ninme

For Better or For Worse started me off badly. Then I saw the pictures of Live Earth. At least The Times still has this story on its front page (which I saw last night, preconcerts):

The Times – The Ratzinger Effect: more money, more pilgrims – and lots more Latin

With donations to the Church from around the world almost doubling and pilgrims pouring into Rome in ever-greater numbers, Vatican watchers are beginning to reassess the two-year-old pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI and noting a positive “Ratzinger effect”.

Today the Vatican will publish the Pope’s “motu proprio” decree allowing broader use by Roman Catholics of the Latin Tridentine Mass — the pontiff’s last act before leaving for his traditional summer holiday.

The move, which amends the Second Vatican Council’s decision in the 1960s that worship should be in the vernacular, is regarded as yet another sign of Benedict’s conservative attachment to tradition and doctrine. Some senior Catholics in Britain have accused him of “encouraging those who want to turn the clock back” and say that they fear the rite will revive preVatican II prayers for the conversion of “the perfidious Jews”.

The Vatican denies this, however, and points instead to the huge appeal of the Latin Mass — and Gregorian chant — not only for disaffected right-wing Catholics but also for many ordinary believers who value “the sheer beauty” of the ancient liturgy. “This is a Pope who — contrary to conventional wisdom — is in tune with the faithful,” one Vatican source said.

The unassuming and scholarly Benedict does not have the star appeal of John Paul II. At 80, he does not travel as much as the “Pilgrim Pope” or write as many documents.

You know, what with the bit about the donations and pilgrims in the first paragraph, you’d think that after writing a couple hundred of these things at least one of these people might reassess the value of “star appeal”.

This was really funny:

The Curt Jester – Build your own Motu Proprio story

With the upcoming release of the Motu Proprio liberalizing the Tridentine rite you can expect a surge of articles in the MSM getting things wrong. As a service to the MSM I will give them a Motu Proprio boilerplate that they can arrange as they want with just the right spin, or is that rite spin, so that it fits into their normal templates. This boilerplate has enough mistakes and biases it make it indistinguishable from any other MSM article that will be appearing in the coming days.

Read the whole thing. But back to the eye-rolling, the worst are the pictures of the two “Aborigines” (doesn’t that second dude look a bit surfer?) waving painted eucalyptus leaves. Looks like a koala hunting ritual.

Algore appeared in Tokyo as a hologram. I wonder how much electricity one of those things uses.

Tim Blair – LIVE EARTH GOES STAND-UP

Ben D. emails from Japan:

I’m watching Live Earth in Tokyo (just for the music, of course). The singer AI asked her audience: “Is everyone going eco?”

The crowd just laughed. I love living in this country.

AI is one of those JPop (well, JHipHop) chicks who’s part American. Spent her childhood shuttling between LA and Japan. That’s about 5500 miles. Just a funfact.

Update:

Oh, and my throat still hurts. I’m beginning to wonder if I have tonsillitis.

Telegraph – This idiocy is all John Lennon’s fault. By Michael Henderson

An idiot wind will blow across Wembley today, just as it did last week, and, just as last week, the BBC will be there, dancing attendance on the minstrels, satisfying their every whim and fancy. They will be there next year, too, just as they were there last year. When pop stars assemble to save the world, an order goes out from White City, as if from Caesar Augustus: all roads lead to north London.

The link on the BBC page says,

Concerts promote climate message

Just once, just for a laugh, I’d like to see them link to one of Bush’s speeches with,

President promotes freedom message