This has gotten to be a little more than I can manage. I can’t write a book about this stuff. Not this afternoon, at least.
Also, there’s no need to get so frustrated about the relative thickness of my skull. I’m only trying to answer your questions, some of which we seem to have fundamentally differing attitudes about. For that, I would apologize if I could.
Your line of questioning about human nature, movies as theology and the accessability of authorial intent doesn’t lead me to think you’re especially inclined to drop those topics. It just makes me wish we could, because frankly, I’m bored with them and it’s giving me a pain inside my thick skull. I was merely making a suggestion, for the sake of focusing on topics where we won’t talk around and around in great, tiresome circles.
In spite of that, a few more tries…
Mass market movies seem to me an inappropriate tool for doing serious theology without raising great squeals of protest, because they cast too broad a net, as far as audience is concerned. Not everyone has the inclination or the candlepower to carry on discussions about the dual nature of Christ without getting all worked up into a lather, and I think you’ll get more fire and less smoke if you do your deep thinking in an environment where you’re more likely to find the kind of people who will be better prepared for it. There is also the matter of bare breasts and sexual fantasies (yes?) in a movie about the thought life of Jesus Christ that seems – um – indelicate.
This bit about authorial intent has begun to sound like an undergraduate seminar on critical theory. Formalist critics will read a text (or watch a movie) as you seem inclined to do, which is to say, as if it were a brute fact. That’s fine, if you like that kind of thing, but I don’t. Nor do most others. There simply cannot be a text (movie, etc.) without an author. As such, it is entirely legitimate to take authorial intent into account in determining how to respond. Further, you keep wanting to talk about the novel as divorced from Kazantzakis’ introduction, or to discuss the movie, with the addition of some fictional statement about intent, but what you are ultimately suggesting in those instances is that we cease discussion of the works that actually exist. This would appear to violate your own text-and-text-alone view of reading. The novel does include an introduction that explicitly expresses authotrial intent. That introduction is a part of the work itself. Therefore, I have no choice but to take it into account as I form my assessment of the work, even if I propose to read as a formalist. For the movie – of course – there is no such statement of intent, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to determine what the intentions were. After all, the movie didn’t happen by accident, so there must have been some reasons for its creation. Those reasons are at least partially accessible to me insofar as I am able to look at the facts about Scorsese himself, his career, his comments about the movie, its marketing and distribution and perhaps a hundred thousand other things. Of course, I can’t crawl in his ear and talk to the little people inside his head about what – precisely and irrefutably – he’s driving at, but I can draw some pretty reliable conclusions. That, too, is a fair move on my part.
At some point, we all have to begin connecting dots as best we can, or there’s really very little point in even trying to communicate with one another. That’s not to suggest that we just start twisting words into any old thing we want them to be whenever they’re not accompanied by an explicit statement of intent. It’s only to point out that at some point, we all have to stop waiting around for just a little more evidence and get on with our lives.
I think we’ve moved past the human nature thing and onto what you were asking about from the beginning, so I’m going to leave it alone this time.
On other matters…
What’s interesting about LToC as a devotional tool is that it invites us to think about where the line between mere temptation and full-blown sin lies. What’s troubling – and especially so with the image-dependent movie – is the way that it presents Christ’s temptations. Merely wondering, “Would it have been fulfilling to live as nothing more than a man?” is not a sinful thing in and of itself. It is only kind of temptation. Spending an hour and a half speculating on the nuts and bolts of the proposition as Christ does in the movie is something much more like deciding to act on that temptation. (At least for a little while. In your mind. Where no one can see it.) Sin is like that. It takes you down by little steps and rationalizations and compromises. In many cases of temptation, a person might say no to the act itself, and yet still sin in their responses leading up to the denial. (“I tell you the truth, a man who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”) Having spent a lot of time thinking about these things, most Christians are keenly aware of that dynamic, and to be honest about it, they do not believe that what Jesus does in LToC is necessarily so clean as the wind-driven snow. They know themselves to have sinned by exactly the same process. That’s why some folks take the view that Kazantazakis (and Scorsese) are being irreverent at best with LtoC, if not outright blasphemous.
Newspapers are simplistic because they are not journals for the discussion of public policy. You will hate this, but the intent behind newspapers is only supposed to be that they get the facts out. Even serious and deep-thinking people read them. You should start.
DeFoe and Ebert were only rhetorical devices. Since one played Jesus in LToC and the other is a world famous movie reviewer, I figured you’d make the leap. I’ll try to be clearer in the future.
Why in the world would you apologize for holding fundamentally different attitudes? As far as answering questions go, thank you for finally making a direct go at one of the first ones I ever asked, about the whys of the film medium being inappropriate. I don’t quite understand why that couldn’t be done originally–I’ve always found that when trying to answer a question, answering them always works best.
I’m mildly sorry you’re bored and in pain, but mostly I’m sorry about the gun to your head. People should never be forced to freely engage in debates, coercion of that nature is a terrible thing. I hope you get away from the gunman safely.
Movies are inappropriate because (crikey, I asked the why of that awhile ago) the net is too broad. Anyone could end up seeing it. Material with any sort of depth is best suited to mediums that can focus more specifically on those prepared for it. Is that an accurate restating of your explanation?
My problems with that position occur in a couple of different ways. I’m remembering a certain parable involving the sowing of seed, and also mention of the casting of a net; I read them somewhere that seems somewhat germane, you see.
The other manner in which I’m having problems with that position is when I consider the nature of bookselling. A book is in a bookstore–anyone can come along and pick it up. A fellow might pick it up, read the dust jacket, and think, “hmm. A fictional musing on the nature of the Christ’s duality. I’ll pick this up.” Right after him might come someone else who skims the dust jacket, giggles like a schoolchild who thinks he’s getting away with something, and think “huh huh, I hear Jesus porks Mary Magdalene, that’s HOT, I’m gonna get this!” The nature of the medium itself carries the danger of that with it–the net cast by a bookstore is pretty broad.
Is a book therefore also an inappropriate medium? I’m thinking–guessing, really–that the likely answer is “no” for that one, but I don’t see how it’s no for a book but yes for a movie. If literacy rates were vastly different than they are today, perhaps.
There’s a few bare breasts shown in the film, yes. Magdalene’s briefly at one or two points, I think, and a few others in the background of the John the Baptist scene. Would the movie have been less inappropriate if all nipples were covered? Bizarre, simply bizarre.
The central fantasy did involve sexual relations–hard to have a family without them. It’s not quite anything I’d classify as a sexual fantasy. Jesus did admit to Judas early on in the film about looking at women and feeling lust, though that was never detailed. However, that’s a minor side issue (I think that the presence of breasts isn’t the major factor in your position, correct me if that thought’s wrong)–I personally don’t think of sexuality as something either shocking or something to gasp in horror about, but am aware that many other people, both Christians and not, don’t share that view.
I paid very little attention in my one Lit Crit class, coasting through it with (in retrospect) disturbing ease. For the take-home final exam essay paper, I wrote a short story that involved a stadium of famous critics throughout history fighting to the death with axes and swords and such, in between spouting chunks of famous essays at one another. The professor gave it high marks, but mentioned that she was vaguely frightened by it.
A “brute” fact? As opposed to a gentle fact?
In any case, authorial intent is indeed legitimate. But when there is no explicit statement of intent provided, the work itself does not become illegitimate. The words continue to mean what they mean; the image of a nail being driven through flesh and the agony resulting are there even if the author’s not explicitly going on about how the physical anguish is only one level of the anguish Christ is suffering.
They were questions (not statements, questions end in a different kind of punctuation for a reason) to try to ferry out some views on the works as they do exist–the whys of views being my whole overal thrust here, if you’ll recall. You got to them much faster than the repeated questions about the inappropriateness of film as medium, for which I’m grateful.
I take it then, that your answer to: “If all extant copies of the novel were rounded up (a miracle was performed, either divine or diabolical, to accomplish this), and then replaced with copies exactly the same, with the omission of the explicit statement of intent…the nature of the novel would then change?” is “yes”.
Taking that yes, in what manner would the meaning of it be changed? This is, sure enough, a hypothetical: it’s a human thing to take the world as it is, consider how it might be if things were different, and think about that–I’m interested in how your assessment of the work would change if the work existed in that differing manner. It should be a very easy hypothetical to consider–the same text, with the exception of the words comprising the introduction not being there.
At what point have you been accused of being unfair?
What facts about Scorsese affected the work’s evaluation? What facts about his career did so? Which comments about the film? What noteworthy facts about those “hundred thousand other things”?
Well, it seems to me that if you took over a hundred thousand pieces of evidence into consideration to form conclusions about a work, the physician might want to look inward. I must confess that I have doubts that that many pieces of evidence were, though.
An explicit statement of intent was lacking. I take it that in your view, the dots composing the work itself, in its absence, are not sufficient for connecting. In the absence of that explicit statement, what further is necessary?
I think the human nature thing is being explored pretty well here–simply not as explicitly as I intended.
Now, I look at that paragraph, and again I wonder why it couldn’t have been present much earlier in all this.
Is it the general theological conclusion among Christianity today (inasmuch as anything like that can be generalized) that Christ was–despite the human side of his nature–without sin–clean as that snow? What’s the support for that position?
The problem with that for me comes right back to Christ praying at Gethsemane. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” That pesky qualifer about differing wills again. It was my understanding that the root of sin lies, in essence, in man’s will being divergent from God’s, which leads to disobedience to God’s will, which is why Christ was necessary in the first place. Is my understanding flawed there?
Originally you assumed I wouldn’t buy a newspaper if they were different from what they were. Now I’m going to hate them for being what they are? I hope you don’t hope to make a living as a mindreader.
In any case, I do read the news–online. I’m not going to buy them offline is all.
This portion (and others) of the adventure may be looked back at later as an exercise of determining when tongue is in cheek, in the absence of clear statements of authorial intent (the absence being expressed in such things as overly-enthusiastic smiley-conservation).
Rhetorical devices can be marvelous things. They work best when they’re expressing a cogent point, in my opinion. It’s also my opinion that thinking a movie, or those involved or tangentially related to it, dictates or forces the course or form of a discussion on the same themes is a poor and addled thought, likely lonely for other ones to jostle with.
And clarity is more than a marvelous things; the beauty of clarity is that which makes stories of scales falling away from eyes and so forth so appealing. I think that the time to improve it isn’t in the future, though, but in the now.
Again, my deepest sympathies about the gun at your head.
On the bright side, there’s this:
So you can see the audience is excited by things. Debateably too excited; probably something about those bare breasts.
Okay, let’s try a better example than the Martin Luthr King one. I’ll use a REAL example from recent headlines.
Gay activist groups condemned Kevin Smith’s “Jay & Silent Bob Go to Hollywood,” without ever seeing it, called it a homophobic film, and pressured Kevin SMith to make a public apology, as well as to donate money to some of their pet causes.
Interestingly, Smith pretty much knuckled under! He never gave an inch when Catholics complained about “Dogma,” but he felt compelled to reassure gays that he didn’t mean any real offense! (Guess that shows who REALLY has more clout in the world of show biz.)
But back to the main point- why did gays protest against a comedy they’d never seen? A comedy that actualy, like most Kevin Smith films, is completely gay-FRIENDLY*?
My guess is, when a group- ANY group- feels it has been mocked and insulted by popular culture on a regular basis, it’s inclined to get angry and to take action. If they hear even a rumor that a new book/record/movie is going to insult them, they’re likely to protest first and ask questions later.
Is it hard to understand why many gays are sensitive about the way they’re portrayed on film? Not at all! They have good reason to worry about being portrayed as prancing, limp-wristed fairies, or as psycho killers (“Basic Instinct,” for one), or as ___ (fill in your favorite stereotype). Hollywood has often made them look bad in the past, and they’re quick to protest any perceived insult. SOMETIMES, however, their justified wariness leads them to see homophobia where it doesn’t exist.
Well, based on recent history, it’s not hard to understand why Christians expect the worst from Hollywood. Hollywood DOES mock Christianity on a regular basis. So, it’s not surprising that Christians were outraged by the rumors they’d heard about LTOC. But like the gays protesting “Jay and SIlent Bob,” I think that, in this case, many CHristians were up in arms about a film they SHOULDN’T have had a moral problem with.
I say “gay-friendly” because
The guy making most of the fag-bashing jokes (Jay) is such an obvious idiot and loser, no one could possibly take him for a hero or role model, and…
In the aforementioned film “Dogma,” Kevin Smith already established that Jay is himself a closet homosexual. (Chris Rock, an omniscient angel, revealed that.)
That’s an analogy I agree with. What I was thinking originally was that just maybe there were reasons that ran deeper than sensitivity due to past and unrelated mockery. I’m pretty sure now that there weren’t (but am leaving the door open to the possibility).
The directions things have taken since that original point have been pretty thought-provoking and rewarding, though.
Tangentially, there’s at least one bit in “Clerks” where it’s pretty clear Jay is more than likely closeted–Rufus the 13th apostle confirmed things, of course. And he’s not alone–Smith has a thing about likely-closeted buddies, Randal and Banky off the top of my head, the latter being pointed out to the audience more overtly.
>Is it the general theological conclusion among >Christianity today (inasmuch as anything like that can be >generalized) that Christ was–despite the human side of >his nature–without sin–clean as that snow? What’s the >support for that position?
Yes. What makes Christ unique in the course of human history, and what makes him the only acceptable sacrifice for sin, is his perfect sinlessness, in spite of the fact that he was ‘tempted in all things even as we are’. Support for that position comes from testimony throughout the NT, such as “Behold, The Spotless Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” and perhaps a hundred thousand others. (For the sake of clarity – here, in the now – this is not to suggest that there are actually a hundred thousand others. Only that there are many, many, many of them. I’m going to leave it to you to find them, if you’re interested. The one I’ve pointed to gives you a general idea of the thing.) I think the line about The Spotless Lamb of God is from one of the synotics – John the Baptist, baptizing – but I could be wrong.
Off of the top of my head, a great place for you to gain a fuller understanding of historical Christian perspectives on this group of ideas – the sinfulness of fallen human nature, the necessary sinlessness of Christ as propitiation for sin, and the application of His death and resurrection in eschatological and personal terms – would be the book of Romans.
An outstanding grammatico-critical commentary that will be helpful in walking you through both the Biblical Theology of Romans and the phrase-by-phrase dynamics of Paul’s arguments themselves, is by C.E.B. Cranfield: 2 volumes, published as part of the International Critial Commentary series. You’re going to need a working knowledge of koine Greek to get everything out of Cranfield, but even if you don’t happen to have that sort of background, the english speaking exegesis is outstanding. And the appendices are dynamite.
That’s not much of an answer for you to pick apart I suppose, but at least it’s a pointer in the right direction. Sometimes, we have more success fighting ignorance on our own time, in less public fora.
Since there’s no gun at my head – and many thanks for relieving me of that deep, but unfounded concern (Whew!) – I’m going to find something else to do now. I’ll check back later, for more lessons on how to express myself clearly. Cheers for now.
A major factor in the furor over LToC is the natural defensiveness that any group of people is bound to express, when they perceive that their most deeply-held beliefs have been treated disrespectfully. We are all deeply saddened by this sort of human fallibility.
Going deeper, the element of LToC that some Christians perceived as disrespectful was the film’s strong tendency to imply that Jesus confronted temptation on the cross in a manner that was itself sinful. For those who are not familiar with Christian theology, this notion may require further explanation.
To wit:
Jesus himself, in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5?), taught that it is possible to sin internally, even when a person refuses to sin outwardly. It is in this sense that Jesus appears (to some Christians) to sin in LToC.
The suggestion that Jesus committed sins would be offensive to Christians because the clear teaching of the NT is that he was – and in fact had to be – sinless, in spite of his fully-human vulnerability to temptation.
A good place to go for a fuller exploration of these ideas (if you don’t have the time or desire to read the whole Bible) would be the book of Romans. In order to get a useful degree of insight into what Paul is getting at in Romans, I would recommend C.E.B. Cranfield’s very excellent commentary.
I am of the opinion that Nikos Kazantzakis had no intention of suggesting that Jesus committed any sin, based upon his explicit expression of intent, included in LToC the novel. I am further of the opinion that Martin Scorsese was not aware of the thin ice he was skating on, theologically speaking. Or if he was, that he considered it his right to do so as an artist, and his duty to do so as a dollar-earning employee of the studio for which he was working. Therefore, it’s my conclusion that there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between LToc the novel and LToC the movie, and that LToC the movie suffers by comparison, as a work of serious theological inquiry.
For these reasons, it seems to me that the outrage expressed by those Christians whose sensibilities were offended by LToc the film was entirely understandable, even if it may also have been a short-sighted and poorly-conceived public relations tactic.
And I appreciate very much everyone’s apparent willingness to curtail use of the word “fundamentalist” as a tool for shaming others’ opinions out of existence.
The “hubbub that was, bub” (it’s nonsensical, but I like the sound of it still) came about for several reasons:
1: a kind of kneejerk sensitivity. Beliefs seem to enhance combativeness in people (why that is should be treated as an ineffable reality that shouldn’t be questioned); there’s plenty of Hollywood output that makes light of Christianity and Christian themes, so when rumors that a big movie specifically devoted to blasphemy (rumors need to be colorful to spread best) occur, it led to a reaction of outrage first, examination later. On examination, this kind of reason is usually admitted to be rather small and misguided as reasons go.
2: Movies, and movie people in general (specifics are avoided), are an inappropriate medium to contain any deep themes, and this includes (or may be limited to, a question that seems unlikely to be addressed) even those themes that act as a door to lines of thought and questioning that more Christians should engage in.
The reason for that inappropriateness is at least threefold: first, the people involved tend not to make sufficiently (or sometimes any) explicit statements of their intent. In the absence of such statements, a work cannot be evaluated well even when it is woodenly faithful to source material where authorial intent was very clearly stated. The absence leads to filling in the blanks by taking into account a passel of non-specific data that sums up to a crass pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.
Secondly, the medium itself is inappropriate because it casts too broad a net. Deep issues, even (especially?) ones that more Christians should think about, should not be presented in a form that goes before a general audience, because of what might be a pearls-before-swine kind of theory. The jury is out on whether or not that inappropriateness would be eased if such a film wasn’t put into general release, but was targetted more specifically.
Thirdly, despite that the themes are a door to questions more Christians should think about, movies are inappropriate to express them because their nature is tantamount to dictating how discussion should proceed. Details as to the reasoning and validity of this point are very sketchy at this time.
3: Although Jesus was tempted in all things as people were, that being tempted didn’t include actually being tempted in any fashion beyond one or two seconds at the utmost. His response to it was always swift and sure, temptation had no power over him even though he was fully human in order to make his sacrifice worthwhile. The sorrow and anguish in his heart stemmed from entirely different things, of which temptation to diverge from his Father’s will had negligible impact, despite that he prayed to be relieved from the duty if possible–the temptation to do so was either not present, or extremely fleeting.
The reason why temptation never tempted him (even though he was as the rest of us) is that he was perfectly sinless. He had no sinful nature, no sinful mind, committed no actions in deed or in thought that ever went against God-as-Father’s will. This makes his prayers asking for mercy not by his will but God’s somewhat inexplicable, but the resolution to that question is so complex that it takes at minimum two books to address it. The temptations as depicted in the film are uncomfortably close (or the same as) showing that there was sin in mind; thoughts dwelled on acting contrary to God’s will, and that’s either sin in the heart or close enough to it to make no difference. That there were bare breasts thought about makes it all the worse; even though Jesus was fully human, sexuality had no temptation that he couldn’t dismiss in the time of an eyeblink.
All these reasons are self-evident (perhaps in a Biercean fashion), and questions are to be discouraged (questions are affronting because they only pick things apart; you sure as heck don’t bundle up tares by picking at them), and disagreement and debate are painful and boring, and painful things should be avoided. Part of the problem is likely that, as in #2, the medium’s audience is too general. In distinction, while it is true that no Almighty Dollar gain is possible, but that is likely balanced by the third fold of point 2; the idea that disagreements may be discussed without apologizing for holding different views, and that discussion should involve questions being answered, is telling how discussion ought to be engaged in.
Tos um up my personal views as to the reasons for the film’s controversy:
Number one is unfortunate; people should strive not to have outrage-kneejerks even when sensitive.
Number two has a large number of serious flaws within it, or appears to; their presence is difficult to fully gauge without questioning.
Reason the third is quite interesting, and it’s unfortunate that apparently the medium is inappropriate to its explication. The Bible’s a fascinating read, I intend to put more time into it again (after finishing an initial pass through “the Gateless Barrier”, a medieval Zen text fascinating in unrelated ways).
I would make the suggestion that the common reluctance, and often downright testy refusal and dismissal, of Christians to actually discuss the more difficult themes within it in open fora often does their cause more harm than good. In a similar way, I’m pretty sure that the current testiness and overly cautious approach to ever question has rather more to do with past dealings with non-Christians hefting around large shoulder-chips than it does with me–ref. the concern of opinions being shamed out of existence, which is a concern that appears to be about some other thread entirely and not this one. That, incidentally, is one of my major problems with too much concern for author intent–it’s a fine thing, but people tend to drag in unrelated baggage when it’s not explicit, and unrelated baggage and clarity are old enemies.
I’m not surprised by the reluctance, but I continue to be befuddled by it.
I agree with you that number one is a terrible shame. But the only people I know who have really been able to overcome this tendency are Vulcans and lobotomy patients.
Number two is a complex of questions about readership, textuality and the dissemination of ideas that would give a third year grad student in English Literature a headache. If serious people did not disagree about all kinds of things on these matters, the Stanley Fishes and Jacques Derridas of the world would have nothing left to do but to take a course in small engine repair and set up shop down at the local service station.
You can ask all of the questions you care to about this stuff, but you’re going to have to get someone else to play, because it has been my experience that the discussion only takes place in the form of constant haggling over smaller and smaller quiddities and rhetorical distinctions. I just don’t happen to care for this particular wrangle anymore.
As far as your difficulties with intentionality are concerned, you will find welcome support for your position in an essay titled ‘The Intentional Fallacy’, by Wimsatt and Beardsley. It’s something of a seminal formalist statement. T.S. Eliot also put a lot of thought into questions about authorial involvement and intentionality, in his poetry and his critical writing and you might enjoy working your way through some of that as well. If you want to see where lit crit went after the formalists had had their day (which was quite a while ago) a pretty complete textbook to use would be ‘Modern Literary Criticism’ (or some such generic-sounding thing) by Davis and Schleifer.
Number three is interesting indeed. Although, I think you would do yourself more good in getting to the bottom of this, if you could drop the sarcasm. Sarcasm detracts from clarity, since it makes it difficult to discern whether you are actually failing to grasp the concepts, or merely expressing contempt for ideas that seem silly to you. A little humility goes a long way.
Questioning about number three is not bad, in and of itself. Nor do I know of any Christians who would discourage it, per se. It’s only when people want to do their questioning in a manner that is insulting or glib or belligerent that its desirability changes. Given the state of affairs in #1 above, some large portion of the responsibility for controlling this dynamic has to rest with the conscientious and sincere questioner.
What makes questioning about number three difficult in a forum like this is that the prolegomena for that enterprise can take several semesters to cover. Most people – even some Christians – are laboring under a shocking number of misapprehensions about the shape and direction of Christian theology, and I mean no offense, when I say that I would put you in this category as well. As such, the prolegomena and the answering of the questions may be better left to professionals, especially when it comes to the kinds of questions you’re asking.
They’re good and fair questions, and we have taken several stabs at a number of them, to one degree or another. But I can tell you now that some random guy who gets a great deal of satisfaction out of offering extemporaneous lectures on the internet (which is to say, I myself) might not be the right person for you to spend too much additional time on. That’s why I commend the Apostle Paul and Dr. C.E.B. Cranfield to you, in the highest possible terms.
Also, if you happen to have any friends who are Christians seriously conversant with their own world view, I would recommend that you hold their feet to the fire until they give you some help with the things you want to know about. Like humility, the trust and mutual respect that goes between good friends can go a long way too.
It’s long been my suspicion that the first sentence there contains the explanation to the subject of the complaint in the second–and thus points right to the heart of an admittedly subtle (but big) problem with the third.
Theology hardly has a stranglehold on that phenomenon either. Any subject above a certain level of complexity very often receives a similar, well it would take a full courseload to even begin to explain it properly. Very often in the same breath as sighing about how people have misapprehensions about that same subject matter that is backed away from.
I think reasonably intelligent people can discuss complex subjects amongst themselves, and do pretty well at it. It’s well within their capacities. It’s one thing when people are simply uninterested in a subject–that’s fine, something that gets greater GD time like, say, just who and how stole the election, is about like watching paint dry for me, but others salivate at it–but it’s downright odd when interested people do the same.
It’s a much less major world problem than that number one, but still.
Ah, but I don’t consider any seeds involved to have landed on barren ground–of any of the grounds involved.