Book Log 2009 #13: Final Salute by Jim Sheeler

Regardless of how you feel about our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be well worth your while to read this incredibly moving book detailing all aspects of what the military calls casualty notification. The book mostly focuses on Major Steve Beck, a Marine who, like most casualty notification officers, has little to no training on how to deliver the news or support the families now missing a child or spouse. Unlike some who are tapped to perform this duty - no one is permanently assigned to do so - Beck has a skill for it, thanks in no small part to his empathy for the families and understanding of how to truly honor the fallen.

One of the most moving parts of the book, though, comes when Sheeler spends time with the soldiers who accompany the caskets of their comrades back to their families. At the time the book was written, this typically happened on commercial flights, meaning that the accompanying soldier, often a friend or unitmate of the deceased, had the added burden that came when fellow passengers realized why the soldier was on their flight. The emotion here is at a completely different level than that of the families, at times more raw at the loss of a friend while at other times thankful that there are other passengers who provide comfort or support (thankfully, few passengers seem to seize the opportunity to voice their opinion on the war, one way or the other).

At times the book does get a little mawkish, which I think comes from the need to find material to bring what was originally a featured series in the now-departed Rocky Mountain News to book length. Even so, these periods are few and don't detract greatly. I don't know if it would change anyone's views on the wars, but I do think it helps to provide focus to what has been, for most of us, war held at arm's length.

Book Log 2009 #12: The Somnambuilst by Jonathan Barnes

I liked this book more than I expected, but still felt that there was some unrecognized potential in its story of a magician who, with his mute assistant, investigate a murder in Victorian London that turns out to be much more than a simple killing.

My expectations were set on the low side fearing something derivative from The Prestige or The Illusionist, and while there are some similarities, the book travels in very different circles than either of those movies. The book is much less about magic or the magician (heck, the book is named for the assistant), and uses the supernatural in a very different way. The narrative structure also took a little getting used to, but in the end I found it enhanced the story quite a bit.

But I think there was some added potential to give background on several characters, and perhaps on the event that is responsible for the killing that kicks off the book, as I think it would have clarified some of what takes place in the conclusion, which was a little muddled for me. On the other hand, Barnes has apparently written a sequel, albeit set in modern times, which may help to clarify things (akin to how Stephen Carter's Palace Council helped to explain things about his previous books). At least I hope so, as I enjoyed this book well enough to want to read the sequel.

Book Log 2009 #11: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

I'll admit to never really considering where fortune cookies came from, but it's just that question that gets Lee started down a path to find out how Chinese food became such a hit in the US and around the world. Along the way she visits the hometown of General Tso/Gao, documents New York's menu wars and DC's kosher duck scandal, and tries to find the best Chinese restaurant (outside of China) in the world.

There's a lot to like about this book, from the historical research into Chinese food origins (including a discovery about the genesis of the fortune cookie that I imagine would rankle the Chinese) to Lee's personal reflections about balancing American and Chinese cultures. The chapters dealing with the struggles to run restaurants and the shadow work force that travels the country to staff them are eye-opening, and provide thoughtful contrast to the less serious stuff. Definitely recommended.

Book Log 2009 #10: The Fifth Floor by Michael Harvey

When Michael Kelly is hired by an ex-girlfriend to trail her no-good husband, the last thing he expects to stumble upon is a murder apparently connected to the Great Chicago Fire and, unluckily for him, the city's powerful mayor (whose office location gives title to the book).

I liked the book quite a bit. I always enjoy mysteries when they turn historical (there's a stretch where it kind of becomes History Detectives with a body count), and there's a balance between noirish and comedic aspects that work better than expected.

This is the second book to feature Kelly, and as there appear to be spoilers to the first book (The Chicago Way) at the start of this one, it would make some sense to read these in order. Unlike me, who'll be reading the first book in the next week or so.

Finally, getting back to things here, with the hope of playing catch up with everything in the coming weeks so that I can get monumentally behind once we increase the population of our household by 50 percent.

So what have I been up to?

Baby - we finished our birthing classes a couple of weeks ago with some Q&A with parents who were in the last class. It wasn't as horrifying as the movies (thanks to the lack of pictures), and the parents did confirm two themes that have developed as the months passed: expect whatever plan you have for the birth to go wildly askew and don't plan on sleeping once the kid comes home.

I followed this up with a Saturday morning session of daddy boot camp, where we dads-to-be met up with some new dads to talk about parenting and get some practical experience with things like changing diapers, feeding, etc. I won't say it was the most useful three hours, but it was good to get some perspective, and we even got a "five wiper" from one of the kids, though thankfully not of the "up the back and all over the clothes" variety.

We've been making our appointments and had another ultrasound, with another estimate suggesting we're having a big baby (estimated weight is about three weeks ahead of the average for the week we're on, and we're still ahead of average if you take off the pound that seems to be the upper end of the margin of error).

Otherwise, things are going about as well as can be expected, though the wife is at the point where she'd be happy to stop being pregnant.

Wedding - the sister in law got married last week, and while I wasn't particularly involved it did take up a fair amount of time given the influx of relatives from England who came over (some of whom stayed with us, and others of whom we saw over Easter) and whatever assistance was needed to help the wife with errands and whatever (mostly related to running around the day of when people were getting ready).

All in all it went off very well, and the cakes as centerpieces idea worked better than expected.

Throw in back-to-back registration periods at work and the looming graduation in May and that's pretty much my life the last two weeks, sad as it is.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

November 23, 1997: Monsignor Martinez utters his first "Vaya con Dios."

Well before Ugly Betty made telenovelas sort of mainstream, the folks at King of the Hill mined them for comedy gold with the incidental appearance of Los Dias y Las Noches de Monsignor Martinez, whose title cleric has a penchant for violence, most of which is heard rather than seen.

Someone found these bits amusing, as Fox did consider a live-action spinoff for the 2001-02 season. How they passed on a sitcom about a murderous priest I'll never figure out, as it seems like it'd be right up their alley.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on TV

April 22, 1988: Teenage girls in an all male Catholic high school? Wacky!

Just the Ten of Us was a spin-off of Growing Pains that took the recurring character of Graham Lubbock, a gym teacher played by Bill Kirchenbauer and sent him, his wife and their eight kids off to California so he could teach gym at St. Augustine's Academy, an all-male Catholic high school.

Part of the deal, though, is that Coach Lubbock's four teenage daughters would also get to go to St. Augustine's. Considering that Lubbock took umbrage when boys would look at his daughers at whatever suburban high school Growing Pains had, you can imagine how it went when his daughters were the only girls in school. The powers that be at the school didn't care for the arrangement much either, but made it work thanks to the school's headmaster, Father Frank Hargis (played by Frank Bonner, known to most as Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati).

The thing I never got about this arrangement was why the girls couldn't go to public school. Or whatever sister school St. Augustine's had. I know, hard to believe an '80s sitcom would be so contrived. I also don't know if the Lubbocks were actually Catholic (not that it's a deal-breaker for attending Catholic school). Then again, they did have eight kids.

The show did reasonably well, but ABC apparently cancelled it because they wanted the TGIF lineup they were cooking up to have shows all from the same production company. Which is how the Alphabet turned in a solid performer for Going Places, a TV show about TV show writers who also happen to share a house (contrivance being widely abundant, apparently). It never caught on, and with good reason.

Just the Ten of Us also gave a couple of actors and early stop on their career, as one of the Lubbock daughter was played by the toothsome Jamie Luner (Savannah, Melrose Place) and Dennis Haysbert (24, The Unit) played Coach Lubbock's assistant.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

April 8, 2005: John Paul II's funeral is seen live worldwide

When Paul VI and John Paul I both died in1978, their funerals were televised, but the most anyone outside of Italy saw of the ceremonies were on tape and likely during the evening news. That would not be the case 26 years and change later, when John Paul II's funeral was seen live across the globe.

I couldn't find viewership totals, but there's an assumption that this was likely the most-watched funeral ever, surpassing that of Princess Diana. If it didn't, it's safe to say it was the most-watched Catholic funeral ever, thanks to the combination of technology and JP2's long reign.

But it was also interesting television, given the number of people who'd never seen a Papal funeral before and the fairly unprecedented turn-out by secular and religious leaders. The pope is a head of state, of course, but you'd not expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 world leaders to show, a number from not particularly Catholic countries. On the religious side, I don't think you'd have had such a showing of Protestant, Orthodox, and non-Christian leaders for anyone else.

So between the pomp, novelty, and chance to watch probably the only event ever that would have the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, and the Queen of Norway in attendance, it was something to see. Or so I heard; I slept through most of it, catching the last 20 minutes or so.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

April 13, 2005: It may be the end of the world as we know it, and I feel like I wasted six hours

A TV show based on the End of Days doesn't seem like a winner, which may be why Revelations turned into a six-episode miniseries. It probably does not explain why it was such an incoherent mess.

Your basic plot: scientist Richard Massey (Bill Pullman) is a skeptic of the highest order, and when his daughter is killed by a Satanist, he is integral in his capture and return to the US, where he is imprisoned awaiting trial. Massey is not a man of faith, which makes his later pairing with Sister Josepha Montafiore (Natascha McElhone) a bit of a chore.

Montafiore spends her time criss-crossing the globe looking for signs of the Second Coming, at the behest of a private, and very conservative, organization. Her work, often at the fringe of organized religion, puts her at odds with mainstream religious folks.

So what you wind up having is The X Testament, with Massey as Scully and Montafiore as Mulder. They get mixed up in some sort of plot launched by the Satanist character to either prevent the second birth of Jesus or hasten the rebirth of Satan. I don't quite recall from memory, and I don't think it was particularly clear at the time, either. All I do know is that it involved the kidnapping of Massey's son so he could spend a lot of time with a character played by Fred Durst. There was also some subplot involving astronomy that required the involvement of a professor played by Jonathan Rhys-Davies, who spent most of his time "lecturing" Harvard students in the most grandiose way possible, spouting generalities and nonsense.

(If that reminds you of Mohinder Suresh and his pointless narration on Heroes, it's not an accident, as the shows share at least some DNA thanks to producer James Chory.)

So to sum up, the plot was confusing, the characters often ludicrous and in the end it wasn't really clear what had happened. To some extent that's a decent metaphor for the book of the Bible after which the miniseries was named. Just one that isn't particularly fun to watch.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

September 24, 2002: Donna Pinciotti gets sent to Catholic school

As punishment for her running away to California with Kelso, Bob Pinciotti decides that his daughter Donna needs some structure. So he takes her out of Point Place High and enrolls her at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.

Eric Foreman, Donna's boyfriend, doesn't like that this will cut into the time they get to spend together... until she comes over to his house after her first day at the new school, still in uniform. That changes his tune. Quickly.

I don't know how long they kept this plot line going, but it probably wasn't long enough.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

December 10, 1979: Father Mulcahy finally gets promoted to captain

The recurring subplot where Father Mulcahy gets passed over for a promotion finally gets it resolution, as the padre gets his captain's bars. It's the one reasonably good thing about this lousy episode, wherein Hawkeye, BJ and Charles wind up running Rosie's Bar while Rosie has to recuperate from a bar fight-related injury.

These won't all be about Mulcahy from here on out, but don't be surprised if he shows up again.

Book Log 2009 #9: American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent

There's a fair amount to like here, between the history of nerddom and visits to various nerd subcultures (sci-fi fans, high school debaters, anime conventioneers, etc.). This is intertwined with Nugent's personal experiences growing up as a nerd, which at the end of the book blossoms into a full-on apology for his turning away from his nerd friends. I wasn't as crazy about that part; getting paid to write and achieve some sort of theraputic goal is all well and good, but I didn't feel like it added enough to the book. I'm sure others will feel differently.

Anway, a worthy read about the story of what Nugent calls "my people."

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

Sometime in 1974: Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser creates the Humanitas Prize

Founded as an award for television writers, the Humanitas Prize honors "stories that affirm the dignity of the human person, probe the meaning of life, and enlighten the use of human freedom. The stories reveal common humanity, so that love may come to permeate the human family and help liberate, enrich and unify society."

The first awards were announced on Today in 1975 by Fr. Kieser, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Abernathy (none went to sci-fi programming, odd given the membership of that group). They originally gave award to programming of 30, 60 and 90 minutes in length, but would later branch out into children's progamming, public/cable shows, and feature films (both generally and for films in competition at Sundance).

Winners get prizes of either $10,000 or $25,000, as well as a snazzy trophy.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

January 1, 1979: Notre Dame rallies to beat the University of Houston in the Cotton Bowl

On an unusually cold day in Dallas, Notre Dame rolled out to a 12-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. Houston, getting the wind at their backs for the second quarter, put up 20 unanswered points. When the teams came out of the locker rooms for the second half, Notre Dame's star QB Joe Montana was nowhere to be found.

Montana was back in the locker room, where he had both the flu and a touch of hypothermia. The ND training staff, desperate to get him back on the field, turned to chicken soup for help in a fit of panic-induced ecumenicism.

This worked, as Montana was able to return to the game but faced a 34-12 defecit. With just over seven minutes left in the game, Notre Dame blocked a Houston punt, returning it for a touchdown. Montana hit Vagas Ferguson for the conversion, making the game 34-20. Houston punted on their next possession, and Montana led the Irish down the field again, running in a touchdown and throwing another two point conversion to get the score to 34-28.

Notre Dame got the ball back again, and were driving until Montana was stripped and Houston recovered. The ensuing Cougars drive stalled, and with a fourth-and-one on their own 29, coach Bill Yeomans decided to go for it. To quote the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "he chose... poorly." The Houston runner was stuffed, and the Irish got the ball back with 28 seconds on the clock.

But that was just enough time for Montana to finish the job. He scrambled for 11 and then threw for another 10, giving the Irish a first down on the Houston 8 with six seconds to play. Montana threw away a pass, taking the clock to four seconds. On the game's final timed play, he found Kris Haines along the sideline in the end zone. Tie ballgame. Kicker Joe Unis gave the Irish the win (on his second kick, as ND was offsides on his first).

This wasn't Montana's first comeback win, and it certainly wasn't the last, but it's the one that put him on the map, I think. It's also the first college football game I really remember watching, for what it's worth.

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

Sometime in 1965: Tom Lehrer debuts "The Vatican Rag" on That Was the Week That Was

Based on a British show of the same name, TW3 was the first notable attempt to televise a satirical news program on US network TV. It was a qualified success, as its notable cast (including Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Alan Alda and Buck Henry) didn't keep it from a short run, airing from January 1964 to May 1965 on NBC.

One of the contributors to the show was Tom Lehrer, a Harvard-educated musician and mathematician who specialized in parodies using well-known tunes with new lyrics. He contributed several songs to the program, and in honor of Vatican II he came up with "The Vatican Rag," which really doesn't have much to do with the council but is pretty damn funny regardless.

You can watch his performance of the song here.