Blogworthies LXV

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ Catholic Ragemonkey, Flos Carmeli, Irish Pennants, Dyspeptic Mutterings, Discriminations, ProfessorBainbridge.com, Bettnet.com, A Physicist's Perspective, Cella's Review, Power Line, TKS, Midwest Conservative Journal, cut on the bias, C-Log, Off the Record, Catholic Analysis, ut unum sint, Mystery Achievement, SecretAgentMan's Dossier, Laudem Gloriae, Signs of the Times, Rightwingsparkle, HerbEly, Patterico's Pontifications, and Lex Communis.

Heretofore, the blogworthy entries have been presented in reverse chronological order. But sorting them thus is a tedious task, so I am not going to sort them henceforward.

Martin Palomares, R.I.P. @ Catholic Ragemonkey:

Well, it has been an emotionally challenging past few days and this is only the build-up. I was enjoying my time off last week, spending it with family in Oklahoma City and doing some errands, when I got a call early Friday morning about a young parishioner, Martin Palomares. I was told he was in Pediatric ICU in Oklahoma City and that he was dying....

Modern Poetry — Footnotes to Emptiness @ Flos Carmeli:

Yesterday I meant to say something about modern poetry. I had checked two books of The Year's Best Poetry out of the library to see if trends had changed yet.

The answer is, unfortunately, no. The Academic community appears to have poetry still firmly in its death grip, determined to choke the life out of it....

Terrorism and Us @ Irish Pennants:

Just before four o'clock this morning, a bomb, made from two toy hand grenades filled with black powder, exploded in a concrete flower box outside the entrance to the British consulate in New York. The flower pot was pretty much totaled, but there were no casualties, and not much other damage....

The revised edition. @ Dyspeptic Mutterings:

.... From what people tell me, being a parent is both much easier and much, much more difficult than it used to be. In the easier ledger is the available physical plant. Such things as disposable diapers, super strollers and baby monitors and even flame-retardant clothing.

But the "harder" column can't be ignored, and that stems directly from our wounded culture. Lest we forget, fellow Catholics and people of good will, we have it on good authority that we are living in a "culture of death." One of the most corrosive aspects of that culture is the Cult of Stuff....

Confusing WaPo History Lesson @ Discriminations:

In his WaPo column yesterday, David Ignatius enlists eminent Princeton Civil War historian James McPherson to teach us all "Lessons for Iraq From Gettysburg." These "lessons" are far more opaque, contradictory, and confusing than anything I believe Prof. McPherson would sign his name to in print....

Deference to Tradition @ ProfessorBainbridge.com:

.... How then shall the truth of a moral norm be established? The various schools of natural law offer three sources: revealed truth, practical reasoning, and the traditions of the community. Although I am prepared to defend the relevance of the former, I shall leave that for another day. Instead, I want to focus here on the latter two sources....

True believers @ Bettnet.com:

I don’t want to get into a Tridentine v. Novus Ordo holy war (although I suppose I’m asking for it by entering this debate), but a friend sent the following reflection on the radical Traditionalist movement (i.e. schismatics or those closely following them; not just people who prefer the Tridentine Mass): ....

Michael Behe: "The Argument for Intelligent Design in Biology" @ A Physicist's Perspective:

Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor and the author of Darwin's Black Box, spoke Friday (April 29, 2005) and Saturday in Davis. I'm going to write a series of several posts on his lectures. In this post, I'll detail the content of his first lecture for those interested who were not able to attend. In the next, I'll detail the contents of his second lecture. I'll also write at least one more post after that, giving some of my own impressions and comments....

Michael Novak's essay... @ Cella's Review:

... in the April First Things, “Max Weber Goes Global,” is another intriguing chapter in Novak’s career-long effort to examine the spiritual roots of “democratic capitalism.” Predictable in many ways (the generous praise for both Protestantism and Catholicism, the repeated adducing of Tocqueville, the eschewing of polemics) it is nevertheless another valuable contribution. Mr. Novak is at his best when he reminds us that free economies are founded upon virtue not avarice; on generosity of spirit, not miserliness....

In which St. Thomas keeps digging @ Power Line:

What's it like to be a conservative student on a college campus run by liberal adminstrators? Consider the case of St. Thomas College senior Katie Kieffer. Ms. Kieffer is the founder of the St. Thomas Standard, the new campus conservative periodical, the former leader of the St. Thomas chapter of the College Republicans, and one of the students who arranged for Ann Coulter to speak on campus....

Insert Your Favorite "Lucas Turning to the Dark Side" Joke Here @ TKS:

.... It’s a free country, and Lucas can make whatever films he likes, and put in whatever subtle or not-so-subtle political messages he likes. But I can’t be the only one who finds a stunning disconnect between the messages of Lucas’ films and the decisions he’s actually made in his life and work.

Let me get this straight. With villains in Attack of the Clones that consisted of the “Trade Federation”, “Commerce Guild”, “Techno Union” and “Intergalactic Banking Clan”, etc., I’m being warned about the dangers of capitalism from a man who made perhaps more money from merchandising than any other man in history. I’m getting lectured about the dangers of greed from man who authorized, “C-3POs” breakfast cereal, “The Star Wars Christmas Special” featuring Bea Arthur’s musical number, and not one but two Ewoks made-for-TV movies....

The Sociopathic Church II @ Midwest Conservative Journal:

These days, Episcopalians constantly extol the virtues of words like "dialogue" and "conversation" and "reconciliation." You can hardly get through any ECUSA publication about anything at all without seeing one of those words, or some variation thereof, dropped several times. If I thought they actually meant what they said, I'd probably still be attending the Episcopal parish in which I grew up. But they don't....

Quirky @ cut on the bias:

I enjoy reading biographies, especially of people who came up with new ideas, new ways of doing things, people who are or were intellectually brilliant. It's intriguing how many of them had freakish quirks, some of which could be life-threatening. I wonder if it's at high enough a rate to say the highly intelligent are also unusually quirky....

Fall of Saigon @ C-Log:

Thirty years ago today [Fri. Apr. 29] a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the walls of the Presidential Palace in Saigon to raise a Viet Cong flag over Ho Chi Minh City. The war is now truly history. Unfortunately a lot of myths continue....

war against the working male @ Off the Record:

When you go to Mass tomorrow [Sun. May 1], take a look around you and notice what group is most conspicuously absent. Regardless of where on the face of the globe you are, the answer is obvious: missing are blue collar heterosexual males between the ages of 18 and 28....

Double Standard or Double Trauma? @ Catholic Analysis:

One of the biggest lies perpetuated by secular feminism is that female promiscuity is a liberation from the shackles of male domination that provides a bracing equality for women. The Catholic tradition begs to differ vehemently. And, intuitively, many persons know the Catholic tradition is right — especially persons from more traditional cultures that have not suffered the sheer collapse in moral standards that has wiped out any intuitive sense of taboo in the United States and Western Europe. But how to articulate the intuitive certainty that the biggest victims of promiscuity are women themselves?...

What constitutes an infallible definition? @ ut unum sint:

When does the pope speak infallibly?...

Utopian Idealism And Its Moral Limits @ Mystery Achievement:

The Rev. Donald Sensing has linked to and commented on an essay by Professor Norman Geras, "The Reductions of the Left." Before I start picking bones I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this is a remarkable achievement. Prof. Geras has analyzed the monumental failure of the majority of the western Left to address either terrorism or totalitarian statism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Of that failure he proposes to convict his fellow-travelers on two counts: methodological reductionism, and moral blindness. He sums them up in this excerpt from his opening paragraph: ....

Meet the Mess @ SecretAgentMan's Dossier:

In case anybody missed "Meet the Press," here is a condensed version of last Sunday's installment: ....

Michael Novak and The Blind-Obedience Myth. @ Laudem Gloriae:

Responding to unjust charges that in 1968 then-Professor Ratzinger endorsed "unquestioned obedience" to the Papal Magisterium, Novak objects: ....

Remembering Jeffrey Curley @ Signs of the Times:

Watching T.V. while running on the treadmill tonight, I was reintroduced to Jeffrey Curley. To me, Jeffrey has always been a bright-eyed kid with sandy hair, a smile, and a baseball cap. I knew dozens of children just like him in my hometown — spirited, fun, athletic, and always in trouble. You knew them, too. You played baseball with them, picked on them in class, or passed notes to them during third-grade history. In a lot of ways, we are all like Jeffrey — trapped in pictures of our childhoods and always longing for a past more innocent, liberated, and joyful than the present....

My Dream. @ Rightwingsparkle:

I have a reoccurring dream about my grandma. She is sitting on the front porch of her house, which is brilliant white set upon a brilliant white hill. I climb the steps and sit beside her on the front porch swing. She smiles at me and I take her hand and lay my head on her shoulder. I say, “I love you grandma.” “I love you too sweetie,” She replies. I look at her. “I miss you so much.” “I’m still here,” she says. “But it’s not the same.” I say sadly. “No. No it isn’t,” She says as she hugs me....

Civilizing the Barbarians @ HerbEly:

Roger Kimball writing in The New Criterion makes a connection between philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and Benedict XVI....

Los Angeles Times Editors Edit Reuters Story to Remove Critical Facts Supporting U.S. Position @ Patterico's Pontifications:

Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.

This morning’s [Sat. Apr. 30] L.A. Times publishes an article about the March 4 shooting by U.S. soldiers of a car bearing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. The shooting killed Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, and created an international controversy, which strained U.S.-Italian relations....

More business heading our way.... Methodists reverse decision to defrock a "self-avowed practicing homosexual" minister. @ Lex Communis:

According to this Houston Chronicle article, a UMC church panel has reversed the decision to suspend Beth Stroud, a UMC minister who admitted to having an ongoing lesbian relationship: ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/07/05 08:31:36 AM
Categorized as Blogworthies.

Readworthies III

A handful of interesting, informative, and insightful articles.

News, editorials, columns, essays, et al.

Countercultures: Past, Present, and Future by Irving Kristol @ American Enterprise Institute (ht):

The counterculture that emerged in the United States in the 1960s — and pretty much simultaneously in all the Western democracies — is certainly one of the most significant events in the last half-century of Western civilization. It is reshaping our educational systems, our arts, our forms of entertainment, our sexual conventions, our moral codes. So it is important that we understand it. It is not enough for us to criticize it — to point out the fallacies and incoherence of its arguments, the absurdities of its self-righteous dogmatism, the shocking social problems it has either generated or exacerbated, the folly of its presumptions, the shallowness of its pretentious claims. The criticisms are all valid but surprisingly ineffectual. The counterculture seems quite immune to them. This suggests to me that we do not, as yet, have a grip on the phenomenon. We fail to realize that it is always more important to understand why fantastical beliefs are entertained, often by very intelligent people, than simply to refute them.

I do not find much more understanding in the other kinds of literature that have developed around the topic of the counterculture. The apologetic, self-justifying literature, of course, points to the "iniquities" of our society and our civilization, and assumes that further understanding is superfluous. The critical literature of a social-scientific bent is unhelpful since it is obvious that nothing happened to provoke this rebellion — there was no visible crisis, or even any sense of crisis, in the economies, the societies, the politics of the West. The emergence of the counterculture, for example, antedates by several years America's serious involvement in Vietnam, and in any case such a parochial explanation overlooks the international nature of the movement.

I think the place to begin with any understanding of the counterculture is with its self-designation as a "counterculture." We are dealing here with a movement that is against culture. Not a dissenting cultural movement within our culture, not an urge to reform and reshape our culture, but an avowed hostility to "culture" itself — and this on the part of intellectuals, professors, and artists. What can this possibly mean?...

My First Year with the Eucharist by Carolyn Foster @ Adoremus Bulletin (ht):

Not long ago I asked my spiritual director what the difference is between praying in front of the tabernacle and praying at home or while commuting to and from work. She responded with a simple but firm comment on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and added that some people do like to pray, for example, while walking in nature.

The question was a bit of a formality because the Holy Spirit was already forming the answer in my mind around this time — approximately a year after my baptism into the Catholic Church.

Several times in the past year I had wondered what it would be like to live during the time of Christ. I would think about the earth with His presence on it some 2000 years ago. I imagined myself as a nameless woman in the Gospels who sees Him pass by, or even meets Him.

Recently though, while thinking in this vein, I came to pray in front of the tabernacle, something I'd done only a few times before. Suddenly, I realized that I did not have to daydream about being near Him: I was meeting Him right then and there. Jesus stayed here on earth, truly present in the Eucharist, so that I don't have to fantasize about meeting Him 2000 years ago....

The Wildlife of Planet Cornell by Sara Townsley @ The Cornell Daily Sun (ht):

From Aristotle to Linnaeus to Darwin, naturalists have been fascinated with the organisms that populate their environment. Like the Galapagos Islands, Cornell provides a sheltered habitat to a riotous array of creatures that would surely perish under harsher conditions. I've spent three years cataloging my observations of the vast biodiversity on campus, so here I report a rough taxonomy of the local fauna....

Cornell, in particular, is the most bigoted, ignorant, profligate swamp I've ever had the misfortune to call home. Corporal Hicks (Aliens) might have been speaking of Ithaca when he said: "I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

When Columnists Cry "Jihad" by John McCandlish Phillips @ The Washington Post (ht):

I have been looking at myself, and millions of my brethren, fellow evangelicals along with traditional Catholics, in a ghastly arcade mirror lately — courtesy of this newspaper and the New York Times. Readers have been assured, among other dreadful things, that we are living in "a theocracy" and that this theocratic federal state has reached the dire level of — hold your breath — a "jihad."

In more than 50 years of direct engagement in and observation of the major news media I have never encountered anything remotely like the fear and loathing lavished on us by opinion mongers in these world-class newspapers in the past 40 days. If I had a $5 bill for every time the word "frightening" and its close lexicographical kin have appeared in the Times and The Post, with an accusatory finger pointed at the Christian right, I could take my stack to the stock market....

Demographics and the Culture War by Stanley Kurtz @ Policy Review (ht):

We moderns have gotten used to the slow, seemingly inexorable dissolution of traditional social forms, the family prominent among them. Yet the ever-decreasing size of the family may soon expose a fundamental contradiction in modernity itself. Fertility rates have been falling throughout the industrialized world for more than 30 years, with implications that are only just now coming into view. Growing population has driven the economy, sustained the welfare state, and shaped modern culture. A declining population could conceivably put the dynamic of modernization into doubt....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/07/05 08:16:42 AM
Categorized as Readworthies.

BlogShares: The Blog from the Core

If anybody could explain this to me, I'd appreciate it. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/07/05 08:04:55 AM
Categorized as Blog Stuff.