BarbariansAtBay

What Kind of Food Are You?

2005-12-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

I wish French food was ubiquitous (and cheap). Being told I'm French would be an insult, but FRENCH FOOD, now that's another matter. I love it, and quite frankly no other cuisine compares.

You Are French Food

Snobby yet ubiquitous.
People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

What Kind of Food Are You?

How to Escape from Voice Mail Hell.

2005-11-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

Although NPR really irritates me sometimes, I was quite glad to hear a story they ran today: NPR : Phone Guide Is a Real Customer Service. The story was about a guide that Paul English has published which gives you shortcuts to avoid wasting time with voicemail menus and to get directly to a live person. For example, to get a live person when calling Capital One Visa you simply press #0 four times.

I, for one, am very grateful to Mr. English. No doubt his guide will save me time and aggravation.

Places That Suit Your Personality. Phoenix?

2005-11-14T20:29:00.000-08:00

Came across this test at A Glass of Chianti. I did live in Phoenix for a year and quite enjoyed it.

Test Results

Extroversion |||||||||||||||||||| 83%
Emotional Stability |||||||||||||||| 70%
Orderliness |||||||||||| 46%
Accommodation |||||||||||||||| 70%
Inquisitiveness |||||||||||||||||| 80%

Your sloan type is SCUAI
Your primary type is Social

#################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### ####################################################

Your personality type is SCUAI

You are social, calm, moderately unstructured, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Providence, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, San Antonio, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Portland/Salem, Nashville, Louisville and these international countries/regions Turkey, Croatia, Slovenia, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Norway, Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands, Russia, Japan, India

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org

Churchgoers are wealthier.

2005-11-14T16:24:00.000-08:00

It's true: Churchgoers are wealthier | csmonitor.com. And what are the ramifications of this?

The Latest on Potential Rapprochement With SSPX.

2005-11-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

From De Civitate Dei: Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos on the SSPX.

Secret Catholic Code in Shakespeare.

2005-11-12T13:07:00.000-08:00

Clare Asquith's book Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare claims Shakespeare was Catholic and included cryptic religious and political messages in his plays which those in the know would understand. EWTN recently aired a September episode of The World Over where Raymond Arroyo conducted a fascinating interview of Asquith (archived audio of the show is available here). Blogger Dad29 reviews the book here. The Washington Post reviews it here.

Asquith is not the first to say Shakespeare was Catholic, but she is the most convincing. Asquith is the wife of a British diplomat. She first suspected the existence of a coded subtext in Shakespeare after attending dissident plays in cold war Moscow which employed the same device.

As the Guardian's review puts it: "As a result the Catholic resistance, which had been going for 70 years by the time Shakespeare was writing, had already developed its own secret code words; a subversive communication system which the playwright developed further in his work." Asquith says the Bard would use terms such as high to refer to Catholic characters and low to refer to the Protestant - referring to their altars, and light or fair to refer to Catholic and dark to refer to Protestant - a reference to certain clerical garb.

Asquith also detected in Shakespeare's work the use of an simple code used by the Jesuit underground in England which took the form of a mercantile terminology wherein priests were merchants and souls were jewels, the people pursuing them were creditors, and the Tyburn scaffold where the members of the underground died was called the place of much trading. The Jesuit underground used this code so their correspondences looked like innocuous commercial letters. Asquith says Shakespeare also used this code. She claims that, "Even the 'The Merchant of Venice' is a title which has deliberate resonance for those in the know." The use of the moon in Shakespeare references Elizabeth, as she adopted Diana or the moon goddess as her persona. Consider this from Romeo and Juliet:

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

The fair sun is the "old faith". Green and white were the color of Elizabeth's livery. But, according to Asquith, Shakespeare is not endorsing Romeo's view. Romeo was a "hothead" and his approach ended only in sorrow.

The use of earthquakes had a particular meaning. In 1581 England had its worst earthquake ever. In the same year St. Edmund Campion the underground Jesuit priest and his cohorts spurred an immense charge to their movement.

Just as there were plays which were addressed to the Crown, Asquith says all the Roman plays are addressed to the Catholic Church. "Julius Caesar", which many believe to be the first which was performed at the Globe, holds out the sympathetic conspirators as the Reformers. Caesar, strikingly less than perfect, is the Papacy as seen through the eyes of the English reformers. The unreformed Church, imperfect as it was, like Caesar, left chaos in its absence. Caesar continues to haunt the conspirators. Asquith also tells of the inspiration for "A Winter's Tale", Magdalen Brown Montague, his benefactor and a stalwart of the English Catholic community.

The audio of the interview, linked above, is certainly worth a listen for those interested in this intriguing subject.

Axis Mundi.

2005-11-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

In honor of the discovery of the 3rd-Century Church found at Megiddo, from Richard John Neuhaus' Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross:

In the cross we see that of which humanity is capable: self-transcendence in surrender to the Other. All the evidence to the contrary, we are capable of love. The sign of shame and death becomes the sign of cosmic possibility. Here is the axis mundi, the moment upon which all reality turns. A third-century paschal homily captures the full reach of the truth:

This tree of heavenly dimensions rose up from earth to heaven, the foundation of all things, support of the universe, holder of the whole world, cosmic bond keeping unstable human nature united and securing it with the invisible nails of the Spirit so that, firmly gripped to the divinity, it can no loner break away. With its top branches touching the sky and its roots firmly set in the earth, it holds in its infinite embrace the many and intermediate spirits of the air.

Is it coincidence that the Church was found at Megiddo, or that it lies beneath a prison - like the cross itself a "sign of death and shame", or that I came upon a third century homily the same time I read of the Church's discovery? A prison on top of a church - "top branches touching the sky and its roots firmly set in the earth".

Bubble? Shack sells for $269,000 in Dublin.

2005-11-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

Via StreetSideInvestor is this MSNBC story of a 10-foot-wide shed selling for $269,100 in Dublin.

I've had several posts on this subject recently, but I'm not looking for them, I've just come across them. And this one was so preposterous, I had to shine a light on it. I suppose if I had lived in Holland at a certain time I'd have been writing about a Tulip bulb selling for the price of a home.

November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day.

2005-11-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

Guy Fawkes day, for those who don't know, is the day the English celebrate the capture and execution of the Catholic Mr. Fawkes who 400 years ago spearheaded the Gunpowder Plot to blow up parliament in a time when that government was executing priests and persecuting Catholics. John Zmirak on Godspy, in an excerpt from his book The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living, with tongue half in cheek says we should celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with a bang - blowing up ginger bread parliament houses.

In response to a commenter on Godspy, Zmirak says he was "kinda joking" and asks, "Is it wrong to use violence to overthrow tyrants?"

Real Estate Has Peaked.

2005-11-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

More news suggesting that real estate has peaked. This time in the NYT, via The Bull Trader.

My Short List Of SCOTUS Nominees.

2005-10-30T02:52:00.000-08:00

If it were my job, the short list (and a very short list it is) would be:

Viet D. Dinh and Douglas W. Kmiec

Both Dinh and Kmiec have the legal gravitas and solid conservative credentials that Miers lacked. Dinh is a con law professor at Georgetown. Kmiec is at Pepperdine but has previously done stints as con law professor at Notre Dame and as dean at Catholic University. Both have served in the executive branch with distinction. Both are easy going and amiable.

Both men appear to have the "soft sell" approach to intellectual persuasion, something that the conservatives on the court sorely need. Their personal styles I know from experience, having met them both on more than one occasion. Dinh has the advantage of being only 37 - talk about a legacy. The Wall Street Journal noted that Dinh has the advantage of being a minority, Vietnamese, and of having been subject to Hillary's lone dissenting vote when he was up for Assistant Attorney General.

From my estimation, neither has the prospect within the realm of reasonable possibility of going Souter on us. This is a quality which cannot be gainsaid.

Will There Be A Housing Market Crash In 2006?

2005-10-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Tom Barrack, arguably the world's best real estate investor is cashing out. He says, "There's too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains." He says amatuer real estate speculators are going to be trounced and seasoned pros may get hurt, too, if they don't take action to avoid risk. Ken Heebner of CGM Realty Fund recently reported on the boob tube that he expects homes $500k and above to sink 20-50% in 2006. He expects such significant downturns particularly in the ten high-end housing markets.

Church of the Masses on The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe

2005-10-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Barbara Nicolosi has an excellent post on a screening of Disney's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" at her blog, Church of the Masses. For those who are not familiar with her, Barbara is an interesting character in her own right. She is a former nun and film school alum who was the founder of Act One, a program of some note which trains people of faith for careers in film and television.

Hitchens on Supreme Court Nominees Shows His True Colors, Red.

2005-10-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens' latest piece on Slate on the nomination for Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement, Miers and Brimstone - Let's stop pretending there's no religious test for nominees, is "a sad performance" accoring to Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner on National Review Online. Hitchens had previously essentially argued (also in Slate) after the Roberts nomination that Roberts should not be confirmed because he is Catholic. It is due to people such as Hitchens that the Constitution contains the prohibition on religious tests for public office.

Despite Hitchens' vehemence and venom on the subject of Miers, his arguments are not too well thought out. He notes that Miers' purported faith has been offered as an assurance to those in the GOP who doubt her conservative credentials and contends that such an offering is a religous test. No doubt students the world over would love to be subjected to a test in which they, themselves, are asked no questions on the subject.

What Hitchens' verbal gymnastics in his recent pieces on the high court nominees come down to is this - despite Hitchens' recently donned appellation of "neocon", when you pull away the mask, he is still what Tom Piatak in the The American Conservative revealed him to be, an unreconstructed Trotskyite and an anti-Christian (particularly anti-Catholic) bigot. This half concealed Pinko called the blessed Mother Theresa a con artist and John Paul II a "barely sentient" fool, yet he still will not condemn the thousands of murders of Russians clerics - according to Piatak more than 8,000 in 1922 alone - committed by his still beloved Commies.

So how is it that Hitchens finds himself counted among American "neocons"? And this brings us back to his desired religious test, i.e. no religion, for Supreme Court nominees. As Piatak ably observed, Hitchens sees American neoconservatism as a practical way to accomplish some of his still cherished Bolshevik aims - after all, the Russians certainly aren't going to get it done:

Hitchens still wants world revolution; the only difference is that now he sees us Americans as perfectly placed to do the fighting and the dying needed to achieve his Trotskyist dream.
...Hitchens was able to overcome his past squeamishness about American military force not because America is threatened, but because the threat now comes from men who believe in Allah rather than Marx. ... Hitchens also wrote—in the same column in which he extolled the priest-killing potency of the French and Russian Revolutions—that “George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but he—and the US armed forces—have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled.” Hitchens’s entire politics is motivated by his hatred of religion and tradition; he’d be just as happy bombing St. Peter’s as the Taliban.

Dictatorship of the proletariat is a tough sell to Americans, but dialectical materialism and scientific socialism...Hitchens is still hawking those concepts, albeit under a new brand. For Hitchens, putting a practicing Catholic from Indiana and a Texas evangelical into robes doesn't help him and his fellow travelers go a long way toward selling their junk.

Housing Bubble is Deflating.

2005-10-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

Via the The Kirk Report's mention of notable declines in the housing market is this story from the Dallas Morning News reporting that housing prices in Manhattan are down 13% for the third quarter and 36% for homes with four bedrooms or more. Inflated San Francisco is down 10% and San Diego is down 4%. The story didn't comment on bloated markets in Orange County, Vegas and Florida, but anyone with sense knows if the needle hasn't hit those bubbles yet it will soon.

Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com in his CNBC tv show Mad Money has been saying that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan "is on a jihad against your home and mine." Cramer doesn't mention that Greenspan, loose with the money supply, was largely responsible for the housing bubble to begin with, again playing cheerleader for the bubble as he did for the 90s tech bubble.

But just as Greenspan spoke of "irrational exuberance" before the tech bubble burst, he began speaking of "froth" in the housing market not long ago ("froth" meaning it was not a nationwide bubble but a sort of housing bubble bath where some regions of the tub - rural Kansas, parts of upstate NY, and suburban Michigan for example - were not inflated). The share prices of Home Builders have, of course been, affected. Folks such as Cramer, who no doubt know the history of the Dutch Tulip Bubble, should not be surprised. It's called a truism because it's true - TREES DON'T GROW TO THE SKY.

Does Protestantism Stand for Anything?

2005-09-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

Tallrite Blog last month asked, "Does Protestantism Stand For Anything?" Pointing to a funeral held at a Presbyterian cathedral in Scotland for an avowed atheist, where among other things, another atheist was permitted to give the eulogy from the pulpit and a Muslim delivered one of the readings, Tallrite concludes that it does not.

Tallrite sums up what apparently he believes is, or perhaps is becoming, its reigning ethic:

Anything goes; do whatever you want; its teachings are important only if you like them; divorce is not allowed but you can do it; ditto abortion; forgiveness is available without even asking; there is no hell for wrong-doers only heaven for everyone, good bad, believer or non-believer.

Returning From My Sabbatical

2005-09-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

Shortly after the birth of my first child, a son, I ceased posting to this blog. Two months after his birth I started my own law practice. Needless to say, I have been busy. I'm going to attempt to resume regular posting. We'll see if I can find the time.

Currently Reading Thomas More: A Portrait in Courage

2005-04-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not that deep into it yet, but I am already quite impressed with Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage by Gerard B. Wegemer. I mean no slight to the considerable talents of the author when I say that subject alone is quite impressive.

More, patron of attorneys and statesmen, is a paragon and somewhat unique in that he is a model for laymen, particularly family men. Elesha Coffman in a Christianity Today article, judging the man by today's standards and citing to his prosecution of Protestants prior to his own prosecution, asserts that "More is not quite a model for all seasons". I could not disagree more. Curiously, despite reservations of the sort expressed by Ms. Coffman, More was added to the Anglican calendar of Saints in 1980 - a fact I learned from my book mark rather than the book.

BLOGGGER SUUCXXXCCKKSSSSS

2005-04-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

I recently read Ugly Chart (a stock trading blog I enjoy reading) bemoaning the sorry state of the Blogger system on which a long post will sometimes just disappear while a work in progress. Ugly chart recently moved to Moveable type (Farewell Blogger, we hardly knew ye).

Well, I just had the pleasure of the disappearing post experience right now, and not for the first - or second - time. I may have to move as well.

Much Loved John Paul II Dies: "What Is Indestructible Remains".

2005-04-02T01:47:00.000-08:00

In his own verse:

The End is as invisible as the Beginning. The universe emerged from the Word, and returns to the Word.Right at the heart of the Sistine Chapel, the artist shows this invisible End in the visible drama of the Judgment - And this invisible End became visible as the highpoint of clarity: ominia nuda et aperta ante oculos Eius.* The words recorded by Matthew, here become the painter's vision: "Come, you who are blessed... depart from me, you accursed..."And so the generations pass - naked they come into the world and naked they return to the earth from which they were formed. "From dust you came, and to dust you shall return"; all that had shape into shapelessness. What was alive is now dead; all that was beautiful is now the ugliness of devastation. And yet I do not altogether die, what is indestructible in me remains!

*From the Latin:
Everything is disclosed and revealed before his eyes.
***
Those to whom the care of the legacy of the keys has been entrusted gather here, allowing themselves to be enfolded by the Sistine’s colours, by the vision left to us by Michelangelo — so it was in August, and then in October, of the memorable year of the two Conclaves, and so it will be again, when the need arises after my death.

Mugabe, Annan & Mubarak. They Should Go.

2005-03-30T21:53:00.000-08:00

Mugabe, Annan & Mubarak. It is time for each of them to go.

Mugabe. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice fittingly describes Zimbabwe under his rule as an "outpost of tyranny". Not surprisingly, the editors of the L.A. Times think Mugabe, this "hero", merely needs a word in his ear from South African president Thabo Mbeki, "urg[ing] him to shape up". They think Mugabe should "take pride in his status as the country's liberator and avoid being remembered as yet another ruler who stayed too long and descended from hero to tyrant." Long since too late for that.

Annan. He presided over bribes, kickbacks, oil smuggling, billions of dollars going to bad guys (not to mention the French), that dirty weasel of a son, and now we hear Volcker's report says that Kofi's toady shredded "three years of office files covering the period when the program was in place". Don't forget about U.N. personnel sexually exploiting and raping women in Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kosovo and Bosnia. Not to mention the joke which was made of the Human Rights Commission by allowing vicious tyrants onto the panel. The Europeans still support Annan and, sadly, so does the Bush administration at this time. When asked if he would step down, Annan replied, "Hell, no." Should a Secretary-General with this much stink on him step down rather than preside over the U.N. during its time of reform? Hell, yes.

Mubarak. For this thug, who took Sadat's assassination in 1981 as an opportunity to implement a never ending marshal law and whose people are now braving his brutality to protest him, I have only one word, a word which is sweeping Egypt, "kefaya" (Arabic for "enough").

"From Jesus to Christ": Newsweek is at it again.

2005-03-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

The latest Newsweek cover story From Jesus to Christ turns on the premise that Jesus was neither the Christ nor divine and that these were just constructions that were added by the followers of a failed Jewish prophet. Nevermind "in the beginning was the Word", for these mainstream media types the Christ was just something he became, primarily in the mind of his followers. The cover story is complete with poll results showing that the overwhelming number of Americans believe Christ rose from the dead, a fact which surely bolsters the attitude of superiority and contempt held by the denizens of quarters like Manhattan and Berkeley.

The author and Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, claims to be a practicing Christian (no doubt a "Christian" who has serious reservations about the divinity of Christ). He ends the story with a paean to modernity, "So many theological questions linger..." and, being a pious scoffer, a redacted quote from scripture, albeit one exhorting ethical behavior rather than belief in "the Way, the Truth and the Life":

'Be at peace among yourselves ... encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be
patient with them all. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always
seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give
thanks ... hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil' - wise words
for all of us, whatever our doubts, whatever our faith.

And what is the redacted portion which would otherwise be found at the first ellipsis, words which Mr. Meacham obviously does not consider wise words suitable for doubters? They are "admonish the idlers". Mr. Meacham and Newsweek, consider my admonishment done for today.

Saint Patrick - Confessions and the Lorica

2005-03-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Saint Patrick (died March 17, 492), the Apostle of Ireland, captured in his native Britain by pagan Irish raiders and sold into slavery - maybe the first writer in history to advocate its abolition , writes of his life in The Confession of St. Patrick:

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

While enslaved for years as a pig herder, his faith in God grew. Guided by a voice which told him, "You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country", and later, "Behold, your ship is ready", he escaped his enslavement and travelled 200 miles to a ship which he boarded. He travelled for years, being for a time taken as a slave again.

After returning home, he received a vision in a dream calling him back to Ireland:

And after a few years I was again in Britain with my parents [kinsfolk], and the welcomed me as a son, and asked me, in faith, that after the great tribulations I had endured I should not go any where else away from them. And, of course, there, in a vision of the night, I saw a man whose name was Victoricus coming as if from Ireland with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter: "The Voice of the Irish", and as I was reading the beginning of the letter I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and the were crying as if with one voice: "We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us." And I was stung intensely in my heart so that I could read no more, and thus I awoke. Thanks be to God, because after so many ears the Lord bestowed on them according to their cry.

Eventually, despite the impediment of some grave sin committed in his youth, he was ordained and did return to Ireland where he played his well known part in the conversion of the country which came to be known as the land of Saints and Scholars :

So, how is it that in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge of God but, always, until now, cherished idols and unclean things, they are lately become a people of the Lord, and are called children of God; the sons of the Irish [Scotti] and the daughters of the chieftains are to be seen as monks and virgins of Christ.

How is it, indeed? The The Confession of St. Patrick is short and well worth reading.

Another writing of St. Patrick, which some scholars attribute to a later time, is his prayer known as the "Lorica" (Latin for "Breastplate" - a piece of armor) or "Deer's Cry". I find it very moving:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength
of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion
and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience
of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet
with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the
apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds
of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to
pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's
eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to
protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From
temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and
evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against
spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that
corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison,
against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may
come to me in abundance.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind
me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my
right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth
of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in
the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the
invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a
confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation

Eat An Animal For PETA Day.

2005-03-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

According to Yourish.com, March 15, 2005 is the third Annual Eat An Animal For PETA day. These ethically stunted freaks who call a chicken dinner "Holocaust on a plate" are in desperate need of parody.

Personally, I plan to celebrate my right to eat tasty animals by having a little lamb. Maybe I'll go out and get some venison served with a raspberry reduction sauce. Mmm, Bambi tastes good. Random Access 3.0 is looking to enjoy a steak and lobster at Outback. PETA needs to be put in check and nothing gets their goat, so to speak, more than people enjoying what Yourish calls "a yummy cow dinner."

Threat of Russian and Chinese Espionage Growing.

2005-03-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

Linking to this Washington Times story, U.S. targets spy services abroad, E-Skojec.com asks, "If Russian Communism is dead then why are they so intent on working with China to spy on us?" The WT cites as a source senior CIA official, Barry Royden, who says Russians are targeting U.S. troops in the Middle East for recruitment using very agressive tactics, including blackmail, extortion and entrapment.

E-Skojec.com linked here to an AP account of how the Chinese and Russians are increasingly cooperating; the two countries are having their first joint military exercise and China is now Russia's largest arms customer. Skojec notes France's mercenary interest in this "Nouveau Axis" pointing to French military assistance and arms sales to China, showing that France is even more in shortage of scruples than it is of deodorant. All this while the spotlight is fixed on Islamofascism.

This threat is largely ignored in the mainstream media. It took a blogger linking to the conservative Washington Times to bring it to my attention.

Los Angeles Times Acts As Apologist For North Korean Dictator.

2005-03-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

HughHewitt is protesting the L.A. Times now for the second day in a row printing North Korean propoganda. Yesterday, "The Pyongyang Times of Los Angeles" (as Hugh calls it) or the "Los Angeles Dogtrainer" (as regular critic of the LAT Patterico refers to it) published an article about North Korea in which this hallowed institution of the California press basically acted as a mouth-piece for a North Korean communist agent. N. Korea, Without the Rancor. See also today's article, N. Korea Lists Conditions for Negotiations.

Now, not every piece dealing with a foreign nation has to be hard hitting. But this is not France we're talking about but what may be the most oppressive government in the world. It is right to ask whether Hitler or Stalin could rightly have been given the same forum. The LAT suffers from that sad modern malady which the Pontiff has previously spotlighted, the inability to call evil by its name.

I cancelled my subscription after they campaigned in their news section against Schwarzenegger during the last days of the recall. Hugh Hewitt has cancelled and urged others to do so. Please do! Call 800-252-9141. Chesterton's remark about journalism is never more true than when reading the LAT:

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Second Thoughts About Mel's Take On Fatima.

2005-03-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

Two days ago I expressed my pleasure at Mel Gibson buying the rights to "Stealing From Angels", a novel dealing with the third prophesy of Fatima. I had some unexpressed concerns, particularly regarding comparisons of the novel to those of Dan Brown and the take that Gibson, an ultratraditionalist, might have on Fatima. The Curt Jester in a recent post linking to JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Mel's Next Film, raising doubts about how Mel will treat the subject, brought my reservations about Mel's Fatima film to the fore.

Some question whether Gibson is a schismatic and a sedevacantist. Certain folks from those quarters have a conspiratorial view of Fatima, believing that the third prophesy (about the attempt on JPII's life) has not really been revealed.
If his treatment of the Passion is any indication, my worries are unnecessary. I sure hope that's the case. Treating the Pope and the "Novus Ordo" Church (as some schismatics refer to the Church) with disrespect would certainly cost Mel some viewers.

The Effect of the EU on the Culture of Ireland.

2005-03-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

Maggie Gallagher in a YahooNews article, IRISH EYES ON EUROPE, frets over Europe's influence on the Emerald Isle: "Europeanization has brought and will bring many advantages to the people of Ireland. But at what cost?" She likens the cultural influence of Europe to British colonialism, but notes that the Brits were always resisted, while the "Europenization" seems to mostly be docilely accepted:

A country that was ruled for 800 years by the British but never conquered is now ambivalently succumbing to both "modernization" and "Europeanization." By the former, I mean the economic processes transforming a predominantly agricultural economy into a post-industrial "Celtic tiger."

Europeanization, by contrast, means the insistent pressure to adopt the moral values promoted by the dominant civilization: in this case a rabid secularization and sensualization of Irish life, as well as the transfer of moral authority into the hands of a techno-bureaucratic aristocracy.

Gallagher sees the U.S. as an alternative cultural influence: "For the Irish resistance, American civilization has clearly emerged as a counterbalance to European cultural prestige, on moral and religious questions." She sees Europe as affecting religious observance in Ireland. Although, according to a poll reported in The Christian Science Monitor, the Irish have the highest religious observance in Europe, 56% attending religious services at least once a week (followed by Poland at 54% and contrasted with France at 8%).

There are reasons to believe that the Europeanization of Ireland will eventually wane. Mark Steyn, who in the Telegraph reiterated his assertion from two years ago that America and Europe are "engaged in a new Cold War", agrees with a new prognostication of the CIA which "predicted the collapse of the EU within 15 years". That may or may not be the case, but regardless, there are signs that secularism has reached its high-water mark in Europe. Another Monitor story, In a secular ocean, waves of spirituality, notes that this is the case:

"God is back among intellectuals," says Aleksander Smolar, a leading European thinker who heads the Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw and teaches at the Sorbonne in Paris. "You can feel there is a problem of soul in Europe; people are conscious of a void and there is a certain crisis of secularism."

Accounts like the following, Atheism worldwide in decline and The Twilight of Atheism, don't bode well for secularism either, even in Europe. So perhaps Ireland is not doomed to the fate of secular France. Indeed, France itself and the rest of secular Europe may be reevangelized in this century.

Gibson's Next Film to Concern Fatima?

2005-03-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

Via Diary of a Suburban Priest is this report that Mel Gibson has bought the rights to the book ‘Stealing from Angels’, a novel by Brian Dullaghan which concerns appearances of the Virgin Mary at the Portuguese town of Fatima in 1917.

This is pleasant news after the Festival of the Culture of Death, also known as the Oscars (Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside [assisted suicide], Vera Drake [abortions], Being Julia [promiscuity], Kinsey [sexual deviance, promiscuity and homosexuality], and The Motorcycle Diaries [communism]. And this is not the first time the Oscars have been recognized as such. In 2000 it was a similar story, BBC News-Mexican church attacks Oscars: Cider House Rules [abortion], Boys Don't Cry [cross-dressing], and American Beauty [infidelity and homsexuality].

Vatican forbids U.S. Jesuit, Roger Haight, to teach as Catholic theologian.

2005-02-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

Ut Unum Sint, observing that "Arius wasn't invited as an equal party at the Council of Nicea", highlights how preposterous it is for the National Catholic Reporter to equate the maintenance of orthodoxy with bullying. It is said Fr. Haight has downplayed the divinity of Christ, treating it as primarily symbolic and forcing the Vatican to forbid him from teaching as Catholic theologian [CNS].

As CNS reports it:
The notification said Father Haight's assertion that Catholic theology must be "in dialogue" with the modern world leads him to downplay or deny central teachings of the church, including that:

-- The Word of God existed from all eternity.
-- The Word was made flesh in Jesus Christ.
-- Jesus was divine.
-- Salvation is offered to all humanity through Jesus.
-- The Son and the Spirit are separate persons within the Trinity, not simply "metaphors" for actions of the one God. [CNS].

Ut Unum Sint criticizes the National Catholic Reporter for the ridiculous suggestion that Haight should be invited as an equal to a Christology summit to address the matter. Amy Welborn weighs in on the subject in her blog, Open Book. The Curt Jester weighs in here, Haight Crime, offering well founded criticisms of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Jesuit order for tendency toward undue tolerance of outright heresy.

Ad Limina Apostolorum says: In any case, whether or not Haight is guilty of taking tradition lightly, it is certainly the case, ... that this is true of many theologians today, who see their fundamental vocation as exploring outside the bounds of tradition than probing more deeply within it. If so, then my hope is that all doubt is erased that this profound misunderstanding of the theologian's role is a properly modern misunderstanding. It has no place in the tradition. That is a sentiment with which I could not agree more. Ad Limina Apostolorum also notes the problem may be less doctrinal accuracy than a matter of public scandal, and that that to the extent Haight has not sufficiently taken care to avoid heterodox misinterpretation of his teaching, this is his opportunity to set things straight.

Barry Bonds Says He Doesn't Know What Cheating Is.

2005-02-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

Barry Bonds says, "I don't know what cheating is." Obviously. He explains that he doesn't believe steroids can improve hand eye coordination or help you hit the ball. And apparently if you use a drug that doesn't help you hit the ball but it helps you hit it twice as far, then it ain't cheating. I guess it depends upon what the definition of "is" is.

I don't know that we can say that he is in good company, but he certainly is in prominent company. His half denials and strained attacks on the media for reporting his foibles strike one as highly Clintonesqe. He didn't know what cheating was either.

Archeologists discover St Paul's tomb

2005-02-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

Archeologists discover St. Paul's tomb. (CN) According to Vatican archeologists, a sarcophagus in St. Paul Outside the Walls basilica in Rome could contain the remains of St. Paul.

Giorgio Filippi an archeologist from the Vatican Museums doesn't doubt that the site is the burial place of Paul, as it was a place of pilgrimage for many, including emperors, who believed Paul was buried there. WorldNetDaily reports "Filippi said church officials must now decide whether to order further excavation to make the sarcophagus more visible." The sarcophagus was found under the church's main altar. Beneath that altar a 4th century marble plaque reading "Apostle Paul, martyr" could be seen.

Bush Reading Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons".

2005-02-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Speaking of presidential reading material (see my post below re Bush reading Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy), a voice from eden notes here that Dubya is also reading Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons", about a conservative small-town girl surrounded by the debauched life found at today's universities.

Also via a voice from eden is an article from the International Herald Tribune about Why is Bush reading Tom Wolfe which also lists his other reading choices. The author of a voice from eden notes that he picked up the book out of curiosity but that it is worth reading. Wolfe, who has documented the acid culture, the radical chic and written novels putting Wall Street and high flying developers under the microscope (while serving up a dose of Stoicism), is becoming increasingly irritating to the left. I am a bit of fan, having read four of his books.

If you're going to buy Wolfe's latest (a little blegging here), please use my link - to Amazon - in the sidebar to the right, as I will get a small chunk of the purchase. I believe the link in this post will also work.

John Negroponte, Silver Spoon and Career Diplomat, Nominated as First Director of National Intelligence.

2005-02-17T11:01:00.000-08:00

John Negroponte, son of a Greek shipping magnate, alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and another Yalie, has been nominated as the first United States Director of National Intelligence. Negroponte is a career diplomat. Some might think that someone with more intelligence experience would be a better choice. There has also been concern expressed over his connections to Iran-Contra and his allegedly turning a blind eye to death squads while Ambassador to Honduras.

It sometime seems that Bush chooses so many, like him, born to privilege. Granted, you do find the likes of Alberto Gonzales, Rice and others in this administration. This USA TODAY article tells that many of his people are from humble backgrounds and are "up-by-their-bootstraps stories". That, of course, is not Negroponte.

It was pointed out here that his recent nominees are overwhelminly inside the beltway types.

Still, Dubya, and his nominees, are infinitely preferable to that other Yalie from Massachusetts, and who knows what sort of folks he'd have in his administration.

Hearings begin in California Assembly on assisted suicide proposal

2005-02-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. Catholic News Service reports that California could become the second state , after Oregon, to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Opponents, many of them disabled, have stronly opposed the bill, arguing that it is a slippery slope. At the bottom, they said, are people who doctors help to die but who were never asked if they wanted to die.

A slippery slope argument is not needed to oppose this. Euthansia of even competent and willing patients is wrong. And the slope goes farther down than the opponents suggest.

Is "Buy Blue" Unamerican or Just Stupid?

2005-02-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

Buy Blue is a wacky concept that essentially encourages leftists to boycott companies which made major contributions to the GOP and to buy from companies that contribute to the Dems. It strikes me as almost anti-American. I mean, I could see if it was the American Communist Party or the Nazi Party, but do these lefties see us Republicans as so offensive that they shouldn't even buy a burger from a company which supports the GOP (I know, a lot of libs wouldn't eat a burger anyway - "meat is murder" and all that insane PETA drivel).

OSCAR HOST CHRIS ROCK SHOCK: ABORTION IN AMERICA IS 'BEAUTIFUL'.

2005-02-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

The DRUDGE REPORT gives us insight into Chris Rock, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts' choice for host of the Oscars who said in his club routine: "Abortion, it's beautiful, it's beautiful abortion is legal. I love going to an abortion rally to pick up women, cause you know they are ****ing,."

Well, isn't that nice, Hollywood has found a host who really reflects its values.

Spanish Architect Gaudi on Fasttrack to Beatification.

2005-02-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

Austen Ivereigh's article Architect Gaudi, the Blessed on Godspy tells how Gaudi is fasttracked to become the first professional artist to be declared a saint.

The architect had achieved high fame and wealth by his youth, but when he was struck by a tram in 1926 he was mistaken for a beggar and taken to Barcelona's pauper's hospital. His friends tried to take him elsewhere but he refused, insisting upon dying in poverty.

When he took over the plans for what would become his masterpiece, the as yet uncompleted basilica Sagrada Familia (Holy Family, see also here) he began a daily habit of Mass, Bible reading, Rosary and confession. From then on he lived the life of an impoverished mystic who melded his faith and his work.

(An interesting contrast to the Sagrada Familia is the recently completed monolithic, angular, and somewhat California mission inspired Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles by fellow Spaniard and contemporary architect, Rafael Moneo).

DEATH OF A COLLABORATOR

2005-02-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

BrothersJudd refer to Arthur Miller's demise as the DEATH OF A COLLABORATOR:: "Mr. Miller's deeply despicable art was anti-American and sought to hasten that fragmentation in service to his Communist ideals."

The BrothersJudd Review of Death of a Salesman could be called harsh: "This play is really a relic of the short, unhappy period in the 30's and 40's when American intellectuals had been seduced by Marxism. It is too doctrinaire in it's assumptions about democracy and capitalism to actually say anything of lasting value. You know how there are periodic attempts to ban the teaching of certain books in public schools? Well, I had teachers who taught both this play and The Crucible, that equally morally flaccid piece of tripe and let me just say this : as a parent, I just don't want some nitwit teacher trying to explain this Stalinist propaganda to my kids and telling them that it offers some kind of profound analysis of our society. If folks think it's important to expose kids to authors who critique capitalism and the American Dream, at least let them read The Great Gatsby, which, though wrong also, is at least great literature."

I don't know if the review is accurate - the Salesian high school I attended didn't assign the play to read and I never bothered to see it. Gatsby was assigned (and I have to agree with the BrothersJudd assesment of that) . I would have remained ignorant of the Crucible as well, which I have since learned would have been no real loss, if it were not for Daniel Day Lewis...and Winona Ryder.

Litigation Battle Over Alcohol Industry Marketing to Minors Just Beginning.

2005-02-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

The American Bar Association Journal (BATTLE OVER LIQUOR JUST BEGINNING) reports there are now four class actions against the alcohol industry based on their marketing to minors. A fifth was recently dismissed from the L.A. Superior Court.

George A. Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, tells the ABA Journal that, "The alcoholic beverage industry does everything that the tobacco company used to do in terms of hooking young drinkers, wrapping marketing in youth-oriented culture and music and humor. They make very halfhearted efforts to reduce youth access to alcohol."

I think the Budweiser frogs are second-cousins to Joe Camel. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the neo-prohibitionism that the likes of MADD (notwithstanding the good they do) and similar groups sometimes engage in. Like the next guy I enjoy beer now and then, and I love a good Oregon Pinot with a plate of salmon. Responsible marketing, and consumption, is one thing, but this industry has been selling a social ill to our children. I suspect that we will see evidence that the industry intentionally marketed to minors in the same way the tobacco companies did.

A Lenten Thought on Sacrifice.

2005-02-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

"No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown."
-William Penn

Natan Sharansky's “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror”

2005-02-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to reading Natan Sharansky's “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror”, the book that George W is so infatuated with these days. The Economist did a recent story on Bush and his favorite book, and Slate ran a piece on how Bush's favorite book doesn't always endorse his policies with page citation to Sharansky's tome.

According to the Economist, Sharansky's message is this: "First, “realpolitik” is bankrupt. America cannot go on coddling tyrannical regimes like Saudi Arabia because those regimes invariably try to buy stability at home by exporting hatred abroad. Second, democracy is the best insurance against aggression. Third, the world really is divided between good and evil." A friend of mine already bought the book, so I'm saving a few bucks and waiting for him to finish it.

Online Lenten Retreat

2005-02-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Sacred Space, the prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits, has a Lenten Retreat Online. It has a suggested six hour timetable including proposed morning and midday breaks. I'm hoping to find the time to participate in the retreat, maybe this weekend.

The site also has an excellent daily interactive prayer with a scripture reading which takes about ten minutes. It is available in English, Spanish, Irish, Italian (temporarily unavailable), Japanese, Lithuanian, Portugese, Korean, Latvian, Polish, Catalan, French, Romanian, Czech, Maltese, German, Chinese and Slovenian. Being interactive, it is a great prayer aid, particularly when one is having trouble praying.

The Birth of Science in the Christian High Middle Ages and What It Means Today.

2005-02-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

The scientific quest found fertile soil only when this faith in a personal, rational Creator had truly permeated a whole culture, beginning with the centuries of the High Middle Ages. It was that faith which provided, in sufficient measure, confidence in the rationality of the universe, trust in progress, and appreciation of the quantitative method, all indispensable ingredients of the scientific quest. . . .
The future of man rests with that judgment which holds the universe to be the handiwork of a Creator and Lawgiver. To this belief, science owes its very birth and life.

-Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1974)

Jaki, a scientist, philospher and priest has pointed out how science was stillborn in many other societies. For example, science failed in Mesopotamian cultures, a number of American cultures, India, China, Egypt, Greece and Arabia. All made significant advances but had science stillborn at various stages of gestation. The radical difference was Christian metaphysics, which rejected a cyclical view of history, astrological and other essentially pseudo-scientific explanations for natural phenomena, deification of nature, denial of the existence or orderliness of the universe, the view of nature as an organism, lack of balance between faith and reason, and mankind as a part of nature.

C.S. Lewis expressed a similar concept this way,"Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator." According to Alvin Plantinga, the Notre Dame philosopher, "Modern science was conceived, and born, and flourished in the matrix of Christian theism. Only liberal doses of self-deception and double-think, I believe, will permit it to flourish in the context of Darwinian naturalism." By Darwinian naturalism, I believe Plantinga is not referring to mere acceptance of the idea that evolution is valid, but the reductionist and materialist view that everything should be addressed and explained exclusively in terms of the natural world and that the Legislator of Whom Lewis speaks of does not exist.

This pure naturalist view in science has a tendency to degrade into barbarism. This is apparent from the increasing bioethical quandries we are seeing. Such barbarisms as infanticide are advocated by the likes of Princeton philosopher Peter Singer. In Holland, eight percent of babies who die are killed by a physician. The California and Hawaii legislatures are considering euthansia bills like the one in Oregon (NRLC: Euthansia). Hand in hand with this view and abetting it is the attack in the political and legal realm on the natural law concept, notably found in the American Declaration of Independence, that rights are endowed by our Creator.

Could it not be more apparent that Jaki was dead on in saying our future "rests with that judgment which holds the universe to be the handiwork of a Creator and Lawgiver."

Salvation Aptitude Test

2005-02-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

From the New Oxford Review, What's Your Score On The S.A.T. (Salvation Aptitude Test)?, a little bit of knowlege every Catholic should have.

Society of St. Pius X: More Catholic Than Catholic, or Schismatic?

2005-02-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

Katolic Shinja is an excellent blog authored by an American who is a Catholic convert living in Korea (its author has also been kind enough to include this humble blog his blogroll). Twice recently Katolic Shinja had posts referencing the Society of St. Pius X, one where the Society is mentioned in a post about what some consider deficiencies in the Novus Ordo Mass, Thoughts on the Novus Ordo Missae, and another about the SSPX chapel in Seoul, Korea, SSPX Korea. Coincidentally, last Sunday a family friend, the son of my God-father, invited me to a Latin Mass. As it turns out, the Mass he invited me to was at an SSPX chapel.

For those who are unfamiliar, the SSPX was originally licit, founded by the late Archbishop Lefebvre of France. The Archbishop, protesting the Novus Ordo Mass and Vatican II, eventually defied the Magesterium of the Church ordaining four bishops without permission and going into schism. Lefebvre and his adherents originally made an argument that their actions were permissible under Canon law pursuant to the doctrine of necessity. Without getting into the nuances of Canon law, their arguments that they acted out of necessity were not well founded when originally made and today's Lefebvrites have even less ground to stand on. The Latin Tridentine Masses celebrated by the Lefebvrite priests are true Masses, but are performed in defiance of Church authority. Catholics are directed not to attend Mass at SSPX chapels.

I respect my friend's faith and his concern about the sometimes corrosive effects of modernity on Catholics, but he is in error.

Adherents of this schismatic movement, while claiming to be faithful Catholics, disparage the Pontiff, the successor to the seat of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth. They vacillate between recognition of him and an outright sedevacantist view. They claim to be in communion with the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Church but they also speak of "leaving" the Church.

To its merit, the Society encourages the understanding of the real presence in the Eucharist and other orthodoxies which are sometimes given insufficient attention, but it deviates seriously from orthodoxy in matters of no small detail. It also has a tendency towards paranoia with regard to things Masonic and has anti-Semitic leanings. I have read that the Society veers into a number of classical heresies, although I was not able to detect these myself.

I would urge my friend and any adherents of or sympathizers with this schism to consider Matthew 16:18: "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

According to the L.A. Times, Culture War is Declared in Europe

2005-02-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

The L.A. Times, which is itself a combatant in the culture wars, reports that the culture war is declared in Europe. L.A.'s thick, left of center daily cites as support for its assertion Rocco Buttiglione having been Borked from the EU's justice commissioner position because he took a traditional view of Christian morality, the religiousity of Tony Blair and British politician Ruth Kelly's connections to Opus Dei. In typical LAT fashion the article ends by raising the preposterous spectre of sectarian bloodshed. What the Times writers fail to appreciate is that it is the waning and suppression of faith which led to Europe's greatest bloodbath under the anti-religious regimes of the Nazis and Communists.

In a similar vein, Slate, which usually has an anti-religious bent, carries the article Is France Getting Religion? - In the immigrant suburbs of Paris, secularism is on the wane. By Elisabeth Eaves. This piece was not laden with the usual anti-religous bias found at Slate.

France's Chirac Advocates a World Tax.

2005-01-27T17:58:00.000-08:00

France's Chirac: Tax the World to Help the Poor. Is this development a surprise to anyone?

Vox Blogoli: Jonathan Rausch Compares Religious Conservatives to Bombers in the Atlantic Monthly.

2005-01-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

HughHewitt in his Vox Blogoli forum has invited bloggers to weigh in on Jonathan Rausch's Atlantic Monthly article in which Rausch seems to imply that religious conservatives are just a political loss away from bomb throwing. Hewitt took Rausch to task in an article about the impact of new media, specifically blogs, on mainstream media in his article in the Weekly Standard, Big Media's 40 Days and 40 Nights. As Hewitt says, Rausch subsequently "pleads hasty writing and objects that the focus [Hewitt] put on [the few offensive sentances] is unfair to the intent of his piece."

The full text of Rausch article is now posted on Hewitt's blog. And to be fair to Rausch, his point is that "red" staters and "blue" staters are not as bitterly divided as has been reported (as an aside, shouldn't the left really be red...its traditional color).

The offending language in Rausch's article reads in part as follows:

polarized activists have been taken over by the mainstream parties. The Republican Party has acquired its distinctively tart right-wing flavor largely because it has absorbed in fact, to a significant extent has organizationally merged with the religious right. As Hanna Rosin reports elsewhere in this package, religious conservatives are becoming more uniformly Republican even as their faiths and backgrounds grow more diverse. On balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system than if they operate as insurgents and provocateurs on the outside. Better they should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics.

Rausch then goes to make the inapt comparison of the "religious right" to Michael Moore. Where Hewitt is right on target is in pointing out the offensiveness and the inaccuracy of suggesting that the religious right is a political platform plank away from becoming killers. But even had Rausch omitted that reference, he would still be inaccurate and offensive. Moore is in fact a "polarized activist". Religiously traditional Americans are not. It was the failure of the Democrats to understand this that lost them the last election. Indeed, prior to the McGovernization of the democratic party, the values of religiously traditional people were the mainstream in both parties. As difficult as it is for the effete denizens of Manhattan, San Francisco and West L.A. to understand, traditionally religious Americans still are the mainstream in America, not to mention the GOP.

Rausch responded to Hewitt that he just as easily could have suggested that "left-wing environmentalists" were a Democratic Party platform plank away from becoming killers. But he didn't. And he would not have done so, because mainstream media portrays the religious as extremists, not their own fellow travelers. You constantly see religious folks being characterized in the major media as extremists, but when was the last time you saw in the mainstream media the characterization of the radical secularist? You know, the folks who want God off our currency, out of the pledge and banished in every single vestige from the public sphere...like the school district which sanctioned a teacher for assigning the reading of the Declaration of Independence because it mentioned the Creator. Now these people are radicals, resembling more Stalin or Robespierre than any American political model. But are they characterized as such by big media? Never.

Politics
Religion

ACLU Takes Liberties With The Constitution.

2005-01-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

This from Richard John Neuhaus in his column, The Public Square, from the January issue of First Things: "If you don't like the Constitution, you can always rewrite it. Or resort to the creative use of ellipses. The American Civil Liberties Union has an impressive website on free speech. The opening paragraph introducing the website is this: 'It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment: 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution's framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society.' The first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment is, of course, the free exercise of religion. It appears that among the liberties championed by the ACLU is that of taking liberties with the text of the Constitution. "

Wrongheaded Lawsuit by Americans United for Separation of Church and State Challenges Federal Funding of California Missions.

2005-01-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in their ongoing effort to ensure a tortured reading of the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause, is challenging the California Missions Preservation Act, a federal law which provides $10 million to restore the historic and beloved remnants of California's past. The California Missions Foundation explains why the lawsuit is wrong: Response to the Lawsuit Filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The missions were founded in the 18th century by Spanish friars. A statue of the founder of the state's mission system, Junipero Serra, who has been beatified, stands in the Capitol rontunda in Washington, D.C., along with other prominent historic figures, two from each state.

The missions, after Disneyland, are the second greatest tourist attraction in the state. Study of their history is required as part of the 4th grade curriculum and most fourth graders visit a mission and build a model of one as part of their study. Although all but a few of the twenty some missions now have Catholic churches where Mass is celebrated, a huge part of their function is nonreligious, to service the historic and cultural interests of students and tourists.

Strangely, the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of AUSCS, who apparently never tires of being wrong, is quoted in the Orange County Catholic, a diocesan paper, as admitting that the funding serves a public purpose. Not surprisingly, the bill, which according to Lynn violates the establishment clause, was sponsored by non-Catholics, Democrat Barbara Boxer in the Senate and Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, in the House.

This recent brouhaha follows on the tail of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors folding under pressure from other radical secularists and removing the small cross from the L.A. County seal. Ironically, the cross was replaced by a mission (albeit a mission conspicuously devoid of a cross).

The astute Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated talk show host and author, who happens to be Jewish and is almost as consistently right as Barry Lynn is wrong, opposed the removal of the cross from the L.A. County seal, noting that those who seek its removal are like the Taliban. Where the Taliban sought to destroy Afghanistan's Buddhist heritage, radical securarists in California seek to destroy its Catholic heritage.

Tipping for Counter Service: Does the Starbucks "Barista" Deserve a Tip.

2005-01-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have a very quotidian pet peeve, the proliferation of tip jars in establishments that provide no substantial service. If I stand in line at McDonalds I'm not going to tip the guy taking my order, and he wouldn't expect me to. Why does the nitwit at Starbucks expect a tip? It's not like I can sit down at a table where my order is taken and then brought to me, where I am attended to if I need anything else. I have to stand in line and then carry my drink and food to my table. If I want anything else, I have to get up, get back in line and do the same thing again.

And it's not just Starbucks. All kinds of places that provide no real service now have tip jars. There it is on the counter of a Chinese take-out or a submarine sandwich shop. Let me respond to those nitwits and their tip jars this way, "If you really deserve a tip, a tip jar would not be necessary. People would know you deserve it."

The waiter at a restaurant deserves a tip. The guy who delivers my pizza deserves a tip. They have provided a service and brought my food to me. If I have to go to you to get my food...no tip for you! There's even a drive-through cofee place in my neighborhood that has a "karma jar" at the drive-through window. They're not driving to me to deliver my coffee! They're not providing any more service than the hamburger drive-through restaurant. And by the way, I don't believe in karma.

Some times these folks standing at the register will stare at you after you pay, as if to say, "Hey, buddy where's my tip?" I just want to respond, "Hey, nudnik, where's my service?" I have to admit, sometimes I have been coerced by their attempts to induce an ill placed guilt and dropped some cash in the jar. But no more. I will gladly and generously tip those who have traditionally received tips and who provide a service. No tips for those who provide no service.

Newdow Challenges the Constitutionality of Prayer in the Presidential Inauguration

2005-01-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

Michael Newdow, the atheist and opponent of the rights of religious exercise and expression who brought the constitutional challenge to the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, has now brought suit to prohibit prayer in the U.S. Presidential Inauguration. Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ American Center for Law & Justice says Newdow's challenge is legally flawed. Not only has God's help been sought at the inauguration of every single American president, but the ACLJ cites the 1983 Supreme Court decision, Marsh vs. Chambers, which held that the "opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country." The ACLJ calls the suit "a blatant attack on our country’s cherished heritage, religious foundation, and personal freedoms."

Santhome Cathedral in India, Site of the Apostle Thomas' Tomb, Spared from Tsunami by Miracle?

2005-01-11T11:33:00.000-08:00

Indian Catholic reports that the Santhome Cathedral Basilica, one of two basilicas in the world built on the tomb of an Apostle, now housing hundreds of tsunami victims, was spared in what some say was a miracle. The Cathedral sits within view of the sea (see a photo of the Cathedral with the sea in the background at Cruxnews.Com).

According to Indian Catholic, St. Thomas the Apostles was buried at the site close to the sea in 72 A.D. All the buildings around the church were hit by the tsunami. According to lore, St. Thomas planted a post in front of the Cathedral, saying the sea would not pass that point. The post is said to be from a log which had fallen in a river causing flooding. When an elephant was unable to move the log, St. Thomas provided his girdle from around his waist to a man who miraculously moved the log with ease.

Thomas, sometimes called the Apostle to the Orient, travelled to the farthest flung area of any of the Apostles, establishing a Christian community in India which continues to this day. Many non-western sources give reports of him. Indian tradition maintains that he was martyred when stabbed to death July 3, 72 A.D. by Brahmin priests of Mylapore who sought to halt the growth of Christianity.

Tolkien: Liberal or Conservative

2005-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

Professor Bainbridge, following the lead of TCS: Tech Central Station - Ringing in a Liberal or Conservative New Year asks whether Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a liberal or a conservative work, ProfessorBainbridge.com: Tolkien: Liberal or Conservative. His anlysis concentrates on technology and capitalism. Putting progress and economics aside for the moment, we should not forget that Tolkien maintained that the novel was, as noted here and here, "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work". Considering the increasing hostility of the American (and European) left to Christianity and Catholicism in particular, it would be difficult to say that the work was not conservative, at least in some regard.

Back to the questions of progress, nature and economics. Mark Shea rightly tells us that Tolkien "had a view of the sacredness of creation which was sacramental and Christian and yet, if articulated by any Catholic today, would in all likelihood be derided without trial by 'conservative Catholics'." Peter Mirus writing for Catholic Culture tells of "Tolkien's use of trees as symbols of life and goodness, and the corruption of trees as symbols of evil and death." When I first read Mirus' article, I was reminded of Georg Orwell's essay "A Good Word For The Vicar of Bray", where Orwell, at a time when England's forests had been quite devastated, praises that much maligned flip-flopping cleric for having planted a yew tree which Orwell came upon centuries later. You could say Tolkien had liberal sentiments.

Of course, the Catholic view of the world does not always fit easily into the modern boxes of liberalism and conservatism. After all, Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum is critical of both collectivism and unfettered capitalism. It is for this reason that folks such as Chesterton advocated a third way in concepts such as Distributism. (A Distributist Page.) Despite Francis Fukuyama's assertion that we had reached the end of history, we may yet reach an economic model that resembles such a third way, where politics are highly localized, property ownership more widely distributed and man lives in better harmony with nature. Small government, small busines and responsible stewardship don't sound liberal to me. Perhaps this was Tolkien's view. I would not be the first to say it was.

p.s. Bush's talk of an "ownership society" has to me echoes of Distributism.

Patterico's Pontifications: Patterico's Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2004 -- Part One: The 2004 Presidential Election

2005-01-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

I recently came across Patterico's Pontifications. Patterico, still a subscriber to the L.A. Times, although not surprisingly they have not delivered his paper lately, has done his second annual review of the LAT's performance: Patterico's Pontifications: Patterico's Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2004 -- Part One: The 2004 Presidential Election.

Personally, I quit subscribing to the Times, or the Dog Trainer as Patterico calls it, when it spent the very week before the California gubenatorial recall election campaigning on its front page against Schwarzenegger with articles about his peccadillos, most of which they had known about for months or even years before the election. For me that was the straw that broke the camel's back and I had to cancel my subscription, but then I don't have a dog.

The 100 Best Movies Ever.

2005-01-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

The 100 Best Movies Ever in no particular order (If you disagree, leave a comment and tell me why I'm wrong):

DR. STRANGELOVE (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
2001:SPACE ODYSSEY (1968, Stanely Kubrick)
THE FISHER KING (1991, Terry Gilliam)
JACOBS LADDER (1990, Adrian Lyne)
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT (1992, Robert Redford)
PSYCHO (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
REAR WINDOW (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
CITIZEN KANE (1941, Orson Welles)
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946, Frank Kapra)
AMADEUS (1984, Milos Foreman)
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966, Mike Nichols)
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946, William Wyler)
SONG OF BERNADETTE (1943, Henry King)
COOL HAND LUKE (1967, Staurt Rosenberg)
WILD STRAWBERRIES (1958, Ingmar Bergman)
INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, Steven Spielberg)
FORREST GUMP (1994, Robert Zemechis)
PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES (1987, John Hughes)
BRAVEHEART (1995, Mel Gibson)
DEAD MAN WALKING (1995, Tim Robbins)
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962, David Lean)
CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971, Stanely Kubrick)
ANNIE HALL (1977, Woody Allen)
CASABLANCA (1942, Micheal Curtiz)
TWELVE MONKEYS (1995, Terry Gilliam)
GROUNDHOG DAY (1993, Harold Ramis)
THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939, Victor Fleming)
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939, Victor Fleming)
ON THE WATERFRONT (1954, Elia Kazan)
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952, Gene Kelley & Stanley Donen)
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957, David Lean)
STAR WARS (1977, George Lucas)
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951, John Huston)
THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940, John Ford)
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962, Robert Mulligan)
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944, Billy Wilder)
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937, David Hand and Perce Pearse)
VERTIGO (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935, Frank Lloyd)
A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951, George Stevens)
GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967, Stanley Kramer)
THE SEVENTH SEAL (1956, Ingmar Bergman)
BABETTE'S FEAST (1987, Gabriel Axel)
BEN-HUR (1959, William Wyler)
WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971, Mel Stuart)
THE HEIRESS (1949, William Wyler)
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958, Orson Wells)
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955, Charles Laughton)
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
FIGHT CLUB (1999, David Fincher)
THE QUIET MAN (1952, John Ford)
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941, John Ford)
THE GREEN MILE (1999, Frank Darabont)
BLADE RUNNER (1982, Ridley Scott)
BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001, Ridley Scott)
BLUE VELVET (1986, David Lynch)
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966, Fred Zinneman)
GOING MY WAY (1944, Leo McCarey)
CHARIOTS OF FIRE (1981, Hugh Hudson)
IL POSTINO (1995, Michael Radford)
LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE (1992, Aldonso Arau)
NOTORIOUS (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988, Charles Crichton)
NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (1978, John Landis)
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963, Stanley Kramer)
A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964, Blake Edwards)
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004, Mel Gibson)
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942, Michael Curtiz)
PATTON (1970, Franklin J. Schaffner)
LORD OF THE RINGS (2001-2003, Peter Jackson)
THE MATRIX (1999, Andy and Larry Wachowski)
A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983, Bob Clark)
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981, Louis Malle)
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982, George Roy Hill)
OLIVER TWIST (1948, David Lean)
IN AMERICA (2002, Jim Sheridan)
MY LEFT FOOT (1989, Jim Sheridan)
BLISS (1985, Ray Lawrence)
GALLIPOLI (1981, Robert Stigwood, Pat Lovell)
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998, Bobby and Peter Farrelly)
THE MALTESE FALCON (1941. John Huston)
THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994, John Sayles)
MARY POPPINS (1964, Rober Stevenson)
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956, Michael Anderson)
WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939, William Wyler)
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004, Michael Gondry)
SIDEWAYS (2004, Alexander Payne)
GANDHI (1982, Richard Attenborough)
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989, Rob Reiner)
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934, Frank Capra)
THE EXORCIST (1973, William Friedkin)
PLANET OF THE APES (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)
THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1983, Peter Weir)
DARK CITY (1998, Alex Proyas)
RAISING ARIZONA (1987, Joel Coen)
MINDWALK (1991, Berndt Capra)
BARCELONA (1994, Whit Stillman)
THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN (1995 Edward Burns)
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962, John Frankenheimer)

Muslim Nations Stingy with Tsunami Aid. NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story

2005-01-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

NewsMax reports that Muslim nations are donating only a pitance to aid tsunami victims in south Asia. NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story: "Surely U.N. officials will be calling a press conference any minute now to complain that wealthy Muslim nations are being too stingy with relief dollars."

For example, Saudi's are pledging only $2 million, Iran less than $700k. After all the whining in the mainstream media about the U.S.'s original pledge and the fact that it has now pledged $350 million, I supposed the mainstream press will point out the Muslim penny pinching? I won't hold my breath.

TSUNAMIS, THEODICY, TERRORISTS AND THURSDAY (The Man Who Was ...) . The Corner on National Review Online.

2005-01-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

A recent thread on The Corner on National Review Online about the human carnage brought to us by the tsunami in south Asia, in what is sometimes called "an act of God", raised the sticky theological question of theodicy. Theodicy is the question of God's goodness - indeed his very existence - in light of the existence of evil, particularly natural evil, which unlike human evil is not as easily laid at the foot of man's free will. It raised for me, what the question of theodicy will forever raise with me since reading the novel, thoughts of - along with the Book of Job - G. K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday".

Thursday's plot concerns the members of the Central Anarchist Council, each of whom for reasons of secrecy is named after a day of the week, and most of all Sunday the immense and threatening leader of the Council. (For those who have not read the book and would like to do so with out any foreknowledge, a bit of a spoiler follows).

As the story becomes progressively more surreal, each of the six lesser plotters discovers that each other is not in fact a terrorist but an undercover agent. They proceed to hunt down the horrible and menacing Sunday. When one of his pursuers questions him about his identity, who and what he is, Sunday answers, "I am the Sabbath. I am the peace of God." Chesterton tells us that Sunday can be taken to "stand for nature as distinguished from God." But also that when "you tear off the mask of Nature ... you find God". So this recent tsunami emanating from the sea near Sri Lanka, Leviathan from the sea, slaughtering more than 100,000 people, is the wet finger of God? I've read in one news piece that a tsunami warning system could cost as little as $2,000,000. So we would place a hook in the mouth of this Leviathan? I'm not saying we should not protect ourselves from the ravages of Nature, only that we should not delude ourselves by the purely materialist viewpoint that we will ever make a pet of it. There is no compromise with this mystery and only one resolution.

It is theodicy, the question of evil, which, it is said, has driven many people to atheism. And which is probably its only seemingly good argument. The problem is, ultimately, it is a flawed argument.

I have read that Chesterton's Sunday is the "backside of God" (I don't recall if it was Chesterton himself who said this). The subtitle of the novel is "A Nightmare". I guess the nightmare is that God is the author of all the carnage, or that this very proposition means he could not exist. Yet Nature as the backside of God, glimpsed only briefly through the corner of the eye, makes sense in only one framework. In the cup partaken of on that Thursday long ago and its physical manifestation on the following day.

Still, the grasping of this completeness is not accomplished with reason. It lies in a mystical paradox, the glimpsing of the backside of things, where the angst of human existence is in fact joy.

An excellent treatment of this subject can be found at THE TUMBLER OF GOD: Chesterton As Mystic, By Robert Wild, Chapter 12

Susan Sontag - Intellectual Heroine or Inellectual Heroin?

2004-12-30T16:38:00.000-08:00

The late Susan Sontag was an author of decay, of intellectual malaise. In a Slate obit, Christopher Hitchens gives her a glowing elegy, Susan Sontag - Remembering an intellectual heroine.

Sontag's essay "On Camp," celebrates a vision in which aesthetics triumph over morality. This vision “neutralises moral indignation”. Sontag told us that camp divorces beauty from truth. She maintained that aesthetic pleasure was morally inert (although by appreciation of the beautiful she maintained we are morally edified). A more recent essay “An Argument about Beauty” was no more enlightening. She wrote of “the beautiful [being] colonized by moral judgments”, as if ethics were an invading army raping and oppressing the poor put-upon aborigine that is beauty. She was a vanguard of radical chic and the drivel that proceeded from such a sensibility.

Sontag was deservedly excoriated for her comments in The New Yorker about the attacks on the U.S. of September 11th, 2001:

"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions...In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."

Ironically, years earlier when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for Salman Rushdie's death because of purported sacrilege in “The Satanic Verses,'' Sontag protested vigorously. Apparently, to Sontag books were more important than people.

In the 1960s she stated with regard to Vietnam War: ``the white race is the cancer of human history.'' No doubt the five million Vietnamese who fled the atheism and oppression of communists would disagree with her (not to mention the two million slaughtered in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge). The white race that fought with the Vietnamese against the puppet government of the Chinese and the Soviets were not “white devils”. Only fuzzy brained knee jerk anti-Westernism could lead to such a foolish pronouncement.

Hitchens claims that Sontag saw more than most the future defeat of communism. Hitchens also claimed that its defeat was “inscribed in its negation of literature”. What the communist bloc was most notably lacking was not literature but faith. And with all due respect to Ms. Sontag, it is fair to say that more than most the rise and the fall of communism was inscribed at Fatima.

Former New York City mayor Ed Koch not long ago declared that "Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works."

It has been noted that the supposed gigantic intellect who was Sontag did not create many original ideas but largely rehashed postwar, continental, postmodern claptrap. She, like many who think they are dismantling a current tyranny when in fact they are adding bricks, unwittingly or otherwise, to the edifice of a future tyranny, did so because of muddled thinking. One thing Sontag could have kept in mind which would have tended to straighten out her thoughts, the final lines of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn": “’Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”

Don’t let it be said that I would only speak ill of the dead. Sontag did have an appreciation of great literature and sought to introduce others to it. Although I have read a number of her essays I have not read, and do not intend to read, “In America” for which she won the National Book Award. I will pray for her soul.

Newsweek/MSNBC's The Birth of Jesus: A Christianity for Relativists and Multiculturalists?

2004-12-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

What does the recent Newsweek article on the Nativity MSNBC - Religion: The Birth of Jesus, have to say about Newsweek and their buddies at MSN, and more generally, about the mainstream media?

Although the author, Newsweek's John Meacham, is a self described believing Christian according to his recent appearance on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews, he sees something of a dichotomy of faith and reason. Meacham has maintained in an interview that he does not believe faith and reason are incompatable, referencing Augustine, but he gives too much weight to skeptics than even a modern day Aquinas or Augustine would.

In his Nativity article, he gives credence to Dan Brown's preposterous, ahistorical novel while contrasting the Nativity narative with history. He holds up similarities between the Nativity narative and pagan myths as evidence of syncretism, as opposed to being evidence that these are universal truths which therefore had the ring of truth even to the pagan mind and about which even pagans may have had some revelation or natural knowledge. Meacham couldn't possibly find it within himself as a Christian to suggest that the similarities with pagan myths were due to the fact that the soul is as Tertullian and Augustine put it, naturaliter Christiana. He likewise casts the similarities between the miraculous birth of Jesus and earlier miraculous Biblical and classical births as a literary affectation, rather than a divine foreshadowing, progressive revelation or old covenant/new covenant mirroring. Would he likewise as easily dismiss the concept that Mary was the ark of the new covenant or that Jesus was the new Adam (bringing redemtion versus sin).

Meacham calls the Jesus Seminar (that fringe group which the astute Richard John Neuhaus has described as "academically risible") "a group of scholars devoted to recovering the Jesus of history". Meacham, in an act of either jouralistic ignorance or irresponsibility, does not really give his reader an indication of how controversial the Jesus Seminar is, nor of the fact that they have concluded that the Gospel accounts are in their very essence wrong, or that the "Seminar" has concluded that the Resurrection never occured. Based on such a conclusion, the participants of the seminar cannot be fairly considered Christians.

While Meacham rightly points out that "[i]n 1965, the Second Vatican Council held that while the Scriptures are ultimately 'true,' they are not necessarily to be taken as accurate in the sense we might take an Associated Press wire report about what happened at a school-board meeting as accurate." Now, while this is a proposition that fundmentalists would not accept, Meacham doesn't either give account of the fact that Catholic exegesis accords more literal weight to the Gospels than to, for example, Genesis or Revelation. Meacham maintains that the Gospel writers had little to work with; the implication being that they were writing so long after the time of Christ. But that is not really the case. If the evangelist Mark was writing in 60 A.D., it is in the neighborhood of three decades after Jesus' passion and resurrection - less distance than a biographer of J.F.K. today. Paul's letters were written even closer to the time of Christ. There were, without any doubt, folks still alive at the time of Mark's writing who were around at the time of Jesus' birth. Granted, some of the classical literary techniques were employed in the Gospels, and I, myself, do not hold to a literalist view. Still, a certain degree of literalism is to be required of those who would call themselves Christian.

Consistent with the rest of his approach, Meacham quotes the oft cited but never insightful Elaine Pagels, with her inane blather about gnosticism. He mentions what are sometimes called the "battles" over Christianity. He tellingly fails to mention that all of the gnostics texts substantially postdate the canonical scriptures. The insinuation of those like Pagels and Bart Ehrman is that these "other Christianities" had equal footing with the orthodox. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Ehrman doesn't mention it in the text of his book Lost Christianities, a glance at his own chart of the various noncannonical books found at the beggining of his book, shows that these other gospels and epistles were of a substantially later date.

According to Meacham, summoning his knowledge of Greek, gnostics merely engaged in a "choice" (how appropriate), while Saint Irenaeus - Meacham doesn't use that moniker, he's merely "Iraneus" - the author of Detection And Overthrow Of The False Knowledge:A Refutation of Gnosticism, commonly known as Against Heresies, is the "fierce" scourge of these ill fated advocates of choice.

Meacham, who in an interview expressed his distaste for claims of exclusive truth, cites John Henry Newman in a fashion that probably has the great English churchman rolling over in his grave. Newman spoke of Christ as a light which guides us through life. To Meacham "The Christmas star is just one such light; there are others". What a wonderfully multicultural and nonjudgmental Christianity Meacham espouses. And this is the type of Christianity which the mainstream media can tolerate. Perhaps we can edit and redact the appropriate portions of the Gospels to suit non-Christians, as the seething bigot Daniel Goldhagen recommends in A Moral Reckoning (the L.A. Times listed this shrill screed as one of the 100 best books in the year it was published). "I am a Way, a Truth (is that to strong Mr. Meacham?), and a Life. Anyone can come to the Father in a myriad of ways."

"UNOS, DOS, TRES, CATORCE!": DOES THIS STRANGE COUNTING AT THE BEGINNING OF U2'S SINGLE "VERTIGO" MEAN SOMETHING?

2004-12-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different. Well, o.k. not completely different, but it is pop culture, so it’s a bit different. U2’s new single Vertigo, off their album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb starts with, as do many songs, a count. And, like Wooly Bully, it's in Spanish. But Bono doesn’t say “Uno, dos, tres, cuatro.” He says, "UNOS dos, tres, CATORCE", meaning "Some two, three, fourteen".

So why does he do that? What, if anything, does it mean? Here, along with my analysis of the entire song, with pertinent lyrics in boldface, is my educated guess.

From what I can gather, the song is about a guy, a believer, maybe Bono, in the setting of a meat market nightclub. And the subtext is about darkness - temptation, grace and therefore redemption through prayer:

The song begins, after the counting, and a request for the “Captain” to “turn it up loud” "The lights go down, it’s dark"..."at a place called Vertigo"... “And though your soul it can’t be bought, your mind can wander.”

“Hello, hello. Hola.” Addressing, calling out for someone in the dark. That someone I would say is God. “Donde estas?” “Where are you?” God cannot always be seen in the darkness.

“Except you give me something I can feel.” Sometimes we can fell God’s presence.

“The night is full of holes, Those bullets rip the sky, Of ink with gold.” Light shines through the darkness.

“All of this can be yours" - an allusion to Satan's temptation of Christ – “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’” Mt. 4:8-9. One has the high mountain, giving the sense of vertigo along with the temptation. The next line alludes to the same chapter of Matthew: “Just give me what I want and no one gets hurt” which is also a temptation from a high place. “Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge of you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'’” Mt. 4:5-6.

Then we are introduced to "A girl with crimson nails” who “has Jesus 'round her neck" – A girl with crimson nails “swinging to the music” – temptation again. But crimson nails – are they not the nails of the cross stained with blood? And then there is her crucifix neckless, which serves as light in the darkness, a gift, a bestowal of grace, and a reminder to this guy in the club. "You give me something I can feel" - its not just about thoughts, which are not as strong as feelings. "...teaching me how to kneel" - obviously to pray, to worship.

So what is the "some 2:3-14"? My guess: John 2:3-14 which fits the subtext of the song:

"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. 7 Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. 8 Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the DARKNESS is passing away, and the true LIGHT is already shining. 9 He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. 10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 12 I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. 13 I write to you, fathers, Because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, BECAUSE YOU HAVE OVERCOME THE WICKED ONE. I write to you, little children, Because you have known the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, Because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, Because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, And you have overcome the wicked one."

I could be wrong, but its the best explanation I've seen yet.

G.K. Chesterton's Great Classic Poem "Lepanto" - Historical Perspective For Today's Battle With Islamofacists.

2004-12-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

I recently read for the first time G.K. Chesterton's great classic poem Lepanto. The poem is an account of the naval battle at the Gulf of Lepanto, called the Gulf of Corinth today, where on October 7, 1571, Don Juan of Austria leading the European forces broke the naval domination of the Ottoman Turks in what is considered one of the most decisive battles in history. On that day more than 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed. The battle ended the prospect that the Mediterranean would become an Ottoman lake. One notable warrior in the battle, also referrenced in Chesterton's poem, was Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote.

In addition to being a beautiful piece of poetry, Lepanto gives some historical perspective on today's Islamofascist Jihad.

The following site provides a good, brief historical summation of the battle:
http://www.nafpaktos.com/battle_of_lepanto.htm .

According To A Newsweek Poll, The Overwhelming Majority of Americans Believe The Virgin Birth Is True.

2004-12-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

Newsweek reports that 79% of Americans believe in the virgin birth. Sixty-seven percent believe that the entire account surrounding the birth of Christ, as told in the Gospels, is historically correct.

MSNBC - The Christmas Miracle

Habermas, Prominent Atheist Philosopher Sings Praises of Christianity.

2004-12-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

A prominent atheist singing the praises of Christianity? In Europe, where the culture wars have gotten to the point that the thought police in Sweden jailed a minister for a month because of his preaching against homosexual acts, that is exactly the case.

According to L'Esspresso Online, the German philosopher and proponent of the Frankfurt school, Jürgen Habermas, who describes himself as "a methodical atheist", in his recent essay "A Time of Transition" attributes Christianity alone as the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization.

According to Habermas:"To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

The Real Reason Kerry and the Democrats Lost: Can You Say "Values"? (Bill Bennett on Election 2004 on National Review Online) (Saletan and Slate)

2004-11-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

As noted by Bill Bennett in his National Review article: "The national exit polling conducted by the Los Angeles Times confirms all these findings, showing that '[M]ore than half of Bush's voters cited moral issues as a principal reason for their support — more than any other issue, including even terrorism.' In fact, morals trumped terrorism by seven percentage points in the Los Angeles Times poll.

Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal ("The Great Relearning," as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected." See:
Bill Bennett on Election 2004 on National Review Online

William Saletan writing in Slate asserts that Dems can morph pocketbook issues into values issues (Democratic Values - How to start winning the red states. By William Saletan). I've got a message for Saletan and left wingers who think this can be done: It's NOT the economy, stupid. You can't presto chango pocket book issues into the values issues which moved the election. You can't, especially when the economy's growing at about 4% a quarter and joblessness is 5%.

If the Democratic party wants to capitalize on values, or at least neutralize the issue, they need to nominate a moderate on these issues. Think Lieberman with more charisma. Then they might be able to make hay with the rest of their platform.

Does that mean taking a scalpel to the agenda to remove the most radical cultural issues? Yes, it does. Gay marriage: forget about it. Partial birth abortion: it's barbaric infanticide; take a reasonable position. Who knows what new piece of social engineering they'll be advocating in 2008. Euthanasia. Human cloning.

Dems, stop trying to turn us into Holland and you'll win the White House.

Elsewhere in Slate, Saletan tells us why Dems keep losing to Bush, the "idiot", "the worst President" ever. Simple but Effective - Why you keep losing to this idiot. By William Saletan Why do we keep losing to him? Boo hoo hoo!

Maybe, it's because Bush is not an idiot. Maybe it's the issues. America didn't buy Michael Moore's wingnut ideas and they don't like the prospect of their country being turned into a giant Amsterdam, which is the direction Kerry would have taken.

Do thinking people make a "leap of faith"? Steven Waldman and Slate.

2004-10-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Steven Waldman, editor in chief of beliefnet, writing in an article on Slate (All Ye Faithful - Is George Bush the Christians' Christian? By Steven�Waldman) insinuates that Bush makes evangelicals look bad with his anti-intellectualism and that thinking people don't reach their faith by way of a "leap".

Do thinking people make a"leap of faith"?

Waldman's comment that, "Many Americans did not "leap" into their faith but developed it through experience" is interesting. If he is saying that thinking people don't make such a leap or that one can have faith without such a leap, he is wrong.Depending upon your perspective, faith is ultimately contrarational (Kierkegaard) or suprarational (Aquinas), but either way the leap is necessary. Thomists would say that faith goes hand in hand with reason but ultimately we see through a glass darkly so reason expires. The other approach is that at the limits of reason faith actually contradicts reason. Either way there is a leap involved but that does not mean the leap is anti-intellectual.

RealClearPolitics vs. Slate's Election Scorecard

2004-10-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

RealClearPolitics is an excellent site for following the Presidential election. It includes market indicators (political futures markets and bookies) and national averages of polls as well as an electoral college count. I turned to it after I was disgusted with Slate's Scorecard which quite improbably has Kerry winning the race currently. This despite the fact that the averages of national polls favor Bush, RCP's electoral count favors Bush, political futures markets favor a Bush win by about 58% and that all the bookies find the odds in favor of a Bush win.

RealClearPolitics

See the film Therese.

2004-10-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

This film shows a life devoted to Jesus and that to imitate Jesus we need not do great things but only do small things with great love. The subject of the film, Therese Martin of Liseux, France, was the inspiration for Mother Theresa taking that name. She is known as the little flower of Jesus.

Therese took seriously Christ's instruction in Matthew 18:1-4 to "become like children" and to "humble" ourselves "like a child". Therese is played by Lindsay Younce, who does a fine job in this portrait of a soul. Nonetheless, the cast is a bit uneven and the small budget sometimes shows. Despite those small limitations, that the film is a work of love is apparent, and it is at times quite moving.

I would recommend the film to Christians and non-Christians alike. It would be of particular interest to Buddhists, or Jews and Muslims (or any one else) who are interested in a contemplative approach to life. It shows us how life can be meaningful and happy not only in spite of, but also through, suffering. The film is fortunately devoid of any of the political charge which surrounded The Passion. Unfortunately, it is an independant production in very limited release, but you can find theaters screening the film at its website. Therese - Official Site

More ACLU Hypocrisy

2004-08-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

A piece in the June/July 2004 First Things, a publication I cannot recommend highly enough, shows the hypocrisy of the ACLU and reveals that in much of their work they are actually increasingly the enemy of civil liberties:

FT June/July 2004: The Public Square: "The state's highest court upheld a California law requiring charities to provide prescription contraception coverage. In this case, it was applied to Catholic Charities, which, the court said, did not qualify for a religious exemption because it is not religious enough. Its leadership includes non-Catholics and it serves everybody, not just Catholics. Without providing any evidence of a connection, Peter Steinfels of the New York Times says the ruling is part of a backlash against the Bush administration's plan to meet social needs through faith-based organizations. Close watchers of California politics, however, say that liberal legislatures have for years tried one tactic after another to force charities of all kinds to provide contraception, abortion, and other "reproductive services." At the same time, a court in San Diego ruled that a longstanding arrangement whereby the Boy Scouts manage a public park is unconstitutional. The reason? The Boy Scouts are "religious" and the arrangement is therefore a forbidden establishment of religion. Both suits were strongly supported by the ACLU. They've got you coming and going. If you claim to be religious and plead an exemption under free exercise, you're not religious enough. If you claim to be nonreligious, the court finds you vestigially religious enough to be excluded from a government contract. In his more melancholic mood, Francis Cardinal George has been known to opine that within ten years' time the government's cooptation of religion will result in something like China's aboveground and underground churches, albeit without the same level of persecution. That seems to me unlikely. On the other hand. . . ."

So what's their next project...forcing synagogues and mosques to serve bacon?

Shyamalan's The Village

2004-08-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

Shyamalan's films appear to be getting progressively worse. He still has his trademark twist, but its contrived and cannot redeem this mediocre work.

Getting Started

2004-08-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my first post. I thought I may as well begin by borrowing some wise words from someone else's mouth: "The soul is subject to health and disease, just as is the body. The health and disease of both . . . undoubtedly depend upon beliefs and customs, which are peculiar to mankind." -Maimonides