Deacons

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”  (Acts 6:1–4, RSVCE)

It doesn't say anything there about deacons giving homilies. In fact, the deacons were ordained so that those whose work was preaching and ministry of the word could concentrate on their primary work without getting lost in more mundane tasks. 

Today I had to suffer through another of our parish deacon's twenty minute homilies. Nice guy. Does great work ("prison ministry" -- better him than me!). Terrible voice. Every clause inflected on the same two tones, up down, up down, up down. No variation in tempo. Twenty minutes.  

Given that Catholic deacons are cleared to preach nowadays, I might excuse him getting "tasked" with preaching if I figured he was just accepting in humility and trying to make the best of it. Like by trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. Like maybe seven minutes?  A brief and to-the-point  monotonous drone would not be as sleep- or headache-inducing. But twenty minutes? Twenty minutes speaks to a certain level of taking yourself too seriously combined with a certain lack of self-reflection. Rush Limbaugh used to call it the liberal combination of ignorance and arrogance. 

But really. From a scriptural point of view, why are we asking deacons go give homilies? Why do that to such a nice guy? 

Wetlands Tanka

On a morning run,

I have the marsh to myself.

That is -- not counting

The sparrows, wrens, and egrets,

The lizards and the ground squirrels...

...One young coyote

Decides I am not a threat,

And jogs on ahead.

A meadowlark rises up,

Spreads its wings and glides away.

Here's a Meme Instead of Something

Political Crony Busywork

This year my town spent an awful lot of time and money jackhammering corners and installing these ramp things with the yellow plastic dotty mats that make it more challenging for wheelchairs and baby strollers but signal to the visually impaired that they are at a corner ramp. 

Like most of its brethren, this one is covered in twigs, leaves, and dirt. When we had a bit of rain a while ago, most of these new installations also showed that drainage was not part of the specification. They literally showed new lows in civic design by holding water at the base of the dotty pads. Mud. Leaf mould. Well, city authorities are committed to composting. 

The terrain in this neighborhood is hilly. It's pretty easy to go for a walk of a mile and a half and rack up three or four hundred feet of elevation gain. Serious hills and grades. This may seem insensitive, but I have to ask: wheelchair ramps? Really? Here? 

It is not about access for the differently abled. It is not about safe sidewalks or mosquito abatement. 

It's paybacks to union cronies and kickbacks to the ruling enablers. It's money moving out and back. Out of our pockets and into theirs. That's sure what it looks like, anyway. 

Metric Paper

In 1922 Germany came up with a standard for paper sizes that had nothing to do with aesthetics. DIN476 was devised by Dr. Walter Porstmann in order to save paper. 

A sheet of "A0" paper is 841mm × 1189mm, which is equal to1 square meter (well, minus a skosh). And you may have noticed that metric paper is not sold on pounds bond but in grams per square meter.

The proportion is 1 × √2. Porstmann's Big Idea of print room hygiene is that, under his system, every time you cut the paper in half parallel to the small side you get two sheets with the same short to long side ratio. So the fourth time you cut a sheet smaller, you get A4 paper, which is 1/16th of a meter in area and -- Look, Ma!! -- has the same ratio of short side to long side as the A0 one meter sheet. That must have really tickled Herr Doktor Porstmann's über-hygienic Teutonic fancy.

So anyway that is why metric "letter size" paper sort of looks like a teenager that grew up in a vegetarian home. 

I couldn't leave well enough alone, and had to look up whether print room hygiene scales down to business card size. If there is any respect for Porstmann's ghost, German business cards should be A8, a tad smaller than what we call business card size, at 52.5×74mm. 

Well there is such a thing as A8. I note that the official A8 dimensions are not as calculated, but are fudged down to 52×74mm. Hmm.  

And A8 is NOT what is/was used for business cards in Metric Land. One must say auf wiedersehen to DIN476 and Porstmann's Big Idea because it just didn't cut it as a Small Idea. One must now step over to ISO 7810 ID dash 1, the separate Business Card standard. Why? Because the metric A# system is just too skinny and anemic looking, especially next to one's collection of healthy American business cards. 

So: what dimensions did they adopt for ISO 7810 ID-1 ?  

As close as they could come to 2-1/8" × 3-3/8"! The USA card size! But it's metric so 54×85.6mm.  

And I just KNOW down to my toes that European printers are laying out their business cards 3-up on their A4 card stock, cutting them out, like a normal person, with their paper guillotine, and leaving their snippels on the print room floor -- for later eco-hygienic recycling, of course.

Autumn Cool and Bright

No clouds, cool breeze, leaves falling...

Best of times.

(Humming a bit of a tune.)

"Live" Streaming an Execution

"If you look at the list of countries engaging in public executions these days, it includes Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia (although the latter is changing). Is that a group to emulate?" 

Good question from The New Neo.

This, though:

But I think I am agnostic-to-negative on the open public spectacle thing.