Review: A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

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A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War, Joseph Loconte. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015.

Summary: A study of why Lewis and Tolkien, contrary to a disillusioned post-war generation, went deeper into their faith and allowed both war experience and that faith to shape their greatest works.

In one sense, Joseph Loconte covers ground that others have covered in exploring the lives and work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. What Loconte uniquely does are two things. For one, he explores why Lewis and Tolkien defied the trajectory into disillusionment of so many in the post-World War I generation, and went on to embrace and espouse a vibrant Christian faith. As for the second, Loconte reads the works of these two men, exploring how war experiences shaped the imaginary worlds of Narnia, the Space Trilogy, and Middle Earth. He articulates his particular theses as follows:

     “Indeed, it was the experience of war that provided much of the raw material for the characters and themes of their imaginative works. In a talk called ‘Learning in War Time,’ Lewis explained how war exposes the folly in placing our happiness in utopian schemes to transform society. ‘If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.’ As we’ll see, unlike the disillusionment that overwhelmed much of his generation, Lewis would use the experience of war–its horror as well as its nobility–as a guidepost to moral clarity.”

For Loconte then, the beginning point is to discuss the “Myth of Progress” that preceded the war as it viewed humans, society, and technology evolving to ever more enlightened forms by which humanity would cast off the darkness of ignorance that had contributed to so much suffering in the past. With the onset of the war and the horrors of the trench warfare (perhaps Tolkien’s inspiration for his vision of Mordor), these illusions were shattered for many. Both were casualties of war through illness or wounds. In Lewis’ case, a journey through the country to a hospital to convalesce may have sparked a vision of Narnia. It was during Lewis’s war years that he came across George McDonald’s Phantastes, that certainly contributed to the conversion of his imagination.

War’s end brought the massive disillusionment of much of the intellectual class. While Tolkien devoted himself to work and to his Catholic faith, and began to sketch the outlines of the great myth that would be the foundation of Lord of the Rings, Lewis struggled with doubt. Lewis and Tolkien first met in 1926, recognizing their common interest in languages. But they had a profound disagreement about myth that culminated in a long conversation between Lewis, Tolkien, and Hugo Dyson in which Lewis recognized the story of Christ dying and rising to be a true myth, a crucial step for Lewis in coming to Christian faith. In the years ahead, they would collaborate as two key figures in a larger group knowing as the Inklings in a host of writing projects that birthed the Space Trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as many of Lewis’s apologetic works. Through the mutual encouragement they gave each other and their vibrant faith, they provide a counter for the outpouring of disillusioned, despairing writing of the post-war period.

What is more, they envisioned in their work, shaped by their experience of a brutally efficient technology unhinged from a larger theological framework, the ways bureaucracy and technology might interweave to obliterate the human image in books like That Hideous Strength, or in the idea of a Ring of Power that could subject all manner of beings to its owner’s bidding. Seeing the machines of war in their own experience, and the more sinister regimes of Hitler and Stalin, they could write of the evil power that, as Screwtape desires, would devour the other.

Yet Loconte shows how this bracing grasp of the nature of evil did not discourage them. Their works were infused with Christian hope–an Aslan that rises, a hobbit who, against all hopes, fulfills his mission with the help of tragic Gollum, the crowning of Aragorn as the long-awaited great king, and the Christ-like figure of Ransom, who summons both Merlin and the angels to subvert the villainies of the N.I.C.E. Like the foot soldiers in the war, many of the most significant turns of events come from the actions of children and hobbits doing their duty.

This, as I said, is not a book that covers new ground, but I found myself as I read making new connections, the “I hadn’t thought of it that way” moments when you see something you know in a new way. Loconte concludes the book with a tribute to grandfather, Michele Loconte, who fought with the American forces, and only after the war became a U.S. citizen. Loconte says his research helped him understand more how the war had an impact on so many ordinary families including his own. Fitting that an Inklings scholar should make this connection between his own history and that of the Inklings!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Trading Stamps

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By Bill Hathorn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11219825

Remember trading stamps? S&H Green Stamps, Plaid Stamps, Top Value Stamps, GeM Stamps, Eagle Stamps? These were a fixture of our growing up years. My wife can point to a guitar, an old blue suitcase, and a bowl we use for potato chips that were obtained by redeeming Green Stamps. I remember my folks getting a set of TV trays with theirs, and I have an HO slot car set buried somewhere in our house, the nucleus of which came from trading stamps redeemed for a Christmas gift.

Essentially, these functioned similar to customer loyalty cards and cash back rewards on our credit cards. It was a way by which retails stores, grocery stores, and gas stations encouraged repeat business. We received Plaid Stamps at A & P, Green Stamps at many businesses and gas stations, Top Value stamps at Kroger (when they still did business in Youngstown).

Both of the big downtown department stores gave out trading stamps. I know because one of my jobs in customer service at McKelvey’s (later Higbee’s) was to give out GeM stamps (from G.M. McKelvey) when customers would bring us their receipts. We also redeemed the pink savings books for store cash. Strouss’ had a similar program with Eagle Stamps, from their parent company, May. The challenge was how to tell customers that we could not redeem their Eagle Stamp books at McKelvey’s. And when Higbee’s management decided to discontinue the stamps, we got an earful!

S & H (short for Sperry & Hutchinson) Green Stamps had local “redemption centers”, showrooms where you could see available items and how many Green Stamp books it would take to “trade” for the item. It felt like you had gotten something for nothing when you walked out of a store with an item for which you had exchanged a bunch of stamps that the grocery stores and other businesses gave you automatically. I seem to recall that some of the trading stamp companies also had catalogs from which you could order, paying with your completed books.

One difference from today’s loyalty programs is that when you pasted your stamps into their books, you could immediately see your progress toward the goal of a completed book. These days, you have to check an app or go to a website–the feedback is more virtual than tangible, and carries with it all the data retailers are gaining about our shopping preferences and habits. The old way was far more private–no one knew what you had purchased to get those stamps. All I ever looked at on receipts was the amount someone had spent.

According to Wikipedia, at one time S & H Green Stamps boasted that they printed more stamps each year than the U.S. government. This changed during the recessions of the Seventies as gas stations stopped giving them out during the energy crisis, and stores cut prices rather than give out stamps, or turned more to couponing. Now trading stamps are among the ephemera of a by-gone era.

Do you still have any laying around your house, perhaps hidden away in a drawer? Would love to see your pictures.

Review: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

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So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson. London: Picador, 2015.*

Summary: Explores the use of social media for public shaming of individuals, the dark side of ourselves this reveals, and the ways those shamed deal with this experience.

If you have any kind of presence on social media, this book should give you pause. In fact, even if you are not on social media, it might make you think. Any kind of transgression, whether an offensive statement, or an impulsive act can become the object of a public shaming campaign on social media. It often can be vicious, pervasive, you can even lose your job, and it stays there–on the internet.

Jon Ronson begins by describing how he used shaming to free himself from a form of identity theft cloaked in academic jargon, as a group of researchers created a spambot identity on Twitter of Ronson. Ronson’s only recourse after a film interview of the spambot creators being cute was to upload a video (yes, they were arrogant enough to allow themselves to be filmed) to expose what they were doing. A vicious series of comments wishing all sorts of unspeakable fates followed. The spambot came down. One more victorious shaming campaign!

Then along comes the case of Jonah Lehrer, a one-time promising science writer exposed by journeyman journalist Michael Moynihan. Moynihan became suspicious of quotes of Bob Dylan in Lehrer’s book on creativity. They just didn’t sound like Dylan to him, and it turns out they were fabricated. Other material was plagiarized from press-releases, and from earlier pieces he’d written (self plagiarism, a little more controversial, but the rule is still to cite yourself rather than use the material uncited). When Moynihan published an article it effectively spelled the end of his journalism career. Ronson recounts the eerie scene in St. Louis, where Lehrer attempts a poorly constructed apology, with a live Twitter stream of comments being shown on a screen behind him. Posts like this were typical:

“Rantings of a Delusional, Unrepentant Narcissist.” (p. 43)

Lehrer, as far as I can tell is still trying to reconstruct a writing career with a blog focusing on social science writing and recently released A Book About Love which makes a more forthright apology than the St. Louis speech, but has received mixed reviews. Fabrication and plagiarism tend to be career-enders for writers. In Lehrer’s case, social media and the internet make it far worse. A Google search still readily turns up the articles about his transgressions.

Ronson moves on to other lesser-knowns. There is the case of Justine Sacco, working in a New York public relations firm (of all things),who foolishly hit “send” on this tweet:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” (p. 64)

She became  world number one trending topic on Twitter, before her plane landed, and no efforts to scrub Twitter, or issue an apology could save her job. He recounts the case of “Hank”, who at a software developers conference made a sexually innuendo-ed joke while sitting behind a woman developer, Adria. She turned, photographed him, and tweeted the incident. He came home to find he was out of a job. Eventually he posted something about this to find much of the developer community rally to his cause and shame Adria. Consequently the shamer became not only the shamed, but also lost her job.

As Ronson goes into these accounts, he begins to wonder what they reveal about the shamers, including himself, and their glee, and verbal violence in taking down their targets. Does the anonymity of the internet feed the phenomenon, the social distance between shamer and shamed. He contrasts social media shaming with Judge Ted Poe, who uses public shaming in sentencing. Far from being the “theater of the absurd,” as one blogger called it, Poe maintained, supported by testimony of those he sentenced, that it was the “theater of the effective.” Often, in this kind of public shaming, the defendant ends up being encouraged by people. It is face to face and not anonymous. And it works in turning around lives, maintained Poe.

The latter part of the book explores how people come through shame and explores the interesting idea that those the least apologetic about their shameful activity may cope better. There is the case of Max Mosley, exposed for some rather unusual S & M activities that were alleged to be Nazi scenarios. He turns around and sues the outlet that published this for defamation and wins, on the fact that the Nazi portion of this could not be supported by the facts. He freely admitted his unusual sexual tastes. Ronson also visits shame eradication groups that de-sensitize one to shame. Not exactly his cup of tea.

He explores the case of Lindsey Stone whose friend snapped and posted a picture of her flipping off and shouting at a sign at Arlington National Cemetery that said “Silence and Respect.” The kind of snarky thing lots of kids do, right? Well, the picture went viral, and once again, the comments were vicious, and the result was a lost job. Eventually, Ronson works out a deal with a company that works with online reputations and describes the strategy to bury the damning material way down in search engine results by creating a positive web presence for a person. The goal is to move the damaging stuff to page 2 where nobody ever looks. Their work helps the Lindsey Stone, and others who share her name, mostly by displacing the unsavory image with a host of other photos and web presence under her name.

Ronson’s book raises the question of what much of our “outrage” on social media really reveals, not about the objects of the outrage, but about us. His candor and self-reflectiveness about his own participation in shaming rites on social media invite us to ask, “when have I done this, and what does this say about me?” What I think he doesn’t explore and could be considered is the temptation to be provocative, to push the envelope in order to get more views, comments, follows–the definition of social media success. The closest he gets are the corners Jonah Lehrer cut under the pressures of a burgeoning writing career.

Ronson also reminds us that the consequences of our words on social media have impacts not in virtual reality but in the lives of real people. And his tale reminds us to reflect carefully before hitting the “send”, “post”, or “publish” buttons. Carelessness here could change one’s life, and not in ways one would like. Better re-read this before posting!

*Content and language advisory. Includes descriptions of various forms of sexual expression and profanity.

Review: Eschatology

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eschatology

Eschatology, D. Jeffrey Bingham and Glenn R. Kreider (eds.). Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016.

Summary: A compendium of essays on the future hope of Christians reflecting a dispensational premillenialist perspective.

Craig A. Blaising is a biblical theologian whose roots are in the Baptist tradition. He has taught at three southern seminaries in the U.S. and is known for his work in what is called “progressive dispensationalism.” This volume of essays, a survey of scholarship around the “last things” was compiled in honor of his 65th birthday and certainly reflects this theological tradition at its best.

Discerning what theological persuasion the writers were coming from, I thought, “O.K. here we go, prophecy charts and predictions that our conflict with ISIS is the prelude to Armageddon.” There is none of that in this book. Instead, what I found was good scholarship seeking to be faithful to scripture and relatively wide-ranging in discussing the history of eschatology through church history and the implications of this all for the church, organized into a comprehensive survey that I would suggest reflects the best of dispensational premillenialism.

After introductory essays that include a biography and curriculum vita of Blaising, the book is organized into four sections:

  1. The Doctrine of the Future and Its Foundations
  2. The Doctrine of the Future in the Bible
  3. The Doctrine of the Future in the History of Christian Thought
  4. The Doctrine of the Future and Christian Ministry.

Hence, the collection moves from theological foundations to biblical theology, to historical theology, and to pastoral and practical theology.

The first section includes a fine essay by Stanley D. Toussaint on the concept of hope and the profound basis the prophetic passages offer for hope that sustains endurance and joy. Then Charles C. Ryrie and John D. and Stefana Dan Laing address the eclipse of attention to the prophetic scriptures having to do with our future hope and the impact this has in the life of the church.

The next section explores the doctrine of the future in each part of scripture, essentially doing the spade work to construct a biblical theology from the whole of scripture about our future hope. It was interesting to see the historical books in scripture discussed by Gregory Smith, exploring the implications of the Davidic covenant and its statements about David’s, and Israel’s, distant future hope. If you want to find arguments for a future hope for Israel as a national entity, you will find it among this and other articles in this section.

Section three turns to historical theology with articles beginning with the early fathers and concluding with contemporary European theology, capped off by David Dockery’s article on Millenialism in Contemporary Evangelical Theology, which gives one of the best explanations I have seen of a-, post-, and pre-millenial positions. It was interesting that while several essays concerned Reformed, Anabaptist, and Baptist theology, there was no treatment of eschatology in Wesleyan theology, and a mere subsection of the Contemporary European Theology devoted to Catholic theology.

The final section turns to pastoral and practical concerns. J. Denny Autry discusses the place of eschatological concerns in both preaching and pastoral care. For my money, the book should have ended with R. Albert Mohler’s essay of contemporary challenges. Stephen Blaising’s contribution on the doctrine of the future and the marketplace felt like an add-in to include Blaising’s son in the collection. Mohler concluded his essay with these words, that should have ended the book:

     “The rapid disappearance of cultural Christianity in our own time will mean that Christians may soon find themselves in a situation similar to that of the early church in Rome. Preaching the Lordship of Christ and biblical eschatology rooted in the arrival of God’s kingdom will be considered culturally and politically subversive. Proclaiming a biblical eschatology that heralds the message “Jesus Christ is Lord” will lead to direct confrontation with the culture.

“While the disappearance of cultural Christianity is a cultural disaster, it is also a theological gain. It is disastrous for society because it will destroy a worldview most conducive to human flourishing. A post-Christian culture will be a very inconvenient place to raise your children, minister the gospel, or speak in the public square. Yet, at the same time, the evaporation of cultural Christianity may prove a theological gain for the church. Our lives and beliefs will only make sense if indeed Jesus Christ is Lord and our hope is not bound up in the city of man, but in a city to come. From a gospel witness perspective, that is a very convenient place to be.”

This quibble with the order and selection of these last essays aside, I would commend this collection, along with Dr. Blaising’s own work if you seriously wish to take the measure of dispensational premillenialist eschatological thinking today. This probably could be used as a basic textbook, or at least supplemental text in theology courses in Christian colleges and seminaries sympathetic with the dispensational premillenialist position. Rather than being about prophecy charts and sensational predictions, it is about the substance of Christian hope concerning the future of every believer, the church, Israel, and the world.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Sea Around Us

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The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson. New York: Open Road Media, 2011 (first published 1951).

Summary: A survey of what is known about the oceans– including their beginnings, the dynamics of currents, tides and waves, the topography of the oceans, the life within, and our own relationship with this dominant feature of our planet.

Rachel Carson is probably best known for her book Silent Spring (reviewed here) on the environmental impacts of pesticides, notably DDT, that led to its eventual banning. However, it was The Sea Around Us, published eleven years earlier that brought Carson to national attention as a science writer. It sold over a million copies, won a National Book Award and was a New York Times bestseller.

Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface and account for 97 percent of the water on the planet. At points, oceans covered much of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies and have left their traces to this day. Carson tells the story of oceans, mixing the latest scientific data available to her with a lyrical account of this most salient feature of our planet. Consider this passage about sedimentation:

“When I think of the floor of the deep sea, the single, overwhelming fact that possesses my imagination is the accumulation of sediments. I see the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer–a drift that has continued for hundreds of millions of years, that will go on as long as there are seas and continents.

“For the sediments are the materials of the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the earth has ever seen. It began when the first rains fell on the barren rocks and set in motion the forces of erosion. It was accelerated when living creatures developed in the surface waters and the discarded little shells of lime or silica that had encased them in life began to drift downward to the bottom.  Silently, endlessly, with the deliberation of earth processes that can afford to be slow because they have so much time for completion, the accumulation of the sediments has proceeded. So little in a year, or in a human lifetime, but so enormous an amount in the life of earth and sea.”

With her writing, what sounds like a dull subject, sedimentation, takes on wonder as it is likened to an unremitting snowfall. It is a skill we see over and over in her work as she takes facts and explains them in a way that captures the imagination.

The Sea Around Us introduces us to oceanography from its account of the beginnings of the oceans on a cooling planet to the inhabitants of the seas on the ocean surface and in the dark depths (I found her discussion of squid, and their ubiquity especially fascinating). She explores the seasonal cycles of life, the topography of the ocean floor, the formation of volcanic islands (and their disappearances), and the evidence of historic rises and falls of the oceans, which in the past, and likely in the future, will inundate much of North America, as well as other coastal and low areas around the world. Even when she wrote, oceans were rising and glacial melts were in process, but in her time this was still seen as merely a cyclical occurrence, unrelated to human causes. Whatever you think about these things, one thing she makes clear–significant areas where humans make a home will be under water some day. The only questions are “how soon?” and “how will we prepare for that day?”

She explores the movements of the oceans, from wave actions to tidal patterns to the vast sea currents that circulate around the globe. The final part of her work considers the impacts of the oceans on our lives, from providing us life-giving salt to functioning as the earth’s thermostat (she emphasizes the incredible heat storage capacities of the ocean and how significant a one degree rise in ocean temperature can be), and finally our human quest to sail, circumnavigate, and explore the depths of the sea.

Those who associate Carson with environmental activism will be surprised at the lack of advocacy in this book. What one encounters instead is description that captures the imagination and awakens us to the wonder that surrounds us. And perhaps this is as vital as any advocacy, because we must first love and deeply care for that for which we advocate. Carson opens our eyes to the wonder of what we might sometimes take for granted and deepens the love many of us have for the sight and sound of waves, the smell of sea air, the delight we take in the creatures of the deep and the awe we have of the power of “the sea around us.”

Review: Bottom of the Ninth

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Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro. New York: Times Books, 2009.

Summary: The story of how two legendary figures, Branch Rickey and Casey Stengel, attempted but failed in schemes to transform the game of baseball.

When I first picked up this book, my attention was arrested by the front cover photograph. It shows a group of fans on a high vantage point overlooking a baseball park. I studied it more closely and wondered if the ballpark was Forbes Field, where I’d caught a game as a kid. It was indeed! It turns out that this was a famous photograph taken by George Silk from the top of the Tower of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh at the moment Bill Mazeroski’s bottom of the ninth home run won the 1960 World Series for Pittsburgh, defeating Casey Stengel’s Yankees, and ultimately Stengel himself who was “resigned” by the Yankee owners. This ended Stengel’s tenure as the “managerial genius” of a string of pennant and World Champion Yankee teams.

This was also a moment of defeat and vindication for Branch Rickey, who weeks earlier saw his dream of a third major league, the Continental League, die. He envisioned a league of young, talented players, not yet as polished as the other two leagues, but on parity with each other, and in time with the rest of the majors. Eight cities would get teams, some, like Bob Howsam’s Denver, for the first time, and some like Bill Shea’s New York gaining a new team for those it had lost. Oddly, Pittsburgh’s victory vindicated at least part of Rickey’s vision, because he had helped assemble the core of the championship team, including Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente.

Michael Shapiro weaves together the narratives of these two men over the three years preceding October 1960. I will grant that both are interesting subjects, but I could not see how Stengel was trying to transform baseball, other than to leave his mark as a shrewd manager. It felt to me that Shapiro needed Stengel to inject a baseball element into a book concerned with Rickey’s attempts to recruit prospective owners and through suasion and legal maneuvering to win over existing league owners to the idea. Much of this involved negotiations, personal meetings, and public relations, not the most interesting material narratively.

Still, both stories demonstrate the power of owners zealous to protect their own financial interests, even when this was not in the best interests of the game. Del Webb and Dan Topping, as Yankee owners figure large in both stories. Walter O’Malley, who took the Dodgers from Brooklyn to L.A., denied Webb the opportunity to build Chavez Ravine, and was concerned to protect and expand his own TV earnings, exemplified the spirit of the owners. Ultimately, they block the new league by luring Bill Shea, who was seeking a team for New York (after whom Shea Stadium was named) and three other prospective owners with the lure of expansion franchises, which generally spent the rest of the sixties at the bottom of the standings.

Shapiro cites the experience of the American Football League as an example of what could have happened if Rickey’s dream had been allowed to come to fruition. The league teams developed rapidly, played with competitive parity, and eventually merged with the NFL, injecting new life into pro-football, which surpassed baseball in viewership during this period.

Shapiro’s book makes an interesting read, especially as he recounts the 1960 World Series, Stengel’s fateful pitching choices, his choice to pull Clete Boyer early in the Series and the fateful seventh game. Likewise, Rickey’s vision to transform baseball and the missed opportunity is fascinating to ponder. However, Shapiro’s interweaving of Rickey and Stengel only makes sense as an attempt to spice up Rickey’s story with some baseball, and one of baseball’s most colorful managers, not as a story of two men trying to “save baseball from itself” as the subtitle asserts.

 

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Holy Name Church and School

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Photo courtesy of Tom Balog

I learned recently through a post on a Youngstown Facebook group by Tom Balog that the Holy Name of Jesus Church is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. This brought back many memories because Holy Name served as the parish for many of the families in my neighborhood and many of the kids I grew up with.

The Holy Name of Jesus Church is located at 613 N. Lakeview Ave., at the corner of Midland. During most of my growing up years, Interstate 680 separated our neighborhood and the portion of N. Lakeview one block east of us from the church. But many of my Catholic friends talked about going to Mass, taking CCD classes, confirmations and more at Holy Name. My earliest exposure to Holy Name was going to the church festivals held there every summer, enjoying the good food, rides, and games of “skill”, all of which made money for the parish. Even though I was not a member, I made my contribution!

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Photo from 50th Jubilee Yearbook, 1966 (courtesy of Tom Balog)

In junior high and high school, I met a number of students who came from Holy Name School, across the street from the church. It seemed that a number of those in my classes were among the best students in the class. We always heard that the threat was that if you didn’t behave, you could always be sent to public schools!

The Holy Name of Jesus Church was established in 1916 to serve the Slovak Catholic families who moved into the Steelton area of the lower West Side. From a history published for the 75th anniversary celebration, I learned that the parish’s first priest was Father J.A. Stipanovic, a Croat who came from Chicago and quickly learned Slovak to serve the parish! The cornerstone of the church was laid November 5, 1916, and while the building was under construction, the parish met in a former barroom owned by a Jewish landlord. Father Stipanovic was succeeded by Fathers Dubosh and Kocis. Father, later Monsignor Kocis, oversaw the construction of Holy Name School, beginning in 1926 and completed in 1927, and also expansion of the church rectory. Monsignor Kocis died in January 1952.

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Holy Name School, from 50th Jubilee Yearbook, 1966 (photo courtesy of Tom Balog)

He undertook a remodeling of the church during his last years that included a mosaic of Christ the Teacher, stained glass windows telling the story of Christ, a Carrara marble main altar, and Stations of the Cross ceramic statuary of which the molds were broken after their completion so they could not be duplicated. When Bishop Emmet Walsh dedicated the renovation in 1953 he called Holy Name “the gem of the Youngstown diocese” and his “little cathedral.” Though I was not a Catholic, in high school I would sometimes slip into the church when it was open but no mass was occurring, just to sit in the quiet, to take in the magnificence of the building, and the sense of wonder and mystery I rarely had seen elsewhere. I can understand Bishop Walsh’s comments.

Monsignor Stephen Begalla served the parish during the time I and my contemporaries were growing up, until Father Franko took over in 1968 upon Monsignor Begalla’s retirement. He served until 1989. In more recent years as parish numbers declined, the school was closed and sold, and the church became part of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, consisting of three churches: Holy Name of Jesus, St. Matthias, and Sts. Cyril and Methodius, all of which serve the Slovak Catholic community in Youngstown. Currently, Mass is held at Holy Name at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Holy Name, and the other churches of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish grew up with the working class neighborhoods near the mills and other related industries, serving those of Slovak heritage who moved into these neighborhoods. With the changing demographics of the neighborhoods and the consolidation of the parish one wonders about the future of the churches which served the families of so many people we grew up with. Perhaps they will re-conceive their mission in light of the needs of the current residents in what were formerly their parish boundaries. Whatever may be, I want to extend my own congratulations to Holy Name of Jesus Church on its 100th anniversary for serving the spiritual, social, and educational needs of generations in the area in which I grew up.

Boh ti žehnaj (God bless you)!

Can’t We Just Get This Over With?

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absentee-ballot-envelopeAll of us who are registered voters in Ohio received applications this week in the mail for absentee ballots for the November election. And with this application came the thought, “why not just get that ballot, vote and be done with this thing?” Except, this won’t end the barrage of mail, phone, and TV advertising and news coverage of the candidates. Not until November 8.

I wonder how many other Americans feel as I do that this electoral process has gone on far too long. These candidates were already prominent in the media over a year ago. Since late spring at least, it has been clear who were the party nominees. And given the media attention, it seems that you would have to be living under a rock not to have a sense of who these people are and what they stand for. I suspect most of us, if we were planning to vote, knew who we were voting for months ago.

Traditionally, presidential campaigns began after Labor Day and were waged seriously for two months. Primary campaigns in the spring of election year went on for about four months, January to May. Most began campaigning in earnest just before that, then took a break until the conventions, and then began in earnest at Labor Day. I think this probably makes sense in a country as large as ours. Now it is not unheard of for a candidate to start running nearly two years ahead.

I’ve seen estimates that at least $5 billion dollars will be spent on the presidential campaign alone. While the Citizens United ruling considers the spending and advertising of PACs constitutionally protected free speech, it just strikes me as an insane waste of money, and mostly disinformation. It is also fascinating how wealthy interests can speak much louder. And this doesn’t take into consideration all the spending on other campaigns.

I seriously don’t think we will see campaign finance reform any time soon. But a shorter electoral process might lessen the amounts of money needed to sustain campaigns over such a long period. And it would have mercy on us poor voters, especially in swing states like Ohio. I seriously wonder if it would make sense to set some legal boundaries on when campaigns can begin on a public basis. It seems to me that it would make sense to keep them to the year in which the vote will take place.

The one advantage of voting absentee is that it permits me to turn my attention elsewhere. But one reason I can see for waiting until election day is, having been thoroughly acquainted with our presidential candidates, I can use the time to focus on down ballot candidates and issues, including the state and local elections that may be just as consequential. How often, for example, do we really examine the qualifications of local judicial candidates? Yet our local court systems are foundational to our justice system.

Well, thanks for letting me ramble. At least you didn’t have to listen to me as long as you have to listen to our candidates!

 

Discovering “Literary Hub”

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literary-hub-the-best-of-the-literary-internet

Screenshot of Literary Hub from September 7, 2016 (without feature banner)

I discovered Literary Hub yesterday when I wrote about Mario Vargas Llosa’s new book, Notes on the Death of a Culture. I’ve had lots of fun looking around the website, which Literary Hub describes the purpose of as follows:

 

Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life. There is more great literary content online than ever before, but it is scattered, easily lost—with the help of its editorial partners, Lit Hub is a site readers can rely on for smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books. Each day—alongside original content and exclusive excerpts—Literary Hub is proud to showcase an editorial feature from one of its many partners from across the literary spectrum: publishers big and small, journals, bookstores, and non-profits.

Following this description is an impressive list of partners including a number of major publishers, booksellers, and review journals. One could probably spend an enjoyable evening just clicking through the links of all the partners!

The home page is topped by a graphic banner highlighting current top literary stories on the site. Presently these include “Writing a Novel Limited to the 483 Words Spoken to Ophelia,” “How a Self-Published Writer of Gay Erotica Beat Sci-fi’s Sad Puppies at Their Own Game,” “Death is Actually Very Funny: A Last Conversation with Max Ritvo,” “Mario Vargas Llosa: How Global Entertainment Killed Culture” (from which yesterday’s post was inspired), and “On Writing, Parenthood and Trying to Stay a Little Wild.” Probably something there will grab your attention, if not all.

In the left column, you can click on excerpts of recently released books, a good way to sample before you buy. The center column highlights a few other feature stories. The right column highlights “Lit Hub Daily”, featuring on September 7:

Across the top of the page, you also have a menu which duplicates some of these items. From left to right you have:

  • Bookmarks: Clicking this takes you to visual representations of bookcovers of current books with a bookmark containing a “grade” based on an “average” of at least three reviews. Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth received an A+. On the other hand Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am only rated a C+. You can click on the cover to go to a page that includes relevant excerpts of reviews with a link to the full review. Highlighted are new books, most reviewed books and best reviewed. You may also search a number of categories of books listed on the right side of the page.
  • Features: This includes a fuller list of featured articles. Since I’ve spent some time interviewing booksellers, I liked “Interview with a Bookstore: Carmichael’s Books.”
  • Excerpts: Similar to “Features”, this expands the list of excerpts from books from the few highlighted on the home page. Good feature. I read one from a book with an intriguing title. Decided the title was more intriguing than the excerpt.
  • Bookshelf includes the covers of books mentioned in articles in Literary Hub. Clicking on the cover will take you to the article. Mousing over it shows you a box telling you what article or articles the book is mentioned in. These include everything from new books to classics like Ivan Illych.
  • Lit Hub Daily is collection of the best of the literary internet collected daily. This one sounded interesting:
    • Why the man behind “Born to Run” is also “a born memoirist.” Dave Kamp profiles Bruce Springsteen ahead of his 500-page memoir. | Vanity Fair
  • The last is the already mentioned About page. In addition to the glorious collection of links to publishers, booksellers, and review journals is a link at the bottom to the “masthead” for Literary Hub.

While of course I hope that for those reading this that Bob on Books will be a kind of “literary hub,” I have to admit that I appreciated the quality of writing, the variety of features, and the breadth of content from across the literary landscape brought together on Literary Hub. I’ve bookmarked it and look forward to returning. Now, if they can just get an app for that…