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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Friday, November 19, 2004
   
   

"A Few Fine Words"

Peter Schramm blogs today his essay on the Gettysburg Address:

.... It is strange that in an age when lengthy oratory was common, Lincoln gave a speech that in a mere 272 words gave the Civil War unambiguous meaning. Indeed in the middle of a war between citizens that had yet to be won on the field of battle, he explained in a way that everyone could understand what the nation stood for, and why it was worth the saving....
Lincoln reminds his listeners that it is up to Americans to prove that a nation based on equality, liberty, and consent may endure. In 1863 this was an open question. The resolve that Lincoln asks of his countrymen had universal significance because the proposition applies to all men of all colors, everywhere and always. If we can’t do this here, he was saying, all governments may always be based on force and fear and fraud. And legitimate, popular government may altogether perish from the earth....

See The Gettysburg Address: Thursday, November 19, 1863.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 06:27:30 PM
Categorized as Historical.


   
   

E.E. Cummings

Jonathan Yardley reviews a new biography by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, at WaPo, Oct. 17 (quoted ellipsis in original):

More than four decades after his death, Edward Estlin Cummings remains one of the most beloved American poets, as well as one of the most misunderstood and underrated. As Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno suggests in this massive biography, Cummings probably is the victim of his popularity (which "at least in the academic mind... is a curse"), his failure to write "a book-length poem or a poetic sequence," and his strong opposition to the Soviet Union, which "lost him a good many supporters among the left-leaning critics." To that list should be added his penchant for sentimentality, which never wins any writer friends among the literati, who fancy themselves (against a great deal of evidence) clear-eyed and hard-bitten....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 05:57:15 PM
Categorized as Literary.


   
   

Specter's Statement on Judiciary Committee

Arlen must have had to agree to this to get the chairmanship.

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I have not and would not use a litmus test to deny confirmation to pro-life nominees. I voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist after he had voted against Roe v. Wade. Similarly, I voted to confirm pro-life nominees, Justice Scalia, Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy. I lead the successful fight to confirm Justice Thomas which almost cost me my Senate seat in 1992.

I have assured the President that I would give his nominees quick Committee hearings and early Committee votes so floor action could be promptly scheduled. I have voted for all of President Bush’s judicial nominees in Committee and on the floor, and I have no reason to believe that I’ll be unable to support any individual President Bush finds worthy of nomination. I believe I can help the President get his nominees approved just as I did on confirmation of two controversial Pennsylvania Circuit nominees when other, similarly situated Circuit nominees, were being filibustered.

I have already registered my opposition to the Democrats’ filibusters with 17 floor statements and will use my best efforts to stop any future filibusters. It is my hope and expectation that we can avoid future filibusters and judicial gridlock with a 55-45 Republican majority and election results demonstrating voter dissatisfaction with Democratic filibusters. If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rule changes with 51 votes.

I intend to consult with my colleagues on the Committee’s legislative agenda, including tort reform, and will have balanced hearings with all viewpoints represented. I have long objected to the tactic used of bottling up civil rights legislation in the Judiciary Committee when it should have gone to the floor for an up or down vote. Accordingly, I would not support Committee action to bottle up legislation or a constitutional amendment, even one which I personally opposed, reserving my own position for the floor.

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On the other hand, we have this from Scrappleface today.

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Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee today announced their unqualified support of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R/D-PA, after he admitted that his long-standing advocacy of abortion was "just a running gag."

"People don't get satire anymore," said Mr. Specter. "I was just kidding about that pro-choice stuff, and my colleagues on the judiciary committee know it. Does anyone really believe that they would back me for the chairmanship if they thought I advocated the killing of infants in the womb? It's laughable."

Mr. Specter said his Jewish faith makes the "inside joke about abortion even more absurd."

The senator added, "If a standup comedian came out on the stage and said, 'Good evening, I'm a Jewish, pro-choice Republican,' that would be it. He would slay them. Thank you, goodnight."

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 05:44:23 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

Let's Try Freedom

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 07:33:52 AM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

Breviaries Anybody?

A request arrived yesterday:

Wanted - Used copies of the Liturgy of the Hours, all four volumes if possible, but we will gladly accept single volumes. Growing membership necessitates our reaching out to you, as the purchase of books is prohibitive. Double your postal costs guaranteed.
In St. Dominic - Pax et fides
Dominican Laity of Idaho
Phil Ferguson - O.P.L. (Life Professed)
Sec/Treas.
3846 Sumter Way
Boise ID 83709-3743
208-362-0894
aquinas@justcatholic.net

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 07:23:33 AM
Categorized as Religious.


   
   

Catholics Betrayed

Thanks to Mark for sending this passage from A Generation Betrayed: Deconstructing Catholic Education in the English Speaking World by Eamonn Keane, p. 214:

Western Societies are now experiencing a deep crisis of religious and moral consciousness. A key indicator of this is the increasing rupture of the natural linkages which bind marriage, love, sexuality and procreation together. The greater acceptance of perverse sexual practices such as sodomy is in effect expressive of a rejection of "marital symbolism" as this has been stamped on our human nature in God's good creation of man as "male and female." This failure in moral and religious consciousness has given rise amongst "progressive" Catholics to a litany of objections to certain aspects of the Church's teaching — in particular to its teaching on sexuality and marriage, its prohibition against the reception of the Eucharist by the divorced and remarried, as well as its doctine on a male-only ministerial priesthood. It is striking that in general we will be able to predict what a Catholic will hold on any of these matters once we know what he or she holds on one of them. Why should this be so?
Cardinal Ratzinger has pointed out that the above litany of objections to the Church's doctrine is rooted in a faulty vision of man. He says that this faulty vision is, amongst other things, "closely associated with the inability to discern a spiritual message in the material world." He adds that men and women of today cannot understand that "their bodiliness reaches the metaphysical depths and is the basis of a symbolic metaphysics whose denial or neglect does not ennoble man but destroys him." For those whose vision of man is based on such a faulty anthropology which fails to recognise in the "being" of the human person the handiwork of the Creator, there is "no difference whether the body be of the masculine or the feminine sex: the body no longer expresses being at all."

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/19/04 07:13:21 AM
Categorized as Religious.


   

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