To The Haters- Pt. II
Cardinals win the World Series in 5 games. Game 5 score: St. Louis-4, Detroit-2.
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Cardinals win the World Series in 5 games. Game 5 score: St. Louis-4, Detroit-2.
It's not every day that you get a chance to see Bernstein's Mass. To pull it off, you need more people than the House of Representatives, an understanding sponsor, and people who like Leonard Bernstein. When I heard that Mass was playing at the Foellinger Great Hall in the Krannert Center here at school, I really couldn't pass it up.
It's a pretty solid piece. This particular presentation of it included a childrens' choir, a full adult choir, an orchestra that included a smaller jazz band and a smaller rock band, an ensemble of around 20 players, and six dancers. The music's pretty great- to be expected from Bernstein- and the plot focuses on a priest who gets tied up too much in the ritual and grandeur of a Catholic mass, all the while watching his damaged flock disintegrate.
I'm not what you would call a religious person, yet when the Celebrant (the priest) had his breakdown and shattered the altar, I couldn't help but feel slightly torn. On one hand, as an audience member, I was drawn into the drama, but on the other hand, as a Catholic, I was repulsed by the degredation of the Church's sacred instruments. But I guess that's the point of a controversial show; take someone outside of their comfort zone and give him perspective.
All in all, the show was beautiful and conflicted; quite apropos considering the weekend I had.
The Cardinals clinch the NLCS.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote this article today that includes a picture of the armored personnel carrier that Alton acquired using Homeland Security funds. Also in the article: an interview with Jody O'Guinn. For those of you who didn't catch the connection, that's my father.
In an effort to write a research paper, I designed a survey to collect my own data. After I had written and tweaked the questions, I sent it to Shaun who coded the forms and PHP. Shaun sent me a link to the survey last night, and I immediately sent out an email to my fraternity and set up Facebook events to invite everyone I knew. As of 10:00 AM, I had received 134 responses, or about 110 more than I thought I'd get.
If you have not yet taken it, please pull up a chair and take it here. You'll be issued a cookie to ensure that participants only take it once (accuracy counts, boys and girls), but I have no idea how to mine data from it. You're totally safe, I give you my word.
Pass it along. Send this URL to anyone and everyone: http://www.jamesonoguinn.com/survey. Thanks!
During the daylight hours of October 2, 2006, Senator Dick Durbin called for the resignation of fellow Illinoisan John Shimkus, stating that Shimkus and his fellow Page Board members decided to “protect themselves instead of trying to protect these pages,” and waxed nostalgic when he proclaimed that “now is the day of reckoning.”
In these days of partisan politics, it’s easy to see why Senator Durbin would make such a ludicrous claim. Republicans are closing the gap on some very hotly contested House and Senate seats. And besides, it’s not like this is the first time that Durbin has made an inflammatory remark.
Looking back to the opening of the Lincoln Library in 2005, Durbin quipped that a Jewish family had thought that Lincoln was a Jew. "After all,” said Durbin, “his first name was Abraham, and then, to confirm it, she learned that John Wilkes Booth shot him in the temple." And who could forget the infamous comparison between the American military and “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags... Pol Pot or others”?
The fact of the matter is that Shimkus has yet to be, and will most likely never be, implicated in any impropriety regarding this unfortunate situation. That Senator Durbin leapt to this irrational course of action diminishes the trust given him by his constituency, just as his inclination towards making outlandish claims speaks poorly of his character.
Jameson O’Guinn
Champaign, Illinois