Albertus Minimus

The missionaries of pornography

When I first got what I later realised was a spam trackback, I clicked on it to see who was linking to me. I wish I hadn't. Now I'm sufficiently clued in to know: don't look, delete. But, excuse me while I take a few minutes to rant, this morning was a bit b****y excessive. 41, yes, that's right, forty one, trackbacks that I had to clear away. Most of them were, to put it mildly, clear as to what was being offered at a mouse click's remove, but there were a couple that one could have followed in all innocence and fallen into a nightmare of windows opening and reopening and reopening despite your efforts – like the Medusa, a new head appearing each time an old one is chopped off. (Yes, I have had the experience of clicking onto a porn website without meaning to, and then having new windows keep opening despite my efforts to shut them down, until in desperation I switched the computer off.)

Look, this is what I want to say to you, Mr Pornographer: you've got your way, your products (who are people, though you seem to forget that) are peddled with greater freedom than ever before, why can't you leave me alone? Why do you have to follow me into my world, waving your cheap pleasures, like a missionary for the devil. I don't want you here – we don't want you here – so, enough. You claim to be a prophet of freedom, so leave me my freedom not to look. But you can't do that, can you? It's not enough to be able to market your wares freely to those who want them, you want to shove them in the faces of those who don't. It's like a man, covered in filth, who does not want to wash but, when he sees others cleaner than himself becomes enraged and throws great handfuls of dirt and mud at them, so that they may become as filthy as he. Is that the only way you can quiet your conscience: by repeating to yourself that we're po-faced moralists, mere hypocrites who fear to do in secret what you do in the open? Think you so? Sure, I know, I am no man of perfection, but I do know that our bodies were made for more than moneyed pleasures, or pleasuring money.

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 94.

Mac and wife

With respect to the battle between Mrs Minimus and our computer, I returned home last night to find the Mac sulking in the corner, refusing to cooperate with my wife. She had tried to restart it, had pulled the plug out, pretty well everything to persuade the reluctant critter to start again from the beginning, but all she got was that message familiar to Mac users: 'Your computer did not shut down properly last time. Disk First Aid is scanning the computer and will repair any problems.'

The problem was, the scan being completed and the 'Done' icon lighting up, hitting return did nothing. I tried to move the mouse over to the icon to click it, but the mouse was frozen. This really wasn't on. I know Mrs Minimus and Mac have a fraught relationship built largely on mutual mistrust and suspicion, but me and Mac, we were old friends. We'd spent many happy hours together in the past.

'See, I told you it wasn't working,' Mrs Minimus helpfully pointed out, standing with arms crossed over her chest and an expression of righteous vindication on her face.

I had to admit that she was right. Maybe there was some problem with the extensions? I restarted Mac with the Apple button pressed down, which should disable extensions and stop any conflicts there. Mrs Minimus was looking dubious. 'Maybe I should go out of the room,' she said. 'It really doesn't like me.'

Up came the familiar warning, and First Aid tried again to repair any problems on the hard disk, while I attempted to reassure Mrs Minimus that it wasn't that Mac didn't like her, it was more that there was a problem of a lack of mutual trust and understanding.

Scan completed, I hit return.

Nothing.

The mouse: frozen solider than a rat in a glacier.

'Told you it doesn't like me,' said Mrs Minimus.

A moment of panic overcame me: we really couldn't afford a replacement computer, maybe it had been infected by a virus, maybe the children had pressed the wrong button when they were watching the trains (long story, but the Minimuses minor are both train fanatics and I have found that you can download video clips of trains off the internet. Many happy hours later we are still watching freight trains in British Columbia, passenger trains in India and the Inter City Express in Germany).

The only thing I could think of doing was trying to restart the computer again, so I reached round the side for the restart button, feeling for the recess, fingers guiding themselves to the location by the input leads.

Only, my fingers only encountered Mac's smooth plastic. I peered around the edge of the screen. There, lying innocently on the work bench, was the input from the keyboard.

Mrs Minimus continues to deny any responsibility for disconnecting the keyboard. She claims that Mac spat the lead out himself, in a malicious effort to ruin Mrs Minimus's day. Ordinarily I would discount such a wild idea, but for the fact that Mac's little smiley face turned into a frown when he saw Mrs Minimus looking at him...

Quote unquote

A request to my more technically minded readers: what do I type so that Typepad will show quoted material as an indented paragraph. For the life of me I can't find it in the help manual, I've experimented with all sorts of permutations on < some variation of the word quote > and can I get it? No. Any help would be gratefully accepted.

Farewell Petra

I had finally resolved tonight to do something I should have done weeks ago, and rejig the design of this blog so that Lumen de Lumine, which is sitting in with the German blogs, is given what Petra deserves: her own category of Austrian Catholic blog. Not having checked the site for a few weeks, I go and take a look only to discover that the blog has been put on hold while Petra completes her dissertation on English Catholic Literature in the 2nd Half of the 20th Century. So my apologies for taking so long to make the change that it's now academic, but I hope that Petra might post some extracts from her thesis over the months ahead, both for its own interest and because it will, I suspect, shed much light on the question of the disappearing Catholic intellectual.

Would you like a coffee?

Mrs Minimus, a most learned lady in the fields of history and theatre, suggested an illuminating analogy for the blogs of today: the coffee-houses of Restoration London. The analogy holds with respect to the explosive growth of both phenomena: the first coffee-house opened in Holborn in in 1650 and by 1663 there were 82 of them in London. But what was the function of a coffee-house, apart of course from being a place to drink a cup of java?

The London coffee-houses provided a gathering place where, for a penny admission charge, any man who was reasonably dressed could smoke his long, clay pipe, sip a dish of coffee, read the newsletters of the day, or enter into conversation with other patrons.   At the period when journalism was in its infancy and the postal system was unorganised and irregular, the coffee-house provided a centre of communication for news and information.  Runners were sent round to the coffee-house to report major events of the day, such as victory in battle or political upheaval, and the newsletters and gazettes of the day were distributed chiefly in the coffee-house.  Most of the establishments functioned as reading rooms, for the cost of newspapers and pamphlets was included in the admission charge.  In addition, bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions covered the walls of the establishments, providing valuable information to the businessman who conducted much of his business from a table at his favourite coffee-house.

Another similarity can be found in the charge often levelled at the blogosphere: that it is an echo chamber for those of like minds to convince themselves of the truth of their own ideas. While there is some truth in this, it's worth remembering that these coffee-houses, from which so many of our modern ideas sprang, shared similar characteristics. Thus Whigs would sip their drinks in St. James while the Tories frequented the Cocoa-Tree. Although these establishments later became members-only clubs, they were for many years open to anyone who wished to visit and was prepared to pay the admission. In a like manner, anyone is free to visit Instapundit or the Daily Kos, although I suspect few people read both regularly.

Of course, one real difference is that in day's past the patrons of coffee-houses were required to be 'reasonably dressed' whereas the denizens of today's blogosphere are notorious for their pyjama wearing proclivities. Still, apart from this, there do seem to be some fascinating comparisons between the two phenomena.

Two new additions and one new country

I've added two new blogs to the roll, namely America's Sed Contra and Canada's The Sheepcat. Both are excellent and, together with Australia's Dreadnought, which is already listed provide an excellent insight into the difficulties and courage of Catholics with same sex attraction.

As to the country, you'll see that we have a 'new' Filipino blog. I had labelled Sancta Sanctis mistakenly as from New Zealand, for which I apologise to Enbrethiliel, but if anything its relocation to the Philippines makes it even more interesting. If you get the chance, I hope you'll take a look at these excellent sites.

It's November, it's cold, it's time to add to the blogroll

I've added some new links to the blogroll, and three new country categories: Canada, New Zealand and Poland. So it's a warm welcome to:

Insight Scoop: the Ignatius Press blog

Monialses OP - the blog of the Dominican nuns

British Columbia's Ephemeris

New Zealand's Sancta Sanctis, A 'blog written and maintained by Enbrethiliel and her Guardian Angel, Antony, under the patronage of her Confirmation saint, St. Therese of the Child Jesus

And two Polish blogs that look interesting. If anyone speaks Polish and would like to translate an entry or two, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Bóg, Z'ycie, Rap i nie tylko...

O Bonitas! O Dobroci! A blog from the Little Sisters of Bethlehem

I hope you will enjoy the links and my grateful thanks to all who suggested them, in particular Berenike and Sharon. If nothing else, they help in our sense of the Church as both local and universal.

A bout of autumn blogkeeping

As you can see, I've added another category to the side bar on the right hand of the page: Finnish Catholic blogs. At the moment it has only one entry, and I suspect that it's not likely to increase too much beyond that, but it's fascinating to have an insight into the Church in Finland (and many of the posts are in English, too). So welcome to Instaurare Omnia in Christo! To Restore All things in Christ.

And welcome also to the Commonplace Book of Zadok the Roman, the weblog of an American living in the Eternal City and generally enjoying it (and how could one not enjoy a city where - and I saw this myself - a restaurateur will tell customers who are complaining that the food is taking too long to cook to take their custom to McDonald's).

The categories have also been moved into alphabetical order, with the exception of the UK and Irish Catholic blogs which, with a display of patriotic bluster, for the moment I leave at the top of the side bar. Berenike has also rightly pointed out that one of the listed German Catholic blogs, Lumen de Lumine is in fact Austrian, and one of the Spanish Catholic blogs (Esperando nacer) is really Argentinian. The question is whether I can get away with language groups in these cases, or do you think they should really have national categories too. Ah, the quandaries of a bloggers life. Save me from my dilemma: tell me what I should do.

Welcome to our digital world, new blogroll friends

I've spent the last hour or so updating the blogroll on the right hand side of the page with the links that you were kind enough to suggest. So, as you can see, we now have several new categories:

Australian Catholic blogs
Spanish Catholic blogs
Italian Catholic blogs
Belgian Catholic blogs

At the moment they're not overfull of links, but that should change over the coming weeks and months. If you come across anybody that you think should be added, please email me. The Belgian and Catholic blogs I've linked to are actually written in English (allegedly, the Aussie ones are too).

I've also added three new links to the list of German Catholic blogs. It's interesting to note how many of these blogs have started up over the last three or four months: maybe the election of Benedict XVI as pope is having some effect in his fatherland.

There is also a new directory of Spanish blogs added to the directory lists at the bottom of the page, and finally, and something I should have done long ago, I've added 'In illo tempore' to the roll of American Catholic blogs.

If nothing else, this gives us a taste of the world wide reach of the universal church.

Last call for blogroll suggestions

Thank you for all the suggestions for blogroll links. If you have any more, please add them here. In particular, I was thinking that well nigh everyone links to Mark Shea, the Anchoress, Amy Welborn et al, and for obvious reasons: they're among the best bloggers writing. But I'd like your suggestions for smaller, less well known blogs that you think ought to be added to the blog roll. For instance, I discovered Cacoethes Scribendi, an excellent group blog, through writing here and I know there are many more out there. So please let me know which small Catholic blogs you think deserve a wider readership, and we can add them to the list.