April 19, 2005

It's Ratzinger

Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger, has been elected as the new Pope of the Roman church. According to CNN, he's taken the name "Benedict XVI". Very well.

Oddly enough, my last entry on the site was discussing what would happen if Cardinal Ratzinger were to be elected. Heh, curiouser and curiouser. Unfortunately, the Ratzinger Fan Club is running the 503 error for too much access.

CNN's coverage is complaining about his opposition to homosexual activists and his "Cardinal No" positions; aw, too bad.

Congratulations to the new Holy Father of the Roman church.

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April 15, 2005

Ratzinger's Unintended Bonus?

Back during the last century, I used to joke that if I ever became a Roman Catholic, it would be because of the influence of John Paul II, not because of any other particular thing. (Admittedly, the elaborate beauty of Roman services and their churches made my modern-day Methodist drabbery look cheap and uninspired by comparison, but that's neither here nor there.1) As the late pontiff's health declined, I remarked to a friend of mine from college that, "Well, the door is closing on any chance I ever had to be a Roman Catholic". This was because I was uneasy with essentially swearing allegiance to an elected man and would be agreed to take whatever line issued from Rome.

Having spent my entire life as a Protestant, ensconsced within the United Methodist Church, I was by breeding reflexively against that sort of thing. After all, I've been conditioned to consider myself, at some level, the final arbiter of my own theology. Arrogant? Probably, but it would seem to comport with essential points raised in Martin Luther's original complaints against the Roman church. But enough about that.

Here we are in April, 2005. John Paul is dead, and I thought that there could be no chance for any future personal merger with the Catholics. It appears that I might have been wrong. If this Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany, gets the papal nod, the Roman church might buy itself another five to ten years of opportunity in my book. Many of yesterday's Corner postings about the chances of Cardinal Ratzinger becoming the next Pope piqued my interest and re-opened the question of Catholic merger.

Why is this? The collection of insults I've heard arrayed against him seem to be the right ones. "Intolerant!" "Divisive!" "Anti-choice!"1 "Fails to recognize the role of women in the priesthood!" "Stands with hands on hips!" Well, that last one's more for Scott Bolton---thumbs meh to him---but you get the picture. The chattering class of single-interest groups that annoy the dickens out of me on mattters religious seem to despise Cardinal Ratzinger, and that's enough to toll the statute of limitations on the possibility of merging with the Romans.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said before Dr. Gonzo mumbled something about the White Rabbit whilst in the bathtub waving a knife. Fans of Cardinal Ratzinger have assembled a website for him; view the Cardinal Ratzinger Fanclub. more...

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April 14, 2005

Hooray for 14 April 2005

Yay, the hated Yankees are defeated in Fenway Park, 8-5. Recent acquisition Edgar Renteria was responsible for a two-run homer early in the game and an RBI double in the eighth inning to secure Boston's win.

Gary Sheffield should've been tossed, from what I saw. Regardless of what the ESPN announcers said in their oh-so-shocked tones, it looked like Sheffield threw a punch (or something) at that fan. Enh, not my problem; I'm not an attorney in the Boston area.

I must say that I'm very fond of the MLB.com live game coverage applet that they've got through redsox.com; it's rather nifty. Better than being there, especially if there's no chance of being there.

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On This Day - Norfolk and Western History

On this day in April 1952, #2200, the last of the aforementioned Y6b class locomotives left the Roanoke Shops.

It is rumored that at least two Y6b locomotives survived into the late 1970s in a Roanoke scrapyard, but ultimately fell to the unyielding torches of the murderous maw which demands the sacrifice of history. Yes, I'm waxing either maudlin or grotesque, but blast it, Biggs, where were the Claytor brothers when you needed them?

The only surviving Y-class locomotive resides far from home, in the National Transportation Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. When I'm King of the World---with apologies to James Cameron---Y6a #2156 will be returned to her proper place with #611 and #1218 under the Claytor Pavilion at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

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April 12, 2005

On This Day - Norfolk and Western History

On this day in 1948, #2171, the first of thirty locomotives in the Y6b class of 2-8-8-2 steam locomotives rolled clear of the N&W's Roanoke Shops. These monsters weighed 961,500 pounds, complete with a loaded tender.

The entire Y class of locomotives was not designed for anything like the "Wabash Cannonball" or other high-speed freight applications, much less passenger service. The N&W had the A and J classes of locomotives for that, respectively. The Y class was intended to pull (or push) huge coal drags out of the dark hollows of West Virginia, the kinds of places that Chuck Yeager used to suggest would need sunlight piped in. Back then, and even today, coal drags are not the fastest things in the world. Sources tell me that the CSX rulebook imposes a 40MPH speed limit on coal trains, mostly so that coal won't be sucked out of the hoppers and lost to the buyer. (After all, we don't want that; the shipper and recipient might want to pay less for the service.)

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April 09, 2005

Red Sox Hold Off the Jays

Despite a rally in Toronto, the Red Sox (2-2) held off the Blue Jays (2-2), winning 6-5 at the Jays' home debut. Catcher Jason Varitek and right fielder Trot Nixon both gathered solo home runs to help boost the Boston score. As a result of the week's activity, there's a five-way tie for first (at least to my uneducated viewing) in the AL East.

The full story from MLB.com is here.

NB: The hated Yankees lost 12-5 to Baltimore yesterday, so that is a good thing. And yes, I'll probably go see Fever Pitch, assuming I can talk this girl I know into it. She's a Red Sox fan as well, so this could be a good thing. It'll have to be, in order for me to stomach a Drew Barrymore film. Whenever she shows up, I suppose the necessary countermeasure will be either taking an anti-nausea pill or taking a sip of something strong.

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April 08, 2005

Robby Gordon at Martinsville

There was no post about Robby Gordon at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Food City 500, because Robby didn't make the race. Thus, I was rather disappointed.

That was then, this is now. Today, Robby Gordon took the #7 car to a 43rd place in the starting grid at Martinsville. This race, the Advance Auto Parts 500, will be run this Sunday. I of course will be listening or watching, because right now I care more about NASCAR than most other things that I would be writing about. That is, unless you'd like to hear about the computer games that I'm playing addictively at the moment. (Here's a hint: Learn to speak German, and you'd be welcome. Jawhol, herr kaleun.)

My personal prediction is that Robby'll blow his bloody Menard engine shortly after the race starts, assuming he doesn't get caught up in a wreck thanks to some back-of-the-pack scrub. He has, however, said that he doesn't regret using the Menard-built engines, so go figure. If the Menard people can get their Winston Cup engine program together, hopefully Robby'll start being a competitor, which would be nice.

Congrats to Jeff Burton on his finish in the Sharpie Professional 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway this past Monday.

NB: A brief look at Robby's site indicates that this weekend's livery will be the purple and yellow Harrah's Casino livery. Good God, that's a hideous scheme, but if they keep the checks flowing, who cares? I prefer, for a variety of reasons, the Jim Beam livery myself.

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On This Day - Norfolk and Western History

08 April 1970: John Palmer Fishwick (1916-) is elected to serve as the tenth president of the Norfolk and Western Railway.

Fishwick succeeded Herman H. Pevler as president. Pevler, a former senior officer of the Wabash (leased by the N&W on 16 October 1964), is most famous to me as being responsible for the introduction of the blue livery with Dulux lettering. Mr. Fishwick is famous also for introducing the overall black livery with white "NW" lettering.

A Pennsylvania Railroad history site notes that Fishwick engineered a coup against Pevler, after Pevler suggested that a Chesapeake & Ohio man would become head of the combined C&O/N&W. Fishwick, reportedly having engineered the merger in the first place was not impressed, and thus got Pevler booted to the position of "Chairman", supposedly a meaningless promotion.

Of course, with the debacle occurring in the Northeast with the Penn Central, the C&O/N&W merger would be called off by the respective companies. C&O President Gregory S. Devine and Fishwick would announce this on 19 March 1971. Interestingly enough, Devine would retire as President within two weeks, replaced by the man who would make the Chessie System (and later CSX) a reality, Hays T. Watkins, Jr.

Fishwick would serve as President of the Norfolk and Western throughout the tumultuous 1970s, being replaced by Robert B. Claytor in September of 1981.

Congratulations (albeit 35 years later) to J.P. Fishwick, and thank you for your service. I found an article in something called The Roanoker that had caught up with Mr. Fishwick for a paragraph interview. Click here to read it and see a picture of Mr. Fishwick that has to be from the early 1980s. I am amused to see that the most clear 100-ton coal hopper belongs to CSX; I think the next one from the right is an N&W one in the Pevler-era "hamburger" livery.

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