So many links ...

so little time. First, a poem :) ...



- Unit of Measure - Sandra Beasley

All can be measured by the standard of the capybara.
Everyone is lesser than or greater than the capybara.
Everything is taller or shorter than the capybara.
Everything is mistaken for a Brazilian dance craze
more or less frequently than the capybara.
Everyone eats greater or fewer watermelons
than the capybara. Everyone eats more or less bark.
Everyone barks more than or less than the capybara,
who also whistles, clicks, grunts, and emits what is known
as his alarm squeal. Everyone is more or less alarmed
than a capybara, who—because his back legs
are longer than his front legs—feels like
he is going downhill at all times.
Everyone is more or less a master of grasses
than the capybara. Or going by the scientific name,
more or less Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris—
or, going by the Greek translation, more or less
water hog. Everyone is more or less
of a fish than the capybara, defined as the outermost realm
of fishdom by the 16th-century Catholic Church.
Everyone is eaten more or less often for Lent than
the capybara. Shredded, spiced, and served over plantains,
everything tastes more or less like pork
than the capybara. Before you decide that you are
greater than or lesser than a capybara, consider
that while the Brazilian capybara breeds only once a year,
the Venezuelan variety mates continuously.
Consider the last time you mated continuously.
Consider the year of your childhood when you had
exactly as many teeth as the capybara—
twenty—and all yours fell out, and all his
kept growing. Consider how his skin stretches
in only one direction. Accept that you are stretchier
than the capybara. Accept that you have foolishly
distributed your eyes, ears, and nostrils
all over your face. Accept that now you will never be able
to sleep underwater. Accept that the fish
will never gather to your capybara body offering
their soft, finned love. One of us, they say, one of us,
but they will not say it to you.

- There's a post about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ at Thinking Faith. I don't know a lot about him, but when I do think of him, one thing comes to mind: the Piltdown Man hoax in which he was involved. Here's a past article on that ... Deceiver, joker or innocent? Teilhard de Chardin and Piltdown Man by J. Francis Thackeray, originally published in Antiquity.

- Cardinal George revises history ... spinning the forced release of clergy sex abuse documentation

- Yay! Another cardinal has taken the CDF's Müller (and his infamous talk on marriage) down a peg ...

The leading member of the Council of Cardinals (C8) has sharply criticised the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal-designate Gerhard Müller. In several recent statements Cardinal-designate Müller has ruled out any revision of church rules barring divorced and civilly remarried Catholics from the sacraments.

Asked about this in an interview with the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, a Honduran, said: “He’s a German, one has to say, and above all he’s a German theology professor, so in his mentality there’s only truth and falsehood. But I say, my brother, the world isn’t like this, and you should be a little flexible when you hear other voices. That means not just listening and then saying no.” ...


- I'm looking forward to seeing the new BBC tv series, The Musketeers. I've read all the Dumas books and have seen most of the movies. The Catholic Herald is upset because the series is being mean to Cardinal Richelieu ... Sorry BBC, Cardinal Richelieu was not a beard-stroking evil genius. I think they may actually be right in a way .... Richelieu was the villain of the stories by Dumas (Dumas didn't like the Jesuits either) but in real life, Richelieu was, as one of my history teachers used to say, the best king France never had. Here's a trailer for the show ...