Thursday, December 31, 2009

I'm travelling to Arizona for a few days to visit relatives. Be back on Monday!
A follow up to this post from around the same time last year.

The power of pink

The 'pinkification' of little girls – their clothes, their bedrooms, their toys – is a very recent phenomenon. So why did the launch this month of a campaign against the colour's dominance cause such uproar?
The campaign, PinkStinks, started out with the aim of offering girls positive alternative role models, says Emma, "women who do amazing things. Scientists and sportswomen and musicians and businesswomen and activists." Trying to reverse the seemingly unstoppable tide of pink was simply another way, they felt, of challenging what they saw as rampant and unacceptable gender stereotyping, from earliest childhood.
The imposition of color preferences seems to be arbitary, but it's the feminist deconstructionism that is the real danger to children. Children may choose a certain color because of certain associations; they may also reject it because it is known to be the preferred by members of the other sex. One does not have to be a cultural Marxist to acknowledge this. However, just as physical differences provide the matter for deeper differences between the sexes, so awareness of physical difference is the foundation of identity-formation; learning the virtues proper to one's sex is grounded upon this awareness of what one is. Those boys and girls who are outliers should undoubtedly be given careful attention so that they do not reject their sexual identity completely.

Only dualists and gnostics believe that the soul (or mind) can be completely severed from the body. The spiritual nature of the soul leads many to believe that its flexibility, potentiality, and universality can be extended to the body as well, when plainly this is not the case.

Feminists are definitely committed to their cause, seeking to extend their worldview where possible. Meanwhile they are miserable living in conformity with their beliefs, or find happiness by being hypocrites.

The website PinkStinks.
Male Choral Music CD recordings
I finally saw the video of the attack on the pope. Why does security seem so slow? Was there no bodyguard right next to the Holy Father? It didn't seem like it. It's amazing that no one's been able to seriously injure him up to this point, given the state of his personal security.

Some have complained that the cult of personality that exists during liturgies and other events is even more shocking or lamentable, but given the prominence given to the Holy Father as celebrant, can anything else be expected? Especially if the liturgy still seems to be clericalist, at least with respect to the procession. It may be impossible to restore the procession of all tlhe faithful into the church before the beginning of the liturgy, at St. Peter's or anywhere else, but what can be done to remind the people that it is Christ Himself who is present to act during the divine liturgy, and that the person of the priest celebrating the liturgy is of secondary importance?

There are problems with huge gatherings for the celebration of the liturgy, even within a church or cathedral or basilica, at least within the Roman rite.
JMG, Immodest Proposals


Eliminate the Senate

Recall, please, how the Senate was designed in the Constitution. If you want efficiency and quick turn around in governance and legislation, you want a very different system. Clog and delay were built in from the get go -- quite consciously. Guaranteeing minority rights was a central tenet of the design – as it is of democracy.





The Senate is also supposed to serve the intersts of the states, and not of political parties, no?
Lining Up for the Wall Street Gravy Train
Hope, hopelessness and faith
Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

I see this as a good complement to Dr. Fleming's latest and my thoughts yesterday...
From Catherine Austin Fitts: Directed Energy Weapons

Dawn Beaton vids

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Some video of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Jamestown in 2007: Virginia's Royal Welcome.
Patrick Deneen, New World Order
I was thinking a bit about Dr. Fleming's latest; the sort of advice he gives has been criticized by others, such as Lydia McGrew over at WWWTW. One can fret about the poor decisions being made by our rulers, but at some point one must realize that there is little one can really do to change the way things are going through politickin'. There's little that can be done locally, at least for me, because too many people are set in bad habits that are reinforced by bad passions. Focusing on the good that one can do, in the love of God and neighbor, seems to be the right sort of approach.

Some posts on Yasujiro Ozu

An Autumn Afternoon: Ozu's Diaries - From the Current
Ozu's Angry Women : A website dedicated to Ozu Yasujiro

See also Setsuko Hara.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

TJF, Establishing Christian America

Given the diverse origins of those who settled the colonies and the relatively easy mobility of Americans once settled, along with the low threshold for the formation of communities, could a fragmented religious identity have been avoided?

Conservative Christians are right to complain that they are being persecuted by the government, and I do not have a solution to this grave problem except to suggest that they are wasting their time in trying to change the laws. Instead, they might consider the example of early Christians living under the pagan Roman Empire. Most Christians paid their taxes to Caesar, served in Caesar’s army, and were good neighbors and loyal citizens of Caesar’s empire. They did not engage in futile protests about infanticide, nor did they abuse and insult their pagan neighbors. They minded their own business, went to church, and prayed for the empire’s conversion. If today’s American Christians had the faith of a mustard seed, they would spurn the false prophets who have enslaved them to a party or political ideology and go about their Master’s business.

This is an older piece meant to accompany this article: Churchless States and Stateless Churches I.

UND Press is publishing a book by Jonathan Riley-Smith

Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land
Jonathan Riley-Smith

Crusades Encyclopedia profile
Rethinking the Crusades | Jonathan Riley-Smith
The Venetian Crusade of 1122-1124 (pdf)
The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam

See also Interview with Rodney Stark. (Professor Stark's page.) He is the author of God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades.
Erin Manning links to and discusses this piece by Paul T. McCain: Temple Prostitution: A Modest Proposal.

Is that lying?

Pius XII's real wartime record: Friend to the Jews By GARY L. KRUPP (via VFR)

So is the issuing of false documents an instance of lying or not?
Krugman's Health Care Sell-Out By DAVE LINDORFF

Certainly the Senate bill, and the only slightly less cruddy House version, with which it must be reconciled (let’s be clear here that the ultimate act, when passed, will much more closely hew to the Senate version than the House version, given the number of conservative Democrats in the Senate), does a few good things, such as increasing funding for community health clinics, expanding Medicaid, the health insurance system for the poor, and banning the current insurance industry practice of denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. But these small positive steps pale in comparison to the truly noxious things this bill does, and the things it fails to do.

The most outrageous thing the health “reform” bill does is further consolidate the death grip that the insurance industry has over health care access and delivery in America. It does this by mandating that everyone buy health insurance, on pain of being slapped with a heavy fine by the IRS. Since most of the 47 million Americans without health insurance are younger and healthier than average, what this measure does is hand the private insurance industry a huge captive customer population who will be stuck with high-cost, low-benefit insurance that will generate huge profits for the industry. The industry will be further enriched by nearly half a trillion dollars in subsidies needed to help low-income people or small businesses buy their mandated health insurance--subsidies which will end up going directly to insurance companies, which will be offering in return wretched bare-bones plans that will only cover some 60% of actual medical costs.

Supporters say that mandating that everyone have health insurance is akin to mandating that every driver of a car buy liability insurance, but there actually is a huge difference. Driving is a matter of choice. If a person doesn’t want to buy car insurance, she or he can decide not to own a car. That reality at least forces auto insurers to compete in offering low-cost minimal insurance plans. Nobody can decide not to buy health insurance under this plan though. It is a historic first: a law requiring American citizens to buy a service from a private company.

Adding insult to injury, the bill does almost nothing to limit costs. This is why doctors, hospital and drug companies and the insurance industry, all of which spend millions of dollars lobbying for this law, love it (health insurance company shares jumped on word of Senate passage). Indeed, the government’s own Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), predicts that the law, if enacted, will cause US health care costs--already the highest in the world on a per capita basis and as a share of GDP by a factor of almost two--to rise faster than ever. Furthermore, to keep the projected costs of this bill at an alleged $871 billion over ten years, a huge amount of money is stolen from important existing programs, including $43 billion from payments to safety-net hospitals (mostly public institutions in urban centers which serve poor populations), and from cuts in Medicare funding that could for the first time lead significant numbers of physicians to stop seeing elderly patients on Medicare.

The reform plan is terrible for other important reasons too. In order to sell it to one lone hold-out Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Senate leaders allowed strict limits to be put into the bill making it almost impossible for low-income women or families to buy insurance that includes payments for abortions. The bill also undermines trade unions by taxing, at a rate of as much as 40%, those health plans which, through years of negotiations, offered quality care to workers. As the group Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) points out, group health insurance costs are also largely driven by geographical and demographic considerations, and thus this penalty tax actually targets workplaces that employ more women, or that have older workers, or which are located in higher-cost regions such as New York or California.

But surely the worst thing about this bill is that far from putting the US on a course towards some eventual humane national health system like those that exist in the rest of the developed world, and even in many countries in the less developed world, it actually locks in the power of the insurance industry even more solidly, making achieving true health reform an even more difficult challenge than it has been.
Interestingly enough, the ACLU blog published one of Daniel Larison's pieces last year -- I don't know if it's published anything else by him since then: Daniel Larison: On the Necessity of an Irrational Enemy.

Nonetheless while doing a search for his explanation of nationalism as a left-wing phenomenon (and it is), and not "right-wing," I was reminded that the internet is pretty much useless for fostering the search for truth.
AoM: A Man and the Sports Jacket: A Tailored Suit’s Sports Jacket Giveaway

The constitutional question for the American colonies

I read something the other day at Border's that seems to have laid it out clearly. (It was in Crocker's PIG book dealing with the Civil War.) Were the colonies sovereign states, or were they colonies with a colonial charter, with ultimate sovereignty belonging to the Parliament? The question may seem to have a straightforward answer, but

Does positive law destroy any claim that there is a natural "right" to secession? Is a colony different in nature from an independent polity? On what grounds can the claims of the sovereign power by nullified? When can sovereignty or authority be lost? Is a colony bound to perpetual submission and obedience? What are the "legal" means for establishing independence? Is the only valid way through obtaining permission from the sovereign authority?

One could argue that the claim of sovereignty is invalidated when the sovereign power acts unjustly, or against the common good of the colony. What if it is an unreasonable extension of power? The principle of subsidiarity could come into play here -- decisions-making should be done in the colony as much as possible. (It would seem that some were content to accept this, with Parliament having ultimate sovereignty but exercising it only in certain matters.)

But do the virtuous have a right to rule that should not be denied?
AP: Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins split after 23 years

Will these two well-known Hollywood liberals, who despise traditional culture, rationalize their inability to stay together? "We just moved to different places in our lives," or some other feel-good, self-actualizing garbage?
California Center for Cooperative Development
Jacob Hornberger, Losing the Bill of Rights

Monday, December 28, 2009

Confronted with a denial that the Nazis were a right-wing movement (rather, they were on the left), and told to get an education, what does a feminist do? She appeals to the degree that she holds. Someone could learn a thing or two from Socrates concerning knowledge and ignorance. But he's another white male defender of the the patriarchy, isn't he?
Welmer, Eddie Bauer: From Manly Store to Bankruptcy
Hawaiian Libertarian: Obama Has Subverted Our 4th Amendment Rights
Vatican honors Wyoming prof with rare prize

Some honesty from the writers working for the BBC?

*spoiler warning*

In the series 8 finale of Spooks, Ros and Lucas have to evacuate the Home Secretary and the Pakistani president to safety, after a bomb is found in the hotel in which talks between India and Pakistan are being held. Both the Home Secretary and the Pakistani president have been paralyzed by drugs, so the MI5 agents have to carry them out. Ros admits that she is weaker, and tells Lucas that he must bring the Pakistani president to safety first, since if he dies, war will ensue between India and Pakistan. Ros is left behind to struggle with carrying the Home Secretary.

A female agent is having problems carrying her principal to safety? When she is regularly tasked with protection detail? How many women are physically capable of bringing an adult male to safety, even if they are just dragging him (as it is required in firefighter and LEO physical fitness exams)? And if dragging is too slow, and danger requires a faster evacuation, can they do a one-man carry?

Not the straw that broke the camel's back...

But getting close?

From a comment at JHK's blog: California Gun Law ~ Fingerprints Required To Buy Ammo
The law also bans the purchase of ammo via mail order or through the internet.
CA Bill Documents
Peter Hitchens asks some questions in light of the most recent attempt at an airplane bombing: Flailing Panic in the Air.
James Howard Kunstler provides some end-of-the-year commentary, along with predictions for the next year.


Sunday, December 27, 2009

I wanted to log this before I forget...

One of the second graders (KP) came up to me and asked me if I was married. I told her no, and she asked why not. "Mr. ----, you should marry a pretty girl." I had to laugh at that.

Even more reason to hate the new Who

If you're a Doctor Who fan and haven't seen the first part of the David Tennant's finale and don't want spoilers, stop reading now.

I saw the trailer and a scene from part 2. The classic series may have been meant for children, but it wasn't so dumbed down that adults couldn't enjoy it, and the villains could be serious, the moral questions deep. People defend Russell T. Davies, because he is the man who brought back the show, but I would rather there be no show, then for it to be so adulterated and childish. Modifying the show so that it appeals to the young, given the state of the young these days, is guaranteed to make it bad, even if a few episodes here and there are actually quite good.

We see the return of the Time Lords in part 1; if you watch the exclusive scene, it turns out they are not from a period after the end of the Time War, but right before it -- right before they are killed off by the Doctor. The Lord President is holding on to life, and is very tyrannical, openly killing those who oppose him. Gone are the days when political opponents were eliminated through subterfuge and deceit and perhaps behind-the-scenes murder. Instead the Time Lords seem to have become like their enemies, the daleks. This may have made for an interesting story, stretched out for a season or two -- the descent of the Time Lords into wickedness or madness, but this is not the route RTD decided to take. Instead everything is crammed into an hour, and I am going to guess that story development will suffer. The fall of the Time Lords will not be taken seriously as a moral lesson. (What we could learn from an empire's death, which it hastens by hanging on to power too long!) Instead, we will have an over-the-top villain with whom we cannot sympathize -- he's just a madman.

I never thought the Time Lords should have been done away with, at least not permanently, and bringing Paul McGann back to do a series or two on the Time War would have been a gift to the fans. They could also have taken the series to Gallifrey, brought back Romana, and so on -- too much time spent on Earth can be a waste, especially if it is contemporary Earth and none of its problems are taken seriously. (This is supposed to be science fiction, not a soap opera.)

As I've said before, this all could have been handled much better -- I suppose it will have to be left to those who write fan fiction and Doctor Who novels.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

If my nephew is really being a flirt, how is he able to distinguish between male and female at such an early age? I don't think even I'd claim to be a flirt at that age (1 year), and my mom probably wouldn't remember. Where is the power of recognition and the impulse to flirt coming from?
Home-grown oatmeal
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer

Oatmeal is a healthful food and now there’s an easier way to grow and process your own. The problem has always been the hulls which grip the groats so tightly that getting them off is difficult.


I can't say that I like having oatmeal for breakfast...

Who Will Pay For the Economic Collapse? By SHAMUS COOKE

More from Zenit

Holy Father's Christmas Message
"God Still Kindles Fires in the Night of the World" [2009-12-25]

Benedict XVI's Address to University Students
"Helping Others to See the True Face of God Is the First Form of Love" [2009-12-25]

Archbishop Nichols' Midnight Mass Homily
"This Child Is Totally Unique and His Coming a Transforming Moment"

Friday, December 25, 2009

Felix dies Nativitatis!


This year's USPS Nativity stamp: Christmas: Madonna and Sleeping Child by Sassoferrato

Giovanni Battista Salvi (1609-1685), aka Sassoferrato
Sassoferrato Giovanni Battista Salvi Artist 2009 Project

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Fr. Z., Benedict XVI’s Christmas Sermon: liturgy is the first priority


Benedict XVI's Christmas Vigil Homily
"God Is Important, by Far the Most Important Thing in Our Lives" [2009-12-24]

Papal Address to Saints Congregation
"Holiness Means Constantly Striving for a High Standard of Christian Living" [2009-12-24]

Pope's Christmas Greeting to Curia
"The Year Now Ending Was to a Great Extent Marked by Africa" [2009-12-24]

Veni Veni Emmanuel

Hayley Westenra, O Holy Night

The Cultural Connotations and Communicative Functions of Chinese Kinship Terms
by Shaorong Huang and Wenshan Jia

Another Liar-in -Chief

AP: Senate OK's health care bill in victory for Obama

The Washington Post: Obama lists financial rescue as 'most important thing' of his first year
"Overall, if you had a checklist of promises made, a lot of those promises have been kept," Obama said. "When those things are complete, and I think they will be, we will have achieved a fundamental shift in health care, energy, education and our financial regulatory system that will put this economy on a firmer footing to grow over the long term."

You cannot be serious.
Ensemble Organum has a new CD out. I believe it is all new material, based on recently-discovered manuscripts dating from the 11th century.
Letter to a Christian Young Man Regarding Joining the Military by Laurence M. Vance (via CHT)

The New Scot's uncle discouraged him from joining the military for a few of those reasons.
For Better or Worse? the Afghan Escalation and Women's Rights, Franklin C. Spinney


When will the do-gooders in power just swallow their pride, shut up, and leave other people alone?
Remember when... people would give Christmas gifts to their mailman or other people who made regular deliveries? Or to their children's teachers? (This may have been less common, given concerns about the appearance of a bribe.)
It's not clear to me what the viewpoint of this blog's author might be, but I did find this post, The Machiavellians: Principle I, which links to a pdf file of James Burnham's The Machiavellians (the original object of my search).
Audie Murphy Memorial Web Site and Medal of Honor for the United States Army.

Medal of Honor Citations
Touchstone: Untenured Radical: Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society by Graeme Hunter.
Daniel McCarthy is liking The Age of Federalism by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick so far. (Google Books)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

AmCon -- The People’s Priest: Ivan Illich understood the dangers of trying to save the world. by Chase Madar (via the Western Confucian)
AP: Mexico: 4 held in revenge attack on hero's family

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico – Four suspected members of a cartel-aligned hit squad have been arrested in the slaying of the family of a Mexican marine hailed as a hero for dying in a raid that killed a top drug lord.

Tabasco state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez said gunmen from the Zeta gang killed the mother, two siblings and an aunt of marine Melquisedet Angulo. He said four Zeta associates believed to have indirect roles in the attack had been detained, but the killers remained at large.

The slayings of Angulo's relatives early Tuesday just hours after his memorial service was widely viewed as a chilling warning from the Beltran Layva cartel that the families of soldiers and police could now suffer for the government's campaign against drug traffickers.

President Felipe Calderon called the attack on the marine's family "a cowardly act" and vowed to press forward with his war on the cartels involving more than 45,000 Mexican troops.


The Zetas, former military elite-turned-hit men, have allied with the Beltran Leyva cartel in recent years.

Is there nothing to military discipline in Mexico that would prevent some former members from becoming so mercenary?
GX @ The Spearhead writes: Don’t watch Anime or Read Manga: It Will Rot Your Brain.

There is some discussion of Evangelion thrown in the comments. The post is for mature readers only -- some of the language used by the author and some of the commenters isn't suitable for polite company.

What, then, of the power of audiovisual art and books to inspire? Is the AV medium really that effective, in comparison to poetry and literature? Does it do more than reinforce attitudes? It would seem that the AV medium can be an effective means of conditioning certain viewer to have various attitudes and behaviors. But does the prevalence of anime and mange in Japan explain why some Japanese men are the way they are? Or does the author of the post overreach?

Is Rod Dreher a liberal?

After criticizing a proposed requirement for those training to be teachers at the University of Minnesota to "accept theories of 'white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression'; 'develop a positive sense of racial/cultural identity'; and 'recognize that schools are socially constructed systems that are susceptible to racism ... but are also critical sites for social and cultural transformation,' Rod Dreher writes:

To be clear, if this were a private university or a religious college, I would find this obnoxious, but only that. But this is a public university. I would be appalled if the school tried to force future teachers to sign off on some right-wing cultural agenda as a condition of their education too.

Once again, Mr. Dreher is trying to appear to be the moderate good guy who avoids both extremes, and advocates a "neutral" learning atmosphere, where all source of controversy is excluded--namely morality and culture. What is the purpose of education? If it is merely to impart vocational education, why should the state be involved at all? If there is more to education than the acquisition of art or techne, namely, the acquisition of morals, than does the state not have the competence to determine that education? Putting aside the question of whether book learning is the right approach to moral formation, let us pose the question to Mr. Dreher: if the right-wing cultural agenda (which Rod Dreher is supposed to believe in) is the correct and true one, then why shouldn't it be imposed on teachers, who have a major influence on the raising of children? And if it cannot be imposed, then should not people who do not have the right character and beliefs be excluded by parents from having any sort of contact with their children?

Only a purely "technical" education can be moral-free, but it seems to me that teachers need more than the art of teaching and expertise in the skills they seek to impart. Teachers cannot but be a transmitter of some tradition or culture or values, given the amount of time they spend with children. To withhold such transmission is not only to starve children of the spiritual formation that they need, but to give them the impression that there is nothing deeper to human life.

I didn't know LTC Dave Grossman had written an article on maneuver warfare. (PDF format)

Tea at Trianon: Polite Conversation

Tea at Trianon: Polite Conversation

Etiquette advice that is needed even more today.
Fr. Z: Holy See Press Office comment on Decree of heroic virtues of Ven. Pius XII
The Twitch review of Sherlock Holmes prompted me to look up bartitsu.

Bartitsu Society
Bartitsu: Library: The Linacre School of Defence
The Narcissism Epidemic: An interview with Jean M. Twenge, by Joel Pitney

Narcissism blog
Spartan Cops: Developing the Warrior Mind: Boyd’s OODA loop and Cooper’s Color Code lay the foundation
From Benedict XVI's Letter to Cardinal Cordes:

Especially characteristic of your pastoral involvement is and remains your commitment to the "movements": the charismatic movement, Communion and Liberation and the Neocatechumenal Way have many reasons to be grateful to you. While in the beginning the organizers and planners in the Church had many reservations in regard to the movements, you immediately sensed the life that burst forth from them -- the power of the Holy Spirit that gives new paths and in unpredictable ways keeps the Church young.

You recognized the pentecostal character of these movements and you worked passionately so that they would be welcomed by the Church's pastors. Certainly, with respect to organization and planning, there were often good reasons to be scandalized as they brought new and unforeseen elements that could not always be integrated easily into the existing organizational structures.

You saw that what is organic is more important than what is organized; you saw that here were men who were deeply touched by the spirit of God and that in such a way there grew new forms of authentic Christian life and authentic ways of being Church. Of course, these movements needed to be ordered and brought within the totality; they needed to learn to recognize their limits and to become part of the communitarian reality of the Church in her proper constitution together with the Pope and the bishops. Thus they need a guide and purification to be able to reach the form of their true maturity.


I don't see anything here that would contradict the assertion that ecclesial movements are meant to be temporary solutions to fundamental problems plaguing the local Churches.
By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet (via Carolyn Baker)

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

Pete Takeshi saw this movie through Netflix instant and recommends it.

The Baader Meinhof Complex
UK website
Christopher Hitchens on The Baader Meinhof Complex
Roger Ebert

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

eManaging the Peak Fossil Fuel Transition: EROI and EIRR
Tom Konrad, The Oil Drum


GQ Icon: Clint Eastwood (via Rod Dreher)

It appears that the blame for Invictus cannot be mostly put on Morgan Freeman's shoulders:

Why Invictus? Why now?
I'm not an objective party. But the world needs this kind of story nowadays. It's just&everybody's so screwed up. Nobody knows where they're heading. It seems like our country's in kind of a morbid mood, because of the recession or whatever. I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

What do you think they could learn?
About racial relationships and such. It just seems like we're making a lot of mistakes on this whole calling everybody racist. Everybody's calling everybody morons and nuts. We're becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits. People 50 years old acting like that. In Gran Torino, I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess.

Mr. Eastwood accepts the American mythology surrounding World War II and the "Greatest Generation." Is that such a bad thing? If it blinds us to the truth about the war and American society in the 20th century. Without a grasp of what the more components of culture are, we are liable to think that peace and concord can be had solely through strength of effort alone.

Is there anything you'd sacrifice yourself for?

As for religion?

Do you still meditate?
Twice a day.

How does that work for you?

So how...

So meditation with me was just a self-reliant thing. I've been doing it almost forty years. But I don't go out and sell it. A lot of other people find meaning some other way, screaming in the street or whatever it is that gets it for you. Or checking out the girls. [laughs] No, I'm past that. I'm living in my state of monogamy quite happily. I never thought I'd get there, but I did. It feels good. I like myself better than I did.

He returns to the topic of what it means to be a man:

One of your sons is in this new movie. How do you counsel your sons about manhood, being a man?
It's really difficult. You just try to give them local morals. You know, you let the woman go through the door first. Why? Because you're stronger, you're younger. It's your duty as a man. That's what you're here for, to take care of things. And nowadays I don't think men are taught that. It wasn't a macho thing; nobody felt they had to kick over the table and act tough to prove they were men. I'm fond of telling this story—I remember meeting Rocky Marciano. We shook hands. It was a real light handshake, like he was a concert pianist. I walked away and thought, Yeah, Rocky Marciano doesn't have to grab you. He knows he could kill you. He's a real guy.

So be strong and protect yourself, emotionally and physically. But don't—you don't have to take any crap from the world, but at the same time, you don't have to go looking for crap, either. Don't let the feminist revolution turn you into an anti. Women really do want your help, and that's why we're on the same planet, the same level.

VFR: Bill excludes death panels from Congressional repeal

Volokh: Entrenchment Provisions in the Health Care Bill and Future Amendments Are Out of Order.
Two from The Public Discourse:

Mark Stricherz, December 22, 2009

David Lapp, December 22, 2009
One of the best ways to bolster American unions is to promote a proper understanding of friendship and marriage.
Asia News: Academy of Social Sciences: increase of mass revolts and crime in China
The "mass incidents" are caused by the growing difference between rich and poor, and abuse of power by government representatives. In the first 10 months of 2009 criminal cases increased by 15% compared to last year. The social concerns are a risk to the survival of the Communist Party.
A Longer, Deeper Recession Looms by DAVE LINDORFF
The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc @ Libri Vox (via RA)

JYJ videos

CCD: “You can always come home”
Sacramento diocese launches TV ad campaign aimed at fallen away Catholics

It appears that good things continue to happen in the diocese of Sacramento; we will see what else Bishop Soto accomplishes. It is expected that Bishop Cordileone of Oakland will do much good as well, but who would want to move to Oakaland? Even nearby Berkeley isn't that appealing. In contrast, the Sacramento area looks more and more attractive, though I probably wouldn't move to the city itself, but to one of the towns closeby.

Welcome Home
Catholics Come Home

It is a Ridley Scott movie

Why expect that he would suddenly become a different movie-maker?

Originally Scott wanted to do a revisionist movie about the Sheriff of Nottingham (who becomes Robin Hood?), but he decided to do a more "traditional" tale about Robin Hood instead. I was actually looking forward to a story that focused on the Sheriff, who decides he must pretend to be an outlaw in order to right injustices--though now that I think about it, it does sound too much like Zorro.

Anyway, I watched the UK trailer for Robin Hood -- it is better than the US one, but it also features a Cate Blanchett fighting and donning armor. Please don't tell me her character was inspired by St. Joan of Arc, who, according to Hilaire Belloc, never took up arms except to protect herself,

or that Ridley Scott is making up for what was lacking in Lord of the Rings. Give me the Audrey Hepburn Maid Marian any day.

At first I thought Robin Hood would not be as PC as Scott's Kingdom of Heaven; this bit of feminist fantasy is on par for Anglo-American movies today, and it's not entirely new to Ridley Scott. (Alien.) But if he was going to aim for realism, why put this in? (I believe the same claim of realism was made about Kingdom of Heaven as well.) In this respect, I suspect it is like the most recent BBC series (which is probably worse overall in catering to the PC orthodoxy of the BBC).

In both trailers Robin Hood makes the sign of the cross. Will Scott show a greater respect for the Catholic religion and its influence on the period than he did in Kingdom of Heaven? There's no mention of the Crusades, or Robin Hood going to the Holy Land with King Richard the Lionheart--instead the story begins towards the end of King Richard's reign. The French make an appearance as the enemy of the English, and Robin Hood's credentials as an English national hero are established.

The populism of Robin Hood does remind me a bit of Mel Gibson's Braveheart; does it refer to the republicanism of the Anglo-American political tradition (with its appeals to the Magna Carta?), or to the modern democratic spirit? Russell Crowe's speech-giving as Robin Hood is identical to his speech-giving Gladiator and Master and Commander. Not a good thing.

I will probably see the movie, but the experience will not be free from annoyances.

William Lind on cultural Marxism. (See also "Who stole our culture?.")
NLM: Some News about the SSPX Discussions


It makes sense; but I hope the delegation for the SSPX is made up of better Thomists than some of the people who write books and for their websites.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Maximos, Notes on Nostalgia

Memory should be in the service of friendship and genuine community--we remember what others have done for us and what we owe, but also the joys (and sorrows) we experience with our friends. What is the object of nostalgia? Something that is tied to illusion or falsehood in some way, I would think. (If there is true nostalgia, for example, for the place where we grew up, then it seems to be the same as memory. But we are talking about nostalgia that is a distortion of memory.)

The Young Victoria

Splendid in its visuals, the movie suffers from what seemed like rushed story-telling. Also, if the viewer is not familiar with the Victorian period, he may not understand all of the political maneuverings taking place. The courtship between Albert and Victoria is touching -- the movie could have spent more time on illuminating the attraction Victoria felt towards him. What about Albert's motivations and interest?

The movie does have a positive portrayal of "old-fashioned courtship" and marriage. The deep abiding love between Victoria and Albert is rather touching, and in this regard the movie makes for a decent companion piece to Mrs. Brown (Masterpiece Theater). One would like an exploration of what made their marriage successful, something dealing with the intervening years between the settings of these two movies.

More stills at Yahoo!

I need to read more about the Tories and Whigs, the Court and Country Parties. The Whigs influential in forming the Anglo-American political tradition; but would contemporary Catholics in and out of England have been so supportive of their political philosophy?
Sandro Magister, "I think that the Church should also open today a court of the gentiles..."

It was the court for non-Jews in the temple of Jerusalem. Benedict XVI has used it as a symbol of the dialogue with those alienated from religion, to keep the search for God alive in them. The key passages from his Christmas speech to the Roman curia

Zenit: Israel's Hebrew-Speaking Catholics on Pius XII
"He Left His Mark on the Church in the 20th Century

FSSP Pontifical Mass and Ordination, December 19

From Veritatem facientes in caritate (via Jeff Culbreath): Parts 1, 2, 3
Up to 56,000 more contractors likely for Afghanistan, congressional agency says (via Michael Ruppert)
Supreme Court Guts Due Process Protection(via John Robb)
Men & Religion: Jesus Christ & the Pattern of Christian Manhood, by Leon J. Podles

In delineating a male spirituality, does Mr. Podles take it a bit too far. What he writes may resonate with the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, for example, but what of St. John of the Cross?
EB: Peak Moment 157: The Heart of Permaculture by Yuba Gals Independent Media (original)



In his classes, Bill not only passes on a bounty of practical, common sense ideas, he also inspires people to experience being alive on the planet, finding their connectedness with life, their passion and ways to make a world that works for everybody. (

See Novaeseeker's comment regarding patriarchy and matriarchy.

Edit. His comment has been republished as a separate post.
Peter Hitchens, Burglar in your home? I’d give him a cup of tea if I were you

If you want to know what to be really angry about, listen to ‘Judge’ John Reddihough, the insufferable political commissar who imprisoned Munir Hussain (pictured above with his brother Tokeer who was also jailed) – for doing what we would all like to do to the man who invaded his home and terrorised his family.

Mr Reddihough brayed, as he wielded the sword of injustice: ‘If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.’

So now acts of self-defense are morally equivalent to vigilante justice? There's no way I'd move to the UK (or most parts of Canada, for that matter).

JKH posts "a preview scene from the sequel to my novel of the post-oil American future, World Made By Hand...."
Luis Lucia Lucia -- El salterio de mis horas.

Background info here. See also Legion of Christ discloses Fr. Maciel's plagiarism to its members and El plagio del salterio, un capítulo más de una vida de mentiras.
Given that many on the "left wing" oppose the Senate health care bill because it really does nothing but serve the interests of insurance companies, how can Catholic "progressives" continue to think that it, apart from its inclusion of abortion and lack of a conscience clause and so on, is a good thing? Are they so lacking in political wisdom, or are they just party cheerleaders like their secular counterparts?

The War in Afghanistan

One one side, Daniel Larison: Going Over To “The Dark Side” By Supporting A Just War I Have Always Supported. On the other, Marjorie Cohn, Why the Af/Pak War is Illegal.
12 Elements of Firearms Training
The dozen critical elements of modern firearms training
If the Chinese leadership is aware of peak oil (how can it not be), does its short- and long-term planning reflect this?

From 2006: Michael Ruppert, THE PARADIGM IS THE ENEMY: The State of the Peak Oil Movement at the Cusp of Collapse

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Two Weeks in Hell trailer

Selection for Army Special Forces.

Two Weeks In Hell : Videos : Discovery Channel
Adam K. Webb, What Colour Is the Village Green?

I confess I have never really understood the idea of “guesthood” and its converse, the ethnic “ownership” of a place. It is one thing to have a strong ethnic identity, a connexion with the cultural heritage and folkways of one’s forebears. The world has lost much ethnic diversity in its slide into cultural anæmia, and could benefit from a revival. I should never expect a Punjabi family in Somerset to “become” English; nor, for that matter, should I expect their English neighbours to think of them as “really” English when they probably do not. But that is quite different from calling them perpetual guests. In any practical civic sense, there should be no difference whether the English and Punjabi neighbours meet in Somerset or in Sangrur. After settlement, guesthood becomes a backhanded insult.

This might sound like postmodern multicultural claptrap of the sort that drives localists up the wall. But perhaps it is quite the opposite: perhaps I am not modern enough to appreciate a modern national identity. This view of diversity is pre-national as much as post-national. The wedding of territory and ethnicity as the nation-state is a relatively recent event. No one thought that time and space turned a Greek in the Ottoman Empire into a Turk. Likewise, today’s trends are severing anew the link between ethnicity, or religion, and territory. Even with a modest continuation of what we see now, these categories of belonging will become more rootless over the next two or three centuries. Sometimes this will mean hybridisation, other times merely movement. The world’s diasporas already give us a foretaste of what that looks like. Even a third of the humanity in such a transplanted or hybridised condition will make the global demographic unrecognisable by today’s standards. It will become hard to say that minaret-building Muslims in a Swiss village “own” that village any less than a neighbour whose forebears lived there for ten generations. And it becomes not just hard, but preposterous, to say that the Muslim villager should defer to someone three cantons away as an “insider” who defines “Swissness.”

How does this reemerging multiethnic tapestry square with the strong communities that we want to resurrect? We must, I think, drop a short-term nostalgia for the nation-state. But we also have to articulate an approach different from the false choices that both the liberal multiculturalists and the xenophobic sort of traditionalists would impose on us.

For one thing, the problem should be clear. When decent people bemoan social decay and then take a swipe at ethnic diversity, they are conflating two different trends. Unfortunately, the influx of outsiders into these societies has coincided with a breakdown of many of the small decencies. But that breakdown would have happened anyway, if the larger machine of liberal modernity had been bearing down with closed borders around it. Japan, which has remained notoriously insular, is a case in point.

In the texture of daily life, it is easier to see hundreds of African or Asian immigrants moving into a neighbourhood than to see the money-driven mobility or shifting morés of one’s own compatriots. The McDonalds opened on the village green is not usually owned by a Jamaican immigrant, even though he might take a job in it after the fact. It is hardly in the interest of the pro-market right to acknowledge as much.

The same conflation happens when traditionalists talk of cultural decay. A few years ago, a very elderly relative of mine remarked over dinner that Britain’s surge of immigration had “lowered standards.” A few minutes earlier, he had lamented the loss of high culture and that educated people today rarely read Cicero. Again, there are unfortunate but real correlations. Given what motivates cross-border migration, most of the influx is of two sorts. Either it is uprooted refugees from poverty, because global capitalism has not brought development of a humane sort to the countryside. Or it is a professional stratum pushing its way smoothly upward, disconnected from any tradition—including its own—and embracing of all the nice new-class orthodoxies. Neither group is likely to be seen as kindred spirits by anyone committed to an indigenous high culture.

I could understand where my relative was coming from in his disdain. When I asked him, he agreed in principle that the same decay was happening all over the world. But it was obviously an abstract point for him. This is because one of modernity’s less obvious ills is a loss of serious engagement across the great traditions. Ironically, Enoch Powell, whose 1968 speech made him the patron saint of British xenophobes, was a cultured and multilingual fellow. After studying classics at Cambridge, he learned twelve languages, including Hindi and Urdu. Likewise, one of the strongest voices against the minaret ban in Switzerland—and against the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammad a couple of years ago—was none other than the Catholic Church. We have at our disposal, if we can cultivate it, a cosmopolitan moral clarity quite different in flavour from the liberal sort that destroys traditions.

If we want to preserve the village green, we must acknowledge that strong communities have very little to do with the nature and origin of their membership. They have to do with an ethos of participation and stewardship. Shoring up that ethos requires measures radical but colourblind: policies favouring local cooperative enterprises, land trusts, sustainability, decentralisation of decisionmaking, and the like. A lived community arises from the texture of responsibilities, not from drawing lines around one or another place. Many of the people who draw boundaries spend far too little time worrying about how to craft pro-community policies within them.

But how these responsibilities are lived are defined by rules specific to that community;these rules define all areas of life, not just commerce and the acquisition, holding, and selling of property. Should someone be excluded from membership in a community merely on the basis of race or appearance or ethnic heritage? But what about self-exclusion, when someone refuses to adopt the mores (and language) of a new culture? Refusal to give membership (or citizenship) is the appropriate consequence of that individual's choice. And then there is the question of religion and cult. What can be done now, when the elites have already opened the borders to peoples of other religions? What can local populations do to preserve the religion of the community, which should have a public character?
From Rod Dreher, Turkey's besieged Orthodox Christians:

Watch CBS News Videos Online
The other day I was thinking about my past, and my overactive imagination... I remember fantasizing about being a white person with brown hair. Why? Even 25 years ago this part of the Bay Area still had a white majority, and most of the faces you saw on TV were white. Was that my ideal image of beauty, or was it due to a desire to fit in? I can't say for sure. I can probably affirm that I was too young to think about what white women considered attractive (white men). Reshaping reality in my imagination in order to satisfy certain emotional needs did dominate my inner life for too long.

Now I am comfortable being Asian in appearance. But it does not mean that various social obstacles no longer exist.

Would I want to blame white people for wanting to look at beautiful white people, and thereby projecting this as the standard for all of society? No. Should they seek to be more diverse in what they are attracted to? Those who are responsible for marketing a product or a image or fantasy may wish to draw in as wide a customer base as possible, and as a result there is a financial incentive to have diversity represented in advertising or in their visual product. Men are probably less picky than women when it comes to physical or sexual attraction -- of course race or ethnicity may be a factor when they are more rational and considering a marriage partner. Still, while having a diverse case may be beneficial to those who are making TVs and movies (this may be questionable at least with respect to TV shows -- do the various races in America share the same viewing preferences?), I can't impute racism to the customer who wishes to see only certain kinds of beauty.
Zenit: Decrees of Vatican's Saint Congregation
Zenit: Father Cantalamessa's 3rd Advent Sermon
"Mary, Mother and Model of the Priest"
San Francisco: The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.
Brussels Journal: Justice to the Middle Ages

The author takes a look at medieval Europe implicity compares it to a Muslim theocracy. Is it as good as something written by Regine Pernoud or another Catholic historian? No.
John Robb interview for IEET: Open Source Warfare and Resilient Communities (mp3)
Asia Times: Ten years after, the Macau they wished for
By Muhammad Cohen

More on Sierra Noble

official website

Related links:
Canadian Grandmasters
The Métis Fiddler Quartet
Traditional Metis Music And Dance
Gilbert Anderson, Northern Alberta Métis Fiddler
Musical Traditions: Award Winning Métis Fiddler John Arcand

Sierra's Song - Metis Fiddle Music

Friday, December 18, 2009

Hayley Westenra, "River"





Rorate Caeli