CSotD: Thursday Short Takes
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Start with a curiosity before getting into heavier topics: Francis, in which Brother Leo is a fool in the classic, Christian sense.
I liked the Latin mass, both because liturgy should inspire a little awe, and because of its universality. I went to mass in Switzerland in 1965, as the mass was being divided into parts that were still in Latin and parts that were now in local languages, and it was pleasant to realize that, while I couldn't understand the French sections, the Latin was familiar and gave me a sense of belonging there.
But what I really liked about today's strip is a bit of synchronicity: A few days ago, I was streaming "Becket" while doing housework. (The movie, by the way, holds up really well, and it's a treat to see both Burton and O'Toole at the top of their games.)
At one point, however, there was a Latin High Mass going on, and, as the choir intoned the lines, I found myself mentally intoning the responses.
I haven't been an altar boy in over half a century and hadn't served a Latin mass for five or six years longer than that, but I didn't miss a syllable.
Those great, rolling poetic phrases tripped off my tongue and I was struck by the place they still occupied in my mind.
Never mind that, if the choir had been singing, "Oh, the Pops are sweeter and they're crisper, too! They're shot with sugar, through and through," I'd have been able to join in with that as well.
Now let's talk more seriously about movies
To begin with, I agree totally with Tom Toles that the raging hypocrisy over the Harvey Weinstein revelations is appalling
There are several cartoons blaming the Democrats from taking contributions from him.
I've also seen a couple in which it is suggested he is now qualified to be president, which is pretty funny.
But when it comes to taking money from scumbuckets and ignoring their vices, I don't see a lot of clean hands.
To pretend otherwise is despicable.
And I like Mike Thompson's take, which I will admit is largely my own: We already knew this, didn't we?
Not only is the casting couch a cliche, but, as he suggests, the lack of roles for women over 30 with their clothes on is a bit of a clue as to how Hollywood sees them.
I've also seen some comparisons of Weinstein with Cosby, but they ring false because there's a difference between some creep extorting sex behind the scenes, however powerful he was, and someone being held up as the picture of the good family man who turns out to be a crude, sexual bully and an out-and-out rapist.
When Woody Allen's sexual issues became public, there was a sense of "How could we not know this?" and "Manhattan," for all the beauty of its cinematography, became unwatchable.
But, while Cosby was an icon and his fall a shock, Weinstein was just a name in the credits, so there's a level on which this is largely Hollywood's deal.
But Ann Telnaes isn't having any, and I find her point persuasive, not because I give a damn one way or another about Hollywood, and not because I'm new to the topic.
I want to see it on the table, and I promise not to ask where the hell all these prominent actresses were a decade ago when they seem to have put their career ambitions ahead of their desire for justice.
They're here now, and that's cool.
Courage comes whenever it can, sometimes deliberately, sometimes by chance.
Look: Despite the fairy tales about "the tired seamstress," when Rosa Parks confronted that bus driver, she was an officer in the local NAACP and knew damn well that they had her back.
By contrast, when Anita Hill suggested that the committee look into Clarence Thomas's behavior, she hadn't expected her tip to turn her into the center of the controversy and the victim of a vicious, powerful cabal.
Their experiences are a study in what can happen when you put yourself on the line: Parks became a folk hero and a game-changer, but when the power structure ganged up on Anita Hill, she became the nail that stuck up and got hammered, and Thomas got confirmed anyway.
Though there is this: Given that Parks had the NAACP behind her, maybe the question is, where was SAG and why didn't these women — some of whom had become superstars — feel that they could speak out and have that sort of back up?
That's all speculation.
Here's what's real: If this is the moment that matters, if this is the point where the dialog comes out into the public square, then that's a good thing.
If it's allowed to fade away and Hollywood goes back to business as usual, then I guess nobody really cared after all.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I left the newsroom some years ago to work on educational programs with a long-range mission of building media literacy and future readership.
The most disheartening discovery was that the teachers were already of a generation that did not understand media. Before they could teach the kids how to consume and evaluate media, they needed to be taught those skills themselves.
We are, as Jen Sorensen points out and Vic Lee affirms, in a crisis because people cannot tell truth from lies, or responsible reporting from foolish rumors and deliberate propaganda.
Word is that the Senate Intelligence Committee will release the ads that Russian troll factories used to divide our nation and skew the 2016 elections.
We'll get to see what our "friends" on Facebook shared and liked and helped to spread.
And I'm sure it will come as a huge surprise, just as we were all surprised by the Harvey Weinstein revelations.
And I'm sure it will reform our political discourse, just as the Weinstein scandal will reform Hollywood.
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