Ross TenEyck's Journal

I'd heard that after the disappointing box office of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Disney had canned the series. What I only found out recently was that it has apparently been rescued by 20th Century Fox... or at least the next movie has been. According to the IMDB and the Wikipedia article, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is scheduled for a December 2010 release.

And the Wikipedia article links to some pictures of the Dawn Treader being built in Australia. Here's the whole ship:





Nice!

In the bookstore today, I saw these prominently displayed on the "For Teens" table:

      

Yes, that's right: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Romeo and Juliet, all reprinted with covers that by a remarkable coincidence are all strikingly evocative of another well-known recent book cover:



The question is: will the teens keep reading them once they realize that there are no vampires in? Or will they gravitate towards the compromise position?

On this day four hundred and four years ago, a Catholic footsoldier set into motion a chain of events that would lead, with the relentless inexorability of history, to Alan Moore disliking a movie.

...I've posted this chart before, but it seems timely to see it again:

( Cut for image size... )

Today is All Saints' Day, which among other things is one of the four Sundays a year that are customarily held to be particularly suitable for baptisms. So today at St. Mark's Cathedral, we got our baptism on.

The baptismal font at St. Mark's is a large stoneware urn which we obtained from a well-known supplier of sacred vessels. (Not exactly that one, but pretty similar.) Before the service, we fill it within a few inches of the top; then, during the service, just before the baptisms, we have a bunch of people from the congregation bring buckets of water and fill it -- to the top, and then overflowing onto the floor. The kids love that part.

After the baptisms, just before the Peace, the clergy take bowls of water from the font through the congregation and use evergreen branches to sprinkle the people with water. This is called "asperging," and it is meant to remind everyone of their own baptismal covenant.

So today, when it came time to do that, the clergy each grabbed a child volunteer from among the crowd that had come up to watch the baptisms, and had the child hold the bowl while the clergy sprinkled people. Except one of the clergy, in fact the Canon Missioner for the cathedral, who decided that she would hold the bowl and the kid would get to get people wet. This was a boy about, I would guess, six or seven years old. It so happened that I was sitting at the end of the pew in the front where they began, and as they came up I wondered to myself if this kid had grasped the notion of "sprinkling."

He had not.

He grabbed the branches and basically scooped about half the water out of the bowl and onto me with a mighty splash, incidentally whacking me with the branches at the same time -- fortunately he wasn't tall enough to hit me in the face, so the branches just hit my chest. But he got me good with the water. The left half of my head and chest were pretty well soaked.

This was startling for a moment, although not completely surprising, kids being kids and all. Then I thought it was pretty funny, which was fortunate because so did most everyone else. A kind soul brought me a spare towel -- we had several ready to hand to wipe up the floor where the font overflows -- so I could dry off a little, and later during announcements the Canon said she wasn't sure about the validity of second baptisms, but I sure wasn't going to forget this one.

And how was your church service this morning?

In reference to this, some background, a few more links of reactions and news stories, and then some thoughts of my own.

( This got long... seems like they always do )

"NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH ABOUT PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

"With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion.

"In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy."

Read the whole thing here.

"JOINT STATEMENT BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

"...The Apostolic Constitution is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion."

Read the whole joint statement here.

Rowan Williams' letter to the bishops of the Church of England and the Primates of the Anglican Communion is printed in this news article.

A statement from Bishop Christopher Epting, the Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations for the Episcopal Church, is here.

A news article with a rather over-the-top headline is here.

The Basics

This was a civil case about wrongful termination. The plaintiff alleged that she had been fired from her job, in part, for taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act -- which, if true, would of course have been illegal. The defendant (her former employer) denied the allegation and asserted that she had been fired solely for being chronically late to work.

( The rest of this gets pretty long. )

As noted previously, we were in recess Thursday and Friday.

The evidence and closing arguments concluded today, so the case is now in the hands of us, the jury. Unfortunately we did not finish deliberating today, so we have to go back tomorrow. Even more unfortunately, this means I have to miss a second session of my Theology of Eucharist class; this makes me sad, but that's the way the dice fell.

With luck, we should be done tomorrow. Then I can tell you all about it.

It is remarkably tiring to sit in a chair all day long and listen carefully to people talking about minutiae. It is especially tiring when you can't interject.

We're in recess Thursday and Friday, so I get to go to school and work as usual. We convene again on Monday, and with luck (and depending on how fast the jury can deliberate) we might be done then. If not, we should at least be done by Tuesday.

I am filled to overflowing with observations and opinions which I am not allowed to speak.

I have been empaneled.

Now, obviously, I can't discuss the case until it's over; so here's what happened today before I was put on a jury.

I had to get up at some ungodly hour of the morning so I could make it down to the downtown courthouse before 8:00 AM. Then I had to completely empty my pockets so I could walk through the metal detector, which caused me to reflect that I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets. After asking the information desk person where I was supposed to report for jury duty, and having him point down the hall to the giant sign reading JURY ASSEMBLY ROOM¹, I checked in and cracked open my book. I'd been warned by experienced friends to take plenty of reading material.

At 8:00, they played a pleasant little video about how awesome we were for not just blowing off the summons like most people do², and what we could expect in exchange for our awesomeness. Then a judge came in and gave us a brief history lesson, beginning with King Henry the Nth³.

Then they started calling names. They began by announcing that they were going to call 100 names for the first trial; so I don't know what that's all about, but thank God they didn't call me for that one. I was called in a subsequent, smaller group shortly thereafter.

So I did not actually get to read that much of my book before I got to discover what voir dire⁴ is like. At this point we're verging into the territory I'm not allowed to discuss, so suffice it to say that by the time jury selection was over, I was in the box⁵.


¹Remember, this was before 8:00 AM

²Oddly, the summons itself did not mention this as a possibility; instead, it had a rather ominous note in bold print about it being a felony to not show up when you were summoned.

³Where N is a number I would remember better if it hadn't been 8:00 AM. Seriously, I am not awake at that time of the morning.

⁴If nothing else, it's fun to say.

⁵And apparently, thinking outside it is strongly discouraged.

On the one hand, this will be my first time and I'm curious to see how the process works. On a closely related hand, civic responsibility and all that.

On an entirely different hand, while it seems petty to put my own convenience above the pursuit of justice, I have to say that it would be convenient if this didn't last too long¹. It would begin to get awkward rescheduling everything.

It's the open-ended nature of the time commitment that's frustrating; I don't know how to plan for it.


¹This is a "two days or one trial" deal. But they claim the average time served is 2.25 days, so I'm guessing an awful lot of people aren't picked for juries.

Ganked from astroaztec

Boeing Advanced Tactical Laser Defeats Ground Target in Flight Test

"During the test, the C-130H aircraft took off from Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and fired its high-power chemical laser through its beam control system while flying over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The beam control system acquired the ground target -- an unoccupied stationary vehicle -- and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system. The laser beam's energy defeated the vehicle."

See video of the "ground target" being "defeated" here.

I think we can all agree that having death rays from space -- well, from high altitude at any rate -- makes the world an immeasurably better place.

Arlene Martel, the actress who played Spock's betrothed T'Pring in the classic Star Trek episode "Amok Time," also played the love-interest-who-couldn't-be, Consuela, in the classic Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand."

...but let's see what the weather forecast says:

Today: A 30 percent chance of rain after 2pm. Increasing clouds, with a high near 67. South southwest wind between 9 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.
Tuesday: Showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 59. South wind 7 to 13 mph becoming west. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 60. Calm wind.
Thursday: A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 61.
Friday: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 62.
Saturday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 60.
Sunday: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 60.

I think it's safe to say that fall is finally here.

ptousig was inspired by the VMAs to post a list of music videos he liked, and I replied with this list. But then I thought I should just post it here so more people could see it. So here it is (slightly edited.)

Here are some recent(ish) videos that I like for one reason or another:

Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson -- Winter Song

Honeyhoney -- Little Toy Gun

Madonna -- Ray of Light (the quality on that one is terrible, but it was the best I could find)

Indigo Girls -- Least Complicated (one of the few music videos that teaches you how to play the song!)

Shania Twain -- I'm Gonna Getcha Good (surely one of the most inappropriate matches of visuals to lyrics ever)

Regina Spektor -- Laughing With

Regina Spektor -- Fidelity


These videos I can't say are good, as such, but I watched them repeatedly because the songs are evil, evil earworms. You probably should not listen to these:

SMiLE.dk -- Butterfly

Caramelldansen (not sure if that's the song or the group... also, trivia fact: despite what it looks like, this is not terrible J-Pop; it's terrible Swedish pop)


I have a friend who plays a lot of DDR, which introduces her to a lot of songs for which the rights were cheap, and she likes to pass on the links. "Butterfly," up above, was one of them. These are a couple of the weirder ones:

Becky -- Less Than 3

Fright Ranger -- Oh Oh Oh Sexy Vampire


And finally, I will admit that there are some videos that I have watched not because of the artistic merit of the video or the song, but for, let us say, other merits. I won't link to any examples here, because they strain (but do not -- quite -- break) my self-imposed PG-13 limit for this journal, but the thoughtful person can find the links. If you are thoughtful, remember: I didn't say I was proud of this.

Well, that was everything I expected it to be and not a bit more.