Obligatory Pets Post

He looks like a rabbit, sleeping in such contentment that the very word ought be changed to "cat-tentment".

The sheen of his grey and white coat gleams as a silent rebuke for my delay in taking him to the vet.

His ears are like pop-ups in a children's book, their insides looking like the undersides of seashells - shiny and pink. Three black dots adorn the tip of his nose which we named, "The Father, Son & Holy Ghost" until one day the Holy Ghost disappeared. He will cover his eyes with his paws when sleeping, or maybe it is just to keep his nose warm. His paws each have one pink pad fallen from the rest, the obverse of an undescended testicle.

The thin line of his closed mouth extends far beyond what one would assume was necessary for eating or licking, the two activities other than sleeping he engages in. The line runs parallel to his nose and eyes until there's a sudden curve upward, to the north, forming a smile. Declawed, he relies on other methods for survival, like the blind who develop acute hearing. He makes noise - he purrs louder than other cats when happy and makes loud mewling noises when not.

Nearby the Great Obi lies, the dog's two personalities (i.e. eater of skateboarders but lover of family) expressed by his body parts: the tawny, deer legs with his black bear body.

Evolution & Viruses

I don't understand why it's controversial that God likely used evolution as the means of our creation. To quote John Paul II, it's "more than a theory". Sure, the New Yorker isn't the most trusted source, but this is interesting:

Yet nothing provides more convincing evidence for the “theory” of evolution than the viruses contained within our DNA. Until recently, the earliest available information about the history and the course of human diseases, like smallpox and typhus, came from mummies no more than four thousand years old. Evolution cannot be measured in a time span that short. Endogenous retroviruses provide a trail of molecular bread crumbs leading millions of years into the past.

Darwin’s theory makes sense, though, only if humans share most of those viral fragments with relatives like chimpanzees and monkeys. And we do, in thousands of places throughout our genome. If that were a coincidence, humans and chimpanzees would have had to endure an incalculable number of identical viral infections in the course of millions of years, and then, somehow, those infections would have had to end up in exactly the same place within each genome. The rungs of the ladder of human DNA consist of three billion pairs of nucleotides spread across forty-six chromosomes. The sequences of those nucleotides determine how each person differs from another, and from all other living things. The only way that humans, in thousands of seemingly random locations, could possess the exact retroviral DNA found in another species is by inheriting it from a common ancestor.

This was also interesting:

The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Joshua Lederberg once wrote that the “single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on this planet is the virus.”

A Celebrity Culture

It seems to me I’ve heard that celebrities look smaller in person. Is that true, or does it depend on the celebrity? Is it that they seem larger-than-life in our imagination or is it merely, as it’s been said, that television and movie stars have bigger heads relative to the rest of their bodies, which means when you see them in person you’d think they were bigger?

I’m not sure, but I’m also wondering at the connection between sex and celebrity. If sex is the mysticism of a materialistic society then are celebrities the high priests and priestesses of this mysticism?

I catch a glimpse of this “celebrity culture” at the corporate gym. One young lady ascends the stairs as I’m picking up my gym bag at the base of the stairs and I can see the alert protrusion of nipples. A woman’s nipples are supposed to be a rare, a mostly hidden sight. Yet they are seen routinely on television and in movies and in magazines, sometimes bared, but television and movies and magazines are ephemeral and virtual. Similarly, we are used to thinking of celebrities as rare and hidden. They are always on our television, naturally, but we don’t expect to ever see one in person unless we’re on the streets of Hollywood or New York.

One girl, who regularly works out in the gym with little clothing, stands in the lunch line and looks much different with her clothes on. It’s funny how much smaller she seemed! In the lunch line she was dressed very modestly. Is one definition of immodest dress such that you look completely different in your workout clothes than you do in your work clothes?

What exactly is this linkage between sex and celebrity? Do both allow access to what is rare and reserved? Despite the fifteen minutes of fame promised everyone by Andy Warhol, true celebrity is rare. Despite the typical male’s desire to be polygamous, polygamy is rare. So to see a celebrity or a nipple in an unexpected context startles you.

Malcolm Muggeridge said that “sex is the mysticism of a materialistic society”. According to the dictionary mysticism is the “immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding.” Which would make sex the “immediate intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary materialism”? Ordinary materialism being, presumably, food and clothes and cars and all the things we shop for.

The definition of mystic includes the words “esoteric”, “otherworldly”, and “ethereal”, all of which imply scarcity. God is the scarcity man longs for. The words esoteric and otherworldly imply a distance from the usual and the banal. We may try to substitute sex in that role. God remains mostly hidden, and perhaps He must if we would respect Him. In order for Him to be our mysticism, to be our celebrity, he hides himself so that in those magic (if infrequent!) moments we feel His presence, we’ll worship Him. Celebrities in the form of television stars appear daily in our living rooms and we grow accustomed to them virtually, if not in the flesh. Shocked we would be if we found them in the flesh! We’d stare at them and memorize our encounter with them. Similarly, God appears to us daily in “our living room” in the form of other people, and in the Scripture, and at Mass. We grow accustomed to him virtually. How shocked we are when we feel His presence! We stare at Him and memorize our encounter with Him...

U.S. Foreign Policy

                
Mr. Arrogant              Mr. Supine              Mr. Golden Mean?

Various

I recently caught a surprisingly good television show about a friendly vampire.

The show is called Moonlight and the vampire is seen in a sympathetic light since he restrains himself from biting people - he gets his blood at the local blood bank. He didn’t ask to be a vampire after all; he fell in love with someone whom he didn’t know was a vampire. Could happen to anyone.

In a sense he’s in the same place as all of us. We didn’t ask to be tainted by original sin and to have the vampiristic instincts of concupiscence. We, too, are asked to restrain ourselves.

It seems to me that great blood-lust on the show could also be seen as simply the more old-fashioned type of lust. One feral vampire, who didn’t have a mentor and thus didn’t learn the ways of self-control, was killed by another: the feral vampire was told not to kill even though he could, and his response was laughter, for power unused is folly to man (and apparently vampires) but wisdom to God!

I often think of the crowning of thorns and how for Him there could well have been the very human urge to show them he was king, he did have power. Not power for power’s sake but merely power used to correct a wrong, for he was innocent and spoke only the truth. To be mocked went beyond mere crucifixion; the other criminals weren’t mocked as kings. But Jesus was given the robe and the fake scepter and the big audience. Christ, despite being clothed with power, didn’t exercise it, just as we are clothed with the power to speak out and lacerate our enemies and to exercise our sexuality in immoral ways, but we must relinquish and let that power be unexploited.

____


Seems this year I’ve eschewed my little “how far thru winter?” Excel spreadsheet; apparently I think I should've outgrown such frivolities as being so pervious to weather. Which, of course, is proof you haven’t outgrown it. Looking out the window the sky pinks behind laborious tree limbs which writhe frozenly. Clouds diffuse the colored cast of the moon. The eye fixates on the bare maples instead of the pines since the eye seeks novelty and it’s the maples who have changed. I can see their veins, the black capillaries that thread and fan from the major arteries.

____


I’m oddly cheered by the occasional side-long glance at the heading: “Divine Mercy in My Soul” which matter-of-factly sits atop the mass-market paperback “Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska”. The pages have that familiar aromatic smell of mass paperbacks, the kind you could lose yourself in. There are seven-hundred jam-packed pages for $7.99, just over a penny a page, the best deal this side of five-dollar King James bibles at the local Christian bookstore. One longs for Lent merely to get to Divine Mercy Sunday. Everyone from Aquinas on down agrees that mercy is God’s greatest attribute, and so it’s surprising that Divine Mercy Sunday, just after Easter, isn’t a bigger feast day given that it celebrates God in His most praise-worth dimension!

Ancestors, I take on faith,
for the past be a foreign country
which I would tread with reverence
for my grandmother's sake.

Handsome girls pillar left and right,
wit sits upon their brows;
Latinate resuscitations flourish,
nineteenth-centurians fetching
as Keatsian Merediths.

Honest faces have the men!
Dandy-dressed,
gazes direct and open
as their satellite ears;
strong Catholic men
guileless as Nathaniel.

Interesting Take from Peggy Noonan

...here (emphasis mine):

But I think the crying moment, as it is called, though she didn't cry, gained extra force because it occurred just as Mr. Obama, as a personality, was settling in as rather a chilly fellow. Sleek and elegant, yes, but cold, or at least cool at the core.

Barack Obama is up against a lot of tropes, a lot of assumptions and understandings about what it is to be young, gifted, black and a major political figure. He's not Jesse Jackson, he's not Dr. King, he's not Andrew Young. He's trying to break a mold, make it new, be who he is, anticipate expectations, upend clichés, startle you into seeing him clear. He plays down emotionalism in terms of his visage (not his words), keeps his guard up, wears dignity like a cloak. When he appeared with Oprah in Des Moines, she vibrated at the podium like a puppy. He came on cool and loping, always using his hands in the frame in a slow and deliberative manner, to show he never gets a tremor, doesn't break a sweat. He's cool. Is that a universally beloved attribute in a national candidate? Is it a plus that carries a minus?

Was what is called sexism part of the story? I suppose, and in a number of ways. When George Bush senior cries in public, it's considered moving. Ditto his moist-eyed son. But in fairness, they have tended to appear moved about things apart from themselves, apart from their own predicaments. Mrs. Clinton was weeping about Mrs. Clinton. If a man had uttered Mrs. Clinton's aria--if Mr. Obama had said, "And you know, this is very personal for me . . . as tired as I am . . . against the odds," and gotten choked--they would have laughed him out of town.

Quotable

Jan 11th entry of Kosicki's Revelations of Divine Mercy: Daily Readings from the Diary of Blessed Faustina Kowalska:

Night adoration on Thursdays. I made my hour of adoration from eleven o'clock till midnight. I offered it for the conversion of hardened sinners, especially for those who have lost hope in God's mercy. I was reflecting on how much God had suffered and on how great was the love He had shown for us, and on the fact that we still do not believe that God loves us so much. O Jesus, how can understand this? What suffering it is for our Savior! How can He convince us of His love if even His death cannot convince us? I called upon the whole of heaven to join me in making amends to the Lord for the ingratitude of certain souls.

A Belated Christmas Prayer

I would second Abigail in her comments regarding this prayer by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.:

I’ve always had nativity sets about during Advent. This is the first prayer that connected me to them on such an emotional level. Thank you to St. Francis of Assisi for sending this prayer my way.

Dancing with Hillary

In the television age, presidential politics has become more a popularity contest than ever before - an elaborate Dancing with the Stars*.

And I think part of the Dancing-with-the-Stars psyche is the desire to vote not for the best candidate but for the candidate who needs it the most. Thus Marie Osmond, who played on the heartstrings of voters, stayed on the show far longer than excellence might've dictated. In a democracy, the winner must combine humility with greatness even if it's a false humility. We all want Rocky Balboa to win, in the ring and in the campaign. Thus Bill Clinton's "comeback kid" slogan and appeal to his humble beginnings in Hope, Arkansas played such a role in his getting elected.

George W. Bush won mostly because his two opponents, Al Gore (who embarrassingly "stalked" Bush during one of the debates) and John Kerry, were perceived as too hubristic. In our Dr. Phil culture, it's also quite possible that Bush's alcohol-fueled past actually helped him rather than hurt him. America loves an underdog.

Whatever her intention, Hillary's tears were perfect in that it made her more Rocky Balboa and less Apollo Creed. It simultaneously said two things to New Hampshire voters: 1) I want this more than the other guy and 2) I am humble. Known for her iron-like pride and reserve, for her to break down is seen as the ultimate act of humility. That's why no one considers Hillary weak for having teared up, unlike, say, the former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder.

What hasn't gotten much coverage is at the same time Hillary was crying, Obama was boasting. Or at least that's the way his statement "You're the wave and I'm riding you," comes across. In the days just after Iowa, Obama was still seen as the underdog, the sympathetic and humble figure. But in one fell swoop, his wave line combined with Hillary's weepy moment spelt disaster.

It's not unlikely that Hillary will be dancing all the way to the White House.
______

* - It's true that I've watched only about twenty seconds of that show, but the first rule of blog-punditry is that ignorance is not a barrier to entry. As many of us first learned on The Brady Bunch: "caveat emptor".

Various

Via Al Kresta's excellent show:

Incorruptible? St. Padre Pio's remains to be exhumed, venerated.

A lectionary-based catechism.

________
Follow a WW I soldier's life via his diary.
________
Lover of Ohio, now living in New Zealand:

Many years ago, like 20, I had the ultimate privilege of living in Wapakoneta, Ohio on and off for 2 years. My parents lived there and I was at boarding school in England, so visited during the holidays. To this day I would still love to go back and live, but it is not a happening thing.

(Speaking of Wapakoneta, this is the shortest-lived blog I've seen in awhile. Seems Mrs. Walters is better at creating blogs than updating them.)
________
Now for my curmudgeon impersonation: Cokie Roberts recently said, "Young people as much as we like to see them active in politics are notorious for not showing up when you need them." She likes to see them active in politics 'eh? Given that young people are generally less experienced and less knowledgeable, would she also say: "Young people, as much as we like to see them out driving on the roads a lot..."

We Interrupt Politics for a Real Poem...



__________________________________________________________________
Found via Meredith, who says, "This is the end of WH Auden's "Christmas oratorio," For the Time Being. The whole thing is worth reading - it's full of weird, startling insights into the events of Christmas." Indeed.
__________________________________________________________________

III

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

IV

CHORUS

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

Poli-Sci Haiku

Hill won in Hampshire
Manchester loves to surprise
cynics say tears work.

Live-blogging the New Hampshire Primary   --It's a nor'easter!

Well, well, as Gomer Pyle would say, "Sur-prise, Sur-prise!"

But is it really? The Hillcat is to Obama what Republicans are to Democrats: less hip and chronically underpolled. Just as Republican voters either avoid talking to pollsters at all or fudge on who they voted for, so too, it seems, have Hillary voters either avoided pollsters or fibbed.

So whatever the outcome of this primary (currently a 2-point Hillary lead), it's plain that she's doing much better than expected and will likely continue to do so.

Going forward she is in a pretty strong position. First, Obama would've gotten beaten badly in this primary without the help of registered independents. Going forward he won't have those independents since I think most of the primaries on Super Tuesday don't allow non-party voting.

Second, even though most of the primaries will be far less white than New Hampshire, will the black vote really go for Obama? I think not, not in the numbers Obama needs. Many blacks are prejudiced against lighter-skinned blacks and Obama is lighter-skinned. Also Hillary did much better with lower-middle class voters while Obama did better with upper-middle class voters in New Hampshire. Will class be a more important predictor than race? As for the Oprah factor, I've always had the impression that Oprah's audience is mostly white suburban women rather than southern black women so I don't know that that will help Obama. (I back that up with nothing other than my own hot air.) But FOX news analyst Juan Williams opined that as proud as he is of Obama (he is black himself), he didn't think Obama could rely on black votes to give him (Obama) the edge.

Third, Dems always flinch. Courage just isn't their strong suit. They flirt with the one they love & then leave them at the altar. Thus Howard "Bike Path" Dean and Gen'l Clark and John Edwards were all left behind for the arranged (loveless) marriage of John Kerry. Same in 2000 - many a liberal heart fluttered for the likes of the debonair Bill Bradley and the passionate Paul Wellstone before duller brains prevailed and Albert Gore got the nod. How about Humphrey in '68? It's certainly not limited to Democrats: the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon (twice!) and Bob Dole after all. But for a party supposedly fond of risk, the Dems sure like their establishment candidates. I think Obama might just be the next jilted lover.

On the Republican side, by my lights Romney didn't do well in the New Hampshire debate Saturday. Although I didn't watch the whole thing - who could've!? - I think he "protesteth too much". He came off as a whiner, though I understand he had to answer the other candidates' attacks. But I just don't think he is a strong enough general election candidate. What works for the Massachusetts electorate rarely works for Ohio, and Ohio seems to have undue sway in these presidential elections. Romney is too much Michael Dukakis, too much Aquinas, too much Spock and not enough....Huckabee. Romney might be the best potential president, but you have to get elected in order to prove it.

I think McCain has the gravitas, the familiarity, the personality and demeanour (and yes humor) to take on an Obama or a Hillary. “I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B,” he said recently of Vladimir Putin. McCain has, rightly, never been the first choice among conservatives, but it's relatively easy to give him the nod this year given the political headwinds conservatives face. This election is the Democrats to lose unless the Republicans nominate McCain, in which it becomes a ballgame again. And to get a pro-life & fiscally-responsible conservative when the alternative is a pro-abortion, pro-taxer? I mean, it just don't get much better than that.

UPDATE: Deep Furrows on Obama here.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the tradition of Charles Dickens, Samuel Smiles, and Margaret Thatcher, I give you—Eric Clapton? The maxims are Thatcher’s, but the sentiments are all Clapton. In Clapton: The Autobiography, the artist unthreads with surprising success the strung-out, blasphemous, and profane mantle of celebrity to reveal a profoundly conservative Englishman who almost incidentally wielded the iconic ax of the sixties counterculture. His life was a mess, but his instincts were sound, and, like the character in a good Victorian novel, it all came right in the end. Like most successful conservatives, he also had talent. - John Powell on "First Things"

I remember wanting to weep over my own sins-this had never happened before...no matter how far I have strayed in the past during different parts of my life, I always have kept a daily connection with God out of this obligation (even if it seemed hypocritical at the time) -which He has used to keep track of me. - Jim of "Bethune Catholic" after reading "Great Expectations"

My wife bought me this book for Christmas: The Bad Catholic’s Guide To Wine, Whiskey, And Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life and Lore from the Apocalypse to Zinfandel. At the risk of exaggerating, I’m going to call it a masterpiece. I haven’t read all of it by any means (at 240 pages, it’s thick for a humor book), but what I’ve read shows intense erudition, orthodox Catholic thinking, and a great sense of humor that any child of modernity will appreciate. The book is downright funny, and the humor is intertwined with genuine insight and interesting facts. Even if you’re not a drinker, you’ll enjoy it. If you are a drinker, you’ll love it. - Eric of "The Daily Eudemon"

...a disastrous presidency on his part may spark a bit of a backlash next time a minority candidate decides to run and he may turn out to be as much of a hindrance to improved race relations as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been. - Robert of "Tribal Pundit" on Obama

Best books read (nonfiction): Rene Girard, The Scapegoat, Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII, Richard Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime, Philip Roth, Reading Myself and Others...Best books read (real books): Albert Camus, The Plague, Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tim Powers, Last Call, Philip Roth, Everyman
- favorite 2007 reads of Eve Tushnet

It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force. Verbs associated with sexual pleasure have acquired more than the usual overtones of violence and psychic exploitation. - Christopher Lasch via Kevin Jones

This is how Paul’s test of faith in 2nd Corinthians can be helpful even for the struggling Christian who lacks Paul’s impressive resume. A characteristic mark of the Christ-form is the Paschal Mystery of God’s power in weakness. Assurance is needed most of all in trials of various sorts, whether in external events, spiritual desolation, or the struggle to overcome sin. Instead of despairing, the Christian must grasp the true Christ-form. According to Paul’s formulation (12:9-10), it is precisely weakness that God transforms into power through Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ’s victory over sin is certainly the apex of power made perfect in weakness. Rather than seeing one’s weakness in and of itself—isolated within one’s own standard of judgment—part of what it means to be a Christian believer is to see one’s weakness in the context of the Paschal Mystery. This is relativizing one’s own state in the Paschal light of the standard of Christian attunement. The very weakness of the believer, whatever the cause, is an occasion for God’s power to be made perfect through the Christ-form of death and resurrection, yet only in pressing on. In moving forward toward the final goal of the glorious resurrection, the Christian can rest in the assurance that God’s grace is at work. - Br. Schweitzer O.P. on "First Things"

Since January 5th is the feastday of St. John Neumann, bishop of Philadelphia (the one in Pennsylvania!), it seems timely to remind people of what they never taught us in religion or history class — that St. John Neumann served in an Ohio parish for a while!...He died in 1860 at the age of 48, after having crammed a long lifetime of achievement into a few short years. He should be a wonderful example to us of what wonderful things can be achieved by working hard for the Lord...So Ohioans, support your local saint!...Unfortunately, [he doesn't] seem to have special food or candy associated with him. What’s up with that!? Shouldn’t we institute a St. John Neumann Philly cheesesteak??? Drink a Budweiser in honor of Budweis’ favorite alumnus? - Maureen of "Aliens in this World"

Yesterday while working in the office, I heard some commotion downstairs. I stole down and overheard Mrs. Curley breaking up a sibling squabble. She said something I never heard before. It went something like this: "You know boys, parents are like Christ in that we take on and suffer the sins of the whole family somewhat alike to Christ as He took on the sins of the world. When you sin, Dad and I suffer and worry about you and about the family." Obviously there is some difference. Christ takes on our sins and redeems us; parents simply suffer their children's sins-but our suffering, if offered to God can be redemptive also. - Jim of "Bethune Catholic"