Broadcasts and Interviews

Here is a heartbreaking testimony: Reuben Jackson on Football Withdrawal

(Here is another link, if the link you just clicked didn’t work. Scroll down to the bottom.)

A year ago today, we pilgrims celebrated Holy Mass in a chapel at the place where the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-42).

December 25?

Allow me to begin by mentioning that your servant is thoroughly annoyed.

I went to check the time and channel for tonight’s Hoyas game. I discovered to my chagrin that the game will be broadcast on exactly zero t.v. channels.

We live in a world of thousands of channels. We live in a world where channels grow on trees. There are entire channels dedicated to sub-species of Cajun cuisine.

And yet the (potentially) epic contest at the Verizon Center this evening will not be broadcast on any of these countless channels–not a single one!

Perhaps certain sports-network executives think that the Hoyas’ game against Florida International will not be very exciting, just because Florida International doesn’t really have any good players.

Best announcer on earth

But these tall foreigners just might roar into Washington and make things interesting. If they do, I guess we will hear it on the radio (AM 570).

But who can really complain? Listening to Voice of the Hoyas Rich Chvotkin is actually better than being at the game!

Let’s move on to our main topic…

Was the Lord Jesus really born on Christmas?

First give a listen to the Christmas proclamation from the official datebook of the Church (the Roman Martyrology).

Alexandria, Honor, and Giddiness on the Airwaves

Ruins in Alexandria, Egypt

A fairly massive Tuesday-night wrap-up here, what with all the interesting developments…

Today the Church keeps the Memorial of St. Catharine of Alexandria. She was not from Alexandria, Virginia.

We do not know much about St. Catharine, other than that she was a virgin and a martyr. But we do know this: Most of the city she lived in is under the Mediterranean Sea.

Once, Alexandria was one of the great cities of Christendom, the site of the world’s largest library. Not any more.

This week is the last week of the Church year. It is the time for us to meditate on the end of things. We do not not know when, but it is inevitable. Everything under the sun will end.

Kingdoms rise and fall. Great cities slip into the sea. Our days on earth are numbered.

Sir John Falstaff

At the end of Act V, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One, Falstaff gives his “catechism.” (You can skip to Prince Henry’s speech halfway through the scene if you don’t feel like wading through a lot of Scotch-English history.)

The Knight of Sack and Bawdyhouses declares that “honor is a mere scutcheon.” It is “air.” It will not outlive death.

Falstaff is a lovably honest character. Two scenes earlier, he admitted to the audience that he had shamelessly abused his commission as an officer of the King’s army and profited by drafting unworthy soldiers.

Falstaff’s speech against honor is disturbingly cogent. And it is especially ironic, considering that, earlier in the scene, Falstaff’s drinking buddy–the Prince–has just made an enormously honorable offer to risk his life for the sake of his army.

Is Falstaff correct? What is honor? Is it worth dying for?

Certainly we all want to have a good reputation. But is that all honor is?

Discuss, and get back to me.

Finally: Dave Johnson and Glenn Consor were so giddy during the third quarter of tonight’s Wizards blowout of the Golden State Warriors that they started joking about teaching Yiddish and Latin to each other. (Glenn Consor sounds a great deal like Ray Romano of “Everybody Loves Raymond.”)

124-100!!! Blatche rocks.