Links

Jonah Goldberg talks about science & slippery slopes:

Indeed, abortion-rights absolutism provides no defensible terrain to object to that slippery slope. Today’s “pro-science” champions may soon see a world where homosexuality is eradicated in utero thanks to their hard work establishing the absolute moral sovereignty of individual choice and science.

This is the beauty and curse of science: It tends to undermine the cherished positions and assumptions of everyone, even those who claim to be its champions. Perhaps that’s one reason we shouldn’t derive our values from such a moving target in the first place.

And Kevin Jones excerpts a David Bell piece on war:

The unexpected consequence of this change was that those who considered themselves "enlightened," but who still thought they needed to go to war, found it hard to justify war as anything other than an apocalyptic struggle for survival against an irredeemably evil enemy. In such struggles, of course, there could be no reason to practice restraint or to treat the enemy as an honorable opponent.

Ever since, the enlightened dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of modern total war have been bound closely to each other in the West. Precisely when the Enlightenment hopes glowed most brightly, wars often took on an especially hideous character.

Oldest Living Person Dies In Connecticut... Woman Was Oldest For Only Two Weeks. Now that's a job with limited potential. And there is always some snot-nosed 112 year old understudy waiting to take it from you. - Ellyn of Oblique House

Our parish priest has told us many times: We know how to fast. We look forward to it. We feel holier when we do. We do not know how to feast and be joyful. We have no experience of true feasting, so we overdo it with material giving at Christmas, trying to reach some high point. I happen to think he is right. Other than a meal at Easter, what will your family do to celebrate the great Feast? Yes, go to mass. Celebrate the liturgy (my favorite liturgies of the year are Holy Week ones). But how will you be bringing it home as celebration? The most wonderful thing in the world has happened! Do you look like it? Do you act like it? Could people tell? So, yes, spend time in these last days before Lent preparing for the fast. But spend some time during Lent preparing for the feast. And rejoice! - MamaT of "Summa Mamas"


Copyright 2006 by Erik Keilholtz

Every day I conform to my role in society, being a social animal…’Live they neighbor as thyself’…so, religion too locks me into this daily struggle between my natural tendencies and what is fitting and proper and right to do.” – runner/philosopher George Sheehan

He who attempts to act and do things for others without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love will have nothing to give to others. - Thomas Merton

It is rather his blithe assumption that anyone able and willing to read [Professor Dimaond's] book would share his views on things that have little to do with the the subject. When I was an undergraduate, I was persuaded to meet with a young man only a few years older than myself, who wished to sell me life insurance. As part of his sales pitch, he mentioned another customer of his: "He was just like you and me--he liked to hustle chicks." I decided at that moment that regardless of the merits of his product, I would not buy it. Professor Diamond and his kind are just like that salesman. - Henry of "A Plumbline in the Wind"

Mo Chenna, Blath bulid,
Cronan cian o chintaib,
Dallan mac fial Forgail,
Papias, Maurus milidh,
tri clarenich cardair:
Ualeir co n-aeib ordain,
Segein ro siacht toethir,
la Boethin nar’ borbaig.

My Cenna, blooming Blath,
Cronan far from crimes,
Dallan, Forgail’s modest son:
Papias, Maurus, the soldiers.
Three table-faced ones are loved:
Valerius with dignity’s beauty,
Segein who reached the silent land, [ie, Heaven]
with Boethin who wrought no rudeness.

- Félire Húi Gormáin (The Martyrology of Gorman) via 'Aliens in this World'

The ordinary people who buy into global warming the most normally don’t know whether the evidence is accurate. They just read the scientists who have proven unreliable in the past. It’s a question of authority: how much and what type of authority do you need?...It may sound odd (or stupid), but I’ll rely on the Vatican statements on this issue. Although the Vatican has no special graces when it comes to science (its binding authority on Catholics is limited to faith, morals, and discipline), it has some of the best scientists at its disposal, and it normally (not always) has no agenda to protect when it comes to scientific questions. - Eric of "Daily Eudemon"

Alas, we can always depend on the pathetically earnest New York Times to find political content in it all - apparently the "cartoonish violence" and other elements of various commercials are reflections on the Iraq War. Yeah, you heard that right - the hitchhiker, the dream sequences, etc., all interpreted through the lens of the war. This is what the "Paper of Record" has fallen to: pseudo-political analysis of SuperBowl ads. - Phil at "Umbrae Canarum"

Ever wonder if the chaos in your life will clear up in favor of some smooth sailing for once? I know we’ve all had a thought similar to that one...Lucky for us, we have our faith. Our deep, abiding faith in Jesus, the Divine Physician. The Lord, who can heal our ills and soothe our spirits, even in the midst of chaos. Good thing, too, ‘cause I have a feeling that just when we think we’re in the clear, something else is bound to happen. It’s just part of life. After all, if we don’t have a little trouble on earth, we won’t long for heaven. - "A Catholic Mom in Hawaii" reminds us that even Hawaii isn't paradise

To feed the hungry, to give wine to the thirsty, to not look at the naked, to visit the imprisoned, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to bury the dead. - a funny (wrong) answer to "What are the chief corporal works of mercy?" from a quiz found via Via Bill White.

From my Brother-in-Law

Chris points us to this story, about a professor protesting his lack of tenure. I obviously don't know why he was denied tenure, but there's definitely a conflict of interest. Chris says, "Those MIT bastards are looking to get their hands on embryonic stem cell research grants and monies. They don't need one of their own carelessly speaking the truth."

Sunday & Monday in Review

I've always found that not having much to post is no reason not to post. Can I get an 'Amen'? Besides, you never know what you might write once you start to write. Reminds me of what a long-distance runner once said: “I can’t wait to see what new thoughts and ideas I think of on the run.”

So I heard that there were some commercials yesterday with a football game on the side. (Tivo reports their customers watched the commercials more closely watched than the game, including more replays of commercials than football plays.) I thought the commercial crop was average this year. Superbowl halftime shows tend to be uniformly lame but I was pleasantly surprised by Prince, who sounded great. I was mezmerized by the fact that his jacket seemed not to be getting wet. Usually, on my clothes at least, moisture (like, say, butter) causes the color to dampen -- more on that in a minute.

The game was pretty exciting. That ball popped out more often than verbal gaffes from Joe Biden. (Or Ah-nold). I guess I'm no football purist because those fumbles and interceptions make for an exciting game. Some nice long breakaway runs too. On the first play of the game reminded many of OSU/FLA with the Bears scoring on a return. Amazingly, this Colts guy caught up with the runner right at the endzone. He didn't even have that much of an angle on him - he just flat out outran not only his teammates but the Bears runner who, in fairness, was probably running on fumes after some 80+ yards.

One of the commercials showed a fellow suddenly becoming virtuous (I think due to drinking a Coke). He went about doing good works and making others happy, but one thing that surprised me was how he passed two other guys who carried placards that said "the end is near" and caused them to turn the signs around displaying the message "give a little love". Apparently the advertisement folks think that you're just a mean nasty person if you think "the end is near". Hmmm...I've never made that connection. I thought apocalyptic literature incites us to make our robes clean, not dirty.

* * *   <-- a perfect segue
I have to say that Dinesh D'Souza acquitted himself well and was even partially persuasive on C-Span's In-Depth concerning his view of Islam and 9/11. He says Islam itself is not the problem. I might have to borrow the book at the library and read it.
* * *
From the irresistable force meets immovable object department: Like Jody Bottum, I try to arrange things so as to avoid waiting as much as possible. General TSO was on the cafeteria menu which, even beyond the familiar moniker, is good eatin'. It must be since the line was bohemoth. I considered waiting. I could look at it in two ways: one, I was placing food as an idol in deciding to waste all that time in line. Or alternatively that not going with my first choice was proof that I'm not patient. This is what we call in the Christian world a 'win-win' since I would not only get to exercise a virtue but choose the one I'd be exercising. Would I eschew gluttony or impatience? I chose to eschew gluttony by chewing on a delicious pork chop with potato (or potatoe, in the Qualyeian spelling) and peas. I lathered on plenty of liquid butter on the peas and headed back to the orifice, office slang for 'office', with lunch in hand.

And all was well and good until I got back up to my floor and noticed I'd painted my whole left side with dripping butter. Apparently the dome wasn't tightly affixed to the plastic plate beneath it. It was a masterpiece of poncitude. From upper thigh to knee (heavy on the knees), then a little landed gentrified unmolested area before more dollops all over the calves. It made a sort of a zebra effect on my kahki pants. Here's an artist's rendering:


I tried to maintain a low profile the rest of the day. I slid into Dan's office and took a chair immediately and draped my arm casually over my thigh, thus blocking the view. Later I came across my boss and a comely female co-worker (can you say 'comely' on a Catlick blog?) in the hallway. I made eye contact, smiled and tried to hold their eyes as I slid by quickly. My boss stopped conversing with the co-worker and after I'd passed told me something about a file he needed. Rather than turn completely around I kept my feet in place and twisted around in something that probably looked as awkward as it felt. I'm ready to come clean now. Oh, and also, if nominated I shall not run! If elected I will not serve. I'm giving up awards for Lent, which is easy to do seeing as how I've never won any. (Of course, since far superior bloggers like Eve Tushnet & Eric Scheske & Bill Luse, to name three, haven't won I shan't complain.)
* * *
I think that's enough self-indulgence for one post. How about something spiritual? I really appreciate St. Peter, in his example of living with the knowledge that he could deny Christ utterly. Tis a painful thing to have to live with, and how much more painful for someone SO chosen. Of all who have ever lived he was among that small fraction who lived at the time of Christ. Of all who have ever lived at the time of Christ he was among that small fraction who lived in that obscure Roman outpost. Of all who lived in that obscure Roman outpost he was chosen to be among the 12. And of the 12 he was chosen to be among the 3, along with James and John, to be excluded from nothing, not even the Transfiguration. And of the 3 he was chosen for the top spot, the big gig, with the heaviest responsibility of all. And he failed. All the time and effort Christ put into him, the personal teaching, the grace and love, and he denied him three times. And Peter was forgiven, and he did not disbelieve in that forgiveness, but what is even more interesting was that he did not apparently live in fear that he would deny Him again. He lived and preached and evangelized in the wake of that knowledge. His triple denial of Christ might not have been premeditated, but that lack of premeditation would be all the more reason to suspect, in himself, that he might again betray the Lord. Yet he did not, and has received his Heavenly Crown.

Excerpt of Elizabeth Kantor's Politically Incorrect Guide to English & American Literature

On Southern lit:

Interestingly, the most successful regional American literature is the product of the part of our country with the most stifling, tradition-fraught culture...The South was also the place it was hardest to pretend that evil was all somebody else's doing...White Southerners knew they were implicated in what's been called America's original sin, the great contradiction at the heart of America's foundation - chattel slavery, justified on the basis of race.
___

If the theme of Faulkner's fiction is that you can never really get a fresh start, the theme of Flannery O'Connor's is that you can - but only at an enormous price...O'Connor is bent on showing us the cost of salvation, which is the only real fresh start available to us. The further we get from understanding original sin, that most essential truth about human nature, the more violent the intervention of grace - and the literature, for that matter - has to be, to get our attention.

Goethe Poem

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

HT: Martha² via LMB

The Office Clip

Michael Scott defends the Bard of Avon:

Hilarious

Terry McAuliffe a Knight Of Malta?

More fitting that he be a Knight of Malt Liquor!



It just ain't right. Idea for this post shamlessly stolen from Terrence Berres.

UPDATE: Looks like McAuliffe's invitation was withdrawn.

Via Conversational Reading:

On Jonathon Raban's Passage to Juneau & travel writing:

Raban's comparison between the Indians' conception of the ocean as a "place," a "mobile surface full of portents, clues and meanings," and the white sailors' sense of it as mere "empty space" deserves to become standard.

I agree that Raban brings in a lot of interesting material and makes good connections, but I also like this book because while Raban is discussing matters of the sublime and Pacific Northwest Indians' ideas of nature he also gets across the idea of what it feels like to be a traveler in a foreign land. Although Raban must be a pretty good seaman, he's not a great one by far, and I felt his tension at being faced with the wild. Moreover, I felt his displacement while sailing through Canadian waters or trying to fit in at a sailors' hangout on some Godforsaken stretch of coast. I read a large part of this book while traveling through Spain, and Raban's sensations as a traveler helped me define mine, his words both a comfort and a completion.

This wide-ranging polymath seems an ideal person to take advantage of travel writing's baggy nature. As Raban himself wrote about the genre, travel writing is "a notoriously raffish open house where very different genres are likely to end up in the same bed. It accommodates the private diary, the essay, the short story, the prose poem, the rough note and polished table talk with indiscriminate hospitality. It freely mixes narrative and discursive writing." Among the books Raban has packed these and more into are Old Glory, his account (then as a Brit) of sailing down the Mississippi and Hunting Mister Heartbreak where he sailed from Britain to Key West on a trans-Atlantic freighter.

Love or Loathe Him, Morris Knows Politics

     
Predicts the dinosaurization of Republican party

I've always been a "demographics is destiny" sort of guy, which is why when I used to dabble in stocks (penny ante) I tried to get in front of the demographic trend. Seems like Dick Morris would agree:

“Hillary will be the next president, and she’ll be the worst president we’ve ever seen.” No matter what happens, the situation in Iraq will “assure that the GOP gets massacred in 2008 congressional elections.” In 2010, the Republicans will take back the Congress — “Hillary will give Republicans the same gift she gave them in 1994” — and they’ll win the presidency in 2012, but thanks to demographic shifts favoring Democrats (namely the rising Hispanic and African-American populations), “that will be the last Republican president we’ll ever see.”

That's why back in 2000 I was saying 'fire all of your guns at once' George. I didn't mean it literally though.

Memories of Lents Past

You've seen the posters of America from the New Yorker's perspective right? The maps that show Manhattan as huge and the rest of the continent as tiny? Well that's sort of what Holy Weeks were to me. I loved Lents when I was a kid. I think all seasons - liturgical or otherwise - are more dramatically "other" to the young and the young-at-heart. As we age time has a feeling of speeding up such that annual events don't seem quite so rare as they once did.

Lents then were extremely light on ascetical practices (not that they're impressive now) and were not considered a trial so much as an opportunity to bathe in the liturgical and extra-liturgical services (the latter being the Way of the Cross, viewing the film Jesus of Nazareth, etc..).

I wrote in the journal about the film "Jesus of Nazareth": "I can barely stand to watch such sadness, such betrayal... Perhaps His deepness of love is what startles me or perhaps the tragic unfairness of His crucifixion....Can I not relate better to a weakened, rejected Lord than a strong, omniscient Lord?"

In all of Lent, each Lent, one line pierces utterly: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabathani!" Those words were/are more painful and moving than anything in the gospels, even more painful than the physical pain He bore. Strong men can bear pain but I couldn't imagine the abandonment of God by God, the Son feeling bereft of the Father. The uttering of that line during Palm Sunday's liturgy is a sort of equinox; at that point Lent climaxes and Easter nears.

Self-Indulgent Post Alert

"Running thru fields where children have played,
Running thru alleys where drunks have prayed."

I'm in the process of converting ancient adolescent journal entries from paper & ink to computer because the latter can be password protected. Once done, the paper & ink will be burned. I'm not sure it's worth it because a) I never read the old entries and b) the quality is low. But it's sort of an interesting if exquisitely embarrassing exercise. This entry was mildly amusing: "Some think I’m about as athletic as an intoxicated Richard Nixon. But that’s changing as I surprised them by beating Gridley in one-on-one basketball [which is] akin to outquoting Billy Graham with scriptures."

Another: "[It was a] culture shock that lacked all culture."

Erica Jong's "How to Save Your Own Life" was apparently on my reading list. I don't recall reading it, but perhaps the title alone intrigued me in all its self-help, Pelagian temptation. The Lord helped me.

Reading these, I've been wondering about the connection between artistic flourish and narcissism. I think it was Tom of Disputations who said he doesn't much appreciate poetry and I've always sensed it was because he equates it with narcissism or anti-rationalism. Rosselini, a realist film director, disliked Felini's surrealism, in part (my impression) because he thought surrealism was showing off. There's a certain amount of escapism inherent in art, isn't there? Escape from rationalism? In my journals, "woe-is-me"s are juxtaposed with pretty words, sans plot or moral. I collected words for their own sake: 'aria', 'mellifluous', 'translucent'. Still, the anti-utilitarianism in art is a good part of its God-given power to refresh and renew.

More? Glad you asked!

"Sometimes I go without writing for a while and then I write and an explosion of emotion comes out like a healing spring. Anger, love come out juxtaposed in a strange way. Like a dream in which I’m in love with a girl while I’m being shot at."

Nothing like being shot at to make you angry.

The body was often (naturally) a theme. Being in prime physical shape was a double-edged sword: "One edge is good – The mastery of a sport / And obedience of the will. / One edge is bad- The creating of desires / intense & insatiable."
* * *
Speaking of youth, this from Steven Riddle is hilarious:

I used to wear all black. Everything. And I recall once when I was younger (but I retained the attitude) my mother said, "Why don't you go out and play?" I responded to her, "I'm cultivating a Victorian pallor. Sun must not touch this skin."

Country Song Heard on the Radio Yesterday

Lyrics of Trent Tomlinson's song here:

Daddy's been a back-row Baptist,
With his share of front-row sin.
His Saturday night still on his breathe,
Every Sunday when he'd walk in.
He's never led the Benediction,
He's never sang in the choir.
But he's an angel with no halo,
An' one wing in the fire.

Mamma lives by the Bible,
The Bible lives by the bed.
An' she's lied alone so many nights,
With Scriptures in her head.
Prayin': "Good Lord, just be with him,
"I know his Faith is tired,
"But he's an angel with no halo,
"An' one wing in the fire."

Lutheran Carmelites

Reflecting on this interesting First Things post, I'm reminded of the saying:

Afflict the comfortable; comfort the afflicted.

Some in St. Blog's have more of a charism for the former, some the latter. It's hard to be all things to all people though St. Paul seems to have had a talent for both admonition and encouragement. Perhaps once the Reformation fissure has been mended healing will come. Edward Oakes writes:

When the Western Church fissiparated in the sixteen century, the Reformers took a portion of the essential patrimony of the Church with them, and they thereby left both the Roman Church and themselves the poorer for it.

St. Thérèse was a saint who comforted the spiritually afflicted with the message of love and mercy. According to Oakes, it was St. Thérèse's more "Lutheran" writings that speeded her ascent to becoming a Doctor of the Church.

Help Eric!

The beer drinker's greatest fear is the time - which seems to come to many men eventually - when only two beers results in a headache.

These sort of headaches might be due to expanding blood vessels since dehydration is unlikely. Exercise can help with this, but I prefer comedy.

Slante!