Thursday

Fr. Sammie and Other

100.8 and 41. Those are the minimum-maximum temperatures in my hobby greenhouse over the past 24 hours. I was really blown away by that 101. I knew it got hot in there, but not that hot. It should give me good perspective on what I can grow in there. The temperature hit about 62 degrees yesterday, and it was sunny. * * * * * * * In the past couple of years, perhaps the best insight I've gleaned into culture came from Paul Cantor's Literature and the Economics of Liberty. Cantor points out that the vast bulk of art over the centuries has been produced by artists who wanted to make money off it: Shakespeare, Rubens, Dickens (Belloc--my addition). It wasn't until relatively recently (with Thoreau, maybe?) that we started thinking that money-making and art are somehow antithetical. They're not. Hollywood isn't somehow warped because it's obsessed with art and money-making (it's warped for other reasons). Anyway, it appears that Robert Shiller is writing a series of articles that point out a similar thing: artists are often entrepreneurs. This piece points out that Walt Whitman wrote his poetry for money. Excerpt:

We tend to think of philosophers, artists or poets as the polar opposite of chief executive officers, bankers or businesspeople. But the idea that those involved in business have personalities fundamentally different from those in other walks of life is belied by the fact that many often combine or switch careers.

A friend tells me that Fr. Sammie Maletta is a living saint. If that's the case (and my friend is the reliable sort--a wealthy businessman), then we ought to sit up and take notice of homilies like this one: