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| Been gone awhile. Part of it has been the last two weeks in Massachusetts with wifey supreme.
I'm ready to leave Oklahoma. It sounds crazy. Why would you want to leave Terra Dei?
There is just nothing here for us anymore. By circumstance, or the direct Will of the Lord...every connection we have to this place is being severed. I hadn't really thought of it before, but it seems my discovery of Tradition has coincided pretty neatly with the disappearance of friends. The friends and family we have remaining here are just as ready to leave as we are. Even my father, who I thought would be content to sit in his recliner for the rest of his life says he is ready to go.
If it weren't for my wife needing to finish school...I'm really not sure we would've come back. Maybe we just run in the wrong circles, but there is a sort of lifelessness that permeates everything here...maybe it's just our own perception. I feel we are stuck between West Side Methlab apathy, and South side gluttonous materialism. Ignorant red neck athiests and ignorant red neck prosperity gospel adherents. Obviously, where we move there will be materialistic hypocrite liberals and universalist feel-gooders, but somehow it's a trade off I'm eager to make. Maybe it's the tornados, maybe it's my job, or the people here...whatever it is, I'd happily walk away from it tomorrow.
I will be sad to leave our diocese. We have a great bishop and priests. Where we will likely move won't, but we should have access to the Latin Mass...the Mass that made the saints and that made Padre Pio weep. Maybe we aren't needed in Tulsa.
If there is a good time to try to move and settle in a new area, I think now is the time.
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| MMALately, I've been thinking about Mixed Martial Arts. It's something I've had an interest in for a few years now, and it's become a sort of pop culture phenomenon. There is so much money in the sport now that it seems like everyone wants a piece of it, and there is enough to be had for all the people involved. Fighters don't even need to fight consistently. They can win a few fights to make a name for themselves, and then make money off endorsements, workshops, and opening their own schools. Which is all a really interesting turnaround from what MMA in the U.S. was in the beginning and in the years before the explosion in popularity.
Obviously, these types of events were popular in other places in the world before what we might consider the beginning with first Ultimate Fighting Championship in the U.S. The UFC started off as an experiment not a sport. Behind the scenes, the experiment was 'Can Gracie Ju-Jitsu defeat all opponents thereby opening the market for the Gracie family to make money in the U.S.?' Publicly, the experiment was 'What happens when fighters of different styles fight each other?'
The fighters themselves weren't really that important. A few people had reputations in other competitions like Ken Shamrock, Oleg Taktarov, and Royce Gracie. This meant little to most of the U.S. audience. The cards weren't Keith Hackney vs. Emmanuel Yarborough & Royce Gracie vs. Jason DeLucia; it was the Kenpo guy vs. the Sumo guy & Brazilian Ju-Jitsu vs. Kung Fu. What happens when a kickboxer fights a Judo-ka? Who knows. Throw them in a cage and find out. That is what the UFC was. As anyone who watches today knows, this was not to last. The experiment quickly made way for the sport.
I think what drove this change was BJJ itself. Without the dominance of the Gracie style, the striking martial artists would have been content to fight the way they trained and may the best timing and technique win. Royce Gracie demonstrated to those fighters and to the small percentage of Americans watching that ground fighting could, with few variables, neutralize strikers' power and speed. So, of course, fighters recognized the need to incorporate these skills with their own very early on. With this also arose the question of how America's ground fighters could do in the competition: the wrestlers. The answer was that they could do very well. Dan Severn lost a long battle with Royce Gracie, but then went on to win UFC 5 and a 'superfight' win against Ken Shamrock. Soon, many other wrestlers started competing like Mark Coleman, Don Frye, and eventually Randy Couture and Dan Henderson. Also, Matt Hughes who would defeat Royce in a later UFC match.
I imagine that it was around this time that some athletes started training as primarily Mixed Martial Artists instead of wrestlers who can strike, or strikers who can grapple, and it is these fighters who are dominating the various MMA organizations now. Now, instead of wondering which style is better, everyone says 'the fighters make the fight, not the styles' and UFC events are in jeopardy of huge losses if a big name fighter has to drop off the card. Some organizations even consider that they can be built on the acquisition of a named fighter like Fedor or Couture.
Has the development from experiement to sport been a positive change? I think overall the answer is 'yes'. The skill level is exponentially higher and the personal attachment to certain fighters dispells the dehumanized 'dogs in a cage' atmosphere. While some complain about more rules and the gloves, the UFC was never a true replication of a real fight situation so if you didn't have a problem with eye gouging being illegal, you should be fine with the new rules as well. Although I still have some reservations about people risking their health for money and PRIDE®, it is still an interesting sport that goes a little further towards proving what works and what doesn't with every match. In a strange, convoluted way, the Gracie Experiment has had more of an impact on American culture than they could've possibly planned for. It has changed the way our police officers train, it has changed the way we think about strength and size, and how little those two attributes can mean when it comes to being 'tough'. Maybe MMA has made the impression on America that the Eastern Martial Arts never managed to.
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| Rachel Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who traveled to the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada. She was killed by a Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during a protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes by the IDF in the Gaza Strip.
"[Between 16:45 and 17:00], [o]ne bulldozer, serial number 949623,
began to work near the house of a physician who is a friend of ours ...
Rachel sat down in the pathway of the bulldozer ... [It] continued
driving forward headed straight for Rachel. When it got so close that
it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of
rubble being pushed by the bulldozer. She got so high onto it that she
was at eye-level with the cab of the bulldozer ... Despite this, he
continued forward, which pulled her legs into the pile of rubble, and
pulled her down out of view of the driver ... We ran towards him, and
waved our arms and shouted, one activist with the megaphone. But [he]
continued forward, until Rachel was underneath the central section of
the bulldozer ... Despite the obviousness of her position, the
bulldozer began to reverse, without lifting its blade, and drug [sic]
the blade over her body again. He continued to reverse until he was on
the boarder [sic] strip, about 100 meters away, and left her crushed
body in the sand. Three activists ran to her and began administering
first-responder medical treatment ... She said, "My back is broken!"
but nothing else ..."
By accident, today, I discovered that a band called 'Say Anything' has a song called 'Shiksa'. The singer is Jewish, and I think the song is about his shiksa girlfriend (I'm not sure). Regardless, I wonder if it would be okay if my band named a song 'Kike'.
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Jn 17:20-26
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.” | | |
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