Free Thought on Campus!  film at eleven

I'm always surprised by the occasional breakout of free expression on college campuses (or "campii" as we say 'round here). What follows isn't exactly a challenge to the academic world's group hug of designerless Darwinism, but you take what you can get.

What happened was that several college presidents, including Ohio State's, signed a petition calling for debate about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 19. Now there's a man-dog-bites story. It surely must show that the drinking age on campuses has not been working.

But free expression usually comes with a price - witness poor Larry Summers of Harvard - and MADD let no beer cans collect under their feet before going for the jugular, i.e. the collegiate bottom line, in suggesting that parents direct their children away from colleges where the president has signed a petition calling for talk about lowering the drinking age. Wow. Just signing a petition to call for a debate and MADD plays the thought-stopping trump card. They sure know how to play the game.

The game is about money. Which is how the drinking age came down in the first place. The Federales came in and said, "you wanna our money, you raise your age." The states, one-by-one complied. All fifty. What was said of some women could be said of the states: "we've established what you are, now we're just haggling over price."

Ah but easy for you to say, you say. You're not in charge of a state budget. True, and you do have to pick your battles. But it is discouraging to see the flouting of the principle of subsidiarity and to see another example of the steady erosion of state and local power.

Photo from a Bike Ride

"Garden Spot of the World"

Funnies

Culled from the Columbus Dispatch...Editor Ray Stein has a funny line:

Editor: I was just watching the TV sports news, and they showed a Chinese basketball player who is 7 feet, 6 inches tall. Jeez, there ought to be some restrictions on a guy that tall, like a semi-circle around the hoop about 5 feet wide that he couldn’t score in. A guy that tall would only have to reach up to slam it. — David P.

David: I think a better rule would demand that Bob Costas stop coloring his hair.

* * *

Ray: As another sad Reds season wheezes to a merciful close, it was encouraging to see that Reds executives were addressing problem areas in preparation for next season. They apparently felt the team needed to add another mascot; hence Rosie Red, who presumably will assist the hilarious Mr. Red, the other big baseball with legs. Maybe they jumped the gun. A better choice for another mascot might have been St. Jude. Dressed (tastefully) in turn-of-the-century baseball togs, he could cavort around the ballpark, delighting young and old alike and even launching, by slingshot, promotional items into the huge crowds. St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, which is quite fitting. — Jim L.

Jim: I just hope Rosie Red and Mr. Red don’t hook up and before you know it you’ve got a bunch of big-baseballheaded Reds rugrats running around. Another mascot choice could be St. Corey Patterson, the patron saint of lame outfielders, whom you bury upside-down in center field at the end of the season.

And a quote:

“In other Olympic cities, there’s literally stuff going on until early in the morning. Here, you just don’t get the festival feeling, even during the day. They don’t understand the concept of fun.” Chris Welton, CEO of Helios, the Atlanta-based sports marketing giant, when asked to assess the games

I would love to live in a world where the media provided more space for arguing about the actual truth claims of religion — where op-ed columnists and bloggers and essayists spent less time on meta debates about the politics and sociology of religion, and more time arguing about whether Christianity or Islam or Judaism is true. These kind of arguments still take place, obviously, but they take place in books rather than in the popular press — and I’d like to live in a world in which the pope’s book about Jesus of Nazareth sparked a lively intellectual debate about Christianity’s truth claims in, say, the Times Book Review and the Post op-ed page, instead of being largely ignored. - Ross Douthat on "Get Religion"

Demolition has begun on old Tiger (formerly Briggs) Stadium in my hometown, Detroit. I remember attending many games there when I was growing up, including Detroit Lions football games in the fall. I saw Mantle and Maris play, Whitey Ford pitch along with the stars of one of the Tiger's best seasons, 1961. That would be Stormin' Norman Cash, Al Kaline and the rest. If there is baseball tradition in Detroit, it lives in Tiger Stadium. It was a beautiful old park and its a shame to see it go. Another suprising thing to me is that, looking at the web sites of the major Detroit papers, there seems to be relatively little interest in the loss of the old place; the demolition is not receiving major coverage. One aspect that is receiving coverage is the apparently failing attempt by a private group to save part of the stadium from destruction. The papers seem to almost be gloating over the failure to raise sufficient funds to prevent total demolition...I also wonder if the papers' lack of enthusiasm for saving Tiger Stadium is an indication of the current day disdain for anything that smacks of tradition: out with the old, in with the new, whether or not the new is an improvment. This current disdain is most graphically displayed in the unfathomable rush by a major political party in this country to nominate a man for President who has no discernable qualifications for the job, other than an expressed desire for "change." - The Seven Habitus

“Wake up and smell the incense!” This is one of my ripostes to those who downplay Pope Benedict’s plan to revitalize Holy Church, especially through derestricting the Traditional Latin Mass. Incense is one of those marks of solemn liturgy which, we hope, will return to more frequent use in our Latin Rite parishes. Apparently, that fragrant smoke wafting upward does far more than mark with solemnity our prayers rising on high to God. It also fulfills the goals of homemade progressivist liturgy: It makes you feel good about yourself! Here’s the science! Please rush to your local library and read a paper in a recent number of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology entitled, “ Incensole Acetate, an Incense Component, Elicits Psychoactivity by Activating TRPV3 Channels in the Brain.” Zzzzzzz. . . .Not so! It seems that frankincense acts on the brain to lower anxiety and diminish depression. Research was done at Johns Hopkins University and Hebrew University. They administered incensole acetate, a component of frankincense, to lab mice. This great- smelling stuff affects the part of the brain controlling emotion, including anxiety and depression. In other words, incense makes you feel good about yourself. That in itself should help even the progressivist liturgy types get on board with Pope Benedict and his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum! - Fr. Z via the "Inn at the End of the World"

The Bolsheviks regularly killed in a few minutes more people than the Romanovs managed in a century, giving pre-revolutionary Russian history the retrospective luster of decency, wisdom, and compassion that it did not in the least deserve. For Voinovich—and the distinguished historian of Russia Richard Pipes—Leninism had its roots in the Russian tradition as well as the Marxist one. This meant that Solzhenitsyn, while absolutely right in his uncompromising attitude to Marxist-Leninism and all its works, belonged in the category of Dostoevsky: a brilliant seer who would nevertheless have made a very bad guide. - Theodore Dalyrmple, via Eric Scheske

Say for example somebody asked me: "Do you think science has contributed to humanity? What about science's role in developing medicine, technology, and helping us to come to a greater understanding of the universe?" "No, people made those contributions to Western Civilization." I would deserve a good slap to my head for such an answer. - Jeff of "Curt Jester", on reluctance of many to credit religion with anything good

Dissenting with wit and fighting when nobody else cares — that’s what the GOP does best! So it’s back to being eager Young Republicans who refuse to be oppressed, for our eager Congresscritters. Dawn Eden, intrepid blogger, has an extensive report on her day in the midst of all this fun, which is free and open to the public. You too can go on the floor of the chamber! Apparently, there’s also a blogger in the House: “….Texas Rep. John Culberson, who makes it clear right off that he is a techie. The rep has found ways to beat the media’s near-blackout by posting video updates on Qik.com and short blog items on Twitter.com.” - Maureen of "Aliens in this World"

A Jewish convert once said that Jews think of converting to Christianity the way Italians would think of converting to Irishness. To them, they would not be leaving a "mere" religion, but an ancient race and a virtual nation spread over the world…[St. Paul's] declaration that "everything is lawful for me" may sound like a boast, but it is actually a lament. A Jew without the Law is like a fish which has found it safe to breathe air. So much of Jewish law was about prohibitions; at its heart was the belief that the Jewish race was set apart from the Gentiles. Suddenly he was no longer set apart. Not quite an exile, he still did not have a country. His vocation to be the Apostle to the Gentiles was a cross--the greatest cross God could have handpicked for a patriotic and zealous Jew. - Sancta Sanctis

there's always the threat that a crowd of converts will bump the thermostat off the lukewarm setting. - Terrence of "The Provincial Emails", on how some worry about a high influx of High Anglicans "more papist than the Pope"

Hello, cross.
You’re ugly as sin,
But lovely, since Christ’s
Body broke you in.
The battlesteed
He rode to save the world –
His dead limbs gleamed against you
Just like pearls.

Have you waited here
Since those days of old?
I come to you now
Exultantly, and bold.
Before He mounted you,
You made us fear.
Now we see only
All His love left here. - Maureen of "Aliens in this World"

I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best

We are saved by the New Covenant, not the New Haggle. We are judged, not by weighing our good deeds against our sins, but by weighing Christ's sacrifice against our sins. - Tom of Disputations

Speaking of Linda Hirshman, her Slate piece crowing over the absence of the "safe, legal and rare" formulation from the Dems' platform language on abortion ought to provide some clarity for pro-lifers hopeful that an Obamafied Democratic Party might provide any kind of an opening for advancing anything resembling a pro-life agenda... The Democratic Party's rigidly pro-choice stance is one of the more unyielding positions in contemporary American politics, and at least for the foreseeable future, pro-lifers who vote Democratic will always be casting votes that cut against their convictions on abortion, rather than with them. - Ross Douthat of "The Atlantic"

Wealth Inequality Bad for Your Health?

In a Byzantine Catholic newspaper I came across this article, against inequality of wealth, written by Glenmary Fr. John Rausch.

From Ben Stein to the Vatican to Fr. Rausch, I'm hearing the same message: inequality of wealth is bad. This is one of the few issues from the political left that I am sensitive to and they could be right about. Great extremes of wealth are not good, but I think the fix is worse than the cure.

I assume those who are upset about people with large incomes are actually concerned about that as the fact that they (those with large incomes) don't give away 80% or more of their income. I assume that if the wealthy were as generous as they were wealthy, the left wouldn't have a problem with disparity of incomes.

In the past I've never been too bothered by income inequality since I couldn't understand why someone could be envious of someone with more money. I'm not envious of Bill Gates since there's no incremental increase of happiness beyond a certain level of comfort, i.e. above the middle class. But just because it's not my particular sin (at least when it comes to money - I do feel spiritually envious sometimes) I probably should realize that many others do. It's interesting to me how much society should bend itself in order to help people avoid this sin. (Reminds me of how Muslim countries have gone to extremes - i.e. burkas - in order to help men avoid lust!)

I thought Rausch made an excellent point in how wealth allows a separateness and leads to a less cohesive society. However, the wealthy have always been separate - in the past more so than today. America has become steadily more egalitarian over the past two centuries, notwithstanding the wealth disparity; consider the changes surrounding women and minorities. So I'm not sure wealth disparity is so pernicious. But we could limit this separateness by changing the tax code, i.e. "mandatory charity", although a more socialistic state also ends up pitting people against each other too. In Britain, under universal health care, the new scapegoat is the heavy person because he costs society more. Any time you move away from self-reliance you get a lot of people who become irritated at the "freeloaders". That's human nature too.

I'm not sure that wealth concentration equals political power as the author assert. Numbers = power, which is why both the Republicans and Democrats are terrified of making a mistake with respect to Hispanic voters since their vote will determine the future. Demographics is destiny. Recall how in the 19th century the dirt poor Irish took over politics in New York & Boston after they arrived in great numbers. Nothing the wealthy could do, though they tried.

If we consider not just physical health but spiritual, are there any spiritually healthy socialist countries? Barring those who are socialist not by their own design but by government fiat (i.e. Poland), it seems America is far more religious than Europe these days and I wonder what part, if any, socialism plays. I wonder if some see government (where government wasn't the USSR!) as the the entity to rely on, rather than God?

The Consolations of the Sympatico

I've recently found two writers whom I can relate to and sympathize with greatly: Heather King, author of "Redeemed" and John Zmirak of "Bad Catholic" fame.

King's book is chockful of the sort of thoughts that I tend to think but not say aloud. And Zmirak struggles with Jansenism (note the high-larious title of his post, which I still chuckle over: "Nearer My Dogs to Thee"):

Theology figures into this, because I adopted Susie on the advice of a spiritual director, a Catholic shrink I was seeing who hoped to banish my Jansenist image of God. “You wanna know pure and unconditional love, the kinda love God has for every human soul?” he asked between mouthfuls of pasta. (The doc looked and dressed alarmingly like Joe Pesci, and scarfed down Italian take-out during our sessions.) “Get a dog.” At least that’s what I think he said. His mouth was full….

* * *
Zmirak also wrote a more recent Lileks-like gem of a post. I savored it and then read it aloud to my wife to guffaws; she says I have his same lack of filter between brain and mouth. (Though I’m not at all into expletives.) A recent example: I’m in a meeting with my boss and bosses’ boss and various & sundry other big shots. My boss started it all by getting a little vaklempt and saying how in a previous meeting he could feel the bonding and how it was a “Kumbaya moment”. I jumped on this to say how I was glad the forced corporate Togetherness Days were over (the last one was about five years ago) and how I’ll never forget the trust-building exercise in which Heather F. sat on my lap while I squatted. Heather was a looker and this immediately seemed a bit unseemly, what that this particular memory should rise to the surface. I broke the ensuing awkward silence by saying, “Well THAT was off-topic”, to which everyone assented a bit too enthusiastically, including my boss who later said he couldn’t believe I went there.

I tend to think Zmirak’s singleness creates the right condition for humor (wasn’t Keillor funnier when he wasn’t in love?). A lack of sex tends to supply the requisite desperation. Married men who practice NFP can, fortunately, share it. But I think he’s in the sweet spot age-wise for his perfect word choice - being 30-ish years old means never having to consult a thesaurus.

* * *
What follows is tongue-in-cheek, but I’ve long been disappointed by my lack of hard drinking. I can’t hold a shotglass to my forebears or probably even C.S. Lewis or Chesterbelloc. (Certainly not Belloc.) Regardless whether the poetic imagination is nourished by Guinness it’s a sure thing that all my ancestors drank more alcohol than they did water and it’s a middle finger to evolution for me to drink so much Sprite rather than beer. Grace builds on nature and all that.

But there’s another reason for wishing to be a “modern drunkard”. Could alcoholism be a feature, not a bug? If the focus of it is changed towards its proper end it reflects the radicalism of the gospel. Heather King in “Redeemed” lays out what I knew without knowing I did:

I have a theory that all addiction is, at bottom, a search for God. Think about it: the blackout—a crude form of mystical union; the willingness to sacrifice reputation, family, money, health, one’s very life—a twisted martyrdom. Sometimes I think anyone as drawn as I am to suffering would have had to become a Catholic. But truly, it’s a gift to have seen the depths to which I’ll fall, the extent to which I’ll compromise myself, the lengths to which I’m willing to go to avoid God. The problem with avoiding God is that next thing I know, I’ve latched onto something outside myself, established a substitute God; and he, she, or it is holding me in complete bondage...Alcoholism is an interesting phenomenon. It’s the universal perverse tendency toward self-sabotage, except taken to the nth degree. Normal people look at an alcoholic and think, She drinks like me—just more. But it’s a difference in kind, not degree: for the person predisposed to alcoholism, the very first drink begins setting up a mental obsession and physical craving—in essence, a form of insanity—that is entirely beyond the normal drinker’s ken. Alcoholic drinking is only a symptom—of a soul divided deeply against itself; of mental, emotional, and, above all, spiritual conflict. The conflict is of a soul in which the universal human thirst for connection, meaning, love has gone terribly awry—a soul in the grip of a compulsion that has seized upon a substitute for love and made it into a god. Everybody’s spiritually sick to one degree or another, of course, but what’s interesting about alcoholism is that if I don’t tend to my spiritual sickness, I’ll die. I’ll pick up a drink, or a crack pipe, or a Xanax or three million, and die. Or I’ll kill myself. Or I’ll get so crazy someone else will kill me. It’s a condition that, over the years, has tended to grab my attention. As one of my sober friends says, “I’m not on a spiritual path because I’m so spiritual. I’m on a spiritual path because I’m so not spiritual.”

I admire people who burn out rather than rust out, like Ham. They have a singleness of purpose that if turned to religion would result in sanctity. Ham is frugal to the point of insanity. He would easily drink himself into madness or liver disease, whichever comes first. He works 70 hours a week and spends another ten studying for a certification exam. He writes entire screenplays All of this is unthinkable to me, for most addicts don’t seem to have a mediocre bone in their body. By definition, if you drink to excess you’re quite aware of the “God-shaped hole”. You don’t need to be convinced that pleasure isn’t the primary aim of life since you see it doesn’t work. He who drinks tepidly and moderately, prays tepidly and moderately?

* * *
So the priest in his homily during the Assumption Mass tells us that he was staring at a woman the other day. Not out of lust but disgust. 76 years old and she wore leather showing her aged mid-drift and having a low-cut halter. They were the clothes of a 20-yr old, he said. She flirted with 20-yr old men. He called it pathetic and said the difference between her and the Christian is that while she was terrified of aging, we shouldn’t because we believe in the Resurrection, including our own. But isn’t it also possible that the reason this is sad is not that she fears death but that she fears being ignored. Is it that she feels she won’t have worth? In this society, looks are so overvalued that I’ve often felt sympathy for how women must suffer from being treated one way when they were 28 and another when 68. A man doesn’t have to go through that. Now you can say, rightly, that she should seek her worth from God instead of other people. But isn’t that too neat and leave us off the hook, in just referring everything to God when we are the vehicles of God? I say there but for His grace go we all.

* * *
I stared like a smitten schoolboy at the farm scenes in front of me while on a recent bike ride. They were impossible to fully asssimilate given the infinity of viewing angles. I longed to drink in the scene in the Quixotic attempt to be able to draw from it in lean winter.

The weather has been freakishly good for the past six weeks but that’s not unexpected since July and August are the king and queen of months. They are to weather what Fred Aistaire and Ginger Rogers were to dancing. July begins with the crisp Sousa marches of the great PBS “A Capitol Fourth” followed by bright eye’d lightning bugs torching the night. It continues with midsummer’s own midpoint: MLB’s All-Star game. August kicks off with the Irish music fest and is followed shortly by the arrival of huge quantities of tasty fat red tomatoes on the vine. There is no scarcity principle in our tomato crop. All through August the days burn like bright candles while the apples adorning the trees next to the old railroad track ripen. The months of the year are so distinct as to be geographic: April is a foreign country compared to June.

While I'm still in "grateful mode", at least until mid-September, I do feel an element of sympathy in the editor of the "Catholic Times" recent piece:

“When I was a boy and we got a spell of August weather like this my dad would always proclaim, “Well, summer’s over. Better start getting ready for the snow!” My mother always hated that. She knew that there was still plenty of hot weather to come. But my dad loved the summer heat and dreaded the onset of winter so much that all it took was a couple of cool mornings to set him into an ill humor.”

While on the bike ride I pondered the glee to be “onto something”. Intellectually that is. Too often I denigrate being onto something as mere mirage. The only onto something one can be onto is love of God and neighbor. Words & thoughts are cheap, actions dear. It's so easy to think God is only interested in our production. It’s so easy to think that our neighbor needs us to fix his material or physical needs more than he needs our smile. It’s easy to think that God wants our obedience more than our love. Our technology tends to change us in its direction, such that we become more computer-like, more robotic. That is, more intolerant of error in ourselves or others, more emotionless, more focused on solutions to suffering rather than love.

Walking NYC

From Sunday's NYT, on unofficial walkers' rules in NY city:

...There is one austerity measure that has always been an ineluctable part of living here: walking. And it's still the very best way to get around.

Walking effectively is not unlike driving, minus the vehicle (or so I'm guessing; I've never had a driver's license in my life). There are speeders and road hogs. There is rage. And most important, there are rules. Unwritten, certainly. Unspoken (politely, at least) until now. Since there will be so many more of us taking to the streets, some checks and balances are in order to avoid complete mayhem. Herewith, just a few from the Unofficial New York City Walkers' Code. Learn them. Follow them.

CHOOSE A LANE: Yes, there are lanes. If you see something you like in a shop window, check your blind spot and, when it's safe to do so, shift over. (Happily, soon the stores will have closed, their windows boarded over, or smashed and empty from the latest blackout looting, rendering this rule as anachronistic as the requirement that men remove their hats in an elevator when a lady enters.)

NO TAILGATING: Walking too closely behind someone for more than a block is irksome. Either pick up the pace and pass (on the left), or hang back. There should ideally be a compact car's length between you and the next person. (Disregard this rule at rush hour.)

Indeed, close formations of any sort are best avoided. If you insist on walking three abreast, then listen carefully for the frustrated footfalls of those trying to get around your phalanx.

DON'T EVEN THINK OF PARKING HERE: Running into people you know is one of the great pleasures of life in a crowded metropolis. When you see a friend, take an ambulatory hiatus and step to the side. This is doubly required in the case of strollers. Similarly, unless your dog files an individual tax return, it is inappropriate bordering on immoral to block human progress by unreeling 30 feet of retractable leash across the pavement.

WE ARE NOT YOUR MOTHER: If you walk while texting or sending e-mail, thereby foisting the responsibility of avoiding collision onto the rest of us, you abrogate your rights as a walker. You, my friend, are a mere pedestrian. Whatever is on that saltine-sized screen is, I guarantee, not even fractionally as interesting as anything you might see out in the streets. Which leads to the lone daub of honey amid all this vinegar:

LOOK AROUND YOU: Every jaunt, every stroll, every errand brings you into contact with someone not like you. (Greetings, tinfoil-hat-wearing, manifesto-scribbling, profanity-spewing eccentric, fresh from your screening at MoMA!) Now — make sure to stand to the side while you do this next bit — look up. That old saw about craning your neck being what separates the visitors from the natives is nonsense. I've lived here for more than half of my 44 years, and I still rubberneck like a tourist.

See that thrilling array of cloud-dwelling spires, ziggurats and temples? Monuments, every one, to the age of relative plenty in which they were erected, and then mute sentinels during the inevitable subsequent downturns, from "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to "Ford to City: Drop Dead." They got through it. So will you. Start by putting one foot in front of the other.

Obama's Choice

Ever wonder why Barack Obama is pro-choice and supports Roe v. Wade?

Well, he answered the question in a recent Rick Warren forum. Obama says:

"I believe in Roe v. Wade and come to that conclusion not because I'm pro-abortion, but because ultimately I don't think women make these decisions casually. They wrestle with these things in profound ways..."

Remarkably disappointing. Leaving aside whether the decisions are made casually or not, he is basically saying that a moral issue is culpable depending on whether we've "wrestled with it" beforehand. By this definition, premeditated murder is okay if it wasn't done casually or in the heat of the moment. It's the typical modern belief that there is nothing intrinsically evil.

This is why Obama is easier to listen in speeches than to read in transcript: he rarely says something meaty or principled, although that's not to say he isn't an extremist. He could've been more convincing by saying that he didn't know when life began and until he was certain he preferred to leave it up to the woman. "It's her body," seems more principled than assuming or assigning motives to the hundreds of thousands of mothers who choose to abort a child each year. Trying to make abortion sound kinder and gentler doesn't make it any kinder or gentler for the aborted children.

Something For My Archives

This is an fascinaing reference material - twenty-plus years of church bulletins. You can read more about it here, where I discovered it.

I'm a sucker for boundaries, for attempting to find out exactly at what point the past becomes "a foreign country".

This bulletin from the 1958 is an example of something you'd never see today (click for enlargement purposes)!

And it just wasn't giving money; here's a plea to attend one weekday Mass that week:

By 1967 there are inserts against abortion and information about the need to support Catholic schools. From 1970 on the kiss of peace:

By 1975, we have the basic smell & shape and of the current bulletin: businesslike, somewhat impersonal (perhaps due to an increase in size of the parish), non-hectoring and non-inspirational.

How 'bout Manhattan AND Farm Livin'?

Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square...

Evolution of a Diocesan Newspaper

It's been interesting to watch the fluctations in our local Catholic newspaper, the Catholic Times. I'd love to know the politics involved in the changes, primarily who chooses the editor since the newspaper becomes a reflection of said editor (I assume the bishop has the final say but it's probably someone lower in the chain who recommends him or her). Our paper has changed so much in the last five or six years that you could get whiplash.

In the beginning, or at least a decade or so ago, the paper was resolutely non-controversial: events & festivals were listed, the columnists were socially acceptable (i.e. moderate to liberal). All was calmness and the effect was mildly soporific. Then a new editor took over and made it more intellectually stimulating, more disputatious, and more conservative. He added the George Weigel column, printed long excerpts from Vatican encyclicals like Humane Vitae as well as more recent papal offerings, and encouraged letters to the editor (of which yours truly contributed - now I don't get printed anymore as I'm too disputatious/conservative).

Clearly this wasn't going to last, 'eh?

A new editor took over and made it a kindler, gentler publication. More felt-bannery. Sharp color photography was added, polemics discarded, and cultural Catholism was emphasized, including lots of photographs of kids. In the latest issue, abortion-rights supporter Elizabeth Edwards is proudly mentioned as speaking at a local Cathlic college. No mention, of course, was made of her advocacy of universal abortion coverage last fall.

It's just like old times.

Mother's Day

For the Church - in typical "opposite world" fashion - your birthday is your death day. That is, your birthday into Heaven.

As a child I thought it a shame that Mary lacked a birthday celebration like the other saints' received. But that's not true, it's today. Today is the day the celebration of her entrance into Heaven.

So instead of getting wrapped up in whether she died and then was taken up to Heaven or was taken up to Heaven before death, perhaps it's nice to just think of this day as THE Marian feast day.

This day always feels a bit more festive since it's the only big church holy day that occurs during the summer, at least for those of us in the Northern Hempishere.

Midnight at the O'Ramas

Except for Darwin's radical 18th-century hairstyle (evoking as he does a young Goethe), I was stunned by the physical resemblance between the Darwins and my wife and me:

(As you can see, my wife's hair was almost got into my Guinness during the taking of this picture. The things you do for love & TV Guide.)

Is Health Care a Human Right?

Obama No Messiah to the Unborn

Bill Luse says of Obama, "I've always thought he was a suave suit over an empty vest, but it appears that millions of people who call themselves Christian are prepared to vote for him."

With respect to the life issues, there is absolutely no reason to vote for him over Al Gore or John Kerry. Obama is to the pro-life cause what Richard Nixon was to eliminating corruption in government: i.e. not particularly helpful.

Bill O'Reilly surprised me yesterday, which he rarely does, when he said the question he'd most like to ask Obama is how he can have "found Jesus" and still be for partial birth abortion. For this to come from O'Reilly, who speaks much more about terrorism and national security than unborn children or Christianity, is telling. But O'Reilly sees it as a key to understanding Obama, whom for Bill is still a mystery.

I don't see Obama as mysterious as I did before the primaries. I now see him as someone with a yen for socialism but who excels in being politically palatable to centrists via externals like speech and looks. What makes someone mysterious and attractive are those who have an underlying philosophy, a way of seeing the world, but who are open to "new data". Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan was a Democrat who was open to new data; he warned of how the collapse of the black family was going to have far-reaching effects in terms of poverty and disintegration of inner cities. As an example from the other side, Willam F. Buckley was a conservative who was for legalizing drugs. Moynihan was excoriated, predictably, and like Pope Paul VI who was excoriated after Humane Vitae, lowered his profile. Pope Paul VI never wrote another encyclical and Sen. Moynihan never bucked the Democratic establishment again, at least not on the primary issue of our time (although at least he did say that partial birth abortion "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary.")

So guts interest me, presumably because of my lack thereof, but only guts with intelligence and self-restraint. McCain has guts, but it is guts without philosophy, guts without self-restraint (Feingold-McCain law is unconstitutional), guts for the sake of guts. The warrior ethic, but without the leavening of depth.

I'll definitely vote for McCain but without much enthusiasm. His philosophy seems to be neither conservative or liberal but some sort of hybrid based on his gut instinct on a given issue. He's against lobbyists so he limits free speech. He's weak on stem cells, which means his stand on the life issues is not due to principle. He admits to not knowing anything about economics. I don't trust him not to give away the store due to global warming. None of these things bothers me individually so much as they bother me collectively. I don't think he has much of coherent world view. "Mister we could use a man like Ronald Reagan again."

So the wealthiest nation in history kills a million of its children annually, but Jim Wallis would prefer we focus on a government solution to poverty. Even though abortion would not go away with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, that reversal would likely save more lives than any income redistribution plan. I've heard it said that we long for a scapegoat and that Christ ascended the cross in order to be that scapegoat, to show us how capable of evil we are that we might repent. If nothing else, the acceptance of abortion is the clearest proof since Calvary that humans are tragically flawed and capable of great evil.

Got a phone call from Ham of Bone who told me about his former evangelical pastor who has "drunk the Kool-aid" of his new mentor Jim Wallis, and who now supports Obama and eschews the fundamental issue of life.

He (Bone) humorously said he called that I have might schadenfreude for the miscues of the "junior circuit" as I refer to the "upstart" American League, he applying it to the Protestantism vis-a-vis Catholicism. But I felt no schadenfreude as evangelicals and Catholics are indispensable not only to the pro-life cause, but in seeing the kingdom of God as something that can't be measured in purely materialistic terms.