From Beer and Philosophy...

Proving, perhaps, that there's a book on every subject known and unknown to man:

Huntington Park

Partial List of Things I Don't Get

The all-consuming interest in Tiger Woods. That an athlete strays from monogamy is tedious to the point of nails-on-chalkboard. No one covered Babe Ruth's return to the line-up after a night out on the town, so I don't get why this is even a news story.

How Congress, with a straight face, can write a law saying that there will be a penalty if you do not buy health insurance, but within the same law says there can be no penalty if someone doesn't buy health insurance?

Why the therapeutic culture gives no credit to the Church for listening to the therapeutic culture back when the therapeutic culture thought sex offenders could be rehabilitated.

The relevancy of the racial make-up of Tea Party members.

How/why Bart Stupak grasped defeat from the jaws of personal victory in the waning moments of the health care vote.

Ponnuru's Predictions

Ramesh Ponnuru's predictions back in September of '08 about Obamacare smell of truth. He said that even if Obama turned out to be a one-termer, the damage he could do should not be underestimated. I think we're awake to that fact now.

As James Capretta has pointed out in these pages (September 1), Obama’s health-care plan is designed to evolve into a national health-insurance program along the lines of Canada’s. The resulting government monopoly or near-monopoly on health insurance would stifle innovation, require bureaucratic rationing, and infringe on freedom. But it would also move American politics permanently leftward...

First, the inevitable disappointments and failures of a nationalized system would just as inevitably be blamed on underfunding, creating a bidding war that liberals would usually win. On those occasions when voters understood that spending had to be controlled, they would prefer that liberals control it, so as to do the bare minimum necessary.

Second, the creation of a new health-care regime would alter the incentives for all the interest groups involved. In the short run, at least, squeezing money out of the government system would be more advantageous than abolishing it.

Third, the creation of a new system would make free-market alternatives look more radical to the public than they do now, because they would be more radical. The public’s aversion to risk, which now hurts advocates of liberal policies as much as it helps them, would only help them.

So national health insurance could be a lasting political success for liberals even if it is a colossal policy failure; it could, indeed, succeed politically because of its failures.

Interesting...

RT @FrontPorchRepub: New post: Against Great Books (http://cli.gs/jE5n2)

Spanning the Proverbial Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

Nature abhors a vacuum: The Church got rid of devil's advocates, but we still have the New York Times! - Tom of Disputations tweet

Listening to the media, one gets the impression that New England's floodwaters would abate, and the Bruins would win a Stanley Cup, and the national debt would be erased -- if only "the Vatican" would ordain women and drop the celibacy requirement. - Dylan of "dark speech upon the harp"

Gaga's hypersexuality defined through skinny pubescent bodies is tedious, predictably destructive of female self-esteem and male female-esteem. And I maintain her hip ugly head-do is a manifestation of the male-gaze gone openly necrophilic. - blogger at "Mildred's Umbrella" on Lady Gaga

There is no doubt a sense - that of the American Declaration of Independence, the supposedly self-evident truth that all men are created equal - in which everyone is important simply by virtue of drawing breath; but of course this kind of importance is not sufficient for the self-esteemist, who derives no comfort from it whatsoever. What he needs is to be more important than someone else in order to have his self-esteem. Nor is it sufficient that he should be more important than somebody else only in his own eyes, because we are all more important in our own - Theodore Dalrymple

I think it's wise not to live-blog vacations, because every post would be a clever variation on "These kids are driving me crazy!" Whereas in retrospect, we can now say that everything went smoothly. And that we wish we had more days of vacation, which we certainly did not wish as we pulled into our driveway at 11:30 PM two Saturdays ago...A long car ride with your spouse is the ideal time to plan out the rest of your life together, especially since none of the plans require concrete action at that moment. - Mrs. Darwin Catholic

Blog comment boxes:
Seas, sailed by little Ahabs,
Each cursing his whale. - haiku by Bob of "Trousered Ape"

In Still Life with a Bridle, Zbigniew Herbert includes “Letter,” an essay in the form of an imaginary letter written by Vermeer to his friend Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the Delft lens grinder, inventor of the microscope and pioneering microbiologist. Herbert has Vermeer question van Leeuwenhoek’s reductive approach to science, verging on pure materialism. The painter writes: “Our task is not to solve enigmas, but to be aware of them, to bow our heads before them and also to prepare the eyes for never-ending delight and wonder.” ...A writer of sophisticated realism renders enigmas – that is, human hearts and minds – without presuming to solve them like differential equations. They are not reducible to simpler forms. - blogger at "Anecdotal Evidence"

And Something About Non-Sober Intoxicating Beverages...

Randy Mosher in Tasting Beer writes about agricultural societies and the invention of beer:

"Those who study the birth of civilizations and beer note that the two happened at about the same time. Barley was one of the earliest cultivated grains, and the fact that it emerged in domesticated form with just the right characteristics for brewing tells us a lot. Leaving the nomadic life behind for a pot of gruel is one thing, but toss in beer and it's a hard deal to turn down.
It is my belief that squeezing people into cities generates a certain amount of itchy friction, but this can be eased by a social lubricant like beer, served up in that other beloved institution, the tavern, which appeared on the scene not long after beer...

Those more scholarly than I make the claim that beer is one thing that allowed people to come together in unnaturally crowded settings, like cities. It's certainly true today that beer helps to take the edge off and makes cities much more livable. I'm not pointing any fingers, but look at the places where beer is absolutely forbidden. It's easy to see the contrast."

I wonder how careful are we to respect the way we've evolved? To respect the fact that we're designed to move, not sit all day, for example. And perhaps all the trouble that American Indians have with alcohol is primarily a failure to recognize that that's not something they've evolved to process, unlike those of European descent. Alcohol is meant to go with agricultural societies and Indians have been nomadic until relatively recently. Seems like Native Americans go against the grain (pun intended) in drinking the "fire-water" that the Europeans unnaturally introduced late to their society.

More from Sober Intoxication

More from Fr. Cantalamessa's klieg-light of a book. Many piquant sentences like "Modesty proclaims the mystery that the body is united to a soul...and that we do not belong to ourselves and that there is something in us that goes beyond our bodies." But the money quote may well be:

 "The meaning and the purpose of human existence become clear when we present ourselves to God as a pure and holy sacrifice. For what reason, in fact, did God give us the gift of life and of existence if not so that we would have something precious to offer Him, which we could return to him as gift?"

In some ways that's a foreign idea to me since I mostly think of being on the receiving end rather than the giving.

Humility is the key to everything because faith precedes understanding and that takes humility,  to admit we don't have all the answers and can't get to some answers through human effort.  Came across another beautiful quote in the book of Wisdom. "For neither herb nor moulding plaster cured them / but it was your word, Oh Lord, that heals all people." A rather startling rebuke to the idea that "in Science (or medicine) we trust."

Easter-themed excerpt...

 ...from Fr. Cantalamessa's "The Sober Intoxication of the Spirit," appropriate for this special day:

If the annointing of Christ was for us, why doesn't it come to the Church immediately? Why is there a long interval between the time Jesus receive the Spirit at the Jordan and the time when, at Easter and Pentecost, He gave it to His disciples?

The Spirit, as St. Irenaeus said, needed to become accustomed to dwelling among men. He needed first to find a place in which He could dwell. The Spirit was completely present in the purest humanity of Christ, like a perfume in an alabaster vase, but He could not be poured out until Christ had been "glorified" (John 7:39). In His passion the alabaster vase was broken - that is Jesus' humanity was broken - and the perfume filled the whole house, the Church . He "gave up his spirit" (John 19:30), and His last breath became the first breath of the Church. The very evening of Easter Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22).

Bill O'Reilly writes

"A number of Catholics have left the church because of the priestly sins, but not me. From the beginning, in Sister Claudia's first grade class, I understood that the Catholic Church was about Jesus, not Father Flannery. Believe me, I saw so many loons in my Catholic school days that I should be a Buddhist. But it is the theology, not church leadership, that keeps me in the fold."

Retweet from @pcstokell Good rendition of the opening of Bach's "Saint Matthew Passion."

A 17-year-old Gave This Speech

In the course of genealogy research, came across a speech one of my ancestor's gave at his graduation. Given eighty years ago, it's timely as today's headlines. Here's an excerpt:

What is to be done? How can this theory of "success at any cost" be combated? Science has done some wonderful things in our time, but science has never yet produced any mechanical device which will change the moral fiber of a nation. Whatever change comes, must come thru the realization by individual men and women that ideals are distinctly worthwhile. And it is of vital importance that our young men of brains and power, our future leaders, understand this truth thoroughly. And where can this best be taught? There is no better place in the world than our own Catholic educational centers. The love of absolute truth, the appreciation of other than mere material gain, the fearlessness of strong convictions are in the very atmosphere of our schools. Most readily within their bounds, high standards become usual, ideals, but commonplace. The Catholic colleges and schools have always been the teacher of those ideals, which are so essentially connected with a nation's greatness. Herein lies the noblest function and the fairest promise.

May our Catholic high schools and colleges continue in the future as they have in the past to train our youth to know high standards and to live up to them, to hate a cowardly compromise and despise a lie so that the term "Catholic education" will always stand for high ideals, for fighters who prove that material success is not the supreme deity amongst we Americans, that the pocketbook is not the symbol of national devotion, nor the dollar mark the seal of our greatness.

The Eucharist

"How shall I make a return of a hundred-fold?"
said the Father to the Son
when Christ gave His body and blood
and the world became undone.

This Surprises Me....(click to enlarge)

Liked this photo of Amy Welborn's son in New Orleans