Hobbit-Sense at OneFreeGarden.com

I admit it, I was going to skip this week – I just felt kind of uninspired somehow.  Maybe it’s because I’m a bit tired (from doing things like staying up a bit late to begin with, and then realising that I never actually put the clothes into the washing machine that I need to dry for tomorrow).  But then I figured, hey, it’ll be good practice.  So far, I’ve basically spent WAY too much time on each individual blog post, and I need to get into kind of a short column mode, so let’s see how quickly I can quick-take!

1.  So, I never got to the other post, which was going to be about abortion.  Oops.  I think it was a good thing, though, because within a couple hours after losing it, I saw Jen F.’s post about an article she had written about responses to pro-choice statements.  I really am glad I did, and that I’ve encountered a few other pro-life posts and articles in the intervening time, because it helped me realise how unhappy I would’ve been with the post in the long run.  On the other hand, it seems like I haven’t learned my lesson about typing in a word processor rather than my browser, lol, but hopefully no server hiccups will occur.

2.  One of my “core issues” (or “pet causes” if that not-so-flattering term makes more sense to you) is genocide.  I don’t consider myself a particularly articulate person (in speech – I’m better in writing I think), but because it’s so close to my heart, I can speak well about it.  Today, I came across a documentary film about the reconciliation process in Rwanda.  I hope to see it soon and I hope you all will consider doing the same.  Here is the trailer (~2min):

3.  I can’t believe I forgot how much I love to read history, esp. when it’s written by Stephen Ambrose.  The guy is masterful.  I’ve been reading Americans at War, which I’ve had for probably 5 years and never opened, and it’s amazing.  Despite being very much a fan of peace, I’m fascinated by war history, and I have to say, Ambrose brings it to life and offers really unique perspective.  How unique can be evidenced by the fact that this near-pacifist actually agrees with his explanation of how dropping the bomb on Japan actually was the least-worst choice.

4.  I think soon I will have to do a post on surprise endings and what “redeems” cinematic experiences after having the disparate viewing experiences of Last Chance Harvey and The Last Templar (made for TV movie).  I am exceedingly good at finding ways that things are “okay” but I’ve been trying to make sure that I don’t excuse things that really shouldn’t get a pass.  I can say, however, that while definitely a “grown up” movie, Last Chance Harvey is a great film, mostly clean language and no scenes better kept private, plus some interesting parts where pain caused by a couple of actions that are more modern (atleast in their frequency).  

5.  I feel a sort of pull between arts (included: creativity/imagination) and reason.. not a conflict between them, but in me over which to prefer or focus more on, atleast in this blog (as they relate to faith, mainly).  So, I think talking about these two areas of society are kind of the direction this blog is going, although I can’t keep my mouth shut so causes and the occasional political commentary will probably besmirch these pages, lol.  

6.  Older small appliances are totally the best ever.  I say small because in my last apartment, I swear the oven was lethal, but I can unequivocably say that the old hand mixer and the old clothes irons I grew up with beat the pants off the new (admittedly) cheap ones I bought for myself in college.  Old sewing machines are cooler, too.  (On that note, I didn’t get to those pants yet – I just keep rewashing the ones I successfully hemmed, lol.  I guess I’m a chicken, or lazy – maybe Sunday will be my next try.)

7.  I’ve come to realise I have a really hard time committing to things for myself.  I am a super-star at committing to things for causes, other people, etc., but when it comes to doing things I know I should do for myself (exercise, healthier eating), frankly, I suck.  On the bright side, I think realising this may help.  Also the idea for a book to write while trying to be in shape for the first time in the latter half of my life (sad, because I’m only early 20s) may help motivate me…  I’m also thinking prayer should definitely come first.

Well, huzzah!  That actually was about half and hour, amazing.  Yay!  Hope you have a great weekend.

-the Rosy Gardener

I’m quickly posting some fascinating excerpts from Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s blog. (Apologies for missing Monday – I had a whole post, then a server hiccup and lost most of it courtesy my failure to type it in a word processor- and I knew better. I hope to re-write it better.)  

I know that a lot of people supported our new President’s election most fervently.  There have also been debates that basically circle around the idea of how much opposition loyalty covers when we speak of a loyal opposition (for a debate on this subject, check out this post and the subsequent discussion by my friend the Raving Theist).  

It seems to me that where some extremists during the last administration made the ridiculous accusation that those who opposed the war were somehow unpatriotic, well, we haven’t gotten better now that hope and change have come to Washington.  I don’t know a single Democratic voter who wanted Bush’s policies to succeed, but now it appears that not wanting Pres. Obama’s policies to succeed somehow amounts to treachery or hatred.  If someone truly believes that his policies will be bad (and in the pro-life crowd, that pretty much amounts to a genocide of the unborn), then you’d be inconsistent in hoping he succeeds.  What pacifist would one reasonably expect to support Bush’s wars while opposing war in general?  

But I digress.  Fr. Longenecker has expressed exceedingly well those aspects that should give anyone pause when voting for a politician.  His remarks are in regards to Pres. Obama, but they are valid for anyone (and read the comments box at his page for his delineation of the difference between liberal and conservative ideologues).  Highlights:

He may be a Messiah, but he is also a Minotaur. That is to say, he is bull headed. He is bull headed as are all ideologues. The ideologue is different from an idealist because the idealist has a belief and faith whereas the ideologue has dogma and certainty. The dogma he holds to is even more insidious because he does not believe in dogma, and his certainty is frightful because it brooks no opposition.

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This ideological Messianic minotaur (with his soaring rhetoric and inspiring vision for a brave new world) seems to be the most wonderful kind of politician, when in fact he is the worst kind of politician. He is the worst kind of politician because he believes himself to be the best kind of person. But he is the worst kind of person because he really believes he can do no wrong. He is so convinced of the rightness of his ideology that he will not hear reason from anyone, least of all from the fearless little matador who dons a tri-cornered hat and ridiculous tight trousers and tries to skewer the bull.

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This is why I dislike and distrust and fear the Messianic Minotaurs: because they believe they can do no wrong. These are the political Pharisees, the ones who, history has shown us, slaughter millions to create a master race, or effect a more equitable redistribution of wealth to bring about a ‘just and fair’ revolution. These are the ones who self righteously accept the adulation of the crowds as their just due.

The whole post is definitely worth reading (and covers also the difference between idealist and idealogue).  These elements should give us concern about any politician.  They take on somewhat different characters as left or right ideologues, but the problem remains the same.  And the answer lies with us:  we need to stop exalting people, and exalt the only Man who really can save us.

Shortly before the election, living deep in the “blue-state” heartland, I ordered a bumpersticker I intend to leave on for all elections.  It reads, “I already have a Savior.  I’m looking for a President.”  The widespread adulation of public figures, be they the first African-American President or a pop-star, is a ridiculous attempt to find someone worthy of worship, but it will never work out, because they are flawed human beings like the rest of us.  It’s not even fair to treat any politician like that, let alone being illogical and irresponsible.  I’ll put this out there:  We Cannot Save Ourselves.  Every attempt to make the human race better has generally had the opposite effect.  We can’t organise our way to utopia (sorry, Marx), or think our way to goodness (sorry, Enlightenment thinkers).  There’s only one Savior I know of who can help, and he didn’t exalt himself.  

I really encourage everyone to read the full post by Fr. Longenecker, and I hope to post again today or tomorrow.

-the Rosy Gardener

Another Quick Takes Friday!  Yay!  Most of these are lighthearted this week.  I’m glad to have one more week that I’ve actually been productive on this blog.  I’m trying to be better about commenting on other Quick Takes participant blogs, but I’m not there yet.  I plan to do so, however, and I will get to it!  Thanks for visiting and commenting even though I’m a bum about it.  On to the quick takes!

1.  I’ll start off with the one serious one.  Yesterday was the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.  This decision was based on the idea that we couldn’t possibly know what was inside a woman until the baby came out.  The logic was faulty to begin with, but now we have ultrasounds.  Some people say it doesn’t look like a baby for the first few weeks.  Well, I have no doubt PETA would say it didn’t matter that tadpoles don’t resemble full grown frogs at the beginning of their lives – if you kill them, you’re killing frogs.  Another point of irony is the lack of media coverage of the March for Life.  There were “tens of thousands” of marchers, but a march only “three blocks long” (according to the AP in two different places — see Gateway Pundit courtesy the CMR Reader).  If this were Catholics for Choice or an anti-war rally, do you think it would have gotten the same treatment?  On the bright side, profile in courage: a priest who was asked to serve as a fill-in chaplain yesterday at the Kansas state house had the fortitude to pray for an end to abortion. Go him!

2.  I really need to find my sewing machine manual.  I received a beautiful machine from someone at church, and I’ve actually used it, but not very often.  So, I managed to figure out again how to thread it and get the bobbin in, and hemmed a pair of pants.  I was very proud of myself.  Then I had to change thread to hem a different color pair.  This did not work so well.  I have broken a needle, broken the thread multiple times, and had the distinct pleasure of ripping out horribly sewn bits 3 or 4 times now.  Here’s hoping I figure out where I’m going wrong with the main spool.

3.  Wilma Flinstone + Spitball Attack = A Feeling of Vindication for last week’s quick takes:

Given my lack of sewing machine acumen, it may surprise some of you to know I have a degree in costume design.  From that lofty place of BA (just kidding), I can say this dress is all wrong for her.  Mrs. Obama has a larger frame and is more angles than curves.  You can’t just put a lot of fabric on her and expect it to help that.  It just made her look large and ungainly when she should look, as she is, statuesque and graceful.  That strap was hideous, and she clearly had no idea of what to do with the train that kept getting in her way – and who adds a train when they know the client will be dancing on national television all night?

4.  I hate when people embarass themselves in movies.  I change channels, I mute, I leave rooms – I don’t want to watch it.  It’s rather ridiculous, because it’s not like the actors are actually being embarassed – it’s their characters, but I don’t like it – I sit there and cringe. 

5.  This one comes at suggestion of my mother.  She’s noticed me sitting around with a notebook a lot lately.  What have I been writing?  Yes, blog posts.  Oh the irony.  I’m rather techno-savvy, I like to think, for a layman anyway, and yet I keep writing these posts out on paper first.  On the bright side, I’m less picky about writing utensils than I used to be for notebook writing (I prefer non-mechanical pencils and pens with flowy ink, but this post was written in an old ballpoint pen). 

6.  We are inundated with snow.  My high school senior brother actually started construction on an igloo in the backyard last night.  We’re fluctuating between heavy snowfalls and pretty cold temps (not as cold as those in the below-zero range, but definitely colder than Jen F’s Texan defrost drawer).  This is what we’ve woken up to quite a few times now:

My older sis and I made a great snowfort once when we were probably 6 and 8.  We – and by we, I mean she – burrowed into a snow drift in our back yard and hollowed it out.  (Honestly, I think I did very little – J was the one talented with snow, but she let me ride on her coattails, so that was good.)  We crawled in and made grand plans for the rooms we were going to dig out further the next day.  Then J rolled a giant snowball (another snow activity I sucked at) and put it in front of our “door.”  It must’ve melted a little bit that day, and then got a lot colder overnight and the rest of winter, because the snowball froze to the door and we never got back in.  Yes, it was tragic.

7.  To end on a fun (and funny) note, I have to share what my turtle did this week.  His name is Patton, after the general, and true to his namesake he goes after everything in his tank.  He’s been insisting in crawling between the suction cups attaching his island (called Sicily) to the wall of the tank and the wall, thereby detaching the lower two.  Well, apparently he managed to detach all of them, and set it truly afloat.  But it’s also where he sleeps, so he actually secured the bottom two suction cups by partially burying them in gravel.  I think he’s brilliant, but even if he isn’t, he sure has a lot more personality than I anticipated a reptile (esp. such a small one!) would have.  Here, check out the pictures:

I think he needs a bit of work on getting it straight up, but he is only a 5 inch long turtle in a 20 gallon tank.  It’s actually stayed – he’s been climbing on and off of it all week.  And here’s a close-up of the General and his command:

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Well, there’s this week’s Quick Takes!  Thanks for reading!

-Rosy

Thanks for sticking with me.  And welcome to new reader/commentor Bilbo’s Nephew. I just finished The Everlasting Man, and I could feel Chesterton’s style seeping through, but I couldn’t get it out (and I admit, I find it so powerful I don’t really want to) – the first thought that occurred to me on reading your comment was, “My Chesterton is showing…”  But on to Part Two.

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From the end of Part One:

The long and short of it is, Reason rightly has a place at the table;  but it is does not sit there alone, nor is it itself the table.  And when we sit down at the table with all the dishes and silverware, and no food, we starve for something more than the tangible.

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What does any of the prior have to do with scifi and fantasy?  They are both attempts to fill this void of meaning and purpose, and highly analogous ones, too.  That is, they are both concerned with the “whys” of human existence, which often emerge as a quest to find what it is to be human, whether travelling Middle Earth with hobbits, or galaxies with Asgard (I admit it;  I love Stargate).  They also are one of the few ways many feel able to address the existence beyond the rational (note: not against the rational;  beyond it).  They explore those things which, set in the world we know, would be quickly dismissed as irrational (and generally, both genres have been unfairly cast aside).  

And so they create other worlds to explore the things they can sense in our own but otherwise cannot talk about because the prevailing mood of our times cannot stand it.  Despite the claims of the rationalists, many, if not all, people have experiences that belie the absence of the supernatural, even if they have forgotten them or convinced themselves they were mistaken.  I have known some who eschew all religion of every sort, and yet unquestioningly accept ideas such as ghosts and spirits, and take fate, destiny, luck and supersticions very seriously.    And so, with these ideas treated very callously (as, no doubt, some, but not all, of these things should be), our imaginations latch onto other worlds.  Scifi and fantasy become the safehaven where these ideas can be explored.  

Scifi alters the rules of the world:  “Well, in this universe, giant rings created by a technologically advanced race millenia ago create a wormhole through subspace, enabling the transfer of matter as an energy signal and its reintegration as matter at the other end.”  (And if you understood that, you, too, have seen too much Stargate.)  Those who explore the supernatural in our world are generally shelved off in the religion section with the other “irrationals.”  And so, the science fiction writer must change the rules by changing the world it is set in, whether by writing about something that happened “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” or simply introducing some piece of technology that fundamentally alters our world so that the normal rules don’t exist, atleast not in the same way.  In this way, writers loose the ties with which rationalism has unfairly bound their imagination.

Fantasy, on the other hand, generally leaves our world entirely in order to explore it more fully.  It often focuses specifically on questions of meaning and purpose, the “why” questions which are otherwise left to dust.  Fantasy skews in the exact opposite direction of scifi when it comes to technology.  In scifi, things that cannot be explained or reproduced in the real world are the product of advanced technologies.  In fantasy, however, the supernatural is always mystical, and often magical.  Scifi hopes that progress will return to us a sense of “beyond” through technology.  Fantasy, in contrast, strips away technology, eschewing it to get to the “meat” of our existence.

And therein lies the essential difference, which is greater than the Grand Canyon which separates the squirrels, ubiquitous in grade school science textbooks, which are the same species but look completely different.  It is why these two genres are analogous and not homologous.  That is, scifi still buys into the rationalistic viewpoint, particularly as regards the idea of progress.  Progress is also an idea that deserves its own post, but for now it will suffice to say that technological advancement cannot by itself make the world a better place.  Rationalism already squelches the imaginative impulse that is naturally receptive to the intangible.  That isn’t going to change because someone shows up with a Taldis, or we can teleport across galaxies.  In this sense, we can say that the essential difference is that fantasy knows that rationalism is not its friend, and scifi is still holding on to its misguided faith in it to make the world better.  There hasn’t yet been a technology, nor will there ever be, that can rid the human heart of selfishness, or replace true generosity.  If any progress is to be made in the human condition, it must come from being more human, not more technological.  

And that is why fantasy generally trumps scifi.  Scifi has a lot to offer, and is pretty cool and a lot of fun, but at its core it buys into a system (rationalism) that can never offer what it hopes for.  A lot of people who don’t feel like they quite fit in feel a lot more at home in both these genres, and scifi does champion the underdog.  But it can’t deliver on its promises.  The original Star Trek envisioned a world with cellular phones.  Well, we’ve got them, and it hasn’t made us any better.  Progress and technology can’t make anyone a better person.  People can use them to do good, but even the most humanitarian device only works because someone dreamed it, someone made it, and someone used it.  Without each of those steps, it might as well be a pile of dirt.  

The other trap of the rationalistic progress cult is that it assumes that humanity is on a linear path towards getting better, if only we can be better organised and equip ourselves better.  In addition to being utterly (and ironically) illogical to anyone the slightest bit familiar with human nature, this tends to become very reductionist morally and socially.  All of a sudden, people start deciding that issues have been decided (“we should be past that”) as if truth and conscience were majority opinions.  And worse, anyone who disagrees with the progress ideal becomes some sort of bad guy, or worse, someone to be laughed at and pitied.  Sadly, while scifi knows the sort of answers its looking for (the “becauses” for the “whys”), it’s still asking the same old question.

While, as in every genre, books vary greatly, fantasy generally offers an overall package.  This comes because of two main differences.  First, it has correctly identified the questions;  and second, it has less certainty (if any) of the answers.  I enjoy travelling through space as much as the next person, but travelling up Mount Doom, well, it’s harder, but it’s closer to my heart – who doesn’t have a Mt. Doom to climb?  And this is really at the heart of the matter.  Fantasy talks about the things that really matter to us, even if it doesn’t get them all right, and even if some fantasy books get none of them right.  They’ve chosen to not be distracted by the glimmering mirage of a future we’ll “progress” to.  And despite the high brow attitudes that it makes for low brow literature, fantasy works have proven they have something out worth paying attention to.

I doubt anyone truly understood just how huge a phenomenon The Lord of the Rings would be.  We weren’t in a “best-seller list” era, and things like hobbits had no precedent anywhere.  But a soul journey into a distant land, dark and unknown, to destroy a great evil that had been brought into the world by an ultimate bad guy?  Ideas of heroism, self-sacrifice, something greater than oneself (and the progress “ideal”), and perseverence against overwhelming odds and one’s own sense of despair?  We can point likewise to the Harry Potter phenomenon (for anyone convinced they are a gateway to the occult, I encourage you to read John Granger’s work, particularly his latest books, which uncover the Christian meanings and symbology in the series).  In a more rationalistic world than the one into which Frodo was thrust, millions of people have found resonance in these stories of a boy wizard of singular determination and sacrificial love.  They’ve found in them exactly what Tolkien meant once again – those elements of the true story they don’t even remember, but in their deepest hearts recognise as truth (cf. Mythopoeia).

Why did I title this part “Chicken Soup for the Rationalist Soul”?  Because, when it comes down to it, the reason people like scifi and fantasy, even those that are badly written or have only the tiniest fragments of the One True Story, is because they are longing for God.  They may not know it, and if they did they may not like it, but in our secularised, rationalistic world, Frodo and Sam, and even Harry Potter, may be the closest thing to catechism and faith a lot of people come across.  I hope that God can use these things to bring people closer to him, and I know he must be.  Each little bit of fantasy read chips away at the ideological hegemony of the rationalists, and hopefully a little more at the barriers we’ve put around our hearts that keep us from hearing God and fulfilling our deepest longings.

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Well, I finally finished it.. I really have to work out a blogging schedule, because I’m totally going to be tired going to work tomorrow, but I’m glad it’s done, so there’s that.  I’d love to hear comments and thoughts – agreement with me not required!

-the Rosy Gardener

I’ve been trying to write this post since last week and late Saturday night I simply got out an old notebook and started writing again from scratch.  As I sit here typing, I have a lot more than I expected, and what was intended to be an exploration of why people like scifi and fantasy so much (responding to a deep human need) has turned into a exploration of rationalism, the problems it poses, and how scifi and fantasy stories attempt to answer the issues it creates.  But I want to get this out there, so I’m going to have to divide it into two shorter posts somewhere.  If the ending seems incomplete, just know that there’s more coming.

Scifi and fantasy have “taken off” in the modern era.  I would even suggest that as genres, they are decidedly modern inventions.  That is, they arose, however ironically, only after the advent of the so-called Age of Reason (I guess we just weren’t thinking until then, lol).  While many works prior to this point may have had fantastical elements, they were written in periods where such events were generally considered more likely and believable, when humanity was much more inclined towards the supernatural as a whole. 

When it comes to scifi and fantasy, I consider them to be almost (but not quite) two sides of the same coin.  That is, while there are significant differences between the two, I think they are both responses, and related ones, to the same thing, which is rationalism.

I should, before continuing, clarify my use of terms.  By “rationalism,” I refer not to the use of reason, nor do I wish to criticise reason in the slightest.  What I do mean to criticise, however, is the idea that knowledge is the answer to all questions.  We may call that knowledge science, or reason, or fact, but the problem is that in our day and age, we mostly call it truth.  I do not mean to say that scientific discoveries are not true;  I am by no means in “Darwin denial.”  But that a thing may be true does not make it truth.

I have brought up this idea of there being a difference between fact and truth a number of times in conversations I’ve had.  I have never yet felt that I have explained it particularly well, but I hope I have found a way to now.  As with all those things which are somewhat mystical, the best I can do is explore the idea by proxy.  It is true that I have hazel eyes.  It is likewise true that I fancy myself a writer.  These statements are equally true, but not equally important, nor are they relevant to the same parts of myself.  My eye color is an immutable element of my physical body;  that I am a writer is (I hope) an immutable part of my soul, the intangible me.  One is extant;  the other is purposeful.

The Age of Enlightenment has had some incredibly far-reaching effects.  I don’t doubt that medical science, for one, would not have made all the advances it has in this last century without the century prior to it.  But it got a few important things wrong.  One was assuming that the times before it were dark.  Naturally, the medieval period was not all sweetness and light, but neither was it all dungeons and misery.  And it was most assuredly not backwards.  For what the medievals had to work with, they were incredibly resourceful and made a good many advances of their own.  And while they had nowhere near the scientific knowledge we do, a good many modern discoveries rest on foundations they laid.  They also were very sophisticated thinkers, and wildly talented artists.

The second mistake is a confusion of questions.  Enlightenment thinkers became excellent seekers of knowledge and understanding (which is a good thing).  They queried, explored, dissected and discovered how things worked.  They looked at the whole world like a giant clock with gears which they could examine to know the inner workings of everything that was.  And that’s when it happened.  They began to answer every question with these sorts of answers but these sorts of answers were the exact wrong kind for the sorts of questions humanity really needs answers to.  The rationalists answered every question as if it began with “how,” and yet when Man is really searching for an answer, he begins his question with “why.”  

A doctor may be able to tell someone that his loved one died because a blood clot travelled to his heart, but that doesn’t answer the fundamentally human question of why it happened:  why then;  why it “had to”;  why that person;  and so forth — even if the knowledge of how it happened is accurate and useful. 

Before the Enlightenment, there were supersticions which now we would find silly.  But there was a truthfulness to them that rationalism has not been able to match.  And that is that humanity is where the physical reality and the intangible reality (which is just as real) meet and intersect.  Animals do not ponder right and wrong, or agonise over their purpose in life.  But we humans do.  Plants don’t feel happier on a sunny day, or fuller on a rainy one.  But we have deep emotions and intuitions.  And perhaps most of all, despite our tendency not to use it, human beings are the only beings that can and do refuse to sate our every desire because we see a value in self-denial and recognise that wanting something does not make it good or necessary.  Reason is a fantastic thing, about as close to magic as a human being can get on his own.  But even at its heights, it has nothing to add to our lives when we are at the highest peaks and deepest valleys of our very existence.  It may be able to explain why a sunset is beautiful, but it cannot add to its beauty.  It may be able to explain a loss, but it cannot heal the pain.  It’s an important part of our lives, but it was never to be the only part, or even necessarily the most important one.  

Answering “why” questions with “how” answers has left a lot of people feeling rather unfulfilled, as anyone does when they don’t get a real answer to a question, especially one they consider important.  In this respect, rationalism has become decidedly irrational.  It has grounded us so firmly in the scientific method that it has most unscientifically excluded other means of knowing things, such as deep reflection, or revelation.  It has decided that some things are always irrational, and thus irrationally concludes that reason and religion are, for instance, incompatible.  And ironically, it has in fact given rise to some of the least rational responses to our existance.  So dissatisfied are people now with this way that denies everything beyond factual knowledge that many have leapt whole heartedly into the New Age, which offers a broad pool of shallow help, borrowing scientific concepts of energy and magnetism and the like and diving in a puddle they have mistaken for an ocean — but perhaps that will be another post.  The long and short of it is, Reason rightly has a place at the table;  but it is does not sit there alone, nor is it itself the table.  And when we sit down at the table with all the dishes and silverware, and no food, we starve for something more than the tangible.

Another quick takes Friday!  I really want this blog to form into a community (doesn’t have to be a huge one, like some of the awesome bloggers out there, but it’d be nice to have a regular crowd of commenters!), and so I’m trying to figure out a writing schedule I can stick to so that there’s more than 2 posts per week.  

Okay, on to the quick takes:

1.  I know as a culture, we like to idealise presidents and their families, but when I saw Michelle Obama described as “First Lady of Fashion” in a local newspaper this week, I was reminded of my inner furor over this issue.  Sometimes, Mrs. Obama looks great.  Other times, I think she’s had some fashion missteps (that floral print?  that weird black and red number?).  So, why do I keep hearing these comparisons to Jackie O.?  Jackie actually worked with designers, she didn’t just buy their things, and honestly, I don’t think it’s disrespectful to view M.O.’s fashion with reality rather than some weird worshipfulness.  She’s an accomplished woman in her own right, but she’s not a fashionista (nor should it matter).  Besides, compared to Carla Bruni (Sarkozy), no other leader’s wife has a chance.

2.  So, I was watching Dragons’ Den last night, and I realised that, beyond people having a lot of wacky ideas for companies, and even worse, some people think those are good ideas!  For any who are unfamiliar, it’s a show in which people who are starting or trying to expand businesses get to pitch to five successful business people for investment.  I was watching the UK version; it started in Japan, and is also in Canada (Australia’s was cancelled;  the US may get one called Shark something, after the Japanese version).  So, a fellow and his wife come in, and he talks about having had serious heart surgery, and making a mold for his wife of his lips in case he didn’t make it (like a little kiss).  That’s all well and good, but as a business, the idea of selling kits for lots of people to do the same thing is.. wacky.  Maybe it’s me, but the idea of having a cast of lips… well, say I was married and my husband died – am I supposed to kiss that thing?  It still wouldn’t be him.  

So, I figured the Dragons were going to shoot this down… they are not ill-named.  The Scotsman, Duncan, declares himself “out” quickly, but doesn’t actually rip into them.  Then a couple more say they’re out – but that they LOVE the product!  So, I’m thinking Peter Jones is going to rip them a new one – but he loves it, too!  And Theo Paphitis, who sits there and tests products by pulling at them, and tells those pitching to justify him giving them his children’s inheritance, agrees!  Nobody invested, but 80% liked it?  WHAT?!  Am I missing somerthing here? 

Then they invested in a product called iTeddy that looks cute.  But I have something similar that you can plug an iPod (or anything with an earphone jack) into (the iPulse bear, but I renamed him TechnoTeddy), so I of course protested loudly.  That said, I think it will be successful, but TechnoTeddy is sooo much cooler… I can’t find my pic of him, but if you Google image iPulse bear he comes up (I have the white one).

3.  Apparently, “to pluto” is now a verb… This I learned from Ace of Cakes (Thursday night has too much good TV).  Apparently, it means to demote something, as in, “you’ve been plutoed.”  

In my mind, Pluto is still a planet, and I’d rather they have added a 10th planet than take away Pluto’s planet status… it’s just not fair.  My favorite funny guys, Rhett and Link, commemorated Pluto with a song – music video below (totally clean – they’re hilarious and family friendly.

4.  So, I started my job on Tuesday – it’s actually a good set-up, about 30 hours a week.  Nothing fancy, but it’ll help me pay my student loans and also buy my plane ticket to go teach English in Eastern Europe next September, so I’m glad.  I also get to play chemist, and can make commission on top of salary, so that’s good.  The only problem was putting up the canvas tent around my kiosk.  I’m about five feet tall, and that is definitely not enough, so when I closed up Tuesday night, having never done it before, I spent forty five minutes circling my chair around the stand and climbing up it to try to get this canvas thing up.  I knew what it was supposed to be, but then I think I had it upside down, which was not so good, and so I became completely confused.  That night, my kiosk was the saddest in the mall.  I opened the next day, so I got there early so that none of the other kiosk people would see my shame.  I went back that night and a coworker showed me the trick..  I’m thinking I’m going to be making a hook on a stick to help me out getting it up there.  Even if I don’t, though, I definitely won’t be getting to my car an hour after closing tonight, and that will be awesome.

5.  I thought about making a post about how I never make resolutions for the new year, and then I realised I had.  I’m trying to read a book a week (on average).  Luckily, I stacked up Brisingr and a few Narnia books (Narnia was a reread), because I’ve been working on Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man since around Christmas.  I am within 30 pages of being done finally, so I won’t be getting behind.  Yay!  It’s really great, so expect some Chestertonian-themed posts.  As far as I can simply (if that’s possible), the first part’s thesis is: “There is a God, because man painted in caves.”  The second part is: “Christ is God, because people long for truth and stories, and he fulfilled both.”  I love these two arguments.  :D

6.  RIP Ricardo Montalban.  I wish I could say I knew his work better than I do, but what I do know of it is all good.  He was a great actor and a good person.  

7.  Writing blog posts is hard!  I’ve been working on and off on a post about just why we like scifi and fantasy so much as a culture, and I keep revising.  It makes me think of something Jen F. mentioned about people who worry about quality not writing as well or much as those who forego second guessing to just write as much as they can.  So, while I keep writing and hacking away at this one, I’m going to try to get my head around the idea of quality and just go for it… So, look for a post on what scifi and fantasy say about us in the next couple days.  

Well, that’s it for the second Quick Takes!  yay!!!

-tRG

So, I’ve been working for three days now on another post, but I read this in the paper this morning and I wanted to post it.  Basically, the ACLU is suing Health and Human Services over the US Conference of Catholic Bishops because when they help victims of trafficking, they won’t allow money to go to services and items which are in conflict with Catholic teaching.  Here’s the crux of it:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the complaint in federal court in Boston against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The suit claims HHS, which distributes funds to help trafficking victims, has allowed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to limit the services its subcontractors provide. The ACLU claims the bishops’ conference is misusing taxpayer money and attempting to impose its religious beliefs on trafficking victims. …

“The whole goal of this program is to provide the full range of services, and the concern is that because of a main contractor’s religious beliefs, it will be much more difficult for women to get these services,” said Brigitte Amiri, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

Here is the whole article from The Boston Herald.

I know there are a lot of people with strong opinions on the ACLU as an organisation.  It doesn’t help their cause that the cases that get the most press are generally the most controversial ones.  In a sense, I can appreciate their dedication to taking on cases that oftentimes aren’t going to win them any fans, and defending clients who are otherwise reprehensible people (but aren’t necessarily legally responsible).  On the other hand, I have a sense that they like to create a ruckus atleast as much as they like to help people.

I have a couple big objections to this, one a bit of a legal squabble, and one culture/morality.

Legally, I think they chose to file suit in Boston because it is the most likely place it’ll be given any weight.  From the limited information, it seems like the ACLU contends that by funding the USCCB services, the HHS is violating equal protection for those who do not subscribe to the same beliefs or prohibitions.  They rest this claim on the assumption that denying certain services because they are in violation of religious doctrines constitutes imposition of religious beliefs.  Now, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not a lawyer, but since I’m applying to law schools next year, I might as well try to start training my mind.  If any real lawyers stop by, maybe they can help me out here.

First, let’s tackle equal protection.  If the Department of Health and Human Services exclusively grants public funds to help victims of human trafficking to organisations like the USCCB that refuse to fund contraceptives, abortion/abortifacients, etc., they might have a case.  (A sidenote here:  the USCCB subcontracts with these funds, basically to dioceses.)  But I find that extremely unlikely.  I don’t have time to go tracking down HHS spending, but estimates on human trafficking are in the millions.  One organisation, even the USCCB sending the money on down to individual dioceses, can’t possibly be handling every victim of trafficking,  because they don’t have unlimited staff, either.  There is also nothing preventing victims of trafficking from seeking those refused services elsewhere;  there are other trafficking agencies, and entire groups devoted to offering abortion on demand.  The Catholic Church isn’t in the habit of holding people hostage, honestly.

Another thing is the idea of imposition of religious beliefs.  If the Catholic Church were the only organisation that opposed abortion and contraception it would still not prove imposition of religious beliefs.  Aside from making the wrongful assumption that there is no non-religious argument against abortion et al., I don’t think they can claim that anyone was forced to adopt the Catholic religion in whole or part.  They simply were not assisted in those particular ways.  

Now, some may argue that that is an imposition of some sort, so I’d like to create a parallel case.  Let’s say that the HHS was funding the Jainist equivalent of the USCCB.  Jainism as a religion considers vegetarianism part of its overall philosophy.  So, any help that anyone received would not involve animal products.  In clothing them, there would be nothing of leather (such as gloves in wintertime), in sheltering them they would use nothing that involved products taken from dead animals, and stocking up their refrigerator would not include meat, eggs, etc., even though the clients may be meat-eaters.  If the Jainists were to extract some promise of vegetarianism from clients, or to prohibit them from procuring meat on their own (neither of which would likely happen), then I think there would be a case for them imposing their religion on clients.  Well, the USCCB has done in effect the same thing:  they have not included in their aid things which they believe violate life.  The difference is political, not religious or philosophical.  I doubt any reasonable person would expect the ACLU to take on this hypothetical Jainist organisation.

I actually interned at a diocesan office that was responsible for diocesan efforts in helping immigrants and refugees, and probably would be the one to take care of trafficking victims that the USCCB took on.  The staff itself was not all-Catholic, it may not even have been half-comprised of Catholics (and this was a relatively large group).  And as an intern helping clients, I didn’t actually work with any clients who were Catholic.  I worked with Jewish and Muslim refugees from the former Soviet Union.  The faith I saw was that for some staff it was the reason they wanted to help people;  nobody was denied services based on it, nor did anyone proselytise.  So the entire imposition argument simply rests on refusal to provide some (few!) services that are against Catholic moral teaching.  The place I worked, and I imagine most others, tried to get people on their feet as quickly as possible – housing, jobs, money, English lessons and English translation.  In other words, if they want a condom, they can get one from the doctor they will most assuredly visit very easily, and probably can even manage to procure an abortion.  (I know Planned Parenthood takes donations (towards middle of article) to cover the costs of abortions for low-income women in crisis pregnancies.)

And now to the culture/morality issue..

This one really ticks me off.  The ACLU may be able to make a case, and I hope it comes right back to them, but really, it’s the cultural double-standard that bugs me more.  In our society, we have this idea than whatever an individual’s conscience says is okay for them – a moral system of “whatever floats your boat” in which a person decides for himself what right and wrong are, and no one can judge.  But people do judge all the time.  Many people have decided that abortion is wrong;  others have decided that it is right, or allowable, or more wrong to legislate their personal beliefs.  Of these two groups, pro-life and pro-choice (I call people as they prefer to be called), one’s beliefs are an imposition, and one’s aren’t, yet both get taxpayer money, and they don’t both get sued.  

So, is conscience okay or not?  I don’t really like the fact that public funds support abortion, something with a 100% casualty rate (as a bumper sticker put it: “Abortion: 1 dead, 1 wounded”).  And people who support it are apparently miffed that public funds go to groups that don’t support it, and yet they won’t even call it even.  My conscience and many others’ say thay abortion kills human beings, and really hurts the women who have them, and my Church (and other churches and groups are/)is willing to back that belief up with a lot of crisis pregnancy funding and help, with adoption agencies, and also with post-abortive counselling and support groups (which are desperately needed and have many clients, and which, according to pro-choice groups, there is no need for).

I guess I’m just frustrated that in our culture, we can bandy about phrases like conscience and liberty but when push comes to shove, certain groups want to exclude other groups.  I’d never tell Planned Parenthood they can’t have a seat at the table, despite the fact that they think we should be “beyond” my conscientious objections to murdering millions and turning the womb is designed to foster life into a place of death.  Where’s equal protection for our consciences?  I guess that doesn’t really fit the ACLU’s rubric for things worth defending.

For more depressing news, check out the plight of doctors in Wisconsin (hat tip to Matthew at CMR).  These are not isolated incidents;  they are coordinated assualts.

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New to Hobbit Sense?  Me too!  Consider subscribing to my RSS feed!  I’m intending to focus largely on faith/spirituality, culture/society, and arts (a lot of lit and theatre, and hopefully some “art” art (paintings, etc.)), and anything else that comes to mind.  Currently working on:  ”SciFi and Fantasy:  Chicken Soup for the Contemporary Soul?”

thanks for reading!

-the Rosy Gardener

Editing to add a link to a post by my friend the Raving Theist posted at Dawn Eden’s site from 2006 about the ACLU “supporting” free speech by opposing “Choose Life” license plates:  “License to Kill” by the Raving Theist.

Quick Takes Friday with Jen F!  (Check out my cool banner link to her site! Yes, I am abnormally proud of it….  woohoo!)

Hobbit Sense Edition 1!

(Quick takes are short notes that aren’t enough for a post on their own, but are worth posting.  Join the fun and do your own!)

1.   If you’re ever out and about in bad weather where there’s a prime parking spot available in an otherwise crowded lot, don’t take it.  This was the lesson of Tuesday.  I was so surprised I happily pulled into the first open spot at the bank– it just looked a little icy.  In reality, it was like a little pond – a layer of ice floating on top of a big puddle.  My sneakers took all night to dry out, and my pants took a while, too (I sloshed around up to my ankles a bit).  I guess everyone in warmer climates probably won’t have to worry about it, and everyone in colder climates probably knows better, but I’ve been spoiled by Virginia winters the last four years, so I think my common sense flew out my ear.

 2.  I feel kind of in-between things.  I was brought up to be mature, and I have received a lot of comments over the years that I am mature, but I guess I feel like a late bloomer in some ways, too.  But I’m thinking that perhaps I need this time right now, and am trying to get my act together.

3.  My mom has taken a liking to The Dog Whisperer, and I think it’s great.  Our dog is abnormally cute and very funny (he seriously knocks down pillows and snuggles – he’s a mini wiener), but he’s not exactly trained.. Let’s just say he gets excited and I break out the paper towels.  I’m hoping Mom’s new determination will prevent future occurences like this one:

Of course, I only hope that because I already have the photo….

4.  I can’t ever find enough pencils anywhere. And if I do, they aren’t sharpened or they have crappy erasers.  I know some people hate pencils, but I really like them.  I’m currently spying a whole cluster… I think I’m going to kidnap them and take them downstairs to the electric sharpener.  Oooh, I think I may have stashed some more under a doll’s skirt (nothing dirty – it was a quick solution that didn’t involve other people absconding with them).  

5.  Has anyone else seen the hilarious video of a little kid with about 8 frogs in his/her diaper?  

H/T to Matthew at CMR

6.  I wanted to include my respects to Fr. Neuhaus, who passed away yesterday (I believe).  I feel a bit badly about “squeezing” him in here, but I can’t do him justice without quoting extensively.  He wrote very eloquently on many subjects, including death.  The magazine First Things has republished his article “Born Towards Dying” online.  H/T to DarwinCatholic for the link to the article.

7. I have been giving myself a crash course in photoshop this year and it’s been a lot of fun.  But while I’m glad to be getting better at it, I miss being able to draw.. in fact, my favorite things, including the poster below, I hand drew and digitally colored. 

If I had a bunch of money, and Apple made a touchscreen computer, I’d so be there.  In a way, I think part of what bothers me is that I wish I had more skill as a artist (non-digital)… but I enjoy sketching and doing graphics, so I think that’s something to be grateful for.   

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Thanks for reading!  Would you consider adding Hobbit Sense at OneFreeGarden to your RSS feed?  (I recently realised it’s a great way to follow multiple blogs because it tells you when there’s an update!).  Also, I am familiarising myself with Wordpress and I think I may have created a Member option now, but I’m not sure at all, so if you want you’re welcome to be one, but I’m going to leave non-registering open too (I hope I did anyway!) unless some random toll becomes a problem, which I don’t foresee.  Thanks for visiting!  

Considering that I wasn’t born until basically all western tv shows (I’m not including Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman) were off the airwaves, it’s kind of ironic that I have such an affection for a couple of old western TV shows and a few b-movies.  Some of them were pretty cheesy, and they didn’t have the pizzazz of modern film technology, and they often didn’t have the money a lot of other films did, too (theirs was a brief heyday).  But there’s something that resonates with me, and I think it’s probably why, even when they are a bit dated, they aren’t irrelevant.  

The first thing obvious has to be the setting.  A number of westerns mirror the attitudes the arose from, a sense that man was under assault by increasing “civilisation”, not in the sense of philosophy, but real estate, that the cities sapped something out of people.  I’m not sure if I can say conclusively what it was, but it had something to do with a person feeling honest about who they were.  I happen to be a big fan of what I consider “politeness” but it can be used to shield true intent, or restrain people from being themselves.  It also could be that more people living closer together seemed claustrophobic.  But at its essence, I think westerns reflected a great love for the idea of some sort of solitude in which a person could discover who he was, and test himself against that idea, even if that solitude took place with a whole bunch of livestock.

But even more than that, the westerns reflected a sort of certainty about a few things, a certainty I think a lot of people long for (even if it’s not always a good thing to be so certain).  There was no modern sense of a flexible moral order (not on the big things anyway);  and, contrary to our modern sensibilties of feeling stifled very quickly, these were a reassurance.  So, the lone wrangler could take on the cattle baron, not in spite of his relative lack of temporal power, but because he had a sense of something more powerful than him that he could call upon, a final justice, even if it were only a whisper in his soul.  The tale of a man taking upon himself an enemy who has much greater power than he does isn’t new in any sense, but it does resonate, mostly, I think, because people more often feel themselves as Davids, not Goliaths.

My favorite thing about the westerns, though, isn’t that.  It’s that they are often little morality plays.  I think here it’s helpful to review a couple of my favorites, watched once or twice on TCM or AMC.  And surprisingly, for all the gunslinger mentality, in some of them there really is a very strong attitude of non-violence.  Two of my favorites, both starring Gregory Peck and both dealing with being haunted by violence (and doing some hunting) have striking endings.  In The Gunfighter, the main character wreaks vengeance with his dying breath, but because of the torture he has endured, it’s a very hollow, sad sort of victory.  And while there is a firm sense of “moral order” in The Bravados, it’s not unexamined.  Peck’s character pursues five criminals for killing his wife;  he manages to capture or kill four of them.  His dogged pursuit seems a righteous cause until the last few minutes, when he discovers that his certainty of guilt was misguided the whole time.  (I recommend both these films, although be aware that Bravados has an entirely useless love interest.)  

So, even though both these films seem violent and (initially) to justify the very vengeful paths of the main characters, in the end they take a much more critical approach.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that both films condemn it very strongly through showing the hollow victory and the depth of wrongdoing it can lead one into.  Now, not every western has these themes, but there are a lot of good ones.  The Searchers is a classic that addresses grief and despair poignantly but with great subtlety.  I would also consider Cheyenne Autumn, a fantastic film about governmental mistreatment of Native Americans, to be a good example of the genre.  That film challenges viewers on ideas of justice, kindness, honesty and honor, right as might versus right as doing right by others, etc.  Many other films towards the end of the sixties and into the seventies explored the difficulty of change and growing older.  Of course, there were plenty of shoot ‘em up films, too.  But I think as a genre it has a lot to offer.  Even western TV series are surprisingly full of mini-morality issues.  Though they had interludes of love interests and plenty of shoot-outs, they didn’t shy away from tough subjects.

They also didn’t shy away from the idea of conscience.  And perhaps that’s why this topic came to mind.  I have to admit, TV is a big temptation for me.  I really enjoy film and TV, and there’s something about my imagination that latches onto characters.  My mom likes to remind me that the characters in books, plays, movies and TV shows aren’t real, but I often treat them like they are (not in a disturbed way (no creepy stalker photograph walls with candles), but I really have a knack for understanding characters).  In the past year, I’ve really come to like a couple of shows I think are great.  But there’s been something bothering me, and it’s that conscience seems to have taken a big hit.

I think it’s that conscience seems to have become subjective.  So, Burn Notice, which is a great spy/action show, has a character who helps people and is generally on the “right” side.  But he doesn’t care what happens to anyone on the “wrong” side.  He has set people on the wrong side up a few times to take a pretty nasty fall, usually involving their deaths.  And not only does he seem unconcerned, but the show offers no sympathy for those characters.  I also really like NCIS, which has a great cast of characters.  But the lead, who is completely heartbroken and blaming himself for the murder of his family, seems to have no compunction about murdering their killer, or generally doing some shady dealings.  Where in a western, a character would be torturing himself over whether he’d done the right thing (or outright acknowledging that he’d done the wrong thing), these characters take it all in stride.  And so, even though I watch them faithfully, there’s a jarring disconnect between the characters I like and some actions which are more easily swallowed when done by the villain.  

What makes the cowpoke eternal?  Well, it’s not the writing oftentimes (which can get pretty canned), and it’s not the guns and horses.  I think it’s that the heroes of those films often seemed to stand outside of the society that spawned them (both as 20th century creations and characters grounded in a past reality).  There’s a timelessness because they don’t yield to the age, either age, setting or movie. The cowboy was an almost accidental splicing of surety that there was a good, and a good deal of doubt that he fit the category.  There are a lot of great films and TV shows out there these days, but sometimes I really miss the cowboy.

Hello there!  I can hardly believe I’m typing this.  This blog is Phase One of getting my website up and running. I have grand plans, but as with all plans, it’s best to start, and I can’t think of a better way to start than a blog (if largely because I don’t have to figure out Dreamweaver to get it running – thank you, Wordpress!)

So, what is this blog going to be about?  Well, I should probably start out by saying I do not view this as a diary.  I don’t really thing writing the details of my life for all to see as a way to keep my personal life personal, and honestly, I don’t think most of you care.  And basically, I don’t care to share it.  Now, it may be that every now and then I do write about my life… but that is not the purpose of being here.

What is the purpose?  It’s easier to say what it’s inspired by, which is a quote from Lord of the Rings, Chapter 1: “The Tower of Cirith Ungol” of Book Six (in Return of the King), when Sam finds himself greatly dispairing at the possibility of journeying on without Frodo, carrying the Ring himself:

He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows. Already the Ring tempted him, grnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.

In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

So, this is my garden, and I the gardener. It is a small plot, and all that I need and I hope it may be all that I want. After the war, Sam went back to being a gardener, and replanted the Shire, and made green and growing things. I hope these posts may be little sparks of green in a barren land.  

This will likely involve faith (I’m Catholic, raised Latin Rite but really thinking of going Byzantine Rite (e.g. Ukrainian Catholic)), politics, common sense (or, hobbit sense), the arts (visual, performing), literature and language (I’m a grammar nerd), etc.  All views are welcome when presented civilly… and while an occasional swear wouldn’t bother me, I don’t want many (and not G-D or F).  In short, anything and everything is up for grabs, but civil discourse is a must. 

A preview of possible topics (i.e. ideas that have popped into my head):

• a weekly or biweekly Chesterton discussion
• a comparison of themes in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (I am NOT foolish enough to compare the works themselves, but I think they are both Christian works and also have a lot of shared themes)
• writing in general
• just why the Russian absurdists are so freakin’ awesome
• why clericalism is off the menu at the closed cafeteria (or, let’s draw from all areas, neither ignoring nor reifying the past)
• why the past has a lot to offer
• the value of traditions
• war, peace, the culture of violence
• absolute truth and shifting cultural norms
• the spiritual desert
• tv shows (time-and-soul-sucking, or worthwhile)
• classic movies (most of my favorites predate me, and several predate my parents)
• why I’m NOT the center of the universe
• the great rhetoric of our age (would you believe it’s on primetime?)
• Seven Quick Takes  (this is a weekly multi-blog thing started by Jen F. at Conversion Diary, which is a GREAT site)
• anything else I happen to think of

Anyone else notice this turned into a list to help me remember?  Maybe I’ll write about memory sometime… and my lack of a good one!

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One note is that I do not want real names used here. I will call everyone by username and even those who know me personally, please refrain from my given name and even from other screennames you know me as… I guess I just want this to be somewhat set apart from things. Nicknames are great, however, so if you come up with something shorter for “the Rosy Gardener” (perhaps TRG or Rosy?) then that’s great. 

Fair day,

the Rosy Gardener