Time Out of Joint

2011-04-18T07:56:00.022-04:00

2011-04-15T08:48:00.009-04:00

Post Traumatic Poetic Discontent

As long as there are poets, "wanderers of the landscapes of the human heart," to remind and scourge us there is hope we may awaken to futility and crawl our way back to, and up, the ladders of wisdom. Rockstroh's poetry often strikes the "us" chord, even if some of his politics must remain his own.

Thanks to Judith Moriarty for this who wrote of "this brutal poetic video / essay which graphically shows the sterility of consumerism, the destruction of a nation-earth".

2011-04-13T09:37:00.032-04:00

For Tolstoy and Russia, Still No Happy Ending

Ellen Barry and Sophia Kishovsky

"...last year Russians wrestled over Tolstoy much as they did when he was alive. Intellectuals accused the Russian Orthodox Church of blacklisting a national hero. The church accused Tolstoy of helping speed the rise of the Bolsheviks. The melodrama of his last days, when he fled his family estate to take up the life of an ascetic, was revived in all its pulpy detail, like some kind of early-stage reality television....

Ambivalence toward Tolstoy is new in Russia.

The Soviets planted him at the top of their literary pantheon, largely because of the radical philosophy he preached amid the early rumblings of the October Revolution. The publication of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” made Tolstoy so famous that one contemporary described him as Russia’s second czar. He used that position to rail against the church, as well as the police, the army, meat eating, private property and all forms of violence.

Lenin loved Tolstoy’s “pent-up hatred.” He anointed him “the mirror of the Russian Revolution,” ignoring his pacifism and belief in God. As the 50th anniversary of his death approached, the Central Committee of the Communist Party began preparing two years in advance, so a monument would be ready for unveiling...

Vladimir I. Tolstoy, Tolstoy’s great-great-grandson, who oversees the museum at Yasnaya Polyana, the author’s estate [has been trying to mend the wounds]...

Mr. Tolstoy, 48, has the slender, avid look of a professional intellectual, but his last name has called on him to wade into politics. He worked on one of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s presidential campaigns and does favors for area officials when they need “the authority or prestige of Tolstoy,” as he put it.

Ten years ago he asked the church to revisit the 1901 ruling that excommunicated his great-great-grandfather...More

Note: Regardless of how the Bolsheviks and Communists shamelessly exploited him for propaganda purposes, Tolstoy's stories, long or short, and whatever his confused political views, represent the best in the Western canon, with precious few peers.
________

--->Prison Phone Rates Exploit Prisoners’ Families With Kickbacks to States...

--->Quinn Matney, UNC Student, Allegedly Faked Hate Crime Report...UNC freshman Quinn Matney claimed that he was branded on his wrist by a unknown male on campus April 4. Matney, who is 'gay,' said...

--->Bill Gross Dumps Government Bonds, Billions. What does it mean? Does It Matter? Mr. Gross says the Fed is now helping the US government implement a ponzi scheme...

More / Guardian: World's largest bond investor Pimco dumps US Treasuries...

--->Europe: The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer "negligible"...

--->Rabbi Accused of Bribing Witness in Case Against Other Rabbi...

--->New Economic Order? Emerging economies face watershed moment at summit. The leaders of the world's largest emerging economies gather this week in southern China for what could be a watershed moment in their quest for a bigger say in the global financial architecture...

--->Just what the doctor ordered...LA acting studio begins mission to create actors with ‘spiritual integrity’...

--->WSJ: There Is No Longer a Male-Female Wage Gap...

--->Martin Sheen reveals wife was conceived in rape, talks about ‘strong’ anti-abortion views...

--->Actor Martin Sheen says his Catholic religion saved him, says ‘we all look for the sacred’...

--->First Things Magzine: Abortion and the Negation of Love...

--->Prof Suspended For Having Lap Dancers Perform in Business Ethics Class (and Charging Students $150)...

--->Justin Bieber under siege in Israel...

--->Oregon woman en route to interview at convent sexually assaulted inside airport as employee’s walk past..

--->London. A curiously peaceful, famous, crossing live-cam scene, especially when raining at night...(click) It may take a moment or two, or click twice if it says "temporarily" down.

2011-04-12T09:55:00.061-04:00

Lawmaker Takes On Gallery of Indecency and Hate

A GOP lawmaker from Georgia is breaking ground on the party's ambitious new agenda by calling for a congressional investigation into a recently removed artwork in the National Portrait Gallery that featured a controversial video showing a figurine of Jesus Christ covered in ants.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) spoke on Fox News Wednesday morning and explained his outrage over the critically acclaimed installation.

"This is a museum that gets $5.8 million in taxpayer dollars and in the middle of a high deficit, 15 million unemployed Americans, they decide to have money to spend like this. This is a museum that, by the way, has next to it a display of the American presidents, on the other side, Elvis, and then you go through this -- which is really perverted, sick stuff -- ashes of an AIDS victim, in a self-portrait, eating himself. Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast - lots of really kinky and really questionable kind of art."...Read it all

Note: Attacks on decency are not art, but a substitute for art, a substitute which betrays the lack of art and sometimes talent. It is the same when it happens on television, in some so-called 'comedy' or film. It's been a long time now since we Americans have seen real talent which, when it exists, does not need offensive shortcuts and juvenile substitutes. Real culture worthy of the name requires great minds and hearts. Those who fund and produce this offensive material be noted and legally targeted, at the same time that real artists, screenwriters and film / television makers, producers of quality, are brought back from out of the woodwork where they have been shoved by too many decadent moguls for way too long. There is a huge market waiting for producers of decency.
________

--->Japan ups nuke crisis severity to match Chernobyl...

--->National Post: Catholic, without apologies...by Michael Coren

--->Photo: Sitting Bull Wore a Crucifix...

--->Gas Prices Climbing Toward $5 Per Gallon...

--->Cardinal Zen: Vatican officials have blocked Pope's plan for Chinese Church...

--->Next front of the Spiritual War Against Apostasy: In a 22-page report released yesterday, The Cardinal Newman Society says it found more than 150 “current and past connections” between U.S. Catholic colleges and universities and Planned Parenthood – the nation’s largest abortion provider....

Note: Colleges and universities in particular are too often inclined to pose as hip, "progressive," propelled by an obvious inferiority complex. John Paul II attempted to clean this bloody mess up (Click), but as the report shows, there is much left to do.

--->Moral relativism paves way for Satanism, says Catholic expert...

---This child must be treated and groped like a suspect Terrorist? Mad and outrageous...

--->Sunset for the Conformists and Politically Correct Nonsense Criticism: New Missal translation called by them ‘archaic, sexist’...

--->WSJ: Pakistan Tells U.S. to Halt Drones...

--->Mainstream media regurgitates exact same news on Fukushima, word for word...

--->Huff: Economy Faces Test With End Of QE2, Rising Oil Prices, Debt Limit Fight...

--->Matt Taibbi: The real Houswives of Wall Street. Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs...?

--->Jim Curley, real, whole, man...(click) (See my BTR interview with him also)

--->More Black Men Now in Prison System Than Were Enslaved...

--->How little we know about the brain! This boy is not brain dead. But he has no cerebellum...

--->Nepali Migrant Workers Unknowingly Being Sold Into Slavery In The Middle East...

--->Cardinal George Pell and an unorthodox priest down under...

--->Protestant theologian N.T. Wright on the Lisbon Earthquake, Post-modernity / the Enlightenment and the Novus Ordo Seclorum...

--->Catholic League: Shifting the Blame on Sexual Abuse...(click 1) Note: Donahue is only telling the truth, hard as it is for the Church's foes to swallow, even as they cynically ignore the massive sexual abuse of children at all levels of American society...(click 2)

--->Psychiatrists question Philadelphia investigation, defend priests. "False accusations are made for a number of reasons, including a desire for financial gain, excessive and misdirected anger, jealously, mental instability, prejudice, a sociopathic personality disorder and, in regard to priests, a hatred of the Church... MORE

Jesus Christ like never before: The temptation of Israel and much of the Islamic world is never to forget, and so never forgive. John Paul II called for the "purification of memory" relative to the sad chapters in our respective memories. And we all have them. Only through this purification of memory can better relations be forged, by seeing the present moment as a New time in which to live. Too often the memories of the difficult past amount to chains. Jesus Christ decisively broke those chains when he announced the forgiveness of the Kingdom of God, and urged all to remember something New: That a New life is possible, & that all who live by the sword die by the sword. The challenge is to turn around which is the meaning of repentance, breaking through to the New, the Kingdom of God present among and within us.

2011-04-10T14:22:00.047-04:00

Salvador Dalí and the Jews

By Jillian Steinhauer. Dalí's 'Aliyah' showed Israel in a positive light, but the painter was also a fan of Hitler and Franco

"...Did the artist feel some kind of empathy for the Jewish people? Or, conversely, was he simply trying to build a Jewish market, even exploit the Jews for commercial benefit? The picture is complicated by the fact that Dalí displayed an intimate fascination with Hitler and Franco in the 1930s and ’40s, much to the dismay of his fellow surrealists. And “Aliyah” is not his only Jewish-themed work: He produced other paintings, as well as two sculptures, “Menorah” and “Western Wall,“ whose images he licensed to a man named Jean-Paul Delcourt in 1980. Delcourt has since built a small industry of Dalí Jewish art products.

"What to make, then, of a man whose political leanings seem at odds with his artistic output? For Blumenthal, the contrast is not as harsh as it seems. “I think that Dalí was not ideologically a racist, anti-Semite, communist, socialist, fascist or anything,” he said. “He was an artist. He absorbed everything from the environment, took it in, and then transformed it and sent it back out again.” (For those who remain skeptical, it may be helpful to refer to George Orwell, who, in a 1944 review of Dalí’s autobiography, mused, “One ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being.”)...Read it all

--->Dali on Hitler (another interpretation, for what it's worth--SH): "There is little scholarship on Dali’s fascination with Hitler. It is generally glossed over, probably because it manifested itself most strongly in the post-war years after Dali’s "golden age" of painting was over. Still, Dali’s obsession perfectly ties into the distinctly Freudian themes that run across the spectrum of Dali’s work. His anxiety over impotence is manifested in the flaccid blob-like shapes featured in paintings spanning virtually his entire career, from Surrealist Composition (1928) to Rhinocerontic Figure of Phidias’s "Ilyssos" (1954). The teardrop that hangs precariously from the end of the telephone receiver in The Enigma of Hitler (above last) is a typical example of his recurring drooping, impotent shapes. Adolf Hitler had no children. He was, however, a huge promoter of breeding, and his warped master-race concept was founded on virility...More

--->What the Luddites Really Fought Against. The label now has many meanings, but when the group protested 200 years ago, technology wasn't really the enemy...

--->It is a mistake to see Freemasons as a sealed tight monolith. They fought each other on both sides of the American Civil War after all...

--->John Perkins: A Militarized Economy Cannot Balance the Budget...

--->First Latin Mass Celebrated by a Bishop in Korea...

--->No need to argue...

--->Restored tomb of St Francis to reopen...

--->The Web is a rollicking, revealing record of life in the 21st century. But preserving it for future historians is a monumental technical challenge...

--->Brother of assassinated Minister asks for pope’s help in Pakistan...

--->Armchair Archeology and the New Atheism...

--->The Localism Index. We aren't dead yet... way to go!

--->Huxley, Orwell And The Challenge Islam Faces." Electronic media have a decentralizing effect. They permit every single individual to be a center without margins. There is no analogue in the natural world that can challenge its scope or authority. The problem is when we permit such innovation to eclipse the human person....

Note: The writer states along the way in this interesting piece, "The current canard that Israel cannot be both Jewish and Democratic reveals a most pernicious apocalyptic vision of political craft". That would have to be a mystery to most of us I suspect, a strange "democracy" where none 'other' would ever be allowed a legal majority and route to power. But it's the same for any kind of strictly Islamic "democracy," even if there is more of a decisive racial-ethnic factor with Israel. In either case "democracy" seems something of a mirage to the Western eye.

--->Report: Radiation Found In San Francisco, CA Tap Water — Rainwater Radiation 18,100% Above Drinking Water Limit...

--->For the Love of Lazarus by Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio...

--->Nuns ask Goldman Sachs bosses whether they're really worth $69.5m...

--->Father Joseph: On the Way to Jerusalem. "One would think that after their beloved Master had just told them of the horrors He was about to endure, they would have been overcome with grief. But no..."

--->Texas Flood Creates Canyon Rapidly. Didn't Take Millions of Years...

--->Grounded: FBI documents indicates Roswell 'saucer' was part of balloon...

--->For the Love of God and Pity's Sake, 'The world needs food more than it needs iPhones'...

--->Senate to Vote Thursday on De-Funding Planned Parenthood...

--->Counting the ‘Blessings’ of Insomnia? "I have done my share of meditation in that frayed state of wired exhaustion," Gordon Marino writes, "but unlike the Romanian writer E.M. Cioran, I never learned to take serious instruction from sleeplessness. Born in Transylvania in 1911, Cioran hardly ever shut his eyes...Read it all

--->French full veil / burqa ban goes into force...

--->Ivory Coast's Gbagbo held after French troops move in...

--->Iceland Stands Up to the Banksters...

--->Church and state: The bishop hacked to death by his own king. Stanislaus (1030-1079), the patron saint of Poland, was killed by King Bolesław II after using his position as bishop of Kraków to denounce that monarch...

--->Japan ups nuke crisis severity to match Chernoby...

--->Jerry Brown: California, Country Facing ‘Regime Crisis’ Similar To The Civil War...

2011-04-09T00:00:00.048-04:00

Brief Reflection on Transhumanism

Note: As Sandro Magister in Rome pointed out in a January column, French philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj recently made a radical, blistering criticism of the founding fathers of UNESCO right on the premises of the organization, in the presence of its directors. Hadjadj is from a Jewish family; once on the far left he is a convert to the Catholic faith.

by Fabrice Hadjadj

... We can borrow a word invented by Dante and say that man is made to "trasumanar." But how does he "trasumanar"? And how should "transhumanism" be understood? This word must echo in a special way within these walls. Because the substantive, "transhumanism," was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley, who was the first director general of UNESCO. What is interesting is that this first director general of UNESCO did not at all mean what Dante did by "transhumanism." His thought, in fact, goes radically against that of the "Divina Commedia." But it has the advantage of making manifest the only alternative that is posed today in the modern world.

Brother of Aldous Huxley, the author of "Brave New World," Julian Huxley might have been expected to be inoculated against any temptation to eugenics. Instead the opposite is true. Not that Julian Huxley was inconsistent; no, he was consistent in the extreme. In 1941, at the very time when the Nazis were gassing the mentally ill, Julian Huxley wrote with a certain audacity: "Once the full implications of evolutionary biology are grasped, eugenics will inevitably become part of the religion of the future, or of whatever complex of sentiments may in the future take the place of organized religion." These statements were written in 1941. But it was in 1947 that they were published in French, when he was already director general of UNESCO. Not one line was changed on that occasion. Of course, Huxley was anti-Nazi, social democratic, and above all anti-racist (which nonetheless did not prevent him from writing, in the text previously cited: "I regard it as wholly probable that true negroes have a somewhat lower average intelligence than the whites or yellows"), but Huxley presumed to replace the traditional religions with biotechnology.

Of course, Julian Huxley is not on trial here. I would only like to highlight an ideology so widespread that it it did not spare this place [UNESCO], and that it even had its first director general as an illustrious representative. If, in 1957, this first director general of UNESCO invented the substantive "transhumanism," he did it in order to avoid talking further about "eugenics," a word that had become difficult to use after Nazi eugenics. Nonetheless, the same thing is intended: the redemption of man through technology. I cite the 1957 text that invented the term; it presents this "new principle": "[The] quality of people, not mere quantity, is what we must aim at, and therefore that a concerted policy is required to prevent the present flood of population-increase from wrecking all our hopes for a better world." Julian's "better world" is not so far from the "New world" of Aldous. It is precisely a matter of improving the "quality" of individuals, as one improves the "quality" of products, and therefore, probably, of eliminating or preventing the birth of everything that would appear as abnormal or deficient.

The Very Definition and Future of Man

You understand that it is the very definition of man that is at stake in our encounter. And therefore the very future of man. Man is seeking something beyond. He is transhuman by nature. But how is the "trans" of the transhuman realized? With culture and openness to the transcendent? Or with technology and genetic manipulation? [...] Of course, UNESCO is a global organization devoted to the protection and development of cultures. But like every contemporary organization, it is also overrun by technocratic logic, the desire to solve problems instead of recognizing the mystery. Proof of this is the ambiguity to which its first director general gives witness.

So then, here is my simple question: should we take Julian Huxley as our guide, or should we take Dante? Is the greatness of man in the technical facility to live? Or is it in this laceration, in this openness that is like a cry to Heaven, in this appeal to what really transcends us? [...]

This is the opportunity of the Courtyard of the gentiles: to take note of this new situation. This is not a matter only of "dialogue between believers and nonbelievers." It is a matter of asking the question of man, of recognizing that what gives him his specificity is not being a super-animal more powerful than the others, but being this receptacle that receives every creature with love, in order to send it, with words, with prayer, with poetry, toward its mysterious source. [Source: Sandro Magister]

Shock: "This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it."---Jacques Cousteau, famed oceanographer, interview with the UNESCO Courier for November 1991.

Note: Cousteau's monstrous proposal is largely being accomplished today not by firing squad but for profit through abortion and The Pill, what Malcolm Muggeridge called the "humane Holocaust".

---What is the Courtyard of the Gentiles dialog? Deacon Keith Fournier explains this aspect of the New Evangelism...

--->Like the China butchers? Organ Donation by Death Row Inmates - Get Ready to Start Hearing More About How it's "Good" for Everyone...(Click 1) [Boy, would the jails begin filling up with jury-pressured death penalty "meat" then! As it stands now the US prison population already dwarfs other nations...(Click 2)]

--->Speaking of China - Dr. Alveda King (Niece of MLK): Genocide – Gendercide – Sex Selection: What’s the Difference? Killing is Killing...(Click 1) Also by Alveda King: "Planned Parenthood Stop Lying About My Uncle...(click 2)"

--->Opinion: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks ...(Video)

--->Vatican calling Catholic bloggers...

--->Malcolm Muggeridge on the beauty of Truth...

--->Malcolm Muggeridge: Liberal Intelligentsia Sleepwalking to Ruin...

--->Malcolm Muggeridge on the Great Liberal Death Wish...

---> Russian security service wants to ban Skype and Gmail. The Russian security service has proposed banning Skype, Hotmail and Gmail as their "uncontrolled use" could pose a security threat, a service official said during a government meeting on Friday...(Click) [Russia is not dumb]

--->Forked Tongues: Gates: U.S. troops could stay in Iraq for years...

--->Peter Schiff on Bretton Woods 2...

--->March 2011 ended up as the coolest March globally since March of 1994...

--->GMO Foods Linked to Organ Disruption in 19 Studies...

--->By His Own Reckoning, One Man Made Libya a French Cause...Bernard-Henru Levy, 62, [Jewish] is such an inescapable figure in France — of mockery, admiration, amusement, envy — that he is by now unembarrassable. Making his mark young as a philosopher, he was satirized neatly by a critic with the words: 'God is dead, but my hair is perfect' ... [Click 1]...More, [Click 2]

--->NYT: Average CEO Salary: $9.6 Million...

--->Sick cell call is strongest clue in search for Long Island serial killer...(click) "Cops began to triangulate the phone, pinpointing the caller's location to Times Square, Madison Square Garden and Massapequa, a short drive from Gilgo Beach".

--->Forbes: Radiation Detected In Drinking Water In 13 More US Cities, Cesium-137 In Vermont Milk...

Saturday Report: Israeli Embassy in Cairo Under Siege...

--->Bretton Woods II and Globalist George Soros: America, (This Commentator Asserts of Soros' View), Should Be Replaced By a World Government With a Global Currency Under UN Rule. Soros is spending $50 million in New Hampshire to bring together up to 200 academic, business and government policy leaders under his Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)....(Click) Note: In his books, Soros has denied aiming for "world government" so we will just have to see.

--->Gaza-Israel violence rages on as 4 militants killed...

--->Egypt’s military forcibly breaks up Tahrir Square protest; 2 reported killed...

--->As many as 25,000 feared dead in Japan quake, Tsunami...

2011-04-08T09:21:00.052-04:00

New European Convention Defines "Gender" as Social Construct

By Samantha Singson

STRASBOURG, April 7 (C-FAM) The 47 Member States of the Council of Europe are close to finalizing a new convention that defines “gender” as a social construct, rather than as a distinction grounded in biology.

According to the new Council of Europe convention on eliminating violence against women, gender “shall mean the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men.”

Even though “gender” has appeared in other documents, no binding definition of the word has ever been accepted by Council of Europe members. This draft Convention would be the first international treaty to add a sociological component of gender to the universally understood biological context.

Luca Volontè, a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, told the Friday Fax, "The ideological thrust of many movements and lobbies linked to the ideology of 'gender' has ruined the text of a convention that could be very important. Defending women and combating discrimination is a necessity, but this text makes the situation worse and creates new barriers and discriminations.” Volontè said that it was now the responsibility of the Committee of Ministers to change the gender definition or “permanently give up the text.”

This new “social construct” definition is at odds with the definition in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – which this new convention cites. The Rome Statute states that: "For the purposes of this Statute, it is understood that the term "gender" refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term 'gender' does not indicate any meaning different from the above.”

Patrick Fagan, family scholar at the US-based Family Research Council, said that the use of a social construct definition of gender is “evidence of thought so divorced from reality as to be a form of mental illness, possible only to those who have spent years being miseducated in the upper levels of the modern university.” Fagan warned that the implications are “massive” as “it puts all forms of sexuality, including deviance, on the same level.”

At a UN meeting last month, many delegations were baffled by the staunch resistance of the EU to reference the ICC definition of gender despite wide support for the proposal. The EU tried to quell any fears by reassuring that the ICC definition was unnecessary because everyone was clear on the definition of gender. As negotiations dragged on, one delegate rebuffed the EU explanation retorting, “If it’s really not a problem, then why can’t we plainly state what it means?”

Further to the redefinition of gender, the new convention adds controversial new non-discrimination categories based on gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. According to a backgrounder on the convention these terms include “categories of individuals such as transgender or transsexual persons, cross-dressers, transvestites and other groups of persons that do not correspond to what society has established as belonging to ‘male’ or ‘female’ categories.”

The committee of ministers will take action on the draft convention in the coming days.

Note: Hallucination Row. Yup. There IT is, proof (if we needed any) that we are being farmed by Crazies, the "Aliens" Belloc warned us about (click). They've popped all their buttons. Began long ago. For years I have tap, tapped, tapped on this keyboard without really surveying too much of the Internet. I confined my searches in an issue-oriented way. But lately I've taken a sustained tour of more of it and must conclude that Strawberry Fields is a House of Horrors. Lucy in the Sky is a mental patient in a psychotic break, but the lords of the Revolution---real flesh and blood powerhouse moguls---are far beyond poor Lucy. They are the real Thing and are constructing an Hallucination and calling it Reality. Combine Salvador Dali, Lenny Bruce, Gloria Steinem, Caligula, Nietzsche and psychotic warmongers into one New Man and we will not have told half of the story. Tighten your seat belt then and keep your eye on the spiritual oxygen mask above because we are surely headed into turbulence. ---[This post edited 1x]
______

Oh, by the way, Please support C-Fam financially (Click). In my opinion it is ---hands down---the most important site on the Internet.

--->Speaking of crazies, they have spawned many cross eyed little ones. Take St. Michaels College for instance...

--->Neo-Pagan Witch Convert: Libby Edwards...

--->George Soros convenes Brettenwoods II this weekend...plans to "rearrange the entire financial order..."

--->Gates Admits US Troops To Remain In Iraq Beyond 2011

--->Glenn Beck Wears Masonic patch on April 1st broadcast...(click 1) Then see the broadcast here (Click2) [Follow posts throughout the Freemasonry Label threads below this post for more on this worldwide occult society. Click "Older Posts" at bottom of each page for more / previous posts]

--->Former Reagan administration official in the Department of Justice delivers Articles of Impeachment against President Obama over Libya attack...

--->The Future Expansion of Unmanned Drones Over The U.S. (Video)....

--->Google Agrees to Antitrust Deal on Travel Software Purchase...Google Inc. on Friday agreed for the first time in its history to routine oversight of its operations by an antitrust regulator, as part of the US Justice Department's approval of the company's $700-million purchase of travel software provider ITA Software...

--->Obscene: JPMorgan Chief, Gets A $19 Million Raise as More and More Americans Suffer...

--->Serbian authorities told to halt forced evictions of Roma...

--->Assisi Peace meeting changes & the New Evangelism: There will be two major differences between the global interfaith prayer for peace which Pope Benedict has called for in Assisi on 27 October, and the two previous ones called by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and 2002. The first is that the representatives of the different faiths will not actually pray together. The other is that even atheists will be invited this time...More (See Sandro Magister links within this piece)

--->Cleaning House: Michael Manning, TV Priest, Takes Leave Of Absence After Affair With Cousin. Michael Manning, 70, will be leaving Wordnet, the worldwide television ministry he founded in San Bernadino in 1978...(click) [The Church is cleaning house like few others, but the culture? It profits from decadence and does not even believe in sin...More]

--->Video: Pope Benedict's ordination to the priesthood on June 29, 1951...

2011-04-08T09:15:00.008-04:00

Time Out: Be Home Soon

Blessed is the marriage that has felt these thoughts cut into the heart time and
again...

2011-04-06T20:06:00.026-04:00

Tradition and "the Devil's Gateway"

Some well-meaning traditionalists seem at times to come close to denying any development of doctrine---not mutation, but development from seed, as it were, to the fullness of understanding over time as new questions were put to the Church through the centuries. One prominent traditionalist thinker, the late Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D., (1929 - 2006) once told me (in the 1990's) that Cardinal John Henry Newman's famous essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine was a fountainhead of error and directly responsible for the "heresies" of Vatican II. Coomaraswamy ultimately went on to reject communion with the Church altogether proving that a little error in the beginning can often become a great error in the end. He went beyond constructive, legitimate criticism into extremism.

An Example

One example may help to illustrate the problem. Had the otherwise good doctor, and not Newman, been correct, the Church would have had to disfigure its theology of women, freezing it in earlier ages of thought, coloring women as something less than the full image of God. The Church would be teaching the following from some prominent Church fathers---who in accidental ways were conditioned by their times---regarding women:

The famous Church father Tertullian (160-220 AD) wrote,

"By every garb of penitence woman might the more fully expiate that which she (sic) derives from Eve – the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium of human perdition...Do you not know that you are each an Eve?...You (sic) are the Devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law...You destroyed God’s image, man. On account of your (sic) desert – that is, death – even the son of God had to die."---On the Apparel of Women

That statement can still be understood in a strict chronological sense but to say it is colored by dimness is an understatement. In the brief selections that follow we have far less than a fully positive Christian understanding of women in any final theological sense, such as was seen in the way Jesus broke taboos about women who were among his most ardent and appreciated followers from first to last.

Understanding came slowly at times. St. Augustine, for instance, had such a dim view of women in general as the temptress that after his conversion he had almost no contact with them and, theologians point out, refused to even mention his sister in his Confessions, though she was head of a Convent in Hippo. For Augustine even marital sex, it is hard to deny, was seen as something of a necessary evil. One could multiply references, even as one strains to find more balanced statements, which do exist but not independently of his suspicion of women and sex, more than men. He also legalistically thought that unbaptized babies went straightway to Hell which, needless to say, the Church did not adopt as her own view, thankfully, but clarified in time. Not every aspect of Augustine's old Manichean pessimism was apparently converted. And his theology is a long way from the fullness of a theology of marriage found developing (again, not mutating) for centuries and culminating in John Paul II's Theology of the Body. It is true that one can find this disfigurement in Protestantism also and in other religions, but here the Church is our concern and how the Spirit guides her into all truth (Jn chs 14-16).

Gratian, the great 12th century theologian, wrote,

"The image of God is in man (sic) and it is one. Women were drawn from man, who has God’s jurisdiction as if he were God’s vicar, because he (sic) has the image of the one God. Therefore Woman is not made in God’s image. Adam was beguiled by Eve, not she by him. It is right that he whom woman led into wrongdoing should have her under his direction, so that he may not fail a second time through female levity"--- Decretum

From this one must only marvel to observe that it is surely men more than women who have always shown themselves to be the "weaker" sex (and more cunning) relative to sins of the flesh, while women generally tend to be pressured by men and sometimes economic hardship (which men exploit) into public transgressions and perversions. Almost everyone knows that the largest consumers of pornography are men, far, far more than women even in our easy access technological day.

More: The great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century), carrying over some aspects of Aristotle's anthropology into his theological reflections, wrote,

"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten (sic), for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even some external influence, like the south wind, for example, which is damp.

"The image of God, in its principal signification, namely the intellectual nature, is found both in man and in woman…But in a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning and end of every creature."---Summa Theologicae

One could go on and on quoting such statements from some of the fathers, statements which the Church has not affirmed as her own. And for good reason. Because it is the living magisterium (click) which judges and determines what is of lasting value in particular statements and assessments from the fathers and mothers of the Church, separating the wheat from the chaff, and not vice versa in terms of private judgment of their writings. Again, this is not to say one cannot attempt to balance such statements with others in the same or other fathers---that is precisely what the work of the Ressourcement movement did in theology as it sought a greater balance from the Church's Tradition, from other somewhat neglected fathers in the direction of a more decisive theological assessment. Dr. Coomaraswamy got ithttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif wrong as do those few who are like him today. Thankfully most who call themselves traditionalists do not follow these few. Tradition is far larger in breadth than the extremists who freeze it in particular moments in time allow. And that is good news.

The Image of God: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them"---Gen 1:27

Among the early radical, schismatic "traditionalists," the Donatists: E,g. "Donatists celebrated December 25th as the birth of Christ, but the schismatics refused to celebrate Epiphany on January 6 since they regarded Epiphany as a new feast without a basis in Apostolic Tradition. The Donatist schism originated in A.D. 311" (quoted from Dr. Taylor Marshall)

2011-04-04T23:34:00.053-04:00

Jim Forest's St. George and the Dragon

"St. George and the Dragon," engagingly written by well-known author and Dorothy Day biographer Jim Forest and strikingly illustrated by iconographer Vladislav Andreyev. The book will be available from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press (click) in summer 2011

Jim Forest writes, True stories become streamlined into legends and legends become compressed via symbols into myths. The St. George of myth was a knight in armor who fought a dragon to save a princess, but the real George never saw a dragon nor did he rescue a princess in distress. We are not even sure he had a horse or possessed a sword.

A Christian convert born late in the third century after Christ, George was one among many martyrs of the early Church.

What made George a saint among saints was the completely fearless manner in which he openly proclaimed his faith during a period of fierce persecution when many other Christians were hoping not to be noticed. According to one ancient account, George went to a public square and announced, "All the gentile gods are devils. My God made the heavens and is the true God." For this George was arrested, tortured and beheaded. The probable date of his martyrdom is April 23, 303, in the town of Diospolis in Asia Minor -- today’s Turkey. His witness led to the conversion of many and gave renewed courage to others already baptized.

In early icons, George was shown dressed as a soldier and holding the cross of martyrdom, but in the course of centuries the dragon legend emerged. It has been told in many variations, but in its most popular form it concerns a dragon living in a lake who was worshiped by the unbaptized local people, who in their fear sacrificed their children to appease the creature. Finally it was the turn of the king's daughter, Elizabeth, to be sacrificed.

While going toward the dragon to meet her doom, Saint George appeared riding a white horse. He prayed to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then transfixed the dragon with his lance. Afterward Elizabeth led the vanquished creature into the city. Refusing a reward of treasure, George called on the local people to be baptized. The king agreed, also promising to maintain churches, attend church services and show compassion to the poor.

From a journalistic point of view, the dragon story is a complete invention, yet what better way is there to symbolize the evil that George actually confronted and defeated than to portray it in the form combat with a fire-breathing dragon? George fought and was victorious over an adversary which enslaved and terrified most of the people of his time. The white horse George rides in the icon, a graceful creature as light as air and as fearless as his rider, represents the courage God gave to George as he faced the power of death. It is the courage God gives to any Christian facing martyrdom or, for that matter, much smaller challenges.
________

--->GOP Presidential hopefuls demand full defunding of Planned Parenthood...

--->Google Said to Be Possible Target of U.S. FTC Antitrust Probe...

--->Justice. Supreme Court rules in favor of Ariz. religious schools...

--->Nihilist Imagination Propaganda Involving Lust and Bloodlust, to become Warner Brothers Movie, Dished up for Young People Especially.

According to one site, "Fans of classic indie comic Elfquest, tired of waiting on Warner Brothers to get cracking on the official movie, recently finished work on a "fan trailer" featuring some of the series' female characters. Shown off at Wondercon by creators Stephanie Thorpe and Paula Rhodes -- with the blessing of original authors Wendy and Richard Pini -- the live-action scene-setter captures the saga's weird combination of European and Native American (revisionist even for) folklore. It was among the first indie comics to be sold in bookstores or to attract a significant female audience. It's also credited with hitting some transgressive notes back in the 70s: mixed-race relationships, genre-spanning stories, matter-of-fact violence, and a free-love lifestyle made apparent in events such as war orgies and bisexual goings-on in the night."

Note: Warmongering nihilist "elfs"--- clearly the movie, like the comic books, has an obvious serious intent to further deconstruct traditional morality by lies. We would do well to look at and remember all the names which are backing and producing the Warner Brothers movie. It's high time decent peoples begin planning to take back large shares of media from the decadents--- not only Christians but all who do not want their children turned into lying fairies and whores. A survey of the Internet in 2011 has shown me it is all much worse than even I thought. Licentious and extremely violent material is now being served free to lure people---esp the young---into becoming paying customers. A nation which allows and taxes all this for revenue is a nation which activelly promotes and thrives on it (alongside war), whatever its pious rhetoric at election time. Even audio venues like Blog Talk Radio are infected.

--->HuffPost columnist says Internet doing more harm than good to marriages...

--->Latest super close-up footage of Fukushima wrecked nuclear reactor...

--->Serious. Federal government seeking to make forms of bartering illegal after court ruling...

--->Milwaukee Budget Cuts Hit Bus Lines -- And Keep Residents From Jobs...

--->Report: Working Long Hours Is Bad For Your Heart...

--->Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit...Drudge calls it "Nuclear Sushi"....

---Report: Pope May Offer the SSPX a Personal Ordinariate...

--->The Next Theologian to be Censured by the Church will be...

Cristiada

Ask your local theater to run this true story film Starring
Oscar Isaac, Andy Garcia, Peter O'Toole, Eva Longoria
--->How much did each of our families pay for war this year? Click to calculate here...

--->New overlords return to Ireland to inspect finances...

--->India bans Japan food imports, says radiation spreading...

--->Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%....by Joseph E. Stiglitz. "Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret...."(Click 1). Who is Joseph Stiglitz? (Click 2)

Note: At the very bottom of each and every page while following threads / labels click "Older Posts" in order to view previous posts. Reminder: Print out or download whatever you find helpful.

2011-04-04T11:31:00.004-04:00

Hip Hop Artists Are Not Ultimately To Blame

Hip Hop artists are not to blame. It is the media moguls who have determined to frame Black men and women in terms of their worst caricatures.

Qui bono? Follow the money and see the social engineering which seeks to actively promote racial conflict and general moral collapse.

2011-04-03T10:00:00.075-04:00

Colorful Medieval Women Were Oppressed?

H.W. Crocker III writes, "..that the Catholic Middle Ages were an era of oppression against women...that's rather hard to square, on the face of it, with medieval devotion to the Virgin Mary; the medieval invention of courtly, romantic love; the practice of chivalry; and the existence of queens and princesses. In every case, we have men making pledges of loyalty, fidelity, honor, and protection to women -- women, it might be noted, with power and favor, whether it be royal, romantic, or divine.

The New Testament has a rather higher estimation of women than does the Koran. Jesus consistently treats women with respect. Christians, from the beginning, did as well. The idea of woman as a "sex object" is profoundly un-Christian in a way that it is not unpagan or un-Islamic. Christianity has no temple prostitutes or harems, no slave girls or houris. The New Testament never recommends scourging women, nor does it compare women to a field to be plowed (as the Koran does). In Islamic law, divorce is a matter of three words ("I divorce you"); women are property, and women have essentially two purposes (you can guess what these are).

In the medieval West, both polygamy and divorce were illegal. Women could govern from thrones or pontificate from the libraries of nunneries, and they could rule the roost of a middle-class home just as any other Western hausfrau has done over the last 2,000 years. Women were free to dress as they liked and could go to the tavern -- even brew the beer -- if they liked. They held jobs and learned crafts and trades. If peasants, they worked the land with their husbands. They could become saints and lead men into battle (like Joan of Arc). Especially if they were in religious orders, they were well-represented in elementary education, nursing, and the other "caring professions" (as we would call them today).

Folk medieval hammered dulcimer music

If they were noblewomen, they inherited and wielded property (and received all due feudal obligations), joined their husbands on hunts (or on Crusades), and went to a court school where they were taught art, manners, and household management (everything from medicine to oenology, from sewing to accounting, from gardening to how to handle servants). They were also patrons of the arts.

If women were barred from classical schools and universities, which they were, it was less on Christian grounds, strictly speaking, than on classical ones -- on the Aristotelian insight that women are the subordinate sex. [But see how highly educated many women were through homeschooling, as in the case of St. Thomas More's family. They were educated far beyond the quality of many Ph.D's today: Latin, Greek, Logic, Philosophy, Theology, Mathematics and Astronomy!]

Just how "subordinate" women were might be seen in the bawdy -- and quite "liberated" -- Wife of Bath in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. She should put paid to any idea that medieval women were oppressed. The Wife of Bath, after all, selects her husbands -- five in total -- on the basis of money (she boasts of picking the first three clean of cash before they died) or manly chests, including the handsome pallbearer of the fourth. She finds happiness with her fifth (and favorite) husband after trading blows with him and convincing him of her rights. (The fight starts when she angrily rips a page from the book he has been reading aloud, The Book of Wicked Wives.)

In all this, she cites Scripture, noting that "I have the power during all my life / Upon his proper body, and not he: / Right thus the Apostle told it unto me, / And bad our husbands for to love us weel."

Her tale -- and life -- is rather more hilarious and scandalous than today's http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif"medieval" Islam would allow. In the Western Middle Ages, however, she was a recognized type, as she would be if she were plopped down in your living room today."---Five Myths About Christianity, Islam, and the Middle Ages, Inside Catholic

Note: Real "liberation" for women can exist only where every worker is paid a living wage (capable of sustaining affordable housing, food, and family), where women may freely enter any decent profession, not where they are hounded into the workplace by vicious social engineering. CEO pay today (like 'entertainers' also) shifts what should provide just wages for all workers (not equal but just) only upwards and thus is obscene, anti-family and therefore anti-human. Justice matters in economics, and any economic system that undermines the family, the basic unit of every tribe and nation and our very future, is not just.
________

--->April 3: It was on this day in 1968 that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to support striking sanitation workers. I'm sorry to say that racial / identity politics appears alive and well on the Internet. King however laid down a high moral law which today remains instructive for each and every one of us, that none "be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". Seriously, can any ask for more than that? There is of course nothing wrong with loving and nurturing one' own national traditions and tribes (we certainly should!), reasonable immigration laws, etc., but in the end there is only one human family created by God. Loving one's own does not mean hating or deceitfully undermining any other. King's standard, considered in itself, as laid down in his most famous speech, reflects a simple and profound justice.

--->Possible first ever portrait of Jesus? The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years... "booklets – found in a cave in the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee is one reason Bible historians are clamouring to get their hands on the ancient artifacts...

--->Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio on the Healing of the blind man...He could have simply issued a majestic command. But, instead the Divine Physician chose to spit and make mud...what could be the meaning of this rather earthy therapy? Read on...

--->Latest Satellite Imagery From Fukushima Tells Sobering Tale...

--->David L. Gray on why he opposes the death penalty: "God found me in prison and I've seen Him possess the hearts of many men there, so I know full well that His loving grace works sinners behind the fences. Moreover, being that Jesus commanded us to visit prisoners (Cf. Mt. 25:35-45), so that we might share His love and good news with them, why would a Christian ever opt to murder prisoners?"...Read on

--->Why Aerial Warfare is Immoral...Dan Nichols

--->I was thinking today what an act of genius it was for my generation to forbid all serious discipline in classrooms just as it had been decided that henceforth most education would become sociology. Today a High School student in the United States can call one's wife a whore, and if you slap his mouth you go to jail. Genius!

One more thought on that, What can one make of a society which will execute criminals but forbid most local intermediary disciplinary acts for the incorrigible, acts (reasonable corporal punishment, not abuse) that might teach and reinforce right and wrong before that extremity administered by lethal injection? It is schizophrenic, no?

--->"You hear it all the time: We humans are social animals. We need to spend time together to be happy and functional, and we extract a vast array of benefits from maintaining intimate relationships and associating with groups. Collaborating on projects at work makes us smarter and more creative. Hanging out with friends makes us more emotionally mature and better able to deal with grief and stress. Spending time alone, by contrast, can look a little suspect. In a world gone wild for wikis and interdisciplinary collaboration, those who prefer solitude and private noodling are seen as eccentric at best and defective at worst, and are often presumed to be suffering from social anxiety, boredom, and alienation. But...

--->Is poetry really dead as this fellow says? If so what killed it? Lack of pay, the advertising industry, a world without rest? Will that which may or may not be dead make a comeback...?

--->As someone wrote in the comments, "These poor Walmart employees are paid little then forced to do stupid pep rally dances..." like children. It's humiliating...! (Thanks to Judith Moriarty for this)

---> An older article: Ruminating on Predestination, Mystery and Laughter...

Cornel West on the Left Today and
Barack Obama

--->Quick definition, NWO: The so-called New World Order represents a global transformation wherein sin, indecency and planetary war are institutionalized, protected by law; and where traditional morality is publicly mocked and sometimes persecuted.

--->Artist Ai Weiwei still missing after being held by Chinese police...

--->Ad tuendam fidem: Three Categories of Catholic Doctrines...

Every step or stumble on the way to the Way (Jn 14:6) is, we find, Ok, as long as one keeps walking in the right direction towards the Light of the world. I try never to judge anyone truly seeking, asking and knocking---because we're all doing it all of our lives, all the way to Him. "All the way to heaven is heaven," Dorothy Day said truly.

--->David L. Jones: US/ Transforming Culture through Politics..?

--->"The glory of God is man fully alive," St. Irenaeus said. The media is always deliberately and cynically caricaturing Catholics as kill-joys, when the truth is Catholic's believe in both fleshly joy (click) and the joys of the spiritual life, per the wonders of created life.

The calling to the oblation of celibacy, Jesus said, is a very special, not ordinary, calling for chosen souls who give themselves for us all in Christ.

What wholeness the Church represents! No aspect of the human person is shut off from all other aspects, whereas sheer decadence / nihilism (our culture) shuts off and represses the most important aspects of whole humanness, the spiritual, God's commandments (human obligations to God and man!) except for neo-pagan perverted kinds that reinforce decadence, ala Alan Ginsberg's perversion of Zen.

--->Dorothy Day's funeral procession, November 1980...courtesy of Jim Forest...

--->This "pastor" must be mad, criminally insane...(click)

--->History: Hans Kung and Charles E. Curran were not the only ones to myth the Boat: Uta Ranke-Heinemann, a student with Joseph Ratzinger under Karl Rahner was, as Wikipedia points out, the first woman to ever hold a chair in Catholic theology, and the first woman to lose it after declaring the Virginal Conception of Christ a mere metaphor. Born in 1927, the eldest daughter of former German President Gustav Heinemann (1969 – 1974), Heinemann converted to Catholicism in 1953 and studied in Munich alongside Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), becoming a professor in 1970. In 1985 she began teaching at the University of Essen (now known as the Duisburg-Essen University) but lost her position in 1987. She was also a vociferous critic of traditional sexual morality. In 2001 she announced her departure from Christianity...She considered herself excommunicated (latae sententiae) according to can. 1364 §1 CIC and can. 751 CIC for doubting an article of Catholic faith (the virgin birth), but no explicit excommunication (ferendae sententiae) was pronounced against her. Since then she held a chair of the history of religion until her retirement. ---Wikipedia and The Wild Reed

--->New York City's totalitarian Nanny Mayor is putting the City Health dept on a diet: "No deep-fried foods served at agency lunches. No cookies and cakes at the same time (What!). And no beverages over 25 calories per ounce...[prescribes] bagels and muffins..." instead. Imagine if Bloomberg or any like him were President! The horror. ...More (More choices would be one thing, but breastfeeding city workers is over the Big Top). Gosh, Wally, even Mom lets us have cookies and cake sometimes...

--->Celente's Shocking Jeremiad: The First Great War of the 21st Century...(video)

--->Noam Chomsky: Libya and the World of Oil...

--->858 Military Dead in Afghanistan Since Obama Was Inaugurated in 2009...

--->Bernanke Predicts High Level of Foreclosure Starts in 2011...

--->ElBaradei: We'll fight back if Israel attacks Gaza...

Note: At the very bottom of each page click "Older Posts" in order to view previous recent posts. To Leave a Comment Click the Time Stamp Below the Post.

2011-04-02T22:08:00.010-04:00

Amazon Says Now Selling More E-Books Than Print Books

May 19, 2011: Amazon.com this morning says the company is now selling more e-Books than print books.

The crossover comes less than four years after the debut of the Kindle e-reader in November 2007; Amazon notes that it has been selling hardcover and paperback books over the Web since July 1995.

“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books,” CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly – we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years.”

The company also noted that the five-week-old ad-supported “Kindle with Special Offers” has become the best selling version of its family of e-readers.

Amazon says that since April 1, it has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books sold, not counting free Kindle books. The company said that print and e-books combined have driven the fastest growth in Amazon’s overall book business this year in both units and dollars in over 10 years.

Amazon said it has sold 3x as many books so far in 2011 as it did in the comparable period last year.

The company said that since the debut of its U.K. Kindle store, Amazon now sells more Kindle books than hardcover books in the U.K. Since April 1, Amazon customers are buying Kindle books over hardcovers at a rate of better than 2-to-1.

AMZN this morning is up $1.42, or 0.7%, to $198.5 --- Source here

Added May 2011

2011-04-02T09:43:00.037-04:00

Time Out: Spring and Summer Young Honeymooners: Go, Make Love, and Make a Baby for Heaven's Sake!...

"Everybody knows a little place like Kokomo. Now if you wanna go And get away from it all, Go down to Kokomo..."

Show me a honeymoon couple who doesn't want something like this for their big week and I will show you neurotics or curmudgeons, not full, whole persons...You can practice custody of the eyes if need be at the beach (like anywhere; the gift of the ocean belongs to us), but not towards one another!---SH

2010: Demographics is destiny, or, make babies, not bureaucrats..."A new Pew Research Center study released this week indicates that 20 percent – 1 in 5 – women aged 40-44 is childless. This is an all-time high for the United States; never before in its history have as many of this group not been mothers. Not surprisingly, there is a concomitant lack of marriage amongst this cohort as well, with 40 percent of the childless also being single and never married...More

--->Here has always been our "Kokomo"...

Ecclesiastes 3:4 "To every thing there is a season...A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance".

"God gave you a body. Go out then and walk in the rain!"---GK Chesterton (i.e, there's nothing wrong, obviously, with feeling one's "body in the sand" or the exhilaration of a mountain top, etc. The gifts of creation, properly received in balance, can hardly prejudice modesty and decency, whatever others do or make of it all. If we surrender the ocean's beaches, what will we surrender next? Decent people should flood such beautiful places.)

--->Please note I am writing about the honeymoon and the beach above. As for a wedding on the beach, well that's a No-no I believe...

Note: At the very bottom of each page click "Older Posts" in order to view previous recent posts. To Leave a Comment Click the Time Stamp Below the Post.

2011-04-02T09:08:00.015-04:00

Islam Threat or Not? The Debate.

Representing the Muslim perspective was Dr. Daniel C. Peterson: Dr. Peterson is professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University and currently serves as editor-in-chief of BYU's Middle Eastern Texts Initiative.

He is a member of the executive council of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.

He received a bachelor's degree in Greek and philosophy from BYU and, after several years of study in Jerusalem and Cairo, earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Representing the Conservative Christian [largely Protestant] side was Robert Spencer: Mr. Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of eight books on Islam and jihad, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.

The Topic of Debate: Islam: Threat or Not?
________

--->What do simplistic critics of the Crusades forget? This...

2011-04-01T15:59:00.010-04:00

An Israeli's Objective Dramatic Look at the Genocidal Past, the Present, Antisemitism, the ADL, Israel, Palestinians, and Hope for the Future

Note: I think this unique documentary is important and so have placed it in the archives here---May 2011

2011-04-01T09:45:00.000-04:00

Johann Hari: How to survive the age of distraction

Johann Hari, The Independent

"...The book – the physical paper book – is being circled by a shoal of sharks, with sales down 9 per cent this year alone. It's being chewed by the e-book. It's being gored by the death of the bookshop and the library. And most importantly, the mental space it occupied is being eroded by the thousand Weapons of Mass Distraction that surround us all. It's hard to admit, but we all sense it: it is becoming almost physically harder to read books.

"In his gorgeous little book The Lost Art of Reading – Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, the critic David Ulin admits to a strange feeling. All his life, he had taken reading as for granted as eating – but then, a few years ago, he "became aware, in an apartment full of books, that I could no longer find within myself the quiet necessary to read". He would sit down to do it at night, as he always had, and read a few paragraphs, then find his mind was wandering, imploring him to check his email, or Twitter, or Facebook. "What I'm struggling with," he writes, "is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there's something out there that merits my attention." ...Read it all

2011-04-01T08:40:00.003-04:00

The Beauty of the Truth

by Thomas Storck

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. - Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

As the good denotes that toward which the appetite tends, so the true denotes that toward which the intellect tends. - Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

When I converted to the Catholic faith early in 1978 at the age of 27 I was motivated by only one thing: my conviction that Catholicism was true, that Catholicism's account of reality was in fact the way things really are. But long before that date, when I did not yet believe that the Catholic religion was true, I found myself increasingly attracted by the beauty of the Faith. And though I would never urge anyone to become a Catholic simply because of the beauty of the Faith or of Catholic life, nevertheless I am still convinced that not only is the Faith true but that it is compellingly attractive and beautiful, even exciting. Moreover, I think that the beauties of the Faith are not merely accidents, but are close to the heart of what God has done for us.

Though I had little contact with Catholics or Catholic things while I was a boy, my father's library did contain a few important Catholic books. These included part of Aquinas's Summa contra Gentiles, Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, Ronald Knox's The Belief of Catholics and the Baltimore Catechism. As I was growing up I read some of these books and parts of the others. And two things about the Catholic Church gradually impressed themselves on my mind. The first was the fondness of Catholicism for clear thinking. Distinctions were distinctions. If A was A, then, dammit, A was not B. If something was proved true, then it was true, whatever we felt about it. In contrast I found most of the other religious ideas I encountered, either in people or in other books, mushy and vague. (I exempt C. S. Lewis from this charge.) But though it is easy to see how I became aware of the tight logic and clear distinctions of the Catholic mind, I am less clear on the second thing. Indeed, I am not sure I can even define or name it very well. But I must try, for I think it is one of the most salient features about Catholicism, and something that ought to be attractive, especially to those of my generation.

What is this second thing? It is simply that at some point in my adolescence and early manhood I began to find the Faith attractive, exciting, beautiful. Catholicism gradually became to me a vision of things at once more vibrant and full of life than the culturally Protestant world in which I had always lived. I say here deliberately 'Catholicism' rather than 'the Catholic Church,' not because I felt any coldness toward the Church itself, but because my vision was broader. In the center of it indeed stood the Church, but around that Church stood Catholic civilization, Catholic life. The latter obviously came from the former, but the latter also made manifest what was often hidden and latent in the former: the beauty and vibrancy of Catholicism.

Now, as I say, I do not remember how this conception arose in my mind. As an undergraduate I read some more in various Catholic authors, especially Chesterton and Belloc, and I am sure that they helped strengthen this image of the Faith. I remember at the time reading some of Chesterton's The Catholic Church and Conversion and accepting without demur his words about Catholicism being the new religion, one of the "enthusiasms that carry young people off their feet and leave older people bewildered or annoyed," the very reverse of an old, feeble or stodgy affair. As he writes here,

"It is perhaps no longer the custom to regard conversion as a form of dissipation; but it is still common to regard conversion as a form of revolt. And as regards the established convention of much of the modern world, it is a revolt. The worthy merchant of the middle class, the worthy farmer of the Middle West, when he sends his son to college, does now feel a faint alarm lest the boy should fall among thieves, in the sense of Communists; but he has the same sort of fear lest he should fall among Catholics."

For a time as an undergraduate I was also part of a folk choir that sang regularly at a Saturday night Mass. It was certainly not the music nor even the liturgy (by 1970 already Englished) that especially reinforced my attraction to the Faith, but rather parts of Catholic life that I was now beginning to experience. Although it is a caricature that Episcopalians are all crusty, rich and stuck-up, nevertheless it is true that among Catholics I saw a popular and familiar side to religion that I did not see among Episcopalians or other Protestants. This Catholic atmosphere is touched on by Ronald Knox in The Belief of Catholics.

There is among Catholic saints a familiarity which seems to raise this world to the level of eternity. There is among Catholic sinners a familiarity which seems (to non-Catholic eyes) to degrade eternity to the level of this world. The point is most clearly demonstrated in connection with that attitude toward religious things which we call "reverence." For good or for evil, the ordinary, easy-going Catholic pays far less tribute to this sentiment than a Protestant, or even an agnostic brought up in the atmosphere of Protestantism. No traveller fails to be struck, and perhaps shocked, by the "irreverence" or "naturalness" (call it what you will) that marks the behaviour of Catholic children wandering about in church. Even grown-up Catholics will usually talk in church if anything needs to be said, while Protestants will usually whisper.
The essence of this Catholic atmosphere, at least as it attracted me, was this easy intermingling of the sacred and the secular. In our conventionally Protestant culture piety is associated with an overtly "religious" sort of behavior. And when one is not being religious one is being entirely secular. The twain do not meet. But among Catholics I was seeing that the twain do indeed meet, in fact, that the twain are intertwined. Religion is not something apart from our everyday lives, requiring a special and sanctified kind of comportment. I saw this same thing during a visit to a popular pilgrimage site, the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio, on Assumption Day in 1974. Here were crowds of pilgrims of many ethnic groups, Chaldean rite Catholics (originally from Iraq) prominent among them. Now the pilgrims at Carey are by no means all pious in the conventional understanding of that term. That is, they do not walk around with long faces and folded hands; they mill around talking with friends, teenagers parade around the streets, little children dart about playing. People come to Carey for a pilgrimage to a shrine of the Mother of God and yet this act is not cut off from the rest of their lives by some kind of wall, a wall which sharply demarcates the sacred from the secular. As it was for Chaucer's pilgrims, journeying to a shrine unites much of what some might seek on a vacation with what would clearly be accounted works of piety.

While still an undergraduate I took my first tentative steps toward affiliation with the Church and the Faith. But the priest I consulted who assured me that now that we had done demythologizing Scripture we would begin to demythologize dogma was not exactly what I had in mind, so I stayed out of the Church for several more years. During these next few years I made my first visit to Santa Fe (in 1975). I immediately fell in love with the Spanish culture, with its buildings, its art, its people, its life. Twentieth-century New Mexico can hardly be called a Catholic culture in its fullness, but enough of the externals of the Faith remain so that it helped to build up in my mind this image of Catholicism. One of the most memorable things that I saw was an exhibit at the Museum of New Mexico of colonial religious art from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Here I saw religious art as a living and popular tradition, for the exhibit included a few paintings done well into this century, pictures depicting answered prayers. That is, a painting might show someone lying on a sickbed with others praying and perhaps a saint above receiving the petitions. And the next panel might show the invalid up and about again. These were paintings done by or on behalf of families living in New Mexico in the 20th century to commemorate some actual answered prayer. Here was Catholic culture alive and well and part of the lives of ordinary believers.

But something else in Santa Fe that at the time created a maybe even bigger impression on me involved less authentic Catholic art. This was the rosaries and plastic statues of the Infant Jesus of Prague for sale at the Woolworths on the Plaza. Here again was a sign of the matter of factness Catholics felt about the Faith. Though doubtless for Woolworths it was simply a means of making a buck, for one brought up in a Protestant culture it was a revelation. I had never seen anything like it and it delighted me. Here was another example - to me refreshing - that among Catholics religion was not something to be put in a little box, something separate from life, something so special that it was almost unreal. No, religion was a part of life. Why? Because God, the Virgin, the angels and the saints, were all as real as, and as close as, the other things Woolworths sold, such as soap, hangers or underpants.

About this time I began to develop devotion to our Blessed Lady. Around 1973 or 1974 I began to pray to her and she was definitely part of this undefined sense of romance that always pulled me toward the Faith. As I will explain below, I think it was quite natural that attraction to the Blessed Virgin should be mingled with this attraction to the Faith in the world, for I think her historical role in salvation history has had much to do with the creation of these aspects of the Faith that so enchanted me.

Now what do I think was behind all this? Some perhaps, in view of Chesterton's words about "conversion as a form of revolt" that I quoted above, might be inclined to dismiss my conversion, at least, as my own version of the revolt of the 1960s, a revolt which happily for me did not end up either in Zen or in crystals. I revolted against Protestant culture and ended up a Catholic. But I think there is much more to it than this. For just as St. Thomas tells us that the good is what attracts us, and that ultimately goodness and being are the same, so I think there is something objective that was always at the root of my attraction toward the Church and toward Catholic life. This is the Incarnation.

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." From the doctrine and fact of the Incarnation, the taking of a human nature by the Eternal Logos, come, I think, those aspects of the Faith that so attracted and excited me, and still do. In the first place, the Incarnation was surely the most wonderful and startling intermingling of the divine and human that is possible. Here was the almighty Creator of the universe living among us. Here he was a suckling at his Mother's breast, eating his first solid food, playing, assisting Joseph, eating, sleeping. If the other little boys of Nazareth had known, they could have said to their mothers, "I'm going over to play at God's house now, okay, Mom?" or "Can God come over this afternoon and play?" To have the Eternal Infinite running around your backyard. Here is a juxtaposition that we would never have dared to imagine, had God not effected it himself. After this nothing we do should be shocking if we mingle the sacred and the ordinary, indeed, if we make the sacred ordinary and the ordinary sacred. And this is exactly what the Faith had done. Medieval Catholics gave free rein to this instinct.

A medieval Welsh poet wrote "I could hardly sleep a wink though God were to sing a lullaby." And a modern editor comments, "In Chaucer's age men spoke freely of sacred persons and things.... Of course such passages do not necessarily indicate lack of proper reverence. Sometimes they seem to show affectionate familiarity with objects of worship." Indeed they do. The English cycle plays, meant to be performed around the time of the feast of Corpus Christi, abound in instances of putting the sacred and the secular side by side, but even they cannot compare with what God himself did when he became man. But this is not how Protestant culture approaches such matters. The passage from Ronald Knox that I quoted above continues with this account of the agnostic but culturally Protestant, Julian Huxley's behavior in a Catholic church.

"Those who have read the statement of his beliefs made by my friend, Mr. Julian Huxley, will realise that he is not an exponent of orthodox Christianity. Yet I can recall - I am sure he will not mind my recalling it - his attitude of pained surprise when a Belgian friend of ours knelt down in a pew to pose for a photograph. I am passing no criticisms, one way or the other, in this matter of reverence; I am simply trying to put on record a difference of attitude. It is perhaps most succinctly stated when it is pointed out that in Catholic books of devotion Almighty God is sometimes addressed not as "Thou" but as "You." [Written in 1927.]

Although hardly able to put it into words, I discerned a difference between Catholics and Protestants, including cultural Protestants, in their approach to the sacred. Catholics had a familiarity with God and the things of God that others did not seem to have, a familiarity that, as I said, seems to me to be rooted in a wholehearted acceptance of the Incarnation and its implications and which, when translated into actual living acts and material objects, has created a culture of great beauty and liveliness.

There is another and related aspect of Catholic life that is likewise, I think rooted in the Incarnation. This is the concreteness of Catholicism. After our Lord assumed flesh he was always in a particular place. Though, of course, he was also at the same time everywhere (since he is God), you could still find him in one particular place doing one particular thing. He might be preaching or eating or healing or sleeping or walking. As if two men who were arguing could say, "Well, let's go over and ask God what he thinks about this. He's staying in the third house from the corner." And the means of grace and sanctification that God instituted in his Church are concrete and use concrete things: water and oil and bread and wine. Each is uniquely itself and uniquely different. So similarly I found the Spanish-Indian art of New Mexico concrete. It witnesses to eternal truths but does so in a very concrete manner. It was itself. Byzantine art and Romanesque art are also themselves. Unique and different from all others. So I found all Catholic culture and Catholic life to be. The more concrete it was the more universal it could be. Just as our Lord was the universal Creator of the universe, yet in one place at one time, so each Catholic culture, by being itself, witnessed by its uniqueness to the universal and the supra-temporal. Even the brightness and contrast of the colors of so much of Catholic art might be said to do the same. Each color was different and by being more itself, more concrete, was able to become part of the harmonious whole of the painting. So much of modern life in industrialized countries is drably uniform. It attempts to witness to the supposed universalism of secular industrial capitalism by creating a samenesss wherever it goes. It paints the world a dull dark green or gray. But Catholic places are painted in bold and bright colors, each different, a localism that will forever war against industrial drabness. I saw this clearly in New Mexico and again I was attracted to the Faith and to what it had created.

Moreover, the vibrancy that I perceived underlying this colorful concreteness was the vibrancy of the Logos, the force that upholds all creation in the veins and bones of the God-man. If the divine life could pulsate within human flesh, as it were, then something of that divine strength could also lie behind Catholic life. It is certainly the principle on which our sacramental theology is based and in the Eucharist we have it in its most complete form. Indeed, there it is almost a second Incarnation, for again Almighty God comes down to dwell within the things of earth and to inhabit what is made by the hands of man.

So it was chiefly these two things, the daring juxtaposition of the sacred and the secular and the bold concreteness of Catholic life, both rooted in the Incarnation, that attracted me to the Faith, that made Catholicism seem exciting, especially in contrast to the cultural Protestantism of my childhood and of our surrounding society. And the Incarnation is also the reason why, I think, that the events of Christmas, and in fact all that concerns our Lady, have such compelling charm for us. Mary has no meaning for us apart from the Incarnation, and whenever we turn to her we are at least implicitly recognizing the Incarnation. And the Word becoming flesh is a fact astonishing, and attractive because it is astonishing, so that we never tire of repeating the stories of Bethlehem, of the stable and the shepherds, of the beasts and the angels.

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O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio.

To which we can only say, Amen, Amen.

2011-04-01T07:26:00.003-04:00

State-Owned Banks?

2011-04-01T07:08:00.013-04:00

Trivializing Redemption

There is always a temptation within us to revert to self-righteousness, to point the fingers at the real or imagined sins of others while neglecting the "weightier matters of the law," which the Master said are "justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Mt. 23:23).

How easy it is to judge, how easy to trust in our own piety, in our attendance at liturgy or in other ritual observances (click) as if that alone made us good or holy. And how easy it is for us to be self-deceived.

Trivializing the Sermon on the Mount: Why is it, I read someone asking, that so much of the Sermon on the Mount is treated as though its beatitudes and spiritual prescriptions are unattainable and impractical? Think of the matter of wars, think of not judging others while upholding the Truth; think of the warnings against greed and exploitation and self-righteousness; think of His calling for simplicity, even voluntary poverty and generosity towards all neighbors...But "Now as in days gone by," this person wrote, "the chief sins of humanity are reduced [by some] to the bedroom and not the battlefields," as if those sins, often sins of weakness when committed by ordinary people, were the only serious practical sins one should be most ashamed of and confess. Are we not out of all balance in that?

And yet Jesus, the Master and Suffering Servant of Israel (click), unlike so many of the Pharisees, was not so. He refused to cast the first stone when urged. His Woes (click) did not target the weak but the strong, the arrogant, the truly wicked...

The Lord did not trivilize redemption and reshift all focus to human weakness, foolishness, or what have you. Whether it was a woman at a well (a woman!), another caught in adultery, or a man next to him on the cross, the Lord begrudged forgiveness to none who sought it. How tender he was to human weakness---and yet how fearfully severe He was to human cunning in the service of wickedness.

The Gospels show us this balance. But did the Spanish Inquisition (as if exile rather than execution were not an option for very real subverters of the nation?) Did Luther's later vicious persecution of the peasant-poor? Or Calvin's reversion to a talmudic theocratic exaltation of usury at the expense of the same who time and again suffered under that yoke?

In recent times the servant of God, Dorothy Day, like so many saints throughout history, recalibrated the balance for us in the most critical way. And the Second Vatican Council followed her in this in no small measure. She reminded us that human wickedness, far more than human weakness, is likely to result in the deaths of millions, in genocide and ecocide, the very death of the earth. And so she, with Peter Maurin, reminded us we had better reprioritize and return to the Gospels, the Good News, where we learn the distinction between weakness and wickedness that Jesus came into the world to teach.

2011-04-01T05:18:00.001-04:00

Are We Alone In the Universe? New Analysis Says Maybe

Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Date: 26 July 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET
{added July 2011)

Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found. A new analysis may crush their optimism.

To calculate the likelihood that they'll make radio contact with extraterrestrials, SETI scientists use what's known as the Drake Equation. Formulated in the 1960s by Frank Drake of the SETI Institute in California, it approximates the number of radio-transmitting civilizations in our galaxy at any one time by multiplying a string of factors: the number of stars, the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those that are habitable, the probability of life arising on such planets, its likelihood of becoming intelligent and so on. [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]

The values of almost all these factors are highly speculative. Nonetheless, Drake and others have plugged in their best guesses, and estimate that there are about 10,000 tech-savvy civilizations in the galaxy currently sending signals our way — a number that has led some scientists to predict that we'll detect alien signals within two decades.

Their optimism relies on one factor in particular: In the equation, the probability of life arising on suitably habitable planets (ones with water, rocky surfaces and atmospheres) is almost always taken to be 100 percent. As the reasoning goes, the same fundamental laws apply to the entire universe, and because those laws engendered the genesis of life on Earth — and relatively early in its history at that — they must readily spawn life elsewhere, too. As the Russian astrobiologist Andrei Finkelstein put it at a recent SETI press conference, "the genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms."

But in a new paper published on arXiv.org, astrophysicist David Spiegel at Princeton University and physicist Edwin Turner at the University of Tokyo argue that this thinking is dead wrong. Using a statistical method called Bayesian reasoning, they argue that the life here on Earth could be common, or it could be extremely rare — there's no reason to prefer one conclusion over the other. With their new analysis, Spiegel and Turner say they have erased the one Drake factor scientists felt confident about and replaced it with a question mark.

While it's true that life arose quickly on Earth (within the planet's first few hundred million years), the researchers point out that if it hadn't done so, there wouldn't have been enough time for intelligent life — humans — to have evolved. So, in effect, we're biased. It took at least 3.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth, and the only reason we're able to contemplate the likelihood of life today is that its evolution happened to get started early. This requisite good luck is entirely independent of the actual probability of life emerging on a habitable planet.

"Although life began on this planet fairly soon after the Earth became habitable, this fact is consistent with … life being arbitrarily rare in the Universe," the authors state. In the paper, they prove this statement mathematically.

Their result doesn't mean we're alone — only that there's no reason to think otherwise. "[A] Bayesian enthusiast of extraterrestrial life should be significantly encouraged by the rapid appearance of life on the early Earth but cannot be highly confident on that basis," the authors conclude. Our own existence implies very little about how many other times life has arisen.

Two data points rather than just one would make all the difference, the researchers say. If life is found to have arisen independently on Mars, then scientists would be in a much better position to assert that, under the right conditions, the genesis of life is inevitable. -- [Source: Space.com]

This article was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow us on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover.

2011-03-31T09:20:00.064-04:00

Andre Dubus (1936-1999), Remarkable Man, Catholic, and Writer

by Amy Welborn

When Andre Dubus passed away in his Haverhill, Massachusetts home on February 25 (1999), obituaries noted the loss of one of America's finest writers of the short story and certainly one of the most interesting and inspiring figures on the contemporary literary scene.

What the secular newspapers failed to emphasize, however, was Dubus' faith, a deeply sacramental and incarnational Catholic spirituality that pervaded his work, strengthened him through almost unimaginable pain and loss, and was as concrete as the Eucharist:

'Since I was a boy, this sacrament has sustained my belief in God, who joined us here on earth to eat and drink and be joyful, to love and grieve, to suffer and die. For most of my life, I have tried to receive the Eucharist daily' Dubus wrote in an essay, 'Bodily Mysteries' contained in his last collection, Meditations from a Moveable Chair (1998)

Andre Dubus (pronounced Doo-byoose) was described in a 1998 interview on the Amazon.com website as 'barrel chested and gray bearded, with wide open eyes and the weathered red face of a man who's lived a full life.' That life began in 1936 in Lake Charles Louisiana. He was taught by the Christian Brothers, and after college, joined the Marines. After five and a half years in the service, Dubus enrolled in the Iowa Writer's Workshop and received a Master's in Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. In 1966, Dubus and his young family moved to Massachusetts, where he remained, teaching and writing until the end of his life.

That Dubus' life did not end thirteen years earlier than it did is simply a miracle...Read it all

Wikipedia: "To help Dubus with mounting medical bills [after the accident], Andre's friends and fellow writers Kurt Vonnegut and John Updike held a special literary benefit. Dubus continued to write, producing two books of essays and a collection of short stories, and conducted a weekly writers' workshop in his home, meeting with a group of young writers. Dubus also found a deeper religious faith at this time. A practicing Catholic all his life, Dubus found that the loss of his mobility drew him closer to God, and renewed his Catholic faith at a deeper level."

Note: I lived so close to him, without knowing anything of his writings and gifts. How I wish I had known him.

--->Pope proposes St. Alphonsus Liguori as model for new evangelization...

--->Real or Hoax? Scholars are "dumbstruck". Could codices prove ‘the major discovery of Christian history’ (Click 1)?

More..."On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection..." with amazing article pictures...(Click 2) But Wait: "The British team leading the work on the discovery fears that the present Israeli ‘keeper’ may be looking to sell some of the books on to the black market, or worse – destroy them." (emphasis added, maybe this "destroy" is a chutzpah ploy to force a sale to the very highest bidder?)

---> Secret Space Plane Can’t Hide From Amateur Sleuths...

--->Secret Fears of the Super Rich: Does great wealth bring fulfillment? An ambitious study by Boston College suggests not. For the first time, researchers prompted the very rich—people with fortunes in excess of $25 million—to speak candidly about their lives. The result is a surprising litany of anxieties: their sense of isolation, their worries about work and love, and most of all, their fears for their children...

--->NY Times Food Writer Mark Bittman: People Will 'Starve to Death' Under House Budget...

The Weakness of God: "Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."---1 Corinthians 1:22-25

--->France urges world nuclear review after Japan crisis...

--->Invite a priest for dinner and fellowship. They need it...

--->The Restoration of Catholic Culture, Beyond the Narrow Culture of Clericalism...

--->Catholic nurse recounts hospice horror, says doctor euthanized priest...

--->Update: Hospice Care Controversy... a prolife hospice care nurse writes, "I read SpiritDaily.com every day, which linked [Matt Abbott's] April 1 column. I'm also a hospice RN who's concerned about the blanket accusations and negative stereotypical image given of hospice care. I'm aware there are unethical doctors practicing who have a feeling of power over the life and death of their patients and can abuse that trust...As a practicing pro-life Catholic, I can confirm that at my hospice, we do not withhold food and water or medications such as Coumadin that are prescribed by the patient's primary care physician...

--->"The driver brandished a pistol: Pro-lifers witness outside Planned Parenthood, FPA in San Diego -- one counselor threatened at gunpoint...

--->Update: April 2: Pope Benedict XVI has made an “aggrieved appeal” for a suspension of fighting in Libya, saying it is necessary to search for a diplomatic, rather than a military solution to the uprising in the North African country...

--->Back to a some good news now. Ecstasy and Solitude: Franz Liszt's Journey of Contemplation... Both Franz Liszt's piece, "Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude," and St. John's poem ("One Dark Night") revel in their rich and ecstatic language, daringly extreme in their attempts to depict a state of spiritual bliss, the highest form of which was pointedly called the spiritual marriage by many saints...

--->President Of B'nai B'rith International Indicted For Tax Fraud...

--->'Hold Islam accountable': U.S. pastor defiant after his Koran-burning publicity stunt led to two UN staff being beheaded and five others murdered...

--->Prosecutors Add Money Laundering To Accused Rabbi's Criminals' Charges...

--->Central Florida homeowners association is preparing to vote on banning children from playing outside...

--->The Jersey Sting. A true story of corrupt pols, money laundering rabbis, black market kidneys and the informant who brought it all down

Note: At the very bottom of each page click "Older Posts" in order to view previous recent posts. To Leave a Comment Click the Time Stamp Below the Post.

2011-03-30T20:01:00.020-04:00

HG Wells: prophet of free love

The author of The New World Order and over a hundred other books 'anticipated television, atom bombs, and the Internet. Impressive – even more so because he also found time to bed most of literary London. David Lodge delves into his many affairs and, below, DJ Taylor considers his literary achievement'

...He believed in free love and practised it tirelessly. He was married twice to women he loved, but neither of whom satisfied him sexually, and had several long-term relationships, as well as innumerable briefer affairs, mostly condoned by his second wife, Jane. Of particular interest because of the scandal they aroused were his relationships with three young women half his age: Rosamund Bland, the secretly adopted daughter of Edith and Hubert Bland, who was actually fathered by Bland on Edith's companion and housekeeper, Alice Hoatson; Amber Reeves, a brilliant Cambridge undergraduate, also the daughter of prominent Fabians; and Rebecca West, whom he invited to his Essex country house in 1912 to discuss her witty demolition of his novel Marriage in the feminist journal The Freewoman, a meeting that led in due course to the birth of Anthony West on the first day of the first world war, and a stormy relationship that lasted for some 10 years.

Reeves also became pregnant by Wells, by her own desire, with dramatic consequences. There were interesting liaisons with the novelists Dorothy Richardson (who portrayed Wells in her novel sequence Pilgrimage), Violet Hunt and Elizabeth von Arnim.

Then there was Moura, Baroness Budberg, a Russian aristocrat who survived the Russian revolution as the secretary and probably mistress of Maxim Gorky and with whom Wells slept when staying in Gorky's flat in Petrograd in 1920. They met again after Jane's death in 1927. Moura was the great love of his later life and his acknowledged mistress, but refused to marry or cohabit with him. ...Read it all

Note: What a rascal this poor fool was. For more evidence on that see the Label below this post "H.G. Wells_Francis Bacon".

"A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice."--Gilbert K. Chesterton
________

Fr. Robert Barron: The events depicted in 'Of Gods and Men' capped a bloody century for Christian martyrs.

Of Gods and Men, one of the most compelling religious films of the past 30 years, tells the story of the Trappists of Tibhirine, seven brave men who were murdered by Islamist extremists in 1996. Though it is not widely known, the 20th century produced more Christian martyrs than all of the preceding 19 centuries combined. The monks who are the subjects of this film were among the last to die for the faith in that terrible 100-year period.

These Trappists were transplanted Frenchmen, who had established themselves in a very simple monastery nestled in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria. They worked almost exclusively among the Muslims who inhabited the tiny towns and villages nearby. One of their number was a doctor, who provided basic medical care for hundreds of poor; their abbot was a decent and intelligent man, who in his spare time studied the Quran so as better to understand the people whom he served and for whom he prayed. The prayer life of the monks — which the movie conveys very effectively — was spare and beautiful, grounded in the rhythms of the Psalms...Read it all

--->Obama in 2002: Toppling Brutal Dictator a ‘Dumb War’...

--->Historian / Economist / Journalist Webster Tarpley: US aiding lynching racists who despise and murder Blacks in Libya...

--->Zionists wage campaign to 'edit' Wikipedia...

--->Japan Pressured to Expand Evacuations...

2011-03-29T08:36:00.072-04:00

Artisans Alive---Back to the Future

Why would a business stay small in an age of economic expansion and maximizing profits? Wine...Coffee...

It Must Be Love.

A short documentary by Short Focus Films for a group of small scale producers in McLaren Vale, South Australia.
________

--->French vegans in dock over baby's death. An autopsy showed that Louise was suffering from a vitamin A and B12 deficiency which experts say increases a child's sensitivity to infection and can be due to an unbalanced diet...

--->New World Order Education? Obama says too much testing makes education boring. "Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students," [What!?} the president told students and parents at a town hall hosted by the Univision Spanish-language television network at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, D.C... Note: This poor Nobel peace-prize (!) warmonger is completely out of control or is attempting to dumb us down---likely both. Then out of the other side of his sadly incoherent mouth he demands measurable results, not only for students but for teachers. Go figure. Education is increasingly being reduced to political correctness / 'sociology' / propaganda (all the same thing), clearly. More than his words, one must see where he is going.

--->UK: Cable confirms ending of 50p tax rate, and reveals 'mansion tax' plans...

--->Pro-lifers lease office across from Carhart's Germantown late-term abortion mill...

--->At site of Nazi massacre of Romans, Pope deplores "a grave offense to God, because it was deliberate violence of man against man...

--->Interview, 2009 (29 minutes) - Nonviolent Direct Action Against U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex...

--->Back in the arms of the Church. Canonical sanctions lifted for San Diego woman who quit 'women priests' movement..."I withdrew from the program within two weeks of the ceremony because I realized that I had made a mistake in studying for the priesthood..."

--->Pope appeals for suspension of fighting in Libya...(click) Meanwhile, the USCCB sings a different song....

--->Interview (58 minutes) - Chalmers Johnson on 'The Sorrows of Empire... '

--->Back to the Streets Rally Against the Wars at Home and Abroad on April 9th (New York City) and April 10th (San Francisco) All Out on April 9th, New York City at noon, Union Sq. and April 10, San Francisco at noon...

--->Corapi accuser promised to ‘destroy’ priest after being fired: claim...

--->Tom Burghardt: Orwell 2011: Towards a Pervasive "Surveillance State" in America. Biometrics, Facial Mapping, "Computer-Aided ID".... Note: The trouble with this, besides the Orwellian / Brave New World obvious, is that corporate technology begins increasingly to see the surveillance state as the business of the future and orients its capacities to it rather than making 'old-fashioned' goods for the daily life of real human beings. Total surveillance reflects a kind of paranoia (fear of blowback) in view of our planetary wars and occupations around the world. It also destroys jobs by taking ordinary local police off the streets who are always the best "eyes". See the Telegraph's CCTV cameras: If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for? (click). A return to justice and minding our own business around the world is the way and what we must demand of our representatives. Justice given makes for justice received.

--->British Politicians Fight for Life. Plan to introduce a bill prohibiting abortion counseling by providers...

--->Japan on 'maximum alert' over nuclear plant...

--->Sad but enlightening airport encounter by Bishop Dolan...(click) [The question begs to be asked: why then do media moguls splash headlines only on rogue priests? They do know why, even as they pretend to be friendly]

--->India state bans book apparently smearing Gandhi for publicity...(click) , but "Gandhi often filled his letters, including those to female associates, with strong love language, but that did not lead to physical intimacy. "Nothing happened," he said. "He is telling his feelings, but they are platonic. They are not put into action. That would have been terrible for him."

--->"Wow, That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established New Central Bank Of Libya..."

--->Obama to Deliver Speech at Georgetown. Many Catholics were upset in 2009 after Obama delivered a speech in Georgetown’s Gaston Hall because the University complied with a White House request and covered over the monogram “IHS” which is an ancient symbols for the name of Jesus Christ...

--->Popes and Saints Take on 'Suspicion and Conspiracy': Pope Benedict counters “attacks by Freud and Nietzsche on Christianity’s alleged fear of eros by explaining the authentic Christian view of sexuality and love,” he said. Likewise, the encyclical (Deus Caritas Est, 2006.) addresses the Marxist use of resentment, as illustrated in the famous phrase “religion is the opium of the people,” by first admitting where Marx’s social critique is right and then noting where Marx went wrong...[Father Joseph Koterski] said Pope Benedict responded wisely to the clergy sexual-abuse scandals in Germany and Ireland in 2010. "Not only did he swiftly put in place what was needed to deal with the crisis in a way that was at once compassionate, firm and realistic, but he also worked vigilantly to counter various slanders against the Church that arose in the press," Father Koterski said...More

--->He may have been a reeling, de-centered postmodernist skeptic, but Jean Baudrillard knew a sublimely bizarre, sad city and the loneliness of people when he encountered it...and he could describe it all almost poetically...

--->Sen. Rand Paul's Eloquent Response to President Obama's Address on Lybia...See Video

--->Cassock / biretta making a comeback?...

--->Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor...

--->CNN Segment On Libya Titled 'The New World Order...'

--->Genetically Modified Foods: By the 3rd generation most GM Soy fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies...Plus nasty scenarios...Must See 1/4/11 Keiser report

--->Apropos of that last, Farmers and Seed Producers Launch Preemptive Strike against Monsanto...Lawsuit Filed To Protect Themselves from Unfair Patent Enforcement on Genetically Modified Seed...

2011-03-28T08:08:00.003-04:00

Then and Now

(Get rid of the Ad by clicking the 'x' in upper right hand corner when it appears)

Here, for me anyway, is a reason to take film of the family when possible. The two ladies I love most in the world are seen here, then and now---besides, of course, my mother who is sick but still living, thank God. Filming may seem something of a nuisance when children are young, but years from now it will mean something. These shots were taken with less than state of the art equipment and lighting and so are not "touched up". You will pardon that I hope. (With permission)

2011-03-28T07:52:00.044-04:00

The Eye and the Soul

"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is unclouded, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is dark, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"---Matthew 6:22, 23

In a time where the image appears to be eclipsing the word even in education due to the signs and wonders of the age, the words of Jesus are an urgent reminder and warning to all of us. How many images, not all good by any means, have passed (or entered) our eyes while looking for news, researching projects, writing the children, or just passing time on the Internet or television. And the image has an immediate impact beyond words. It 'speaks' even if we are the ones who often supply what is heard.

The fathers used to speak of the "custody of the eyes" even in ages where women and men were, compared to our time, covered from head to toe. We need to hear more of this today from Church pastors, because there can be a cumulative effect even when we hardly notice it. One person half-jokingly said to me he liked to watch the news on television, but not for the news----"It's always the same old bad news," he averred---No, he said "for the babes".

A lipstick commercial comes on in the middle of a decent program. Without asking for it one is treated to puffy lips, a long air-brushed sensuous neck, beautiful hair, alluring eyes. Now multiply that tele / vision which invades the eyes a gazillion times over many years. Is it any wonder people are shocked to find themselves in a state of uninvited sexual excitement?

The "programming" has worked. And before you know it, the soul, slowly invaded by darkness is clamoring for more. Then the trouble begins. How many beautiful long necks, cleavages and eyes are we laymen expected to see before we are unconsciously affected? And what about pastors and Religious?! In our hyperreal world there is no end to it. It snowballs. So the slow slide over time turns into a spiritual crash; it is almost inevitable in some degree.

There is then a need for spiritual detoxification, a shaking-up of the soul back to consciousness and reality, a return to custody of the eyes. ICU for the soul. A determination to be very cautious about what venues we allow ourselves to visit for specific purposes and only for restricted times. Because even the "news" sites are adding more and more sensuous content in an attempt to remain "competitive" (sounds so normal, so business-like, doesn't it?). As corporate interests lay almost total stakes all over the internet, it must only get worse---until, please God, Christians force hostile takeovers and retake larger shares of the media which form our culture. Because, as Jesus said, if the light that is in us is darkness, how great is the darkness! We are being programmed. Time to change the programming---back to the Word, also words, and custody of the eyes. And we bloggers have to be more careful about where we link (no easy matter). Otherwise it will be time to junk it all.

"If you refuse grace, no amount of modern education can compensate for the radical emptiness of a life centered on one's self. If you accept grace, even when the faith is distorted, there is life. Anything a human being touches, even a bit of the Divine Life, he will distort. So this Life, this faith, can be found in nasty people, people who don't speak right or even bathe regularly, fundamentalist preachers, people who are ignorant and bull-headed. Wherever it's found, however distorted, it is the only source of life.-- Flannery O'Connor, "The Habit of Being" (Thanks to Jim Forest for this)

--->Project Censored: Radiation Detection Deception...

--->The Kill Team: How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses...(click) You can view the gruesome photos here...

--->'Death Squad': Full horror emerges of how U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians - and kept their body parts as trophies...

--->Panopticon Sky: Private spy satellites are being used for the ostensibly benign purpose of looking for mosquitos. Just coincidently, they will see everything else in your back yard...

--->Madonna's Kabbalah Centre Said to Be Subject of Grand Jury Investigation...

--->Not all bad. Attention, Doomsayers: Global Quality of Life Is Improving...

--->Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years...

Conversion of the Jews: There are some on the Internet who worry because Benedict believes Jews qua Jews should not be specially targeted for conversion (what other group or people in the world is so targeted as a specific group or people?) The Good News, rather, as affirmed from St. Paul to the 2000 CDF document Dominus Iesus, is addressed to all peoples. Wouldn't it be more humble and wise to worry about our own salvation and our own sins? Romans chapters 9-11, Benedict reminds us in his new book on Jesus, tells us that in God's time the Jews will know their Redeemer who is the Redeemer of the whole world, if we will only accept Him, His forgiveness and Communion by grace. Meanwhile we Hope and pray for all, the whole world, especially for ourselves in light of our own sins.

--->16 Jewish converts to Catholicism describe their incredible journeys...

--->Why I Love My Ugly Little Liturgy---by Simcha Fisher... (What a Catholic soul is shown here!)

"There are three things that remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love"---1 Cor. 13:13

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."---Luke 6:37-38 (Wow--SH)

Sorrowful Mysteries

2011-03-28T06:12:00.003-04:00

Diane, wife, 1982

2011-03-28T06:11:00.002-04:00

The Times of Your Life

2011-03-28T06:10:00.002-04:00

Circa 1981-1982, wife Diane

2011-03-27T04:00:00.003-04:00

Happier Times

Jeremy cira 1993

2011-03-26T08:40:00.020-04:00

On the Beatification of John Paul II

As the beatification of John Paul II approaches there has been, especially in some (not all) traditionalist circles, rigorous debate about his success or failure as Pope. Because I think every orthodox Catholic must, by definition, be traditional in the Catholic sense (click Tradition and the Living Magisterium for what this must mean) I have a keen interest in the many forms of traditional opinion (and there are many forms of it, ranging from the absurd and schismatic new pharisees to the more responsible and legitimate criticisms of the Second Vatican Council).

The strongest and most plausible criticism of his pontificate, it seems to me, is that while he doggedly traveled the world calling men and women back to Christ and the moral and natural laws, he appeared to neglect the festering neo-modernist dissent within, the evil fruit of which finally burst in the long Lent of 2002 (I think it was) in the sexual abuse crisis.

I had to think long and hard on that criticism and reexamine the record, precisely because there was a prima facie ring of truth to it. But as I did that reexamination over time it became clear to me at least that John Paul saw the City of God being encircled by an unprecedented evil which, if it succeeded, would amount to an unprecedented global persecution which could drive the Church back into the catacombs. He also called the dissenters back to reason and faith, even if I think he was naive in expecting he could succeed here without the use of what Dietrich von Hildebrand called the "charitable anathema" (Click here). But then again one would have to level the same criticism against Pope Pius XII, who, prior to the Council, thought admonishments alone would do that job and so left veritable heretics like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ in his Roman Collar to work much mischief in the Church and world---a mischief which, like that wrought by the infamous Hans Kung, would turn men and women, many of whom who had been originally formed in traditional Catholic theology and principles, into something unrecognizable over time.

After the Masonic sacking of the papal states in Italy in the 19th century, however, the Church has had to move very cautiously lest even worse persecutions await Catholics. We would do well to read Cardinal Manning on these harsh realities (click) and what the Church has been up against.

One foolish young man preached a truism to me, "There's more to the Church than abortion," he said with no little sarcasm. I asked him what loving our neighbor meant (and not innocent babies in the womb?) and then urged him to consider the possibility of overt, hot, persecution one day, maybe even the gallows and his own neck, because John Paul was trying to save us from that also. Sound impossible? Catholics, it should go without saying, have known this kind of persecution many times and in many places throughout history, even in the 20th century and up to this very day in places. But this young man at my table was submerged in the theological knots and proof-texts of the extremists who fancy themselves canonists, amateur high theologians, though they seem hardly acquainted with the Gospels. He did not see that he was fleeing the Cross in a time of trouble by opting for schism. I pray for his children and grandchildren one day. And for his own sorry arse if the euthanasia crowd and organ traffickers approach him when he is old and sick and in the Nursing Home. John Paul II took a bullet to prevent that, and not for nothing.

John Paul sought to reason with the men and women of our time. That's obviously what all his incessant traveling and writing was about. He also, we cannot forget, opposed the planetary wars of this 'New World Order,' urging diplomacy at every turn for the sake of so very many of the innocent (hundreds of thousands) who have suffered or perished since the first Gulf War. Is it any wonder the powers were not amused?

For those who might be interested in my own final analysis of his pontificate and how, seeing clearly a self-styled "New World Order" on the doorstep of humanity, JPII sought to transvalue and redirect the very idea away from the nihilist ideologues at every turn precisely in order to save humanity from the potential tyranny implicit in its ideological de-christianization, you can follow the threads here and then here (be sure to click on "Older Posts" at the very bottom of each page too for previous posts and documentation).

When the whole village is on fire, one must act, even when other problems closer to home sorely need attending. This so-called "New Order of the world" has set the world on fire and brought it into the swamps of nihilism. John Paul, I believe, sought with all of his might to counteract this emergency and redirect 'globalization' in a way that allowed freedom for the Church, and protection for the poor and vulnerable of the earth.

Then consider something else that this Pope was up against, as George Weigel has shown [Click here], subversion, infiltrations, spies.

Less plausible to me is criticism of John Paul's "theology of the body" which obviously had the powerful intent of showing the meaning of human sexuality according to the teleology of the body. While I readily admit that some of those who sought to elucidate this doctrine were not always consistently faithful to the teaching of John Paul, and in some instances made some wild hay with it (i.e., bizarre statements), I do not think one can blame John Paul for that.

One columnist I'm afraid recently penned the reductio ad absurdum, when he concluded, "The idea of sex as mysticism has a perennial attraction, but it is pagan and occultist in origin," as if for John Paul II sex meant anything other than what Paul VI wrote in Humane Vitae, namely that all human sexuality should---except for serious reasons---naturally issue in the birth of children, new life, our Future. 'Pagan mysticism' and Catholic mystical theology are not the same things at all. The sacramental union of a couple through marriage, we are taught, should lead to the fullness of union (both spiritual and bodily) in self-giving, and to strength over time through trials, to maturity through forgiveness and understanding and periods of abstinence given to prayer and contemplation.

And was it not precisely John Paul II who in virtually every nation throughout every year (almost every day of every year!) of his long tenure as Pope cried out on behalf of the unborn (the fruit of this bodily union), almost alone on the world stage, and against the ideological population controllers, eugenicists and euthanasia advocates [Click]? One can scarcely think of the name John Paul II without thinking of the unborn, the weak, the vulnerable--indeed all of those targeted by the 'bottom-liners' who see all of human life in terms of financial interests ---which always means their own financial interests.

As for sex as mysticism, to call it 'pagan' one would have to be oblivious to the Canticle of Solomon, beginning from the very first chapter.

Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine, [2] Smelling sweet of the best ointments. Thy name is as oil poured out: therefore young maidens have loved thee. [3] Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments. The king hath brought me into his storerooms: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, remembering thy breasts more than wine: the righteous love thee...A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts. [13] A cluster of cypress my love is to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. [14] Behold thou art fair, O my love, behold thou art fair, thy eyes are as those of doves. [15] Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely. Our bed is flourishing.

Ch. 7: 2 "Your navel is like a round goblet Which never lacks mixed wine; Your belly is like a heap of wheat Fenced about with lilies.
3 "Your two breasts are like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle.
4 "Your neck is like a tower of ivory, Your eyes like the pools in Heshbon By the gate of Bath-rabbim; Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, Which faces toward Damascus.
5 "Your head crowns you like Carmel, And the flowing locks of your head are like purple threads; The king is captivated by your tresses.
6 "How beautiful and how delightful you are, My love, with all your charms!
7 "Your stature is like a palm tree, And your breasts are like its clusters.
8 "I said, 'I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks.' Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, And the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9 And your mouth like the best wine!"

And so on, throughout the wondrous book. That the beauty and "mysticism" of the spiritual and fleshly act of married love in the conjugal bed became a precious mystical symbol for Christ's love for his Church says enough in itself most eloquently, and hearkens back to what God intended in the creation---explosive Love issuing in the generation of more being / creation, making us participants in the Trinitarian power of fecund Love. We are Catholics, not Puritans or Jansenists. But for us sex is not a drug, not an escape from ourselves. It is love. Principles which are infallible in themselves still need to be interpreted [Click] in new contexts in every age which presents new issues, troubles and questions to our traditional theology.

As for the Second Vatican Council, I think it was, despite all good intentions, naive in places, ambiguous in places ----and wise in places. The question now is how do we repair the breaches. So it seems to me.

See George Weigel's new book for a fresh and scholarly look at the pontificate of John Paul and the forces that were arrayed against him---and all of us. However...

--->Michael Baxter's important caveats here: Weigel Biography of JPII raises questions about partiality...(Click) "The most intriguing and least convincing aspect of Weigel's portrayal of John Paul II has to do with a matter on which the two clearly disagreed: the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He offers a string of explanations as to why the pontiff's 'convictions, commitments, and perceptions' were distorted".

--->Richard Neuhaus in a Time of War by Michael J. Baxter...

--->Cardinal Ratzinger: Unilateral War Against Iraq Not Justified...

--->Pope John Paul II calls War a Defeat for Humanity: Neoconservative Iraq Just War Theories Rejected...

2011-03-26T08:00:00.004-04:00

The Distributist Thinking of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

by Richard Aleman

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s socio-economic thought is found in his books, "Rebuilding Russia," "From Under the Rubble," "Letter to the Soviet Leaders," and his address to the 1978 Harvard graduating class. As Solzhenitsyn relayed to author Joseph Pearce in his book “Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile,” he arrived at his conclusions unaware of the early Distributist movement or E.F. Schumacher’s neo-Distributism. Nevertheless, his vision is complimentary to the Distributist thesis...

For Europeans and Americans, Solzhenitsyn was a hero.

But when Solzhenitsyn committed the sin of criticizing the West in front of the 1978 Harvard graduating class, and dismissed Western social and economic policies as false alternatives for the world, those same European and American thinkers once cheering Solzhenitsyn as a champion for freedom consequently berated his scrutiny and ignored Solzhenitsyn’s social, political, and economic analysis, as well as any of his proposed reforms. This was particularly true of proponents of neoclassical economics and market deregulation, as Solzhenitsyn, once crushed under the boot of massive centralized government, was expected to applaud economic non-interventionism. Instead, he predicted disaster for institutions apathetic to economic and social involvement. After all, government regulations—within limits—serve to protect the common good and to keep fallen man in check. What’s more...Read it all

--->Excerpts From Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Commencement Address, 1978...

--->'An Intellectual Chaos'. Alexander Solzhenitsyn On Shallow Humanism...

--->A Giant Among Catholic Economists: Thomas Stock writes, "Heinrich Pesch, 1854-1926, a German Jesuit priest and economist, is largely unknown in the U.S., but arguably he is one of the most important and influential Catholic thinkers of the past few centuries. It was to the thought of Pesch and his disciples that Pope Pius XI turned to in composing his monumental encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931), and it is from Pesch that John Paul II has taken many of the ideas of his own social encyclicals, including the idea of man as the subject of work, of man’s dominion over the world as founded on his exercise of work, and even the key term “solidarism” (solidarity). Indeed, it sometimes seems uncanny, after reading http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifJohn Paul, to turn to Pesch and see the same ideas, sometimes presented in nearly the same words. Any thinker who has had such influence over more than one Supreme Pontiff is worth knowing better...Read it all

--->Interview with Dr. Rupert J. Ederer. Dr. Rupert J. Ederer is Professor Emeritus of Buffalo State College (State University of New York). In addition to being a premier Catholic economist1 in the U.S. he is perhaps the greatest living authority on the great minds that helped to pioneer and develop Catholic social teaching since the 19th century...Read it all
_______

--->Israel ready to react with 'great force': Netanyahu. "We don't intend to let the terror organizations again disturb the order but we will do all we need to to return the (military) activity to the border line itself," he said...

--->General Wesley Clark Speaks On NeoCon Plan To Take Out 7 Middle Eastern Countries In 5 Years...

--->Alexander Cockburn: Libya Rebels: Gaddafi Could be Right About al-Qaeda...

--->Estimated Half Million peaceful protesters march on London to protest budget cuts...

2011-03-25T07:36:00.038-04:00

The Revelation of Truth and the State

Church and State? from Mark Mallett on Vimeo.

WE hear it more and more today: there needs to be a greater separation between Church and State. But what is really meant by some is that the Church simply needs to disappear. In this prophetic and instructive webcast, Mark sets the record straight as to what the proper role of the Church and State are in human affairs… and how the Church urgently needs to raise her voice of truth at this late hour.

Ida, returning from her visit to him, said after I asked, "He must be near to 85 now, and has been ill for quite some time. I bring him two small meals each day, stack them near the microwave; and he eats most of it. He looks so frail. It pains me to see it. I don't think he can live alone much longer. He has already fallen and broken a hip. But he wants to die at home. He only gets a little mad if I question him on this too much. He has a look that tells you to Stop. She peered out the window and smiled.

It is hard to imagine, she said, seeing him now, that he was arrested several times protesting the war. One time he spent several weeks in a cell alone. Then the judge mercifully suspended his sentence. He said he would have stayed there for years if need be. And there is no question he meant it. And for as long as I can remember he spent Fridays in front of the abortion clinic with his sign that said, "Please don't". That's all it said, "Please don't".

Today he says he can only pray for priests, and for his loved ones who have passed on, and feed his little birds near the door for Christ. "Only?," I said to him. "That's a beautiful thing, to pray for others and to feed God's little creatures". He nodded, sipping the coffee I make him, "it is". He has always been such a Christ-like man. Every morning began with Mass for as long as anyone can remember, just like his parents before him. They were such beautiful people too, though they suffered much from the other children. Now he participates in the Mass by the TV. He can only say one decade of the rosary now and a little of the Jesus Prayer, sometimes less, because he forgets the words. That made her pause.

He sounds like a lovely man, I said. "Yes. He is a beautiful man". I told Ida with some emotion that she was a very beautiful person too.
_______

--->Latinos, blessedly family oriented...Will they save America from itself...?

--->Bless the Peruvians! Peru court upholds presence of crucifix in public places...

--->"The young mother started shaking and said she couldn't do it..."

--->Japan reactor core may be leaking radioactive material, official says...

--->Muslim Brotherhood a Rising Force in a New Egypt...

Saints Say to Pray for Priests

Fr. Stefano Manelli, O.F.M. writes: We know that St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the angelic Carmelite nun, just before she died made her last Holy Communion for this sublime intention: to obtain the return of a stray priest who had renounced his vocation. And we know that this priest died repentant, invoking Jesus.

We know that there are more than a few souls, especially virginal souls, who have offered themselves as victims on behalf of priests. These souls are favored by Jesus in an absolutely singular way.

Let us, then, also offer prayers and sacrifice for priests, for those in danger and for those who stand more firmly and securely, for those who are straying and for those who are already advanced in perfection...

St. Nicholas of Flüe, a famous Swiss saint, father of a family, bluntly told anyone too ready to point out the faults of priests: "And you, how many times have you prayed for the sanctity of priests? Tell me: what have you done to obtain good vocations for the Church?"

One time, a spiritual daughter of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina accused herself in Confession of having criticized some priests for their less than worthy behavior and heard Padre Pio forcefully and decisively reply: "Instead of criticizing them, think of praying for them." ~ Excerpt from Jesus Our Eucharistic Love by Fr. Stefano Manelli, O.F.M. Conv.,S.T.D. ~

Note: And let's not forget that by far the great majority of orthodox priests are morally and theologically faithful; and they suffer on account of the Christophobic media's cynical, exclusive focus on those who are not. But as in any denomination, so in the Church of Jesus Christ, there will always be some who fall, because Jesus said the wheat and tares grow together inside His beloved community. And he said "scandals must come" because we are all human. While countless humble and faithful servants of Christ go daily about their prayers and works of mercy, the media ignores them. Scandal is always 'sexier,' and helps to justify the transgressions of those secular pharisees who divert attention away from the self-same sins they condemn in others. Our prayer can help any vocations in trouble and (spiritually) uplift those who have in fact fallen. The latter, rightly, might not be restored to active priesthood if the sin is grievous, but surely these can be reconciled to the Father through Jesus Christ. Even times of scandal can help all of us sinners to grow, and to purify ourselves and the Church through penance.

--->The US Media Banging the War Drums Loud and Clear...When the US and Nato forces decided to go to war with Libya under the disingenuous pretext of a humanitarian mission to save lives the US corporate media took it upon themselves to bang the drums of war just as...Cont.

--->NY Archbishop Dolan to recommend Irish seminary at Maynooth be closed and that all Irish priests be trained in the Pontifical Irish College in Rome according to the Irish Catholic newspaper...More

--->Japan disaster: over 27,000 dead or missing...

--->Napolitano Warns Police Chiefs About Evolving Terrorism and Domestic Extremism – Lauds DHS ‘Fusion Centers’...[Click] "America faces a "constantly changing" terrorism threat that includes expanding partnerships among al Qaeda-inspired terrorist groups, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano."

Note: Recently Russia's Vladimir Putin publicly deplored US foreign interventions as becoming a "trend" [Click] and warned against these. He even astoundingly said that those responsible for the deaths of civilians in Lybia "should pray for the salvation of their own souls" [Click]. Is it not precisely foreign occupations, planetary wars, hundreds of active military bases around the globe and Orwellian style "humanitarian bombings" (sic) that is making us more and more paranoid simply because we think "blowback" {see label below) then becomes more and more probable? May God help us to see reason, bring the troops home, and begin minding our own business in the true sense. Then we will fear less and produce more constructively throughout the world.

--->Fr. Corapi case: "There is no evidence at this time that Fr. Corapi did anything wrong..."

2011-03-24T09:34:00.007-04:00

Not Happy? Be Conscious.

Many people in the West think they are not happy because of quasi-social or personal issues: like "self-esteem," having the right job or position and so on. But this only shows that the bigger issues have been lost sight of, i.e., the major blessings which too much of the world does not have, and which---if we only stop to think about it----are the real things that ought to make for practical happiness.

Do you have clean running water flowing into your home? Don't take it for granted. You are happy.

A refrigerator to keep your food fresh, at just the right temperature, whether summer or winter? Don't take that for granted either. You are happy.

An indoor toilet? Imagine how unhappy you would be if you didn't have that?!

An indoor stove (forget the microwave for a minute!) upon which to cook your food to ensure cleanliness, safety and taste? You have more than many people in the world.

Indoor heat, electricity? Think about it. What if each of these blessings were stripped from you one by one? Need I say more?

I could go on and on. Forget the overabundance of things like television, microwaves, 'entertainment centers'. Those are luxuries which ought to to make us blush. Jesus said "Guard against every kind of greed; a person's life consists not in the abundance of things he owns" (Lk 12:15). As someone said, you are happy, "if you only knew it".

So the next time you pass a faucet or take a shower, think about what you are doing. Be conscious. Don't wonder whether yours is as good as the neighbors' but rather live in awe that you have such blessings now. The next time you turn on the tea, think about what you are doing. And ask God that others who are without may also come to have such blessings and happiness.

2011-03-22T11:35:00.030-04:00

Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love

"All things shall be well
You shall see for yourself that
All manner of things shall be well.

"You will not be overcome.
God did not say you will not be troubled,
You will not be belaboured,
You will not be disquieted;
But God said, You will not be overcome.

"I looked at the hazel nut with the eye of my understanding and thought, what can this be? I was amazed that it could last for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding. It lasts and always will, because God loves it, and thus everything has being through the love of God.

--Julian of Norwich, Showings, translated and introduced by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A. and James Walsh, S.J. (Paulist Press, 1977) p 231

Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-c. 1413), the great English mystic who gave to the English language the word "Enjoy"

"Julian of Norwich (c. November 8, 1342 – c. 1416) is thought of as one of the greatest English mystics...Read it all
"font-weight:bold;">--->HuffPost calls It 'Paranoid': The Arizona Senate has passed a measure that would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion sought based on the sex or race of the baby...

2011-03-21T09:36:00.020-04:00

The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead

A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research
by Derek Freeman

Peter S. Cook Sydney, 1999

Outline

In 1928, in her best-selling, "classic scientific study" Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead reported that adolescents there experienced complete sexual freedom, without the phenomena associated with adolescence elsewhere. She declared that this exception, which she had hoped to find, established that human nature and behaviour is shaped entirely by culture, not biological inheritance. She and her colleagues then worked to establish this "cultural determinism" as the prevailing ideology in the social sciences.

In 1983, Derek Freeman showed that her account was seriously in error in many respects. He now documents how this happened. Having neglected her assigned study, Mead belatedly interrogated her two female companions about their sexual customs, and she was "comprehensively hoaxed". Freeman says she then "unwittingly misinformed the entire anthropological establishment, as well as the intelligentsia at large", so that for decades professors throughout the Western world, quoting Mead to support cultural determinism, misinformed their social science students about "an issue of fundamental human importance" - the nature of human nature.

When Freeman presented his case, rather than being lauded by the anthropological community, he was pilloried for criticising an icon. Now he presents decisive evidence including, finally, an account published in 1931 by Mead herself.

As one of the most eminent and influential social scientists, Mead's flawed evidence was relevant to intellectual culture and the social sciences for much of this century. Areas adversely influenced by Mead's misinformation included anthropology, psychology, Marxist ideology, post-modernist relativism, the sexual revolution, gender studies, feminism, childrearing, and childcare policies. Freeman's book is a starting point for unravelling and rethinking the ramifications of Mead's far-reaching but misinformed influence ...Read it all
________

--->TS Eliot's placid village, resists threat of housing invasion. Fury as South Somerset council plans giant housing estates that would link East Coker, immortalised in Eliot's Four Quartets poems, to nearby town of Yeovil...More

--->Fr. Robert Barron on legalistic 'fussiness' and a strategy for the New Evangelization...

--->Essays / Books / Opinions: the Rise and Fall of neoconservatism...

--->Investment bankers salivate over North Africa...

--->US Pulls Americans---Women and Children First---Out of Japan...Ten Thousand a Day Estimate...

--->George Galloway Says UN Intervention Is About Oil Only...

--->Putin condemns 'steady trend' of US military intervention...

--->Buffett says Japan quake a 'buying opportunity'...

--->Dangerous Monopoly: They who dominate academia, political lobbying and mass media 'own' a nation. Twitter may be in line for a multibillion dollar buyout by Facebook or Google...

--->National 'Apologies,' Scapegoats Endless... Very Inexpensive...

--->Kucinich: Obama could be impeached for attacking Libya...

--->Ellsberg and other Manning supporters arrested at Quantico gate...

--->Report: Colonel Gaddafi's son 'killed in kamikaze pilot attack on Tripoli barracks'...Lybians deny

--->Palin at Kotel tunnel: Israel too apologetic...

--->Catholic man imprisoned under Pakistan blasphemy law might have been murdered...

--->Emerging powers join in opposition over Libya strikes...

--->More Kucinich vs. Obama's / UN's Wars...See video

Isn't it odd that the nations which boast of egalitarianism show by their endless, vicious warmongering to be at least as much, or more, Patriarchal (but pathologically so) than their opponents? Jesus, the Lord, never taught such a Patriarchalism. "Blessed are the peacemakers," said the true Patriarch of the universe who transvalued the very concept 'Patriarch' as Abba. We spend trillions on war. How much on peace?

Sorrowful Mysteries, Tuesday

2011-03-21T08:17:00.005-04:00

Scandals

"AND he said to his disciples: It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come."---Luke 17:1

And as if to underscore the point, one of those whom the Lord chose was a traitor who turned him over to the Powers of this world for crucifixion. It looked hopeless, but on the Third Day everything shone with New Light.

2011-03-20T14:20:00.005-04:00

Time Out: Emergence

Don't shatter my emergence with nightmare intrusion
Your heartbeat is peace, and blood's infusion
In you is my bliss, no words yet express
but fullness of heart, mother, I wordless confess

2011-03-19T14:41:00.066-04:00

Tomislav Sunic's Temptation

I said here not long ago that I have been surveying both Far Left and Far Right blogs and websites on matters related to race, immigration and other areas. I also said that from what I could see, up to this point, each extreme flank has at least some truths which should be reckoned with in justice and in order to avert escalating tensions between cultures and races / ethnicities; and that I believe it would be a mistake to treat all such men and women of the Left or Right as being simply crazy.

I specifically cited Dr. Cornel West of Princeton University on the Left, an African-American, and Dr. Tomislav Sunic of Croatia, a writer and former professor on the Right.

The former I had read for some time, the latter I had only heard give some thoughtful talks which are today archived online. The brief focus which follows will be concerned with Mr. Sunic. In the few talks of his I heard he sounded like a reasonable, even gentle, scholarly man.

Having finally gotten around to read a few pieces he had written, however, I was dismayed to read the following in a piece he has written at a website called the Occidental Observer which site is a "mixed bag," to be sure, some of it quite reasonable, some of it repugnant to the Catholic mind. In a piece entitiled The Beauty and the Beast, Sunic wrote the following chilling words:

"The concept of eugenics is now associated with National Socialism and has come to be understood among the educated classes as the epitome of evil. In fact, however, eugenic measures were a standard family practice from time immemorial among European tribes. Undoubtedly, each family had to be prolific with a multitude of children able to work on the land or to guard the household. This meant allowing and frequently facilitating the death of children who were sickly or had disabilities. Until recently in the European countryside when a young girl and boy were about to start dating, parents first inquired about whether their respective fathers or mothers were alcoholics, whether somebody in their family tree had some serious illness, such as diabetes, tuberculosis, or some nervous disorder — or even inborn proclivity to criminal behavior. A semi-literate, yet intelligent European peasant or farmer did not have to be versed in sociobiology or have a degree in molecular biology in order to realize that hereditary diseases of the unfortunate partner could easily be transmitted to the newborns, with deadly social consequences for the entire family…After 1945 everything changed. The whole hell of moralizing and do-good pontificating broke loose."

I found this piece chilling because, as you can readily see, it was clearly and---I must say it---wickedly eugenicist in perspective. Sunic seems to have barely noticed in history that even in the so-called "best" of elite 'family trees' one finds innumerable instances of mental illness, criminal behavior of every kind, psychopathic war criminals, alcoholics, drug addicts, many kinds of nervous disorders, suicides, etc., etc. Even Nietzsche went insane, and probably not on account of any syphilis, as William Barrett pointed out (Click). Mr. Darwin's own family showed "evidence of inbreeding’s ill effects...(click)", the New York Times notes. The Hapsburgs, "the European royal family, nearly bred itself into extinction" (click). Still, eugenics simply "evolved" as an ideology over time.

But then again Sunic does implicitly acknowledge these elite "defective" branches when he writes, apparently approvingly, of the the horrific historical pagan and neo-pagan solution---forbidden in Christian cultures---that there was a way of dealing with these: namely by "frequently facilitating the death of [such disabled] children".

That, sir, is murder, I wrote to him. I can certainly see why Mr. Sunic came to reject his Christian faith and why he today spends more time defending some points of National Socialism than the cultures born of Christ's teachings regarding the poor, the weak, the sick, the vulnerable, etc.

It is one thing to seek a similar justice and pride for traditional Western culture, of the kind that has been enjoyed by the Japanese, Africans and Israelis-Zionists and others; there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking pride in the best (not the worst) European cultural and scientific achievements; Sunic is certainly correct when he insists that white skin is as good as any other race. But it is quite another thing altogether to suggest that we should "direct evolution" (click the Eugenics graphic he uses above) towards the culling of the vulnerable. That kind of neo-paganism ends in bloodlust, a Third Reich type ideology redux, I fear. We might recall how the 19th century English governments, following what appeared a Malthusian logic (Click), did little or nothing to save the Irish during the great famine when a million or more died and many were forced to emigrate. Yet the British could not defeat those "weak" Catholic Irish.

Very many of us in increasing numbers want to see a return to a sane, rational, immigration policy lest increasing conflict lead to civil wars for our grandchildren or their children; and to a renewed love for the true achievements of Western culture (not for nostalgia's sake, but towards a restored and balanced future). Love seeks to prevent conflicts, it does not ignore real problems. But it cannot be done on the basis of eugenics which as Malthus showed (click) often takes forms far beyond "good breeding". As Belloc said "The Church is Europe and Europe is the Church".

One must decide, we Christians believe, between Pontius Pilate’s brutal pagan Rome and the "weak" Nazarene who held out true ideals unto salvation for mankind. I hope Mr. Sunic will reconsider all of this. Because he has much to say that is otherwise thoughtful and true, just as Cornel West does at the other end of the spectrum. But it only takes a little poison...

One final note, while we should all seek to appreciate and indeed cultivate again our national and ethnic heritages, to view all areas of conflict drawn exclusively along ethic lines is to ignore the fact that oftentimes in history peoples of the very same color and traditions on every continent fought one another, sometimes ferociously, and for long periods. Jesus Christ taught that in the final analysis human conflict and wars are born of sin in the human heart. Peoples of various traditions, races and ethnicities have the opportunity to cultivate lasting friendships, whilst retaining and treasuring their unique differences.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ---James 4:1-2

--->UK: Locked up and sedated: Dementia patients are denied basic rights, says damning report...(click) Note: Reform now. Today it is these poor souls. Tomorrow it is you and yours. When Christ is suppressed, 'the love of many grows cold'.
________

--->Thought Provoking Video: Mr. Obama's call for conversation about race engaged...

--->Hypocrisy: Washington and the Civilians of Libya By Professor Lawrence Davidson...Whether you believe that the United Nations resolution authorizing extensive intervention in the Libyan civil war is justified or not...

---->Airstrikes begin on Libya targets... See Al Jazeera Live here...

--->Oxford University moves to defy Nick Clegg over state school admissions. Deputy prime minister's call to lower entry requirements for disadvantaged pupils rejected as 'nonsense' by academics...

--->Alexander Cockburn: Ahoy There, Nuke-Loving Greens, Welcome to the Real World! ---Read here

--->Counterpunch: Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total carbon emissions, hardly much of a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power...

--->Apple Under Fire For Approving homosexual cure iPhone App From Exodus International... [To deny that such person's can change and align themselves to nature's diversity is to suggest they are indeed biologically defective, and thus in our cruel time susceptible to abortion] ...Read it

--->Widow's Chernobyl nightmare still resonates...

--->Japan hit by another aftershock; Radioactivity found in food and water in Japan...

--->Veteran reporter Helen Thomas lashes Israel, again...(click); denies she is anti-Semitic but railed against Jewish lobbies she said controlled power in America, from the White House and Congress to Hollywood and financial markets.

--->Irish PM Enda Kenny to tell EU leaders: We WILL burn the bank bondholders to spare taxpayers. Enda Kenny will stun European leaders this week by telling them he intends to ‘burn’ bank bondholders, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal. He is determined to ease the pressure of debt on Irish taxpayers...

--->Libertarianism? I agree that given the ideal situation Libertarianism is no answer for a Catholic. But to the extent that it can disassemble---according to legal constitutional principles----an imperial mammoth neo-pagan government, it can amount to a returning to beginnings---in order to begin building again, only on proper principles. We cannot reasonably demand to start at the finish line.

Sorrowful Mysteries...

Note: At the very bottom of each page click "Older Posts" in order to view previous recent posts.

2011-03-19T11:02:00.001-04:00

Why Dads Are Afraid to Say No to Their Kids

There is nothing suspiciously right-wing or reactionary about parental authority, and it is OK, indeed essential, to impose it.

by Robert Crampton
The Times of London
January 28 2011

Boys need fathers who are prepared to use their paternal authority. So why are so many men with teenage sons afraid to?

Not long ago a friend introduced my wife and me to her new partner by bringing him along on a weekend away. This new partner brought his two sons from a previous relationship. The boys were aged about 12 and 10, and they came with a warning attached: if not exactly out of control, they were said to be ill-disciplined, not entirely socialized. In a word, trouble.

We met them and they seemed fine. Boisterous, physical, occasionally argumentative; no more so, however, than my own son, who is 13, or the dozens of other boys of a similar age with whom I come into contact. Then on the second day, the older one swore, quite vociferously, while their dad was elsewhere, so it fell to me to tell him that he couldn't do that.

"What?" he said, not truculently, more in a spirit of genuine inquiry, "Can't I swear here?"

"No," I said, "you can't." "Why not?" "Because I say so," I said. The boy looked shocked.

Clearly he'd not heard "because I say so" very often, if at all. I prepared for the worst, thinking that he might complain to his dad, and that it was all going to get embarrassing.

But he didn't complain. Quite the opposite. He digested the "because I say so" for a moment, and then he nodded, said, "Oh, OK", and went back off to play. It turned out that "because I say so" was enough. Was it even, perhaps, what this potty-mouthed youngster wanted to hear? Certainly it was what he needed to hear.

I make no claim for my own ability as a father. I haven't found the secret of paternal authority. I'm feeling my way like everyone else. My son swears too, sometimes, and if it's just the two of us, his mother and sister elsewhere, sometimes I let it go, depending on the words employed. And sometimes, even though I know that consistency is the very essence of
good parenting, I might let a word go one evening and not the next. Not good, but, hey, context is all.

And I recognize that my task with my boy is easier than the task of that father with his boys in two crucial respects. I only have the one son to worry about and he has two, and I am not divorced and he is. He has less time with his sons in which to impose his authority and when he is with them, his efforts are impeded by a measure of guilt about any impact his divorce may be having on them. I don't have any guilt, at least not of that sort.

But nor do I have what you might call an excess of liberalism impeding my efforts either. I at least recognize that my task is a task, that there is nothing suspiciously right-wing or reactionary about parental authority, and that it is OK, indeed essential, to impose it. I have no problem with "because I say so" and am surprised at the number of fathers who do, with their own sons, let alone anyone else's.

And I say "fathers" and "sons" deliberately because when we talk about a collapse of parental authority in this country what we really mean, stripped down, is a collapse of paternal authority over boys. In a couple of generations, in some parts of society, notably the disproportionately influential liberal metropolitan section circles in which I move, we have gone from a harassed mother saying "wait till your father gets home" to an indulgent father saying: "Oh, OK, but don't tell your mother." One extreme to another.

Victorian Dad to Soft-Touch Dad.

In most couples I know, it is the woman who says it's bedtime, the man says "another half hour won't hurt", the woman who is more inclined to set the boundaries, the man who tries to be mates, the woman who says no more PlayStation3, the man who says "Hey, that looks fun, can I have a go?" And thus it is the mother who grows ever more frustrated at her partner because he is unwilling to, or incapable of, imposing his authority on his son. And he is unwilling, in some cases, even to acknowledge that he has any authority.

But he has authority, and he needs to use it. The most obviously dire consequences of a lack of paternal authority arise when that authority is altogether absent, as it often is for the boys who cause such problems in our streets and schools. It is accepted that many such fatherless boys find the hierarchy and security they crave in gangs.

Years ago, I interviewed Jack Straw when he was home secretary. "If we could solve the problem of 14-year-old boys," he told me, only half-jokingly, "we could solve half the problems of criminal behaviour."

But the State should be in the business of solving the problem of 14-year-old boys only as a last resort. Really, it's the father's job. It's easy to blame absent dads at the bottom of society.

But you don't have to live with a single mother on a rough estate for paternal authority to be absent. All you need is a father unwilling to use the authority that his role confers.

At the absolute basic level of physical power, at some stage in his early to mid-teens, a boy will outgrow and outmuscle his mother. He probably will outstrip his dad too, but not for a few more years, by which time, all being well, the boy is mature enough not to throw his weight around. At 13, 14, 15 he isn't mature enough.

For those years, it is the father's job to teach the boy the rules and responsibilities that come with physical dominance. The first of these is that you do not exert that dominance unless you absolutely have to, the only exception allowed being the dominance a father must -- not often, but sometimes -- exert over his son.

There was a report by the charity Parentline Plus last autumn after its helpline received more than 22,000 calls from parents concerned about their children's aggression. Seven thousand calls detailed actual physical abuse. The problem peaked between the ages of 13 and 15.

Although the report did not specify, I think that it is safe to say that most of the aggressors were boys. Those families -- and there are many -- dominated by surly, abusive, sometimes aggressive teenage boys are families in which the father has failed to assert himself.

And by asserting himself I absolutely don't mean a whack. The best, most authoritative fathers that I know have never laid a finger on their sons. Besides being reprehensible, hitting your child represents authority abandoned rather than authority demonstrated.

But I do mean standing tall, being physically assertive, staring the lad down if necessary, a touch of old man rather than new man. You are his old man after all. It's not an equal relationship. You're not mates. Later, if you've done your job, when your son is 17, 18, a nice young man, a credit to you and so forth, then you can be mates. But not when he's 13.

I'm not saying that my son is a monster. Far from it. Ninety nine per cent of the time, he's a sweet boy. But then, they're all sweet boys at 13. If you want them still to be sweet at 17, you have to show them who's boss.
A lot of dads throw up their hands when their son is about 13, saying that their offspring's behaviour from then on is all down to the school and peer pressure. That's completely wrong, a feeble excuse for laziness or cowardice. Many dads simply don't want to take the initial hit of lost popularity.

The truth is, during those years when the boy is trying to turn into a man, that's when your influence should be at its greatest, that's your time to shine. And an awful lot of men blow it.

And then their sons can turn into the sort of adolescents who are a complete bloody pain for everybody around them, not only parents but siblings, teachers, neighbours, everyone.

None of this should be controversial, and in much of the country, it isn't. But in some circles,those I mentioned, the notion of a father with authority is thought of as synonymous with an authoritarian father, and thus easily ridiculed as a return to Victorian values, or an attempt to wind the clock back to the 1950s. I don't want to wind the clock back to the 1950s, still less the 1850s. It's easy to posit the one model of paternalism -- an absurdly old- fashioned authoritarianism -- in order to serve as an excuse for the anything-goes ultra-liberalism adopted by many. The reality is the ultra-liberalism is often a convenient ideological cloak for not being bothered to do the right thing.

2011-03-19T10:52:00.004-04:00

Martin Luther King No Communist

Martin Luther King told "Face the Nation" why he could never be a Communist.

2011-03-19T00:09:00.006-04:00

Landmark Ruling: Crucifixes in Italy’s Classrooms Ok Says European Court of Human Rights

STRASBOURG, France, March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Displaying crucifixes in schools does not violate the rights of non-Christian students, ruled the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) today.

The court said that there was no evidence “that the display of such a symbol on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils.”

Italy’s foreign minister welcomed the decision. “The decision underlines, above all, the rights of citizens to defend their own values and their own identities,” Franco Frattini said, according to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

“I hope that following this verdict Europe will begin to examine issues of tolerance and religious freedom with the same courage,”

The Vatican also welcomed the decision. It is “an important and historic ruling” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

The high-profile case began when Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born Italian citizen, requested that the council of the public school her two children attend, in the Italian province of Padua, remove crucifixes from its classrooms. After her request was refused, Lautsi appealed to the Regional Administrative Tribunal, which also dismissed her case.

Lautsi then appealed the decision to the ECHR, which ruled in November 2009 that crucifixes in Italy’s public school classrooms must go.

That decision sent shockwaves through the predominantly Catholic country, with numerous politicians expressing their outrage at the perceived slight to Italy’s sovereignty and strong Catholic tradition. In reaction to the decision, several towns passed measures to mandate the display of the crucifixes, which before had only been customary.

However, Italy appealed the 2009 decision, and the lawsuit was referred to the ECHR Grand Chamber in March 2010.

Today the Grand Chamber overruled the ECHR’s previous ruling, and found that there has been no violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A top attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which had been actively involved in the case, today emphasized just how much was at stake in the case.

“A loss in this case would have meant, in essence, that it would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights to have religious symbols in any state institution anywhere in Europe,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who was present at the court when the decision was issued.

“That would have set a dangerous example for the rest of the world.”

Kiska said that the Grand Chamber did “the right thing.” “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses,” he said.

2011-03-18T03:16:00.006-04:00

Pope Leo XIII and the United States

From the Catholic Encyclopedia 1910

The United States at all times attracted the attention and admiration of Pope Leo. He confimed the decrees of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884), and raised to the cardinalate Archbishop Gibbons of that city (1886). His favourable action (1888), at the instance of Cardinal Gibbons, towards the Knights of Labour won him general approval. In 1889 he sent a papal delegate, Monsignor Satolli, to represent him at Washington on the occasion of the foundation of the Catholic University of America. The Apostolic Delegation at Washington was founded in 1892; in the same year appeared his Encyclical on Christopher Columbus. In 1893 he participated in the Chicago Exposition held to commemorate the fourth centenary of the discovery of America; this he did by the loan of valuable relics, and by sending Monsignor Satolli to represent him. In 1895 he addressed to the hierarchy of the United States his memorable Encyclical "Longinqua Oceani Spatia"; in 1898 appeared his letter "Testem Benevolentiæ" to Cardinal Gibbons on "Americanism"; and in 1902 his admirable letter to the American hierarchy in response to their congratulations on his pontifical jubilee.

Pope Leo XIII On America and George Washington

With thanks to the Vox Nova website, Feb 22, 2009:

On the 277th birthday of George Washington, it is appropriate to recall these words of Pope Leo in regard to the Father of our Country:

“Nor, perchance did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure-a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. But the best and strongest support of morality is religion.”

Here is the complete encyclical:

LONGINQUA
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON
CATHOLICISM IN THE
UNITED STATES

To the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States.

We traverse in spirit and thought the wide expanse of ocean; and although We have at other times addressed you in writing – chiefly when We directed Encyclical Letters to the bishops of the Catholic world-yet have We now resolved to speak to you separately, trusting that We shall be, God willing, of some assistance to the Catholic cause amongst you. To this We apply Ourselves with the utmost zeal and care; because We highly esteem and love exceedingly the young and vigorous American nation, in which We plainly discern latent forces for the advancement alike of civilization and of Christianity.

2. Not long ago, when your whole nation, as was fitting, celebrated, with grateful recollection and every manifestation of joy, the completion of the fourth century since the discovery of America, We, too, commemorated together with you that most auspicious event, sharing in your rejoicings with equal good-will. Nor were We on that occasion content with offering prayers at a distance for your welfare and greatness. It was Our wish to be in some manner present with you in your festivities. Hence We cheerfully sent one who should represent Our person. Not without good reason did We take part in your celebration. For when America was, as yet, but a new-born babe, uttering in its cradle its first feeble cries, the Church took it to her bosom and motherly embrace. Columbus, as We have elsewhere expressly shown, sought, as the primary fruit of his voyages and labors, to open a pathway for the Christian faith into new lands and new seas. Keeping this thought constantly in view, his first solicitude, wherever he disembarked, was to plant upon the shore the sacred emblem of the cross. Wherefore, like as the Ark of Noe, surmounting the overflowing waters, bore the seed of Israel together with the remnants of the human race, even thus did the barks launched by Columbus upon the ocean carry into regions beyond the seas as well the germs of mighty States as the principles of the Catholic religion.

3. This is not the place to give a detailed account of what thereupon ensued. Very rapidly did the light of the Gospel shine upon the savage tribes discovered by the Ligurian. For it is sufficiently well known how many of the children of Francis, as well as of Dominic and of Loyola, were accustomed during the two following centuries to voyage thither for this purpose; how they cared for the colonies brought over from Europe; but primarily and chiefly how they converted the natives from superstition to Christianity, sealing their labors in many instances with the testimony of their blood. The names newly given to so many of your towns and rivers and mountains and lakes teach and clearly witness how deeply your beginnings were marked with the footprints of the Catholic Church.

4. Nor, perchance did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure-a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. But the best and strongest support of morality is religion. She, by her very nature, guards and defends all the principles on which duties are founded, and setting before us the motives most powerful to influence us, commands us to live virtuously and forbids us to transgress. Now what is the Church other than a legitimate society, founded by the will and ordinance of Jesus Christ for the preservation of morality and the defence of religion? For this reason have We repeatedly endeavored, from the summit of the pontifical dignity, to inculcate that the Church, whilst directly and immediately aiming at the salvation of souls and the beatitude which is to be attained in heaven, is yet, even in the order of temporal things, the fountain of blessings so numerous and great that they could not have been greater or more numerous had the original purpose of her institution been the pursuit of happiness during the life which is spent on earth.

5. That your Republic is .progressing and developing by giant strides is patent to all; and this holds good in religious matters also. For even as your cities, in the course of one century, have made a marvellous increase in wealth and power, so do we behold the Church, from scant and slender beginnings, grown with rapidity to be great and exceedingly flourishing. Now if, on the one hand, the increased riches and resources of your cities are justly attributed to the talents and active industry of the American people, on the other hand, the prosperous condition of Catholicity must be ascribed, first indeed, to the virtue, the ability, and the prudence of the bishops and clergy; but in so slight measure also, to the faith and generosity of the Catholic laity. Thus, while the different classes exerted their best energies, you were enabled to erect unnumbered religious and useful institutions, sacred edifices, schools for the instruction of youth, colleges for the higher branches, homes for the poor, hospitals for the sick, and convents and monasteries. As for what more closely touches spiritual interests, which are based upon the exercise of Christian virtues, many facts have been brought to Our notice, whereby We are animated with hope and filled with joy, namely, that the numbers of the secular and regular clergy are steadily augmenting, that pious sodalities and confraternities are held in esteem, that the Catholic parochial schools, the Sunday-schools for imparting Christian doctrine, and summer schools are in a flourishing condition; moreover, associations for mutual aid, for the relief of the indigent, for the promotion of temperate living, add to all this the many evidences of popular piety.

6. The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority.

7. For Our part We have left nothing undone, as far as circumstances permitted, to preserve and more solidly establish amongst you the Catholic religion. With this intent, We have, as you are well aware, turned Our attention to two special objects: first, the advancement of learning; second, a perfecting of methods in the management of Church affairs. There already, indeed, existed several distinguished universities. We, however, thought it advisable that there should be one founded by authority of the Apostolic See and endowed by Us with all suitable powers, in which Catholic professors might instruct those devoted to the pursuit of learning. The design was to begin with philosophy and theology, adding, as means and circumstances would allow, the remaining branches, those particularly which the present age has introduced or perfected. An education cannot be deemed complete which takes no notice of modern sciences. It is obvious that in the existing keen competition of talents, and the widespread and, in itself, noble and praiseworthy passion for knowledge, Catholics ought to be not followers but leaders. It is necessary, therefore, that they should cultivate every refinement of learning, and zealously train their minds to the discovery of truth and the investigation, so far as it is possible, of the entire domain of nature. This in every age has been the desire of the Church; upon the enlargement of the boundaries of the sciences has she been wont to bestow all possible labor and energy. By a letter, therefore, dated the seventh day of March, in the year of Our Lord 1889, directed to you, Venerable Brethren, We established at Washington, your capital city, esteemed by a majority of you a very proper seat for the higher studies, a university for the instruction of young men desirous of pursuing advanced courses. In announcing this matter to Our Venerable Brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, in Consistory, We expressed the wish that it should be regarded as the fixed law of the university to unite erudition and learning with soundness of faith and to imbue its students not less with religion than with scientific culture. To the Bishops of the United States We entrusted the task of establishing a suitable course of studies and of supervising the discipline of the students; and We conferred the office and authority of Chancellor, as it is called, upon the Archbishop of Baltimore. And, by divine favor, a quite happy beginning was made. For, without any delay, whilst you were celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of your ecclesiastical hierarchy, under the brightest auspices, in the presence of Our delegate, the divinity classes were opened. From that time onward We know that theological science has been imparted by the diligence of eminent men the renown of whose talents and learning receives a fitting crown in their recognized loyalty and devotion to the Apostolic See. Nor is it long since We were apprised that, thanks to the liberality of a pious priest, a new building had been constructed, in which young men, as well cleric as lay, are to receive instruction in the natural sciences and in literature. From Our knowledge of the American character, We are fully confident that the example set by this noble man will incite others of your citizens to imitate him; they will not fail to realize that liberality exercised towards such an object will be repaid by the very greatest advantages to the public.

8. No one can be ignorant how powerfully similar institutions of learning, whether originally founded by the Roman Church herself from time to time or approved and promoted by her legislation, have contributed to the spread of knowledge and civilization in every part of Europe. Even in Our own day, though other instances might be given, it is enough to mention the University of Louvain, to which the entire Belgian nation ascribes its almost daily increase in prosperity and glory. Equally abundant will be the benefits proceeding from the Washington University, if the professors and students (as We doubt not they will) be mindful of Our injunctions, and, shunning party spirit and strife, conciliate the good opinion of the people and the clergy.

9. We wish now, Venerable Brethren, to commend to your affection and to the generosity of your people the college which Our predecessor, Pius IX, founded in this city for the ecclesiastical training of young men from North America, and which We took care to place upon a firm basis by a letter dated the twenty-fifth day of October, in the year of Our Lord 1884. We can make this appeal the more confidently, because the results obtained from this institution have by no means belied the expectations commonly entertained regarding it. You yourselves can testify that during its brief existence it has sent forth a very large number of exemplary priests, some of whom have been promoted for their virtue and learning to the highest degrees of ecclesiastical dignity. We are, therefore, thoroughly persuaded that you will continue to be solicitous to send hither select young men who are in training to become the hope of the Church. For they will carry back to their homes and utilize for the general good the wealth of intellectual attainments and moral excellence which they shall have acquired in the city of Rome.

10. The love which We cherish towards the Catholics of your nation moved Us, likewise, to turn Our attention at the very beginning of Our Pontificate to the convocation of a third Plenary Council of Baltimore. Subsequently, when the archbishops, at Our invitation, had come to Rome, We diligently inquired from them what they deemed most conducive to the common good. We finally, and after mature deliberation, ratified by apostolic authority the decrees of the prelates assembled at Baltimore. In truth the event has proven, and still proves, that the decrees of Baltimore were salutary and timely in the extreme. Experience has demonstrated their power for the maintenance of discipline; for stimulating the intelligence and zeal of the clergy; for defending and developing the Catholic education of youth. Wherefore, Venerable Brethren, if We make acknowledgement of your activity in these matters, if We laud your firmness tempered with prudence, We but pay tribute due to your merit; for We are fully sensible that so great a harvest of blessings could by no means have so swiftly ripened to maturity, had you not exerted yourselves, each to the utmost of his ability, sedulously and faithfully to carry into effect the statutes you had wisely framed at Baltimore.

11. But when the Council of Baltimore had concluded its labors, the duty still remained of putting, so to speak, a proper and becoming crown upon the work. This, We perceived, could scarcely be done in a more fitting manner than through the due establishment by the Apostolic See of an American Legation. Accordingly, as you are well aware, We have done this. By this action, as We have elsewhere intimated, We have wished, first of all, to certify that, in Our judgment and affection, America occupies the same place and rights as other States, be they ever so mighty and imperial. In addition to this We had in mind to draw more closely the bonds of duty and friendship which connect you and so many thousands of Catholics with the Apostolic See. In fact, the mass of the Catholics understood how salutary Our action was destined to be; they saw, moreover, that it accorded with the usage and policy of the Apostolic See. For it has been, from earliest antiquity, the custom of the Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of the divinely bestowed gift of the primacy in the administration of the Church of Christ to send forth legates to Christian nations and peoples. And they did this, not by an adventitious but an inherent right. For “the Roman Pontiff, upon whom Christ has conferred ordinary and immediate jurisdiction, as well over all and singular churches, as over all and singular pastors and faithful,(1) since he cannot personally visit the different regions and thus exercise the pastoral office over the flock entrusted to him, finds it necessary from time to time, in the discharge of the ministry imposed on him, to despatch legates into different parts of the world, according as the need arises; who, supplying his place, may correct errors, make the rough ways plain, and administer to the people confided to their care increased means of salvation.”(2)

12. But how unjust and baseless would be the suspicion, should it anywhere exist, that the powers conferred on the legate are an obstacle to the authority of the bishops! Sacred to Us (more than to any other) are the rights of those “whom the Holy Ghost has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God.” That these rights should remain intact in every nation in every part of the globe, We both desire and ought to desire, the more so since the dignity of the individual bishop is by nature so interwoven with the dignity of the Roman Pontiff that any measure which benefits the one necessarily protects the other. “My honor is the honor of the Universal Church. My honor is the unimpaired vigor of My brethren. Then am I truly honored when to each one due honor is not denied.”(3) Therefore, since it is the office and function of an apostolic legate, with whatsoever powers he may be vested, to execute the mandates and interpret the will of the Pontiff who sends him, thus, so far from his being of any detriment to the ordinary power of the bishops, he will rather bring an accession of stability and strength. His authority will possess no slight weight for preserving in the multitude a submissive spirit; in the clergy discipline and due reverence for the bishops, and in the bishops mutual charity and an intimate union of souls. And since this union, so salutary and desirable, consists mainly in harmony of thought and action, he will, no doubt, bring it to pass that each one of you shall persevere in the diligent administration of his diocesan affairs; that one shall not impede another in matters of government; that one shall not pry into the counsels and conduct of another; finally, that with disagreements eradicated and mutual esteem maintained, you may all work together with combined energies to promote the glory of the American Church and the general welfare. It is difficult to estimate the good results which will flow from this concord of the bishops. Our own people will receive edification; and the force of example will have its effect on those without who will be persuaded by this argument alone that the divine apostolate has passed by inheritance to the ranks of the Catholic episcopate.

13. Another consideration claims our earnest attention. All intelligent men are agreed, and We Ourselves have with pleasure intimated it above, that America seems destined for greater things. Now, it is Our wish that the Catholic Church should not only share in, but help to bring about, this prospective greatness. We deem it right and proper that she should, by availing herself of the opportunities daily presented to her, keep equal step with the Republic in the march of improvement, at the same time striving to the utmost, by her virtue and her institutions, to aid in the rapid growth of the States. Now, she will attain both these objects the more easily and abundantly, in proportion to the degree in which the future shall find her constitution perfected. But what is the meaning of the legation of which we are speaking, or what is its ultimate aim except to bring it about that the constitution of the Church shall be strengthened, her discipline better fortified? Wherefore, We ardently desire that this truth should sink day by day more deeply into the minds of Catholics-namely, that they can in no better way safeguard their own individual interests and the common good than by yielding a hearty submission and obedience to the Church. Your faithful people, however, are scarcely in need of exhortation on this point; for they are accustomed to adhere to the institutions of Catholicity with willing souls and a constancy worthy of all praise.

14. To one matter of the first importance and fraught with the greatest blessings it is a pleasure at this place to refer, on account of the holy firmness in principle and practice respecting it which, as a rule, rightly prevails amongst you; We mean the Christian dogma of the unity and indissolubility of marriage; which supplies the firmest bond of safety not merely to the family but to society at large. Not a few of your citizens, even of those who dissent from us in other doctrines, terrified by the licentiousness of divorce, admire and approve in this regard the Catholic teaching and the Catholic customs. They are led to this judgment not less by love of country than by the wisdom of the doctrine. For difficult it is to imagine a more deadly pest to the community than the wish to declare dissoluble a bond which the law of God has made perpetual and inseverable. Divorce “is the fruitful cause of mutable marriage contracts; it diminishes mutual affection; it supplies a pernicious stimulus to unfaithfulness; it is injurious to the care and education of children; it gives occasion to the breaking up of domestic society; it scatters the seeds of discord among families; it lessens and degrades the dignity of women, who incur the danger of being abandoned when they shall have subserved the lust of their husbands. And since nothing tends so effectually as the corruption of morals to ruin families and undermine the strength of kingdoms, it may easily be perceived that divorce is especially hostile to the prosperity of families and States.”(4)

15. As regards civil affairs, experience has shown how important it is that the citizens should be upright and virtuous. In a free State, unless justice be generally cultivated, unless the people be repeatedly and diligently urged to observe the precepts and laws of the Gospel, liberty itself may be pernicious. Let those of the clergy, therefore, who are occupied with the instruction of the multitude, treat plainly this topic of the duties of citizens, so that all may understand and feel the necessity, in political life, of conscientiousness, self restraint, and integrity; for that cannot be lawful in public which is unlawful in private affairs. On this whole subject there are to be found, as you know, in the encyclical letters written by Us from time to time in the course of Our pontificate, many things which Catholics should attend to and observe. In these writings and expositions We have treated of human liberty, of the chief Christian duties, of civil government, and of the Christian constitution of States, drawing Our principles as well from the teaching of the Gospels as from reason. They, then, who wish to be good citizens and discharge their duties faithfully may readily learn from Our Letters the ideal of an upright life. In like manner, let the priests be persistent in keeping before the minds of the people the enactments of the Third Council of Baltimore, particularly those which inculcate the virtue of temperance, the frequent use of the sacraments and the observance of the just laws and institutions of the Republic.

16. Now, with regard to entering societies, extreme care should be taken not to be ensnared by error. And We wish to be understood as referring in a special manner to the working classes, who assuredly have the right to unite in associations for the promotion of their interests; a right acknowledged by the Church and unopposed by nature. But it is very important to take heed with whom they are to associate, lest whilst seeking aid for the improvement of their condition they may be imperilling far weightier interests. The most effectual precaution against this peril is to determine with themselves at no time or in any matter to be parties to the violation of justice. Any society, therefore, which is ruled by and servilely obeys persons who are not steadfast for the right and friendly to religion is capable of being extremely prejudicial to the interests as well of individuals as of the community; beneficial it cannot be. Let this conclusion, therefore, remain firm-to shun not only those associations which have been openly condemned by the judgment of the Church, but those also which, in the opinion of intelligent men, and especially of the bishops, are regarded as suspicious and dangerous.

17. Nay, rather, unless forced by necessity to do otherwise, Catholics ought to prefer to associate with Catholics, a course which will be very conducive to the safeguarding of their faith. As presidents of societies thus formed among themselves, it will be well to appoint either priests or upright laymen of weight and character, guided by whose counsels they should endeavor peacefully to adopt and carry into effect such measures as may seem most advantageous to their interests, keeping in view the rules laid down by Us in Our Encyclical, Rerum Novarum. Let them, however, never allow this to escape their memory: that whilst it is proper and desirable to assert and secure the rights of the many, yet this is not to be done by a violation of duty; and that these are very important duties; not to touch what belongs to another; to allow every one to be free in the management of his own affairs; not to hinder any one to dispose of his services when he please and where he please. The scenes of violence and riot which you witnessed last year in your own country sufficiently admonish you that America too is threatened with the audacity and ferocity of the enemies of public order. The state of the times, therefore, bids Catholics to labor for the tranquillity of the commonwealth, and for this purpose to obey the laws, abhor violence, and seek no more than equity or justice permits.

18. Towards these objects much may be contributed by those who have devoted themselves to writing, and in particular by those who are engaged on the daily press. We are aware that already there labor in this field many men of skill and experience, whose diligence demands words of praise rather than of encouragement. Nevertheless, since the thirst for reading and knowledge is so vehement and widespread amongst you, and since, according to circumstances, it can be productive either of good or evil, every effort should be made to increase the number of intelligent and well-disposed writers who take religion for their guide and virtue for their constant companion. And this seems all the more necessary in America, on account of the familiar intercourse and intimacy between Catholics and those who are estranged from the Catholic name, a condition of things which certainly exacts from our people great circumspection and more than ordinary firmness. It is necessary to instruct, admonish, strengthen and urge them on to the pursuit of virtue and to the faithful observance, amid so many occasions of stumbling, of their duties towards the Church. It is, of course, the proper function of the clergy to devote their care and energies to this great work; but the age and the country require that journalists should be equally zealous in this same cause and labor in it to the full extent of their powers. Let them, however, seriously reflect that their writings, if not positively prejudicial to religion, will surely be of slight service to it unless in concord of minds they all seek the same end. They who desire to be of real service to the Church, and with their pens heartily to defend the Catholic cause, should carry on the conflict with perfect unanimity, and, as it were, with serried ranks, for they rather inflict than repel war if they waste their strength by discord. In like manner their work, instead of being profitable and fruitful, becomes injurious and disastrous whenever they presume to call before their tribunal the decisions and acts of bishops, and, casting off due reverence, cavil and find fault; not perceiving how great a disturbance of order, how many evils are thereby produced. Let them, then, be mindful of their duty, and not overstep the proper limits of moderation. The bishops, placed in the lofty position of authority, are to be obeyed, and suitable honor befitting the magnitude and sanctity of their office should be paid them. Now, this reverence, “which it is lawful to no one to neglect,” should of necessity be eminently conspicuous and exemplary in Catholic journalists. For journals, naturally circulating far and wide, come daily into the hands of everybody, and exert no small influence upon the opinions and morals of the multitude.(5)

19. We have Ourselves, on frequent occasions, laid down many rules respecting the duties of a good writer; many of which were unanimously inculcated as well by the Third Council of Baltimore as by the archbishops in their meeting at Chicago in the year 1893. Let Catholic writers, therefore, bear impressed on their minds Our teachings on this point as well as yours; and let them resolve that their entire method of writing shall be thereby guided, if they indeed desire, as they ought to desire, to discharge their duty well.

20. Our thoughts now turn to those who dissent from us in matters of Christian faith; and who shall deny that, with not a few of them, dissent is a matter rather of inheritance than of will? How solicitous We are of their salvation, with what ardor of soul We wish that they should be at length restored to the embrace of the Church, the common mother of all, Our Apostolic Epistle, “Praeclara,” has in very recent times declared. Nor are we destitute of all hope; for He is present and bath a care whom all things obey and who laid down His life that He might “gather in one the children of God who were dispersed.” (John xi. 52).

21. Surely we ought not to desert them nor leave them to their fancies; but with mildness and charity draw them to us, using every means of persuasion to induce them to examine closely every part of the Catholic doctrine, and to free themselves from preconceived notions. In this matter, if the first place belongs to the bishops and clergy, the second belongs to the laity, who have it in their power to aid the apostolic efforts of the clergy by the probity of their morals and the integrity of their lives. Great is the force of example; particularly with those who are earnestly seeking the truth, and who, from a certain inborn virtuous disposition, are striving to live an honorable and upright life, to which class very many of your fellow-citizens belong. If the spectacle of Christian virtues exerted the powerful influence over the heathens blinded, as they were, by inveterate superstition, which the records of history attest, shall we think it powerless to eradicate error in the case of those who have been initiated into the Christian religion?

22. Finally, We cannot pass over in silence those whose long-continued unhappy lot implores and demands succor from men of apostolic zeal; We refer to the Indians and the negroes who are to be found within the confines of America, the greatest portion of whom have not yet dispelled the darkness of superstition. How wide a field for cultivation! How great a multitude of human beings to be made partakers of the blessing derived through Jesus Christ!

23. Meanwhile, as a presage of heavenly graces and a testimony of Our benevolence, We most lovingly in the Lord impart to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people, Our Apostolic Benediction.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, on the feast of the Epiphany, the sixth day of January, 1895, in the seventeenth year of Our Pontificate.

2011-03-16T05:31:00.047-04:00

WikiRebels - The Wikileaks Documentary (57 mins full version)"From summer 2010 until now, SVT (Swedish Public Television) has been following the secretive media organization WikiLeaks and its enigmatic Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange. "The documentary looks at WikiLeaks' philosophy and operations, some of its famous disclosures including the Kenya report, the Guantanamo manuals, Kaupthing, Trafigura, the Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs, the US administration's reactions, and the lead-up to the Cablegate release." --->Julian Assange "Exposes Australian Prime Minister" March 14... --->WikiLeaks cable: US government has considered grants for Mexican pro-abortion groups... --->US ambassador to Mexico resigns due to Wikileaks revelations...The above presented for informational / news purposes only. Make up your own mind.
--->"Anonymous" Hackers Release Bank of America Emails, Allegedly Showing "Corruption and Fraud"...

--->Caritas Japan working to rebuild lives of disaster victims...

--->Family expert accuses Spain of turning society against human life...

--->Japan Temporarily Abandons Nuclear Plant Due To Radiation Concerns...Updates...

--->The Priests Who Survived the Atomic Bomb...

--->Lower Education: "Fun" Commencement Speakers and Live Sex as academic freedom at Northwestern...

--->Speaking of "Education," Stanley Fish, the Destroyer, who makes me fantasize about seeking out an obsessed Captain Ahab to take down his academic blubber, "wanted to write a book about The Fugitive," (the original TV show) since in his pop mind it "celebrated and anatomised the ethic of mid-20th-century liberalism...[So, the show's creator, Roy] Huggins met Fish at the airport, chauffeured him to the events [good life, no?], had him round to dinner and arranged for him to interview writers, directors and actors who had worked on the series. Then the fan made his fatal move: Fish scribbled down an outline for a new film version during downtime in his hotel room, and instead of throwing it away or pitching it to HBO at a later date, gave it to Huggins to read the next morning...Fish compares it to Les Misérables, though the series reads to me [Jenny Diski] like Crime and Punishment [Well, one must suppose that in each case it's a point of view, however stretched the analogy, given today's general postmodern psychosis in academia where authors are--or were--said not to exist, that interpretation is only emergent, subjective, culturally conditioned, because we "write" the meaning "into" the text as we read]..."the moment I showed Huggins the outline," the Minnow says, "I was no longer the Duke professor who was going to honour [!] his creation by making it the object of an academic analysis. I had become instead a competitor trying to horn in on the action...[Cut to the chase] This, Fish suggests, is ...positive liberty: The liberty to choose what one will be mastered by, as opposed to the state of negative liberty in which you are mastered by nothing and can therefore walk away from anything"...Read it all

--->But hold on, there's more than poisonous Fish in the academic sea. Some students are hungry: "Philosophy is among the fastest-growing A-level subjects in Britain. This suggests that despite the pressure from governments to increase the teaching of technical, career-oriented subjects, a lot of sixth-formers have a stubborn interest in more traditional enquiries about the meaning of life. Also near the top of the list of fast-growing subjects is Religious Studies; and this again seems to confound the experts. Notwithstanding constant announcements that religion in educated Western Europe is "on the way out", many intelligent young people seem to have a keen desire to learn about traditional spiritual frameworks of human understanding...But...

--->Vatican consultant responds to Cardinal Mahoney's ‘Christ gave Judas communion’ argument...

--->No Promised Land: Thirteen killed in Cairo after clashes between Christians and Muslims. The Muslims torched the church amid an escalation of tensions over a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian that set off a violent feud between the couple's families. The officials said all 13 fatalities died of gunshot wounds...(click) [Note: Common sense, for pity's sake, must be resurrected: Do not birds of a feather flock best together? [Once] Catholic countries should give refuge to persecuted Christians when people do not live peacefully together, as Cardinal Biffi urged...(Click). Utopian immigration schemes are foolish and sometimes lethal. What will it be like for our grandchildren in Europe if such negligence continues? It does not take a visionary to see blood on the horizon if reason fails. Qui bono?]

--->Senate Rejects House Bill De-Funding Planned Parenthood. (Click) [This way everyone can cynically say they tried...A constitutional amendment is needed to end the game.]

--->A Different Moral Issue: Is Masturbation Always a Mortal Sin? Some thoughtful replies for those seeking help, not excuses, at Catholic Answers... Confession is far more merciful and easier than the Talmud which in places prescribed death for the act (Babylon Talmud, Tractate Niddah, p. 13a---wikipedia).

The Pathology of the Intellect by Graham Walker

"...Long and sad is the list of prominent intellectuals who confirm the proposition that sin corrodes reason. On this score I would recommend to you Paul Johnson’s book, titled simply Intellectuals, which shows how in case after case the noxious doctrines of influential thinkers were projections of their morally disordered lives. In a slightly more recent book, titled Degenerate Moderns, E. Michael Jones uses biographical material to demonstrate this thesis in detail. In the case of Sigmund Freud, Jones proposes that Freud’s doctrines, which so decisively shaped the modern discipline of psychology, were themselves shaped by Freud’s guilt over the incest he committed with his wife’s sister, which he projected onto the whole human race...Read it all

--->Simcha Fisher recommends Insomnia even during Lent...

--->Japan's worst nightmare: Soaring death toll set to hit 25,000 as it emerges another town has 10,000 people missing...

--->Wikileaks: Japanese power companies hid nuclear safety problems...

--->Soul-shaking sorrows...

--->UN War: Lybia YES, Black Rwanda NO...Steven Lewis said Rwanda had "nothing to sell and nothing to buy..." (click); happy to force-sterilize them however...(click)

--->The moment nuclear plant chief wept as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people...

2011-03-15T18:29:00.000-04:00

God only knows...

Recently my wife was sick. Three weeks in the hospital. But all is well now, thank God. Hopefully there will be many more years yet for us. But every illness is a reminder.

Brian Wilson contemplated the theoretical death of a loved one when he wrote this song which I have always loved.

My heart goes out to any who have fretted over the illness of one they love.

We just listened to this again. Shhhh....don't tell her I put it up.

2011-03-15T08:40:00.077-04:00

The Groans of a Fallen World

"For we know that creation groans and travails in pain, even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, we wait for it with patience." ---Rom 8: 22-25

Like everyone else I have been watching in pain everything that is happening in our world today, to this very moment. The jaw drops, and we can only gawk at what is presented before our eyes in Japan, earthquakes, Tsunamis, nuclear accidents and all the human suffering. Christians have always known that there is an intimate link between the moral and physical orders of the universe. And doubtless we see that link more than ever with each passing day. We reap what we sow---and then some. [I am referring to the nuclear accident here. This may not have been clear this morning].

If we determine that in order to sustain our modern Babel of skyscraper-greed and hubris, our endless wars and rumors of wars on route to conquests and empires of futility---if we determine that to sustain it all we "must" have Frankensteinian nuclear powered technology---born of Einstein's (Click) and others' Great Misdeed--- it is probably only a matter of time before it comes back to turn on us with a vengeance. I'm not moralizing abstractly here, this is up-front-and-personal for all of us. Our own lives are at stake---to say nothing of our souls.

Don't believe in sin? Better look around [and within].

We fancy ourselves to be great conquerors marching under sublime-sounding banners and cliches---only to find that we are already nearly conquered---not by foreign powers but by Reality, by creation, by the works of our own hands, by God Himself.

When we were children we were told by our fathers "don't play with fire unless you want to get burned". But we spurned that wisdom for so many lies. We have rejected balance, simplicity, and have sought after the grotesquely unnatural in the name of "Enlightenment". So who now, after seeing so many near or real nuclear power catastrophes, can doubt that one day a nuclear war could likewise be triggered by supposedly 'unforeseen' events, and reckless disregard for human life and the gift of creation? As thinking and moral beings it is our duty to see and to refuse unthinkable risks. One thing is certain: we will reap what we sow, for good or ill.

The Natural Law: Everyone but the greedy and willfully blind knows:

"I am the owner of my karma.
I inherit my karma.
I am born of my karma.
I am related to my karma.
I live supported by my karma.
Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit."---The Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya V.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

--->Radiation level soars after Japan nuke plant fire...

--->The "Unthinkable" has happened in Japan, says EU Energy
Commissioner [click].

--->BBC: Radiation levels at nuclear plant now harmful government says...

--->Does Japan deliberately underestimate dangers to world? Nuclear crisis highlights history of 'cover-ups'...

--->Europe split over nuclear safety amid Japan crisis...

--->Natural Disasters and God: The whole creation rocks...

--->America on nuclear alert: Could fallout from Japan explosion reach U.S. West Coast...?

--->Chernobyl Revisited: Living in the Dead Zone - by Martin Cruz Smith...

--->Saudi Arabia Sends Troops To Bahrain...

--->"Fat Man: Herman Kahn and the Nuclear Age..."

"Albert Einstein ventures outside the domain of natural science when he speculates about the essence of time and the relativity of simultaneity. The same is true about the quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg when he makes far-reaching philosophical deductions regarding indeterminacy, freedom, causality and the first principles of being. Jacques Monad in his Chance and Necessity makes outrageous metaphysical claims about chance, necessity and God."---Joseph Seifert (More here)

--->Andrew Gavin Marshall: Robber Barons, Revolution, and Social Control. The Century of Social Engineering...

--->Karzai Calls On NATO And US To Stop Operations In Afghanistan...

--->A visit to an American tent city...

--->Accused of blaspheming Islam, a Pakistani Christian dies in jail...

--->Japan Disaster Threatens Economic Recovery, Affects Economies Globally...

--->Teaching Justin Bieber doublespeak? Scroll down the page here (click) for the whole split article...Poor Justin, the powers want him to know that being openly prolife and for chastity can be a career killer. His head is probably spinning and the porridge they offer tastes so good.

--->The Rule of Gold After The Financial Collapse. Since the gold standard was abandoned worldwide, the banksters have run wild...

--->Sandro Magister writes from Rome: "For the Catholic Church, in fact, Italy has a universal mission. John Paul II affirmed this in solemn words, in a letter to the Italian bishops and in a great prayer for this nation, in 1994: "To Italy, in keeping with its history, is entrusted in a special way the task of defending for all of Europe the religious and cultural heritage implanted in Rome by the apostles Peter and Paul..."

--->A skeptic friend in Japan---1,600 Km from the affected nuclear power sites---sends the following, contradicting dire nuclear scenarios...FYI...(click) [In any case, nuclear power is potentially very dangerous (click), whatever ultimately happens this time]

--->Surgeon General to West Coat residents: Buying Iodine a "Precaution"...

--->7 PM EST: New reactor fire as Japan works to contain threat...

--->Japan Evacuates Nuclear Power Workers: Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility...

--->While State Security Forces Across the Middle East Falter, in Afghanistan, NATO Continues to Build...

--->Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’...

--->Never despairing of God's mercy...

"Evil may look lively, seductive, and flamboyant, but this is just the flashy show it puts on to cover up the hollowness at its heart. It is the paper-thinness of evil, its brittle unreality, which is most striking about it"---Terry Eagleton, Tikkun

2011-03-14T12:51:00.007-04:00

Atila Guilamares and Traditional Catholicism

Atila Guimareas, the editor of Tradition in Action has proven to be a serious disappointment to many of us traditional Catholics. What accounts for this in the main I think is his lack of objectivity and obvious animus when it comes to the popes of Vatican II. It is one thing to proffer constructive criticism of decisions or actions / non-actions of the popes, but it is quite another thing, for example, to publish sensationalist photos out of all original context hoping that innuendo will accomplish what facts cannot. It is also another thing to make Jansenist-like strictness a substitute for traditional Catholic balance in life and doctrine.

In many ways, Guimaraes is like the most vicious of the schismatic pseudo-"traditionalists," to the extent that any exculpatory facts are hidden by him and them and only viciously framed propaganda will serve their obvious agenda.

From all such Catholics should simply stay away. There is poison in his meal. I once gave Mr. Guimaraes the benefit of the doubt and even reached out to him as I was very hard on him in the past (very few are all wrong all of the time), hoping he would steady himself in time as so many others have done, even some of his former colleagues in polemics. But that has not proven true, alas.

When I asked to interview him in a webcast to explore all of this and other things he refused unless all questions and his replies were provided in writing beforehand. That should surprise none it has become clear. Genuine Catholicism can stand up to facts without fear, but schism and near-schism avoids serious scrutiny. These prefer to "pontificate" I'm sorry to say. Traditional Catholics should stick with the many papally approved apostolates.

2011-03-13T10:20:00.005-04:00

Abortion Rates Drop, Except Among Poor, Guttmacher Institute Research Shows

...Poor women accounted for 42.4% of abortions in 2008, and their abortion rate increased 17.5% between 2000 and 2008. However, even groups for which abortion rates declined -- such as women in their 20s, women who live with their partners and African-American women are "overrepresented" among women seeking abortion care, according to Rachel Jones and Megan Kavanaugh of the Guttmacher Institute. Most abortions are the result of unintended pregnancies, and continued overrepresentation of certain subpopulations suggests that these groups have unmet needs for contraceptive and family planning services. Jones and Kavanaugh set out to determine the abortion rates between 2000 and 2008 and to update the lifetime incidence of abortion for women living in the U.S. Continue...

2011-03-12T16:46:00.004-05:00

Spring

2011-03-11T18:03:00.000-05:00

Time Out: Game of games...

For those who have spent a few hours playing outdoor chess there is no need to explain the joys of it, especially on a Spring day or summer morning. I cannot think of Harvard Square, Cambridge, over the years (decades!) apart from the game of games. The moment one sits down to the board strangers are no longer strangers but friends even when competing ... at any level.

So many would rather lose at this game than win at others! Every school or homeschool should make chess a mainstay. It teaches fairness, truth, humility and problem-solving all at once.

If I were Blogging Today
by Carol O'Reilly

If I were blogging, I'd blog about today's tv priest who drew a smile from the heart, and rather inexplicably so -- the whole Mass just brought back one's childhood, how nice it was to pray, how nice it was to neither judge nor be judged for a few minutes, to feel that God's love was still open to one, and that all was well. What a difference a priest--for-Christ can make.

And I would mention yesterday's mourning doves; both the one near my house, and the one near work, who were so busily cooing into the mist, have gotten lucky. I saw two pairs on the telephone wires.. it's all they know --to pair up-- and so I have grieved with their solitary little selves for a couple of weeks.

And I would of course write of the lilac buds, so explosively close now to leave-ing, like a kid on the line of puberty, except that one doesn't mind the lilacs blooming. And the spiky tops of the beginning tiger lilies -- do they ever fail, I wonder? No! I'd have said so, and this morn a Kiwi in Australia sent us all photos of places on earth from Astronaut Wheelock. Utterly phenomenal. Were I blogging, I would sum it all up by shouting, "This ain't from some freaking Wiccan goddess, people!"

2011-03-10T18:47:00.003-05:00

1947 American Eugenics - Sterilization

Note: What is especially deceptive about the above is the failure to acknowledge that many of the most insane, and often enough criminally so, and the chronically ill in general are from family of elites as most history's of famous families show. No family is so "genetically pure" as never to produce sickly off spring, suicides, the mentally ill in general----to say nothing of the most insane of all, the elite warmongers who boast of good breeding only to plunge the world in flames time and again.

2011-03-07T00:02:00.044-05:00

Nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward L. Bernays, The Father of Spin: and the Birth of PR

...Eddie Bernays himself desperately craved fame and a place in history. During his lifetime he worked and schemed to be remembered as the founder of his profession and sometimes drew ridicule from his industry colleagues for his incessant self-promotions. These schemes notwithstanding, Bernays richly deserves the title that Boston Globe reporter Larry Tye has given him in his engagingly written new book, The Father of Spin.

In keeping with his obsessive desire for recognition, Bernays was the author of a massive memoir, titled Biography of an Idea, and he fretted about who would author his biography. He would probably be happy with Tye's book, the first written since his passing.

The Father of Spin is a bit too fawning and uncritical of Bernays and his profession. We recommend it, however, for its new insights into Bernays, many of which are based on a first-time-ever examination of the 80 boxes of papers and documents that Bernays left to the Library of Congress. The portrait that emerges is of a brilliant, contradictory man...

In an industry that is notable for its mastery of evasions and euphemisms, Bernays stood out for his remarkable frankness. He was a propagandist and proud of it. (In an interview with Bill Moyers, Bernays said that what he did was propaganda, and that he just "hoped it was 'proper-ganda' and not 'improper-ganda.'")

Feminists Are Concerned Over What
Corporate Media Learned Well &
Blacks Are Exploited

(Note: What is shown by YouTube at the close of this video is a parody of the video talked about, but I recommend you do not watch that either; what makes light of a crime is a crime; obviously scantily clad persons there too--SH)

Many of the new insights that Tye offers have to do with Bernays's relationship with his family and his uncle Sigmund Freud, whose reputation as "the father of psychoanalysis" owes something to Bernays' publicity efforts. Bernays regarded Uncle Sigmund as a mentor, and used Freud's insights into the human psyche and motivation to design his PR campaigns, while also trading on his famous uncle's name to inflate his own stature.

There is, however, a striking paradox in the relationship between the two. Uncle Sigmund's "talking cure" was designed to unearth his patients' unconscious drives and hidden motives [subverting morals and conscience pangs---SH], in the belief that bringing them into conscious discourse would help people lead healthier lives.

Bernays, by contrast, used psychological techniques to mask the motives of his clients, as part of a deliberate strategy aimed at keeping the public unconscious of the forces that were working to mold their minds...

Bernays liked to cultivate an image as a supporter of feminism and other liberating ideas, but his work on behalf of the United Fruit Company had consequences just as evil and terrifying as if he'd worked directly for the Nazis. ...Read it all

--->History is a Weapon: Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays...Intro by Noam Chomsky

"THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."---Edward Bernays
_______

--->Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul stock index has tumbled 11pc in wild trading over the past two days, led by banks and insurers due to Mideast turmoil jitters...

--->China plans to track Beijing citizens through their mobiles...experts warn it ~~could~~ [will] be used to control dissent...

--->Opponent of China's one-child policy resentenced as officials worry about revolution...

--->Charges Against Muslim Students Prompt Debate Over Free Speech...

--->Classifying offenders through [extremely dubious] forecasting could lead to criminal justice revolution...

--->Debit cards: 50 - $100 spending limit coming...?

--->Revisited, Boston Globe. Robert Putnam: The downside of diversity. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth? A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life...his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects...More

--->Quakers and Puritans traced their roots to the same religious turmoil in England. So why did Puritans jail and hang Quakers right here in my home state...? (click); meanwhile, Catholics were driven to Maryland where persecutions were hardly easier on us... (click)

Puritans fled England because they believed that the Church of England was still too close to Catholicism...

--->Ronald Reagan, 1980: "Where Free Unions and Collective Bargaining are Forbidden, Freedom is Lost...These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland..."

--->Everything You Need to Know About Torture...

--->"Idiots," he says: "Some well operators are ... selling their waste, rather than paying to dispose of it. “Because it is so salty, they have found ready buyers in communities that spread it on roads for de-icing in the winter and for dust suppression in the summer. When ice melts or rain falls, the waste can run off roads and end up in the drinking supply..."

--->The Top 10 Greatest Hoaxes of All Time...

--->The BBC ---and Its Reporter Jane Standley, who appeared to predict the fall of Bulding 7 before it actually fell on 9/11/01---says it was all based on an erroneous Reuters report...

--->Iranian (caution!) TV reports "Israel sending 50,000 African Mercenaries to Libya"...

--->Gaza food situation tight as Karni crossing closed...

--->Planned Parenthood [Eugenics] Reports Abortion Rate Up By More Than 8,000 in One Year...

--->Buchanan: It's Their War, Not Ours...

--->July 23, 2010: "UK forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003,” UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox said in a written reply to the House of Commons on Thursday, the Kuwait News Agency reported. The announcement came after a joint study by the environment, health and science ministries in Iraq said there were communities near the cities of Najaf, Basra and Fallujah with increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years."---Press TV

--->2003: US Forces' Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons is 'Illegal' by Neil Mackay...DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children...(click) (See reported examples of such birth defects here)

--->CNN asks, Are whites racially oppressed? The question comes up in the context of scholarships. ---and be sure to see the video debate that accompanies the article...

--->Sexual Abuse of Children a Problem: Rabbi. "He’s been vilified, threatened, offered bribes and almost murdered. Yet Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg of Brooklyn, N.Y., is more determined than ever to raise awareness of the sexual abuse of children in the Jewish community and to have perpetrators prosecuted by the civil courts. His 10 years of outspoken activism have made him many enemies in the haredi community to which he belongs. He has, in particular, exposed incidents of the abuse of boys by men in yeshivot and mikvot. More disturbingly, Rabbi Rosenberg has shown the lengths to which community leaders will go to cover up these crimes..." Read it all

Note: Sexual abuse of young people is a very wide cultural problem, resulting from the nihilism of the times, and it reaches far beyond affected churches and synagogues; families, schools, government and international institutions have also been implicated in gross violations of children (Click here for more on that).

Almsgiving, Prayer, Fasting by Saint Peter Chrysologus

"My dear brethren, today we set out on the great Lenten journey. So let us take our food and drink along in our boat, putting onto the chest the abundant mercy we shall need. For our fasting is a hungry one, our fasting is a thirsty one if it isn't sustained by goodness and refreshed by mercy. Our fasting will be cold, our fasting will flag if the fleece of almsgiving doesn't clothe it, if the garment of compassion does not wrap it around.

"Brethren, what spring is for the land, mercy is for fasting: the soft, spring winds cause all the buds on the plains to flower; the mercy of our fast causes all our seeds to grow until they blossom and bear fruit for the heavenly harvest. What oil is to the lamp, goodness is to our fast. As the oily fat sets the lamp alight and, in spite of so little to feed it, keeps it burning to our comfort all night long, so goodness makes our fasting shine: it casts its beams until it reaches the full brightness of self-restraint. What the sun is to the day, almsgiving is to our fast: the sun's splendor increases the light of day, breaking through the dullness of the clouds; almsgiving together with fasting sanctifies its holiness and, thanks to the light of goodness, dispels from our desires anything that could petrify. In short, what the body is for the soul, generosity acts similarly for the fast: when the soul leaves the body it brings about death; if generosity abandons the fast, it is its death.--- Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450), Bishop of Ravenna
Sermon 8 ; CCL 24, 59 ; PL 52, 208

--->Environmentalism Hijacked: Al Gore (part way into video) appears and sounds a little freaky here, no...? (2009)

--->Pope urges priests to preach on uncomfortable topics. Priests must not preach "Christianity 'a la carte'..."

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