Trivialism beyond the wildest belief

In recent days my brother has become really angry at claims of inedia by the likes of Thèrése Neumann, Marthe Robin, Louise Lateau and Nicholas of Flüe. So deep is his hatred of talking about it and belief that science would show that he will not even reply to one e-mail about whether Marthe Robin's supposed fifty-three years eating and drinking nothing except the Eucharist is a legitimate record.

• In case you do not know, Guinness World Records (as it is now called) has stopped publishing fasting records
• My brother says this is because it sees it as dangerous and possibly unethical to encourage people to break these records, and definitely not because they have been hounded to accept claims of inedia.

However, the problem with the kind of criticism of claims of inedia like those I have been witness to in the past few weeks has been that they have been accompanied by absurd claims like:

• “if inedia were true, then famine could simply be solved by Holy Communion”!

The reason saying inedia would allow the curing of famine stands as such a trivialisation is that every known inedic, as documented by Michael Freze, has suffered very severe illnesses, and that people without the capacity to suffer as severely as a stigmatist (and Freze and all other theologians who study these phenomena) are not likely to suffer illnesses which would cause them to be unable to eat or drink in the normal manner. More than that, in a culture which as Benjamin Wiker eloquently points out, fashionable people cannot understand that there could possibly or potentially be purpose behind suffering, it is simply impossible to imagine the extremely deep feelings that undoubtedly are necessarily part of the psychological make-up of stigmatics.

“If Epicurus and Lucretius are right and this is our only life and bodily existence is our only existence, then to try and bear unbearable suffering is unintelligible”

The consequence is that people who do not even try to understand how the other side of the culture wars makes decisions about what is right and wrong simply do not grasp how a feeling type feels laws as natural and not to be tampered with by man. These are utterly contrary to the view of the dominant thinking-oriented culture of our academia, but are in accordance with what Michael Freze and Alfred Vogl say about God being able to do deeds like giving people sustenance only on wafers for decades. They also are in accordance with the theory of intelligent design, which allows for phenomena like inedia and stigmata to occur without being “explained in terms of blind natural causes” (Moral Darwinism, p. 12).

In the absence of a militant atheist being willing to try and examine a supposed inedic day and night for decades (which nobody would consider a worthy task given the length of time involved), we are left with the problem that people like my brother trivialise inedia in the most ridiculous manner. Not only does he make the absurd claim outlined above, he also claims that every part of the story of Marthe Robin must be wrong to the point of claiming she cannot have been paralysed and bedridden. Given that everybody (no doubt) who met Marthe knew she was bedridden in a dark room, such a claim is simply implausible!

The 11 Worst Concept Albums

Today, I found a list of the eleven worst concept albums, published by Aux Weekly.

In my musical history, I have rarely encountered obvious concept albums and rarely come to admire them, with the exception of

• Parliament's Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome and Mothership Connection (about a fantasy war for the survival of funk)
• Buffy Sainte-Marie's Illuminations (first eight songs) and Kate Bush's Hounds of Love (about spiritual quests for liberation)
• Patti Smith's Easter (about sin and redemption - tribute to the Decadents)
• Renaissance's Ashes Are Burning (about the birth and death of the earth) and Turn of the Cards (two side, one romantic and light, the other extremely dark protest songs)

The actual list of worse concept albums was:

1. Garth Brooks: Garth Brooks in…
2. Neil Young: Trans
3. Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music
4. KISS: Music from The Elder
5. Pete Townshend: Psychoderelict
6. Styx: Kilroy Was Here
7. Tori Amos: American Doll Posse
8. Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown
9. Michael Jackson: Ben
10. Madonna: I'm Breathless
11. The Fiery Furnaces: Rehearsing My Choir

On the whole, this list is flawed because too many albums are either soundtracks or rock operas rather than proper concept albums. On the other hand, the lyrics given for "Rehearsing My Choir" do sound really silly as a viewpoint on a religious upbringing as the siblings who make up Fiery Furnaces had. Tori's American Doll Posse is a rather silly way of having five figures in Greek mythology viz:

1. Artemis
2. Persephone
3. Athena
4. Aphrodite
5. Demeter and Dionysos (whom Tori herself represents)

Green Day's album makes sense: I have never been impressed by the silly lyrics of "Minority" which can loosely be seen as the basis for the subsequent rock-opera forays of the band.

The worst lyrics - maybe Desree deserves it?

Today, I have found a very short list of lyrics which have been called the "worst". According the the site involved, music can be poetry for the masses, but by and large this is not true. Truly poetic lyrics like those of "Paper Mountain Man" or "Wide Awake" almost never have any mass appeal whatsoever and go unnoticed for long periods.

However, the choice of Des'ree for "Life" (and what about "What's Your Sign") I can agree with (even as someone who finds astrology to be the most amusing garbage known to man). As a child, I did listen a bit to Des'ree and by no means hated her first two hit singles "Feel So High" and "You Gotta Be". Both songs' lyrics really are so silly that I could never even grasp them when they were played on the radio late in the 1990s.

Strange choice of inductees for the 2009/2010 inductees

Only today have I recognised that the 2009/2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be inducted on Monday 15 March.

More than that, I have noticed that the inductors ("presenters") for the 2009/2010 inductees will be a rather surprising group:

• ABBA: Barry and Robyn Gibb
• Genesis: Trey Anastasio (of Phish)
• The Hollies: Steven van Zandt
• Jimmy Cliff: Wyclef Jean
• The Stooges: Billie Joe Armstrong (of Green Day)

In none of the cases would the inductee be one I would have remotely expected. Phish, for one thing, are seen as closer to such jam bands as the Grateful Dead than to progressive rock - and the distinction is very definite. Had it been Yes instead of Genesis, I have imagined Hetfield and Ulrich doing the induction as they did with Black Sabbath - Rick Wakeman did play on some of Sabbath's albums showing how metal has had links with progressive rock as long as it's existed.

In the case of ABBA, I would more have imagined someone like Madonna doing it, whilst Billie Joe Armstrong really is an odd presenter for the Stooges. Given their influence on such genres as goth, hardcore and ultimately the slow-burn of grunge, one would more imagine someone like Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden) or one of the the surviving members of the Sex Pistols, or even David Bowie (who produced some of Iggy's solo albums).

A very sensible view of the problem of subsidising education

Probably all through my life, I have inwardly been very wary of the need for subsidised public education. Most of what I know today I have learned from reading myself and from becoming curious about it - not through being taught in under the genuine pressure of classrooms.

Then there is the point that so much of what I have learned becomes an unhealthy obsession, especially when it becomes known so well to me that it loses all sense of excitement. In general, when i learn I always prefer the unfamiliar and the surprising to the mundane, which creates a major problem for me: that I am not able to use the vast amount I have learned in any kind of productive manner since I have never spent any time learning how I can work. Even though I am planning on a major creative fantasy project in my very own language, I know that I will have to change my habits a great deal to get a single thing done!

Today in Time, I found an extremely good article criticising the whole issue of subsidised education. Even for someone who feels the government must do a great deal on environmental issues (if more than anything because of Australia's unique fragility) spending on education is something I feel much less certain about. My mother and brother tell me a national curriculum is highly desirable and should have been in place a long time ago, but I have my doubts (though these are greatly less marked for Australia than for almost any other country due to - as I with kind intentions point out to them - Australia's very strong "natural unity" from the lack of powerful geographic barriers)