Oranges in the High Plains

I hope you are all enjoying your "extra" leap year day.

I thought this short video about a guy who built a green house using geothermal energy in Alliance, Nebraska was interesting. It sounds promising from a green energy point of view, he claims that it is possible to get his energy costs for the green house down to about a dollar a day, by utilizing geothermal and solar.

I have been to Alliance, NE. It is even more arid and given to extreme temperatures than where I grew up. But this man is able to raise oranges and figs. And one well kept secret about Nebraska is that we get plenty of sun. According to a sun map that I saw recently we get approximately 2500 to 3000 hours of sunlight per year, comparable to Spain.

The video is several years old, but there is a lot on the internet about utilizing geothermal energy to grow food.

Catholic Married Priesthood? An Orthodox Natural Experiment?

Tom Reese makes the argument:

The Catholic-church needs married-priests now

"A 2006 survey by Dean Hoge found that nearly half of the young men involved in Catholic campus ministry had “seriously considered” ministry as a priest, but most also want to be married and raise a family. 

Having a married clergy will not solve all the church’s problems, as we can see in Protestant churches. Married ministers are involved in sex abuse, have addictions and can have the same clerical affectations as any celibate priest. But every employer will tell you that if you increase the number of candidates for a job, the quality of the hire goes up."

Jesus alone

This is my homily for yesterday, the 2nd week of Lent, Cycle B.  Every year, one of the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration is proclaimed on this Sunday of Lent.  The readings for yesterday are here.

Some appreciation for Pope Francis

Today's feast day has inspired some thoughts of gratitude for the Holy Father.

Navalny

 By now we have all read of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison camp. Nearly every news outlet has an article about it.  This one from the substack Liberal Patriot is a good one:

Death of a Russian Liberal Patriot - by Brian Katulis

From the article:

"Why Alexei Navalny’s demise is another wakeup call for the cause of freedom in the world—and at home. "

The robots are writing our news

Maybe this isn't really news to most of us.  Our local suburban newspaper's sports page doesn't run any stories on my alma mater's basketball team (even though it is a local Chicago college, and they're having a pretty good season.  Yet the paper continued to run photos of Taylor Swift kissing Travis Kelce two days after the football game.  Don't get me started.)  

So earlier today, I surfed Google looking for a story of last night's basketball game.  I found a brief AP story - four paragraphs giving the result of the game, and listing the players from each team who achieved notable statistics.  No quotes from the locker room, no perspective on the two teams' seasons, the state of the conference race, who they play next - i.e. the sorts of things sports journalists used to include in their stories.

What caught my interest was what followed the story:

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

Naturally, there was no byline (although for little stories like this, which might be compiled in a roundup story, perhaps AP never has done bylines?)

I guess there is still journalism being practiced by humans out there.  But in the world of sports journalism, it seems like the shoe leather is being worn out these days by bloggers and broadcast-media interns.  And by the teams' own in-house public-relations departments. 

Pope Francis on the temptation of acedia (updated)

I had learned that sloth was one of the seven capital sins. I knew the term "acedia" and had thought of it more or less as Latin for sloth. But in a talk given in an audience on Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis described sloth as more an effect of the vice of acedia than a cause.

NCR had a good article summarizing the pope's talk:  Laziness is a symptom of 'acedia,' a dangerous vice, pope says | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org)

"The vice of "acedia," often translated as "sloth," can cause laziness, but it is much more than that; it is a lack of caring for anything and being bored with everything, even one's relationship with God, Pope Francis said. "The demon of acedia wants precisely to destroy the simple joy of the here and now, the grateful wonder of reality; it wants to make you believe that it is all in vain, that nothing has meaning, that it is not worth taking care of anything or anyone," the pope said at his weekly general audience Feb. 14."

Peanut Butter Balls >B<

 

>B< (pronounced "Bee") is Betty's e-mail signature, and my name for her.  Placed in the title, it indicates a jointly authored post. 

PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

A SIX X SIX INCH FREEZER CONTAINER WHICH CAN HOLD

48 ONE-AND A-HALF INCH PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

RECIPE

David French on the MAGA-Putin Bromance

Of the many, many things about today's MAGA conservatives that may confuse and exasperate you, as they do me, one of the strangest is their high regard for Vladimir Putin and their corresponding contempt for Ukraine.  In a New York Times article from February 8th, David French undertakes, not to defend it (he finds it indefensible) but to explain how it came to be.  

Why is gay marriage so antithetical to African Culture?

THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF POLYGAMY IN AFRICA

Abstract: In contemporary African societies several African institutions which were of great significance have been subjected to Western categories and as such relegated to the background. One of such indigenous institutions that have been considered “sin” or anti-social is the polygamous family system. Using an ethnographic survey, this study, “The Socio-Cultural Significance of Polygamy in Africa” attempts to explore the significance of the polygamous family system in the social and cultural milieu of Africa. The study discovered that polygamy serves as an agent of moral control in that society. It therefore, recommends that Christian denominations should divorce themselves of Eurocentric categories and accept polygamist in their midst since the Bible did not out rightly condemn polygamy.

Overdressed

The mother of a long-time friend passed away recently.  So this morning, I put on a suit and went to her funeral.

Synodality and Blessing People

The Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans on the blessing of persons in same-sex unions has provoked a lot of controversy. As usual this is along of the lines of liberal vs conservative, for or against Pope Francis, etc. 

John's Allen's article follows the usual press line and suggests that conservatives who want an alternative to Francis may have one in the Cardinal who basically said that gay unions would not be blessed in Africa. Below I have reprinted the basic data about what happened,  you can read the full article to learn more about Cardinal Ambongo of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo's Emerging Papal Candidate