As Hispanics Go, So Goes the Nation

"The situation is hopeless, but not serious." - Italian proverb

What can you say but that the definition of insanity works both ways, for both parties. Keep doing what you're doing, Democrats, i.e. voting for Obama despite the lack of results. And keep doing what you're doing Republicans, not rebranding as the Hispanic-philiac party and you'll keep losing elections. Why can't we appeal to Hispanics given their supposed conservative leaning on social issues? Why is it so hard to win their vote? Is it simply immigration policies? Shouldn't there have been loads of focus groups and studies done to determine what it will take to at least split the Hispanic vote? How much advertising is directed to that community? A telling stat is that Republicans have lost the presidential popular vote in five of the last six elections despite nominating people like McCain and Romney, hardly rightwing ideologues.

Ultimately it would've been hard for Romney to devote resources to Hispanics when it might cost him some of his base. There are those on the right, like Laura Ingraham, who will hold as a litmus test taking a hard line on the border. And it's pretty hard to forsake voters you know will vote for you in order to reach out to those who likely won't. The close 50-48 result suggests Romney's plan was credible. He's thinking short-term, of course. Nobody wants to think long-term, to court Hispanic voters at the cost of their own elective chances.

This election is a case study: conservatives all afire, electrified, while Obama's base not as excited and still Obama wins. The Dems have all the untapped power of many, many undermotivated voters. The Republicans have to consistently get out a big percentage of their vote in order to be competitive while the Dems are sitting on this huge goldmine of would-be voters who don't vote but who could should the spirit move. Which it does to an effective degree in presidential elections. I think this trend will only be exacerbated in the future.

Romney seems to have fought harder this election than McCain did in '12, ran a tougher campaign, but...how could he lose Ohio? That doesn't compute for me. Perhaps it comes down simply to Obama "defining" him in June and July with blistering, unanswered ads. There's a reason advertisers spend billions advertising their products: advertising works. And political advertising obviously works with voters.

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So the election result can't be too surprising. It's been 25 years in the making. Reagan won the same percentage of white vote as Romney and won in an landslide. It's both cultural and demographic. It's like going uphill: every election cycle it gets tougher for conservatives given the demographic makeup and the erosion of Christian values. With the demographics it's simply math taking its course (a libertarian on my twitter feed said that math, not the Republicans, will slay big government. Perhaps. but there appears no quick hope of slaying the abortion industry or protecting religious liberty.)

On the bright side, at least we had the Bush appointees for the Supreme Court. How large that looms now! How incredibly close we came to having an Al Gore presidency. (Of course without Bush, perhaps there's no Obama, but a Supreme Court justice in the hand beats two in the bush.)

I'm grateful that at least we got some appointees on the Court because without the Bush appointees we'd have a liberal-stacked Court and would basically have no protection to limit Obama's worst impulses. That is truly a bright side. A few votes in Florida resulted in 2000 resulted in a lasting legacy in the form of the lifetime appointment of two conservative justices. Thank God!

People Are Different

Haley Barbour and other Republican politicians say that Hurricane Sandy has arrested Romney's momentum and has seemingly all but handed the election to Obama.  The latest Columbus Dispatch poll, typically uncannily accurate, has Obama up by 2 in Ohio.   These pieces of bad news suggest the possibility of a bad Tuesday night for Republicans. 

But...as Scott Hahn says, no matter who wins the presidency, Jesus Christ is still Lord of this earth. And that we can take enormous and ultimate comfort from.   

And...even if Obummer wins, there's a kind of just dessert in having him have to deal with the runaway spending he's ushered in. Assuming he doesn't want to tank the U.S., he'll have to clean up his own mess and face fiscal discipline and accountability for the first time.  It could be priceless to see Obama having to tell his worshippers that the time of crazy spending is over.  If Bush had to face in '05-'08 the mess he'd created in Iraq, then Obama may have to face in '13-'16, the mess he created financially. 

Unfortunately though that's finances. In the more important issues of life and religious liberty, an Obama reelection is pretty much a relentlessly gloomy proposition.  Which reminds me to remember Scott Hahn's message. 

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This year, more than most, I look on supporters of Obama as startling curiosities. When I see an Obama sticker on a car I look over at them if I'm passing or at a stoplight. They are like unicorns to me, completely unfathomnable, like the folks voting for Nixon were to Manhattanites in '72.

I was particularly shocked to hear that a retired accountant, for heavens' sake, who used to work with my wife, was voting Obama. Why? Because AARP supports Obama. Because, although he's really well off, he wants his goodies from the feds. You can't make it up. We do deserve the leaders we get, don't we?

In '08 I understood Obama's appeal:  the magical bipartisan speech at the '04 Democratic convention with its religious overtones, his blank-slate record that anyone could pin his or her hopes on, his charm, his blackness, his hipness.  He seemed a candidate suited for the times:  in one fell swoop America could trade a square who went to bed at 9pm for a hipster who listened to Jay-Z, a guy without the burden of quotes or votes, a candidate with whom we could pay for our original sin of slavery. Obama was to the other candidates what a freshly planted evangelical Christian church is to Roman Catholicism: no history and thus no sins, no baggage.  In the long history of popes and presidents, it's often that the opposite follows an unpopular leader, and so Obama was destined to be the anti-Bush.

But now it's '12.  And now Obama has a record, and a startlingly unflattering one that includes forcing through an unpopular health care law, spending trillions with no obvious effects, having an unemployment rate that was promised to be in the 5% range but is nearly 8%, promising health care premiums to dive even as they've risen precipitously, and offending millions of Christians by giving the middle finger to religious freedom. 

Now I can understand those who say, "it could've been worse!"   Or, "hey I can have my child on my insurance policy until my kid is 26!"  But is THAT such a rallying cry that you put new stickers on your car supporting him?  I would've felt sheepish to have put a Bush sticker on my car in '04 even though I supported him, having seen his mixed record in office. Is Obama's record really worth putting a yard sign in your yard?  Are they shameless? It's fascinating to see that the "hope and change" addicts unbowed by realities. It seems like now those supportive of Obama to the point of putting a bumper sticker on their car are of a mindset that is just completely foreign to me.

On Voting for Lesser of Two Evils

"Concerning democratic voting, the Jesuit moralist Father Henry Davis wrote in the 1930s, "It is sinful to vote for the enemies of religion or liberty, except to exclude a worse candidate, or unless compelled by fear of great personal harm, relatively greater than the public harm at stake."

...It is therefore quite clear from the moral theology tradition and specific magisterial teaching that a Catholic may vote for a candidate who does not wholly embrace Catholic teaching on the non-negotiable issues.

This can be done:

in order to limit the evil that would result if a worse candidate on these issues were elected;

provided that this is predominately the intention of voting (other good but lesser motives may also be present); and

that the other candidate is indeed worse, and any scandal caused by the appearance of voting for evil is corrected, such as by explaining Catholic teaching and one’s full adherence to it."

--Colin Donovan, STL, is vice president for theology at EWTN.

Read more: here

Quotes and Random Thoughts

Twas a treat to see a new place, New Mexico. I think sometimes about how odd it is that travelers to Columbus are often times impressed but any time you're seeing something new, something for the first time, that contains the seeds of its own reward.

I think there's no better place to people watch than at an airport. I love going to the different gates and seeing how well the people match the destination. Hispanics going to San Antonio? Makes sense. Tall Danish-looking people to Minnesota? Check.

In the Dallas airport saw a man with a Stetson hat and expensive looking boots talking to a lady with a ginormous diamond ring, if in fact it was diamond and not cubic zirconium. It was on her ring finger and was gaudy as the day is long. Pure Texas.

There's just such a striking variety of people despite the fact that you'd think it would be less so, seeing how the expense of flight would self-select to a certain extent. Perhaps the self-selection happens in first class versus coach.

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The trick to life, it seems, is to view ourselves, other people, and our things as God-owned. To see beauty as emanating from Him, not from an impersonal force. I used to think it trite that someone would attribute the beauty of a sunset to God, but that seems to be the secret! As well as to see Him in the simple. Archbishop Sheen said we look for God in power, not seeing him in simplicity, in the Eucharist.

Beautiful reading the other day from Ephesians 3. It's no wonder bible-loving Protestants love St. Paul so much - they've naturally gravitated to the most consoling part of the bible. It's inconceivable to think of the NT without the writings of Paul, and there's an vibrant sense of hope in most of Paul's work. I get goosebumps sometimes, especially when I read different translations. The fresh words, though conveying essentially the same meaning, really ring out. So glad I got the Knox version since it offers yet another beautiful voice. It feels almost magical to have the NABRE and New Jerusalem versions both on my smartphone and being able to conjure up those life-altering words at a moment's notice.

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I am far, of course, from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of religion; I am as sensitive as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines, or to their compatibility with each other.... - Blessed John Henry Newman

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Lino Rulli gave us a "trick" instead of a "treat" on Halloween. Turns out he's dialing back his radio show from 4-7pm to 5-7pm. Surprisingly I guess it takes quite a toll on him since he said this change will make him mentally, spiritually and physically healthier. I suppose it's the mark of someone good at their work that they make it look effortless even when it's not.

Lino always humorously dances perilously close to the line of propriety. Very juvenile, he. Something about Fr. Rob not getting to "whip it out" much since he's a celibate. He's big on double entendres for sure. Whenever Fr. Rob says a word that ends in the syllable "er" Lino will repeat the word and attach, "I don't even know her!"

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The day was discombobulated by the latest sign that "business-as-usual" is something of an oxymoron: we got our asses re-org'd. Yes our division has been rent: we lost a host of good folks and took on a motley crew of hard-looking strangers from another area. Instant marriage, just add shotgun. The guy at the top of the ladder apparently loves to shake things up, and we're the recipients of this latest social experiment. A big believer in change is he, and so I suppose I can't be surprised that change eventually filtered down to my level. Leaders are too smart to be fooled indefinitely by witch-quackery: they read "Dilbert" too, although admittedly the engagement surveys are a joke. But in general they seem to have become more pragmatic and less airy and ethereal, much to my disappointment.

So I'm in mourning because the people I felt most comfortable around, especially in the social gatherings our boss adores, like Marvin the bibliophile and Nancy, my likable compatriot for the past 7-8 years, are both being exodused to another area.

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In brighter news, my crisp, old-fashioned copy of Ronald Knox's Bible arrived today! Baronius Press has a winner with that - exploiting a market niche that had gone unexploited. Giddily I read a few chapters from Ephesians - it's said that Knox is best at the oft-confusing letters of St. Paul and he really does nail it. A fine introduction by Scott Hahn that gave me some good food for thought in just a page and a half. I don't like the overly formal language and the unfamiliar names of the OT books, based on the Vulgate as it is, but I'm certainly glad to have it in my quiver. As a bonus Baronius includes a small booklet by Knox on how he wrote it called, "On Englishing the Bible". Well-played Baronius.

My favorite quotes from Hahn's intro are: "On the barque of Peter, those with queasy stomachs should keep clear of the engine room" which perfectly encapsulates how I feel about my friend Ron's constant attention to the seamy underside of the Church.

The other quote is from Frank Sheed,

"The Biblical attack on Catholic dogmas did not (after the shock of the attack) destroy Catholic attachment to the dogmas; but it sensibly weakened Catholic attachment to the Bible. A man can never feel quite the same about even the nicest book if he has just been beaten round the head with it...

This Scriptural insufficiency of Catholics is the last heritage of the Reformation still to be liquidated. Liquidated it must be. How necessary Scripture is to the life of Catholics, St. Jerome indicated long ago with his phrase, 'Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'"

Election Thoughts

Polling around our extended family unsurprisingly reveals: the two employed in the public sector are voting Obama, everyone else voting Romney. Not surprising - pretty hard to vote against your self-interest. In general, nobody wants big government more than a government employee I suppose.

The pros of a Romney win include: better choices of SCOTUS judges, a repeal of the HHS mandate, greater respect for freedom of religion, better fiscal discipline (of course all of these have a low hurdle to exceed).

The cons of a Romney win include: potential ruination of the Republican "brand" due to having to make hard choices regarding spending on popular programs like Medicare & Soc Security, resulting in potentially a twenty-year Democrat reign (the latter already a possibility due to shifts in demographics).

While you can ruin your political brand by cutting spending, I don't think you can ruin it by running up huge deficits (exhibit A: Obama, who is still favored to win this election, as well as George Bush in '04). That, no doubt, is why Republican and Democrat alike run up large deficits, including Reagan who was far fonder of cutting taxes than cutting spending.

One proposition: once you go big government, you don't go back. The states, as laboratories, offer interesting experiments in whether voters "learn" from failed Democrat policies. It would seem the answer is "no". California used to be a moderately Republican state and yet now is a lock for Democrats despite a state managed about as poorly as one can manage it. Notwithstanding the state's flirtation with Schwarzeneggar (who pretty much had to govern as a centrist), you get the sense that CA (and the Northeast as well) are pretty much married to big government now. Perhaps it's less whether people learn, then in the effect of changes in demography. California Republicans arguably destroyed their brand by coming out hard against illegal immigration and not courting Hispanics and minorities in the early '90s.

In Ohio, we seem to have had about as stark a difference between governors as you could have: John Kasich versus the previous governor Strickland. Job growth has soared to fourth best in the nation since Kasich took over. You can't argue the numbers, both in terms of job creation and in deficit reduction. When Kasich took office, the Columbus Dispatch opined that he'd be a one-term governor given the draconian measures and tax-raising he would presumably have to do to balance the budget after Strickland's mess. And yet Kasich has an approval number above 50% and would be even higher except that he foolishly took on the firefighter and police officer unions early in his term.

And yet....Ohio is right on the cusp of re-electing the Democrat Obama. Go figure.

Wondering Why Dems Have Gotten Worse on Abortion

Carl Olsen opines:

It's not entirely clear to me why most people in the early days of the abortion debate would have thought the Democratic Party would have opposed abortion more strongly than Republicans, especially as it seems the Democratic Party shifted much more sharply and radically in the 1960s and 1970s on social issues. It is, I suppose, something of a chicken-or-the-egg discussion: did Catholics of that era go along with the Party out of loyalty, or did Catholics who embraced contraception and supported abortion help re-shape the Party? Put another, and more specific, way: did Sen. Edward Kennedy change his views in the 1970s because of changes in the political climate, or did he lead the change? I suspect it was a combination. Still, as of less than twenty years ago, in 1996, the Democratic Party platform welcomed anti-abortion Democrats:

Choice. The Democratic Party stands behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of ability to pay. President Clinton took executive action to make sure that the right to make such decisions is protected for all Americans. Over the last four years, we have taken action to end the gag rule and ensure safety at family planning and women's health clinics. We believe it is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans -- not government -- can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction.

The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party.

Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare, not more difficult and more dangerous. We support contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education, and policies that support healthy childbearing. For four years in a row, we have increased support for family planning. The abortion rate is dropping. Now we must continue to support efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies, and we call on all Americans to take personal responsibility to meet this important goal.

New Mexico Trip Log

DAY 1:

"The light, the light," all the artists and mystics and dreamers say of this region of the cosmos but I was unconvinced. Light is light, right? And on the long-ish car ride from Albuquerque to this isolated ranchero I grew even more skeptical. The barren landscape gave off a pinkish hue and the colors of the homes and buildings seemed unimaginatively bland, the color of sand and rock.

But I appreciated the drive in the sense of it being different. It was an introduction to a landscape foreign to me. If I hadn't seen the Las Vegas environs last year, and Salt Lake City's mountains the year before, this would've been even more terra incognito.

But then we arrived at the house we were renting and it was instant "wow". The view incredible, setting spectacular, and surely this was because we were surrounded by juniper and spruce trees. This was no barren desert, but one with modestly tall trees that didn't obstruct the view. A dry arroyo with some coyote tracks, puffs of desert plants clumped artistically here and there in the sand...ahh...

I was sold, in short, and immediately noticed a spectacular quality of light. The shadows pregnant with meaning, the sun gilt against the wood frame porch.

And then we went in and I was blown away again. Picturesque to the nth degree, with a generous number of windows to let that special light in, plenty of books to slake my literary thirst, and all under the benevolent gaze of Our Lady of Guadalupe from a wall niche. I picked up a book and found some poems printed as large bookmarks, poems authored by the owner of the house. Affecting poems about another terra incognito, death. Yes I liked this place, and almost immediately a sense of panic set in: How could I read all these New Mexico-themed books and soak in this stellar view and magic light all in just three days? I was instantly grateful we'd decided not to explore Albuquerque after getting the rental car.

To top it all off, literally, in back of the house lay a treasure, "Black Mesa", and it was just begging to be climbed and I wasn't there a half-hour before I was picking my way up amid a fine variety of rocks, many old remnants from a lava flow, it being an extinct volcano. Up and up, completely out of breath but loathing to pause. Finally after about 45 minutes of this anaerobic climb I found myself about 3/4ths to the summit but without a seeming safe way to get there. Two ravines on either side, very narrow passage way that was lousy with sand. I could've gone back some distance and found a different way up but I was tiring. All I kept thinking was, "Oh man Doug (my brother) needs to come here and climb this. This is just too perfect." Worse still, the very peak area looked Half-Dome steep even if of course it wasn't. Going down was easier on my heart rate than going up, though it wasn't great for my weakish ankles. Could've used a good pair of hiking books.

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Yesterday found a nugget via Frommer's: an isolated Benedictine monastery not far from where we're staying. It's so isolated that supposedly you almost need 4-wheel drive to get there (it's off a forest service road) but I'm gonna try to get there anyway. Their schedule is pleasingly full of prayer opportunities as one would expect.

The other must-see seems to be Bandelier park. The thing about the trip is how much to treat it as recuperative and how much to treat it as a sight-seeing orgy. I'm tempted to spend at least one day just enjoying the homestead in that tiny little spot on the map called La Lomita.

Taos, NM: not sure. It sounds like a kind of hippie wonderland. But that's about as far in attitude from a suburb of Columbus as can be wished and thus is welcome in the traveling scheme of things. We seek "the other" in travel.

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So we waited till the sun went down then headed out, famished, to the neighboring town called Espanola and went to La Cocina (don't call it "La Cochina", which means "filthy") restaurant, as recommended by the friend of the owner's who'd let us in.

"I wonder what 'La Cocina' means," I said as we studied the menus.

"I hope not cockroaches," Steph said.

"Maybe it means 'stink bugs'."

The waiter arrives and asks, after we order, 'Red or green?". Hmmm...red or green what? I'd shamelessly not done my pre-vacation reading so was not prepared.

"Green," I said, figuring "red" meant hot if this meant some sort of spice. Steph then asked whether green or red was hotter and he said "green" and so I changed my order accordingly.

The joint was loaded with atmosphere and eclectic furnishings (a picture of a priest next to a painting of the same priest) and the food tasty and reasonably priced.

Day 2

After a long sleep we leisurely began the day with coffee and oatmeal cooked overnight in a crock pot. It was 20-something degrees, but a "warm 20-something". 25 being the new 40 down here apparently. Later that morning, with the strong sun and little wind, 35 degrees felt comfortable and later that afternoon a t-shirt was enough in 50-something degree weather.

We hiked around the property again before heading to 11am lunch at La Cocina, the "right" one this time. The mystery of the two La Cocinas was solved: there were in fact two La Cocinas and right across the street from each other. Whoda thunk it? It was a New Mexico curiosity, like the fact that Highway 285 had speed limits that alternated between 45-60mph and changed for no apparent reason. Like the fact that all the houses seem to have gates (is crime that bad?). Like that our property here has a garage being built with a bathroom & shower. There seems an eccentricity to this land of adobe houses and Indian reservations. I can say one thing, if I lived here I'd be tempted to just drive a steady 60mph and look at speeding tickets as a cost of living.

Lunch done, we headed to Bandelier National Monument, run by the U.S. Park Service, and I briefly wondered about the difference between a national monument and a national park. I should've asked the ebullient park ranger, a young woman who definitely loves her job and who guided us swiftly towards the pay booth.

I always underestimate how long it takes to visit a national park (or monument) and this was no exception. Turns out you can't drive in, you have to be shuttled a dozen or so miles. (On the shuttle back we would inexplicably take a roundabout way through a particularly banal suburb of Los Alamos.)

At the visitor's center we viewed a film that was impressively substanceless and forgetful before beginning our jaunt on a delightfully sunny afternoon. We'd decided to take the main loop trail, just over a mile, and it was interesting to see the 14th century remnants of the valley dwellers and their "kivas", underground pits in a circular shape where they had serious political or religious meetings (church and state then not as sundered). It was also interesting to learn the meaning of the word "kiva", which is the name of a micro-lending institution.

Unfortunately the tranquil atmosphere was rent by two women surprisingly annoying, loud and talkative. They were not the ideal tourists, the ideal being ones who are seen and not heard. If they hadn't been tipping the bottle before I'd sure hate to see them after a couple. After dogging our heels at a couple of stops on the trail, I made the huge tactical mistake of allowing them to go ahead of us at a critical juncture: at the base of the ladder to the first cliff dwelling. Suddenly their paced slowed. One of them went up for awhile, then the other went up and they took up residence, measuring the openings for window dressing, making inane interjections like, "Oh, look, it's like a big picture window!"

Perhaps needless to say when we finally went up the ladder to see this room of wonder we were disappointed. There was nothing much to tell that it couldn't have happened via natural processes. Worse, we soon caught up with our bete noires! So we skipped a stop and headed on ahead, finally getting a faint zig-zag in a dwelling that indicated human presence from 700 years ago. Again I noted the irony of being irritated by humans in the present while searching for signs of those who lived hundreds of years ago.

When we arrived back at our car, the day mostly spent already. I knew it'd be tough to fit in a second event but plowed forward with the plan to visit the Benedictine monastery. We headed back past our place and into the uncharted territory to the north and west, up in Georgia O'Keeffe country. And beautiful it was. Astonishing figures appeared in the mountain fastnesses. Some of it seemed surreal, as if wind and water made works of giddy natural art.

Belatedly we arrived at the forest service road, a gravel road that led to the monastery. Slowly we realized that the math wasn't in our favor: we couldn't go faster than 20mph on this rough-hewn one-laner and we had 13 miles of it and it was already 5pm. By the time we got there we'd have to turn around almost immediately unless we wanted to drive it in the dark, a thought that concentrated the mind wonderfully given how difficult it was maintaining 20mph in the light. We turned around at mile 4 in, so close to the monastery and yet so far away.

Back we headed, down to the highway where we soon found something we'd never seen in Ohio: cows on the highway! A guy in the four-wheeler looked to be doing a cattle drive across the highway although it was more likely that they'd simply escaped outside their fence and the poor guy was trying to get them back. We pulled over off the shoulder and signaled drivers coming the other way by flashing our brights. After a couple false moves, he got them cows apparently where he wanted.

We drove on, past tiny little villages of trailer houses and flat-topped Indian pueblos. There's something fascinating about these little enclaves of ethnicity, kind of like Amish but with a less fertile landscape to work with and a lot of problem drinking and chronic unemployment. I constantly glanced from the road towards these pockets of probable poverty and I longed to see more Native American types outside. Not a lot of outdoor activity in places so rich in scenery if not money.

So at least the long drive to within nine miles of the monastery wasn't totally wasted given the interesting scenery. It looked a lot better than the scenery between Albuquerque and Santa Fe encountered on day one.

I checked out the Benedictine monastery website afterward and found this testimonial from fellow "civilian" visitors there, which convinced me that an hour visit wasn't the purpose of the place anyway:

"I first came because I literally had no choice. I was recovering from a radioactive cancer treatment and I couldn't be around pregnant women or children for three weeks. Since you never know what women may be pregnant, I had to go somewhere where I thought women and children would not go - a monastery.

I had never before been to a monastery and knew nothing about it. The first week, my entire being was in rebellion against the order and the silence. And then something strange happened.

During the second week, I made peace with the order and silence.

During the third week, I became friends with the order and silence.

Those three weeks changed my life. I was introduced to a completely different dimension of life, one that I craved to explore and develop.

Now, 15 years later, I go as often as I can.

I thought I knew God before I went to a monastery. Now I know better just how little I knew God, and am only now finding out how much I crave God."

***

Then back to La Cocina II it was, back to a surprisingly delicious steak dinner for $12.95. You can't get that in Ohio. But you can get HGTV, and we watched a bit of it after dinner and it was a powerful, Gresham-like force as far as causing the inability to turn one's eyes from a show called, "Home, Strange Home". It featured, in part, a "Beer Can House" in Texas where a guy apparently draped his house in beer cans. You can't make it up.

Eventually, mercifully, the narcotically entertaining beer-can house was switched off. Outside desert temperatures plummet lacking the aegis of the sun and I feel a twinge of that familiar last-day-of-vacation-eve feel even if it's technically true that Sunday is our last "day" here, where day is "two hours". The cruel ergonometric of western USA trips from Columbus is clear: four-day trips look suspiciously like two-day trips with travel days appended. You can't fool Mother Nature or geography. Not living at an airport hub means rarely having a non-stop flight, the only way of having an off-chance of avoiding the travel day bookends.

I'd overbought on beer, especially given the single brew we had between us last night. So from now forward it feels like every night is "free beer" night because what we can't drink we can't take with us. So it's "drink it or lose it". So much for my policy of "leave no beer behind." It looks like we'll leave at least six. Ah well, vacations always have an element of inefficiency associated, like driving to within a few miles of your destination and then turning around. Funny, but all the misdirections and anticlimaxes now have a sort of hazy, nostalgic glow. The beatification of vacation.

Day 3

Woke up again to that amazing view of the land of enchantment. And more of "The Last Eagle" by the late Tony Hillerman before jogging a couple miles up and down the killer hills in the "neighborhood".

Then off to visit pueblos, specifically San Juan and the San Ildefonso. The latter was a tad forbidding: the list of NO's was rather extensive, including a sign saying "No Tourists Allowed After 5 pm". There was also no hiking allowed. I visited a couple pottery shops and noted the large kiva in the large open plaza. Unfortunately very little activity to speak of, no local color. San Juan was friendlier, with a Catholic church actually open. Not surprisingly there was a large display devoted to the newest saint, Saint Kateri, a Native American. There was also a side altar with a huge icon screen of paintings depicted events in her life. Eventually a handsome looking group entered, possibly for a baptism since one lady was holding an infant.

No pueblo is complete without its kiva and large empty plaza, and San Juan is no exception. It was neat to see a kiva built in the 14th century yesterday and one built in the 20th century today.

The police station had Halloween decorations in the window. You gotta love a police force with Halloween decorations. The drive for Obama in this part of the world is intense. Lots of signs saying "Obamanos! Gotta vote!" Obama's apparently also our first Hispanic president. Who knew? I'd love to put up a sign in the area saying, "Romneynos! Gotta vote!" The Santa Fe New Mexican, unsurprisingly, intemperately editorialized for Obama its endorsement piece.

After the pueblos we headed to Santa Fe and parked near the Cathedral of St. Francis. A pleasing enough shopping area presented itself, so we walked by the plaza area, a park, visited a coffee shop and a bookstore (oh if I wasn't such a e-book convert I'd have been tempted). The people were surprisingly friendly for such a presumably "snooty" environment, even the folks who were obviously natives.

Then to the cathedral for mass. The church was more modern (on the inside) that I expected. I guess a lot of the paintings behind the altar we done in the late '80s. The juxtaposition with an old fashioned side niche of Our Lady of Consolation was maybe a tad jarring, but perhaps what you need to do to appeal to both elderly Hispanic ladies and younger hipsters.

Mass was very evangelical with praise & worship songs from my wife's non-Catholic church and with the priest coming down the aisles asking everyone from out of state to announce themselves which, naturally, took a very long time. Two other couples were from Ohio.

*

Steph looked at me like I'd taken out a lighter and lit a napkin on fire. We were at a Mexican restaurant at the Albuquerque Sunport (don't call it airport) when I pulled out a beer from my carry-on and quickly decanted the sucker. This was outrageous to her and I was amused by it.

One low alcohol beer is pretty close to having none, but I thought it worth it for medicinal purposes, given the strenuous morning climb up the Black Mesa. I'd run out of gas at around 6,360 feet, which sounds impressive except for the fact I started out at 6,000 feet. Evidently I should've trained for this event. I don't know if it was the altitude or the foreign activity of climbing hills, there being none in flat Columbus, but it was a tough sled. Apparently the equivalent of going up 35 sets of stairs, with the added invigoration of a rocky, uneven surface. Certainly not what I'm used to.

We'd spent a few last precious moments on the porch at La Lomita, me reading a bit of "The Last Essays of Bernanos"*, a book from the owner's stock. They say that New Mexico is laid-back and slow-paced, and I wondered if there a high capita of readers here given hard it must feel for readers, given the press of unread books in the bibliophilic life.

Then a pause, thinking of the unheeded wisdom of the verse, "Be still and know that I am God."

***

* - In one of his essays, on freedom, Bernanos sounds so current & prescient. Writing in 1955 he says,

"With each war to preserve freedom, they take from us twenty five percent of the freedoms that still exist... [In the future] I think police troops will compromise nine-tenths of the population and a citizen will no longer be able to cross the street without twice taking off his pants in front of a policeman anxious to be assured he isn't hiding a single milligram of the precious stuff [nuclear materials] that will destroy cities."

Downloaded "Current Elevation" app after starting downhill.

Fads Found Here

New hire at our company reports that she "geeks out on a 'Primal Blueprint' approach to nutrition and fitness and can often be found wandering German Village in five-fingered shoes."

I had absolutely no idea what any of this meant, no doubt showing my age. A couple google searches later I'm a bit more in the know.

Quotable

Blessed John Henry Newman: “What is meant by faith? It is to feel in good earnest that we are creatures of God; it is a practical perception of the unseen world; it is to understand that this world is not enough for our happiness, to look beyond it on towards God, to realize His presence, to wait upon Him, to en- deavor to learn and to do His will, and to seek our good from Him. It is not a mere temporary strong act or impetu- ous feeling of the mind, an impression or a view coming upon it, but it is a habit, a state of mind, lasting and con- sistent. To have faith in God is to sur- render one’s-self to God, humbly to put one’s interests, or to wish to be allowed to put them into His hands who is the Sovereign Giver of all good.”
 

Yes

Various & Sundry

Spent the morning reading indulgently (pardon the redundancy) "In the Pleasure Groove" by a Duran Duran band member. I don't know why it's so interesting to me given that I have a slight interest in the band and only know maybe a half-dozen of their songs.  Perhaps it's partially that the intensity of our adolescences mostly coincide: he was born 3 years before me, went to Catholic schools, and ended up in a band during the 'wild years' of the '80s.  Perhaps it's the nostalgia aspect, but also a curiosity over what maturation he's experienced over the years.

Also read more of a Lincoln biography. Odd this sudden Lincoln interest given that I've never been particularly interested in him and have long gravitated towards biographies of devout Christian Southern types like Robert E. Lee,  Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Kind of neat that as I'm reading about Lincoln's difficult childhood I see a Columbus Dispatch article describing a travel writer's visit to Abe's boyhood home in Indiana.  Makes me want to visit there.  I have a much better feel for Lincoln's early life due to the vivid beginning of Burlingame's two-volume bio.  Lincoln had that Calvinist streak just as strong as Emily Dickinson did.  Once you go Calvin, you never go back it would seem.  Abe had a Roman Catholic teacher for a year, one whom he liked a lot. The teacher did not proselytize.

*

From Catholic Bibles blogger:

It was a reminder to me, at least, that there is a place for dynamic-equivalence translations.  As I refer back to Msgr. Knox's On Englishing the Bible, it becomes very clear that Knox would have been a proponent of that style of translation.  I wonder what he would have thought about translations like the Jerusalem or New Jerusalem Bibles? Or how about the NLT?

At the end of her review Elizabeth [Scalia] mentions how she just opened to a particular verse of the Song of Songs in the Knox translation and:

Yes, I read it and I wept. Not in fear, not in despair, but in consolation at the reminder, rendered so beautifully by Knox, that the world has resided in the madness of sin and shadow since Eden, but we are never abandoned, and need never be afraid.

 It is always good to remember how powerful the Holy Scriptures can be, even in a non-formal translation. 

*

The weather is summerish, even warmer than Monday.  Could probably now qualify as "freakish".


*

Betty Duffy's leaving her blog.  Like she says, "it's just a blog," but sentimentally (to the extent one can become sentimental about a URL and web-design) it feels poignant. I think she's smart to go out on top.  I always think everything is "forever" even though in truth the windows of opportunity are vanishingly small. 

Jots and Tittles or Diaristic Wanderings

Looking out over the Little Miami river last weekend I thought about that flood of 1913, and how the gigantically sloped sides are a silent testimony to how terribly the flood affected that community. The human effort or engineering involved was surely impressive for that era and there's an element of overkill to it, for now it would seemingly take a flood of Noahian proportions to overflow its banks, which is to say it's permanently flood-proof several times over. Hamilton didn't just create levees, they created small mountains on the banks as if to say, "Take THAT Mother Nature!".

The horse in the picture at right has a story attached from the Hamilton newspaper:

"No one knows where he came from, but an old blind horse named Dobbin eventually found his way to safety during the 1913 flood in Hamilton and became one of the iconic figures of the disaster as a result of this post card showing up making his way up High Street."

*

Appreciate that Romney had a "rapid response" twitter feed for last night's debate.   A way to give Romney voters instant ammo against statements Obama makes.  I'm cheered by it because it shows the sort of fight and youthful social media-friendly angle that McCain so desperately lacked. It's not that McCain lost, it's more the way he lost in '08 that rankles.  I'd have preferred he'd gone all Reverend Wright on Obama's ass and cared less for his personal legacy as viewed by the New York Times and more about winning.  Maybe McCain didn't feel pro-life enough, since the life issue is the one that can drive a thirst for winning since you're trying to save lives, instead of pocketbooks. To the admittedly marginal effect any president can have on the life issue given the way the Court has ruled.

Feel a tad discouraged that Springsteen gave a huge concert in Ohio last night and supposedly had thousands of people voting early, voters would likely would not have voted otherwise.  In a close state like Ohio a "finisher" like Springsteen must be invaluable for Obama.  But ever since Bush's '04 victory I felt like any Republican presidential victories in the future would be all gravy given the demographics.  You can't fight City Hall or demographics.  I'm a bit more sanguine about the future as far as accepting whatever happens next month as the decision of the American people.   If God can put up with our sin, then I guess we can put up with the "voter sin" of voting for Obama.   Ultimately if you trust in democracy you have to put up with the results.  It's humbling that we may have four more years of PBO, but there is a part of me that wants to see him try to clean up the mess he made.

*

Interesting homily from Fr. at St. Pat's the other day. He said that he'd been hearing of folks who aren't going to vote, who are of the pox-on-both-their-houses variety. Fr. wasn't too pleased by that, saying that trying to "remain pure" is not possible, that we're all complicit, we're all citizens. We may feel above it all but the laws these jokers (my term, not his) make affect us all. He said that it's important to realize that we as Catholics don't believe in voting for the "lesser of two evils", because we cannot do any evil, but that we can adhere to the principle of double effect, where we do an action and intend the good result even though we understand there's a possible, or even certain, chance that some evil will come as a result. That would seem to leave voting for Obama open though, since people will say, "I'm voting for the good he'll do, not the bad."


*

Every once in awhile I get a glimmer into how left-leaning Heather King is, which is a tad jarring. Like her statistic that we spend at least a third of our budget on the military. I found a Paul Krugman-approved site that says it's 20%. It's a minor thing, but likely shows she's getting her information from left-wing websites/outfit which, of course, makes me think she's only getting one side of things. I think the downside to being somewhat apolitical and not a heavy news consumer (like HK presumably, who is seeking beauty more than mud!) is that there's a higher likelihood of being misinformed.


*

So the campaigns finally wind down. Debates, I've heard a few, but then again, too many to mention... Tonight's number three and it feels like overkill.  Foreign policy is the topic, one that doesn't interest me as much as it should.  One view of foreign policy is not to owe trillions to China. By going into debt we are simply playing into the hands of our enemies.  In Europe, don't we see that Germany has choices now and Greece does not?

*

Oh that second beer when I long to do everything all at once like only God can, when I long for every day to be a Saturday night, long to read-whirl and reap a bookwind, to fly dream catchin', sink nose sunk into the fresh print of Merton's letters or Vatican II docs where I plain-fire my imagination, kindled by the journals of Yves Congar, fresh-cut, seeded by the weight and delight of the Bibles on the table, gold-edged fire-breathin', Holy Spirit-ing live wires of the Word, the textbook-tightrope walk between presumption and despair, each perilously calling us like sailors to Scylla or Charybdis. I feel rich with words, whole habitations and plantations of words, sitting there in my books or in my Kindle, waiting to be consumed like collections of future promises. 

*

Killer gospel the other day. "Grow rich in the things that matter to God."  Oh gosh but how often do I note the cleavage between what I think important and what God does!  Meanwhile I liked to get that Baronius Press edition of the Knox Bible despite the slim chance that I'll read it in quantity.  It's based on the Vulgate and is thus bereft of the benefits of modern scholarship and better manuscripts, but I'm just so intrigued that the Knox spent his worldly capital on such a herculean and mostly unrewarded task.  Surely the Knox Bible can't be seen as a triumpth in earthly terms given its lack of widespread usage. It's no King James. One can't help but wonder if he misheard God's call in that regard.  Others wiser than me have wondered what Knox would've been had he not taken on the Quixotian task. But Knox was obviously an exquisite writer and a translation requires as good a stylist (or better) as the original author.  Of the making of Bibles there is apparently no end.

State of the Weather Address

Honored guests, pilgrims, and fellow Americans, today I deliver this State of the Weather address and must report that the weather is fantastical. Sunny and warm this afternoon with temps up to 75, 76 degrees. Perhaps not freakishly warm given that the average high for this day in Rocktober Columbus is 65 degrees and I'm not sure ten degrees constitutes "freakishly high" any more than a high of 55 degrees would be "freakishly low". Especially since we've had both in recent days.

To borrow from Calvin Coolidge, who when asked what the market will do he replied, "it will fluctuate" we can attest that our weather will fluctuate. The record is 83 for this day and so perhaps we could only count 80+ degree days in late October as properly freakish.

*

What's left of the wizened leaves of the maple out back look precarious on the half-dressed limbs. There's a nerdish part of me that longs to record the date the leaves turn and when they fall each year. Just as it somehow feels important to note, say, September 24th was the last day we saw a hummingbird at the feeder.

The sky is wide as the ocean and just as panoramic. If the sky were only seen in certain locations there would be sky-high prices for those pieces of land. We don't appreciate what we have. We may not have an ocean in sight but each day the sky is free and we're given a view tumblr can't approach. To be outside is to be in wonder, and to experience the truly immersive experience.

Stephen Windwalker on Gadgetry

From here:

I suspect that many of you reading this share a love of new gadgets, especially when they help you to read in a better way. So you might share my surprise in hearing that gadget lover Stephen Windwalker made a convincing case to me this week that—gasp—it’s not really about the gadgets any more.

“When you look at all these devices that are out, the air is kind of coming out of the balloon in terms of the competition between devices,” he told me after putting the Fitbit away.

He praised the iPad 3, the iPhone, the new Kindle Fire HDs, the Kindle Paperwhite, and even the new Nook tablets, which look very sharp as hardware.

“But,” he said, “the idea that people are any longer at the point where when a new device comes out they’re going to throw the old one away and grab the new one—I’m just not convinced of that any more.”

Steve emphasized the importance of focusing on what people actually do on these devices, “rather than some proposition that 11 left-handed redheads might use.”

Within a range of, say, five percent in terms of functionality for what people actually do on devices, customer motivation is not centered on hardware features, he said.

“What’s really important,” Steve said, “is the delivery of content.”

He offered a good analogy in suggesting that you don’t decide where to buy a washer/dryer by how nice and modern the store looks. What matters is the value proposition, price, and how good the washer/dryer is.

The Other

Take a boring pharmacy sign, put it in a foreign language and VOILA! It's almost art...

I feel a little ping-pang of envy while viewing Amy W's crew viewing a parade in Paris: