Mexico City Photos

Pentecost - Whitsunday
Queenship of Mary

I put more Mexico City photos on my Flickr page.

The Anti-Haiku Haiku

Haikus: not for me;
I print the ones I’m sent and –
oh, what a bonfire!

- by S.E.R., 28 May 2009

Guadalupe

"For I am truly your compassionate Mother: your Mother and the Mother to all who dwell in this land and to all other nations and peoples who love me and call and entreat me. I am the Mother of all who seek me and place their trust in me."
- Our Lady of Guadalupe

At the shrine of Guadalupe, Mexico

The pinnacle of my trip last weekend was a visit to the Shrine of Guadalupe.

Mexico City After All

So I went to Mexico City after all.

Friday night I arrived and was greeted by an earthquake. Cell phone coverage was spotty for a time as a result, so it took me a while to get in touch with my local contacts; otherwise I was unaffected.

Saturday I visited the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was the fulfillment of an old promise. Later in the day I went to the Teotihuacan pyramids; in the first 41 years of my life I managed to avoid climbing any pyramids, but on Saturday I made up for lost time by climbing three. I ended the day with a trip to the Tepotzotlan museum.

Sunday I visited the Church of the Holy Family and paid my respects to Bl. Fr. Pro; after that I went to Mass. Afterward I spent the afternoon at the Anthropological Museum.

Tomorrow I fly home; photos, video, and more details to follow.

To Tut or Not to Tut

Yesterday I made my way down to the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center to gaze upon several dozen King Tut knick-knacks, gimcracks, and bric-a-brac. The ancient Egyptians, it turns out, believed that the skin of their deities was made of gold, which is why they wrapped up their dead pharaohs in so much of it. Who knew?

Funeral Mask of King Tut Ankh Amun
Knick-knacks travel, but the mask stays in Egypt

The story of Tut (d. 1324 BC) is vague on a number of points. He was probably the son of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten (d. 1335 BC), who had attempted to compel his subjects to adopt his novel monotheistic religion of the sun-god Aten. Tut attempted to reverse his father's eccentricities and restore the full pantheon of divinities, but he died an early death at the tender age of 19. Though his efforts were continued by successors, the priests of the time were not the understanding sort: because of his association with Akhenaten they omitted Tut's name from the classic list of kings that were kept in the cities of Abydos and Karnak. His Egyptian Gothic relations are also no doubt why, though Tut's tomb was filled to the brim with thousands of precious artifacts, it is unimpressively modest by pharaonic standards.

During my tour of the exhibit I came upon the name and a few statuettes of the warlike pharaoh Rameses. This was the Rameses with whom Moses contended and whose troops became lost at sea without quitting their chariots. Interestingly, archeological records are mum on the topics of the 10 plagues from Heaven, the Hebrew slaves escaping the land of bondage, and the Egyptian army being engulfed by a Red Sea tidal wave. Yet if the minimalist tale of Tut is any help, it illustrates that the pre-Ptolemaic Egyptians were not of a mind to keep records of unmentionable embarrassments.

Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat.

Dan and Ron's Mediocrity

N.Y. Times film critic A.O. Scott had this to say about the latest Dan Brown/Ron Howard offering:

"Since 'Angels & Demons' takes place mainly in the Vatican, and is festooned with the rites and ornaments of Roman Catholicism, I might as well begin with a confession. I have not read the novel by Dan Brown on which this film (directed, like its predecessor, 'The Da Vinci Code,' by Ron Howard) is based. I have come to believe that to do so would be a sin against my faith, not in the Church of Rome but in the English language, a noble and beleaguered institution against which Mr. Brown practices vile and unspeakable blasphemy."

Scott continues, "This movie, without being particularly good...combines the visual charm of mass-produced postcards with the mental stimulation of an easy Monday crossword puzzle."

So, as a work of fiction the tale is badly written, and as a film it is a banal effort. From a theological standpoint it can be viewed as yet another hatchet job like the duo's previous handiwork; thus, that Dan is a hack writer and Ron peaked with Opie are just aggravating factors.

Student Hoaxes World's Media

Source

Twenty-two year old Sociology major Shane Fitzgerald of Dublin University wanted to test how readily modern media upholds accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

So he posted a phony poetic quote on Wikipedia about French composer Maurice Jarre (RIP), then watched as his unattributed "quotation" was picked up by newspapers around the globe.

Fitzgerald's experiment was an unethical act of virtual vandalism. It also underscored the unreliability of publicly-edited articles.

Wikimedia spokesman Jay Walsh stressed that Wikipedia editors picked up on the unattributed quotation and removed it from the site within a few hours.

But what if the author had provided a source as part of his experiment? Would the editors have been as quick to correct the entry? Perhaps a future experiment will provide an informative answer.

In the meantime, use Wiki as you like, but caveat emptor.