More Tribbles, More Trouble".

Plutocrats Beware!

On this election day I think upon this plutocracy in which we live, in which money and the power which it gives is what is deemed important. I remember
"RICH AND POOR" inspired by Psalm 49 included in Psalms, Hymns and Inspired Songs.
Rich and poor alike must hear this, men and women, low and high,
For my lips speak words of wisdom all would do well to apply.
With these words we'll solve our problems and no longer afraid be:
"Why should we fear in evil days when our God is almighty?"
He alone can ransom from death or souls unto Himself draw,
So do not fear the man who's rich, who holds not his Lord in awe.
Nothing goes with him when he dies. All his stored up wealth he'll lose,
If he does not soon mend his ways and the Source of all wealth choose.

heavenly "Cold Heaven"

While channel surfing I discovered the unexpectedly good "Cold Heaven", which portrayed spiritual warfare quite believably. The portrayal of the unbelieving visionary Maria Davenport was believable, as was the diabolic relapses of her husband Alex, connected to her wavering between her husband and her lover and the prophetically dreaming Sr. Martha. The best part however was Fr. Niles' encouraging the adultress to go "sin no more" and go back to her husband, even before she knows he's been healed. He runs back. The devil's dispossesion of Msgr. Cassidy was believable too, though seen only by the viewer. It was very pro-prayer, pro-marriage, very much like experiences I've had or heard of, though it didn't look like it would be at first glance. Such subtle, hierogamous interventions of the heavenly in our lives are puzzling to those who don't experience them but quite believable to us who do.

on-fire Fr. Barron

I just finished an article for the November My People newspaper on Fr. Robert Barron, host of the new "Catholicism" series and the man behind the Word on Fire ministry. It's too much to describe hear, but Fr. Barron and the Holy Spirit working through him re-energizes me even though I have always been a believing, practicing Catholic since pre-Vatican II. To me it seems like much of the same old truths that we were taught 50 years ago, but I forget that since then too many have not been ignited. God bless Fr. Barron and the rest of those behind WoF!

Curse of the Rapechildren

This blog entry was prompted by watching "Curse of the Werewolf" after listening on our Catholic radio station to testimonies of children who survived being conceived by rape. They unanimously are for not aborting others like themselves, the most innocent victims of the horrible crime. In the horror movie the title werewolf is not the poor beggar kept in the dungeon for twenty years, not the mute servant girl who kills her cruel master. They are his parents. By the grace of God the testimonies did not turn out tragically in real life as the story on the screen. Some of the Rapechildren were adopted, but all deserve better than the wolfboy got.
There was even a strange scene in the movie where the old woman tells the rescuer of the rape victim that the curse was because of the baby being born on Christmas (not because of being conceived by a rapist, which she did not know). That's as ridiculous as thinking Rapechildren are cursed. Rod Serling and Isaac Newton were Christmas babies and we've all been blessed through them, to say nothing of Mary's Baby.