Now I'm Just Confused

I just don't know what this bowing is supposed to signify.

The Orange Disks Are The Death Panels

Behold our new health care system.

Thanks to ninme for reminding me to post. You can click it a bit larger at her place, but let me save you the trouble: every place you see a connecting line on the page, you will stand in line for a treatment. The pale peach shapes are entities which can tax you; the dark blue shapes are agencies tasked with denying you treatment unless you stop smoking/stop eating trans fats/stop your salt intake/give up bacon/change your light bulbs/abstain from sodas/ affirm the wholesomeness of homosexual marriage. Orange represents death panels.

Didn't WaPo just do a 3-part expose on how no bureaucracy this big could function?

The Mysterious Obama Administration

I understand that Communism which is a protest, but not that which is a hope.

American Digest found Don Colacho's Aphorisms. Some of them are hilarious and some profound (and some wrong in the way that Europeans are wrong. He's big on resignation, apparently). Like this, though:

#1,400: To be a Marxist appears to consist in exempting Communist societies from the Marxist interpretation.

And:

#1,404: Nobody, nothing, in the end forgives.Except Christ.

No One's Going To Help You Bake That Cake

It's the feast of St. Martha. And Alexis de Tocqueville's birthday.

What Do You Mean, "We"?

Pat Caddell & Douglas Schoen, pollsters for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton respectively, rebuked the President yesterday for being divisive --and not in the positive, taking a stand way that I tend to champion.

Rather than being a unifier, Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class and partisanship. Moreover, his cynical approach to governance has encouraged his allies to pursue a similar strategy of racially divisive politics on his behalf. 

And there's a catalog of crimes: jumping to conclusions in the beergate case, holding border security hostage to comprehensive immigration reform, suing a state full of citizens, refusing to prosecute voter intimidation on the part of the New Black Panthers, etc.

It's nice they notice, although what they could have expected I'm not certain. Obama promised to be a radical and he is. Meanwhile, House of Eratosthenes nails the President's character:

Listen to Obama talk about something that doesn’t have to do with race: I, I, I, Me, Me, I, I, Me, I just think, seems to Me, Michelle & I, I, I, I, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. The subject shifts to race, and all of a sudden it’s we, we, we, we, America, Ms. Sherrod, bloggers, talk shows, Cambridge police, we. He stops talking about Himself, because He’s cataloging sins…things that have been done wrong. When that happens, He isn’t part of us anymore. Suddenly, He can grind out entire paragraphs without mentioning Himself one single time. He’ll re-join us when the lecturing is done. Then He’ll be happy to tell us, once again, what He thinks about things.

He has a good insight, too, on Shirley Sherrod and her conversion --and why we can't get to the "there" of racial harmony from the "here" of Progressivism:

why did she reform? I’ve seen lots of leftists subjected to this spiritual awakening, and it isn’t permanent, one-way, or spiritual. In my case, they’ve gone back and forth, and with the wisdom of hindsight I’ve come to realize something: What they were trying to decide, was whether or not I was a “mark.” Was I desperate enough yet that, if they short-circuited some rules to “help” me, would I give them my soul. This is the true face of the progressive movement: Put the non-producers in charge of figuring out how the goods and services are allocated, and if enough people are in desperate circumstances & stand to benefit from your little modern Bolshevik revolution, they will help you do this and you will succeed. You cannot succeed without them. This is how Shirley Sherrod saw that white farmer. She changed her mind about him. As his plight became more and more desperate, she figured out how he would come in handy.

That last line is the official Left's commitment to the poor in one sentence.
Curtsy: Kaching!

Where's The Oil?

When the BP leak first began, someone sent me the story of some vastly worse spill in the 70s that dispersed right away. Send it again, please, if it was you. I can't find it.

Meanwhile.

Update: Steve Hayward with more (link fixed).

A Business-Free District

Click here to see Paul Ryan offer a teaching moment to Chris Matthews and Cong. Joe Crowley. The whole thing's good, but the money moment begins about 3:57 when they're talking about eliminating tax cuts "for the wealthy."
Matthews asks:

Are you comfortable going to the voters, Congressman Crowley, with a proposal to eliminate the $250,000 and above tax cut?

To which Crowley, bright light proving the incandescent intelligence of the Congress that he is, responds that he doesn't have any such voters in his district.

I could tell you, Chris, in my district, there are very few people who make more than that money just a gross income of $250,000 or more. And I think, to live in the greatest country, as I said before, the world has ever known, it`s a small price to pay.

Really, Congressman? There are no S-corps in your district? Because, as Ryan patiently and smilingly explains:

You have to understand, Chris, 75 percent of those people who pay that tax rate are small businesses who file as individuals, not corporations. That`s the problem with this economic argument, Chris, is when you think you`re just taxing rich people like Bill Gates, what you`re end up doing is you`re hitting successful small businesses. When we tax our employers more than our foreign competitors tax theirs, they get our jobs and we lose in global competition.

No Comment

Mad Men, Season 11

Shamelessly pinched from lonelysandwich

I have never seen Mad Men, but asked my spy who worked v. successfully in advertising in NY in the 60s if it was accurate. Answer: very, at least in the previous seasons (not vouching for this point forward), including inside jokes and references that only people "There Then" would get.

Fun. 

Relativism And Timidity

If we fear error too much, and thus overvalue critical reason, we will develop a mind active and able in doubt but untrained to move toward belief, a mentality too quick to find reasons not to nurture convictions.

Ideally, we would like critical reason to minister to the more fundamental project of affirming truth. We picture ourselves scrupulously examining various truth-claims, weeding out the irrational ones, and then judiciously assenting to those that seem to have solid grounds. 

R.R. Reno, writing at First Things, on the intellectual timidity of our age.

In my experience, although the modern university is full of trite, politically correct pieties, for the most part its educational culture is cautious to a fault. Students are trained—I was trained—to believe as little as possible so that the mind can be spared the ignominy of error. The consequences: an impoverished intellectual life. The contemporary mind very often lives on a starvation diet of small, inconsequential truths, because those are the only points on which we can be sure we’re avoiding error.

I have to ponder that observation, as it happens I've been thinking about this very thing recently, or rather, about intellectual phenomena which appear to me to be related. In some ways he's only re-stating the complaint that we have reduced reality to that which can be empirically observed, which flattens the imagination and obliterates practically everything that's actually interesting, important and delightful. Or it could be a re-statement of the criticism of Great Books programs: great at getting you to think about the right things, not so good at inculcating prudence. At some point you not only have to consider what's right, you have to decide and go do it.

I've been thinking about relativism on "the Right," even the Religious Right, prompted by comments left at another site in response to a proposal that divorce be taxed. Immediately a dozen people protested that this would hurt divorced people, and one person, obviously smarting personally, declared it was insensitive to divorcees even to raise the topic.

A divorce tax may or may not be a good idea, but what struck me was that the comments and arguments were precisely those used by homosexuals to advance the cause of same-sex marriage --namely, the "unfairness" to some, and the appeal to hurt feelings as a means of shutting down discussion. The common good and the role of marriage and family law in shaping it did not come into play.

Maybe they would have if the hurting bully hadn't whomped everyone into silence, but the conversation was disheartening. Hard cases make bad law, but hard cases are all we're allowed to talk about --and isn't that the same thing, really, as being so afraid of making a mistake --of being unfair to someone, somewhere-- that you can't make a decision --or offer a norm-- at all?

That was followed a few days later by a controversial post about whether it could ever be acceptable for a Christian to attend the reception celebrating a same-sex union (after having declined, with explanation, attending the ceremony). The discussion was blurred by an unfortunate analogy, but the actual moral teaching (possibly yes in limited circumstances) appears to me defensible, especially since, applying the reasoning given, most people in most situations would have to conclude they couldn't attend. But maybe the argument was not prudent, given that it could hardly but be misconstrued in precisely the way the comments reveal it is being, and might lead an uninformed person astray. Hard cases make bad law.

How do you talk about tricky cases without encouraging the overthrow of what remains of standards of morality --or disheartening the faithful? How do you not talk about tricky cases when there are more and more of them thanks to the tyranny of relativism and loss of faith? The true requirements of Prudence maybe can be least discussed where most needed? Or do we just have to be satisfied with, "he who has ears let him hear" a lot of the time?

It so happens that my book club just finished Lewis' space trilogy and I was very taken with the middle volume, Perelandra (the conceit of which is basically creation on Venus, and our hero has to prevent the Fall by intervening in Satan's temptation of the Venutian Eve), and Ransom's eventually having to give up on out-arguing the subtle and persuasive and almost-right devil and resort to physically fighting him. This seems related for some reason I can't articulate, though I'm sure Lewis has an essay somewhere that would make it obvious.

Maybe it just means sometimes I'd like to punch people in the comment box. (Not you, of course!)

Wicked Leaks

Legal Insurrection asks:

How many of the Journolists who object to the release of their e-mails regarding the 2008 presidential campaign will spend the next several days gloating over the publication by WikiLeaks of over 90,000 classified military documents regarding the war in Afghanistan?

And meanwhile many of our soldiers and allies in covert positions have had their covers blown and will likely die as a result. A hanging is called for.

Stone Goes Gibson

So I'm sure the agonized op-eds about it being a pity, but no one can ever work with him again after this are coming, right?

Director Oliver Stone belittled the Holocaust during a shocking interview (paywall)with the Sunday Times today, claiming that America's focus on the Jewish massacre was a product of the "Jewish domination of the media."
The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the "powerful lobby" of Jews in America.

Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series "Secret History of America," seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin "in context."

Ah, yes, if only Hitler could be seen in "context." 

 

When Gibson rants, it's in out-of-control fury or drunkenness and he tries to hide it. Here is Stone, calm and in control and saying these things to a newspaper --and reinforcing them by supporting Chavez and Abombnjihad. Some days I wish the Joooos had a little more control over Hollywood than is alleged. 

 

Keep Staring Like That And I'll Make More

A perennial topic among moms of large families is what to say to the intrusive and lame comments people feel free to make about your troops. We have a mere four weedlets and have nevertheless heard it all.

I find I don't need snappy comebacks, as most people mean no harm (and are actually trying to be nice) and for those who do, I've always found it sufficient to know that I think they're as ignorant, knuckle-dragging and mouth-breathing as they think me, and I rather like being thought ill of by the uncivilized. Raises my cache in my own mind.

Nevertheless, for those who need that kind of thing, Simcha Fisher has compiled the definitive list, so we don't need to have that conversation any more.

The Gauzy Strip

ninme provides my post this evening.

Milton Friedman Takes Someone to School

It's being alleged the young man here is Michael Moore. I'm skeptical, but it doesn't matter --the clip is excellent, and everyone needs the lesson.

Curtsy: Big Hollywood

Monkeys In The Middle

Literally: Man arrested with 18 monkeys stuffed in his girdle.

Is The Pope In Danger?

"Always" is the answer (like the US President, people are always gunning for him), but Matthew Archbold is asking specifically about the upcoming trip to Britain and the possibility a Muslim paper there is inciting violence.

A member of British Parliament says he fears violence at an open air mass with Pope Benedict XVI after an Islamic publication called Muslims to attend the Mass to convert Catholics and “tell the Pope in no uncertain terms what Muslims think of his evil slanders against the last Prophet of God and his message.”

Hmm. It's true The Islamic Standard wrote this:

We at the Islamic Standard hope the Muslims of Birmingham take this duel opportunity to give Da’wah to these 80,000 travelling disbelievers, whilst at the same time telling the Pope in no uncertain terms what Muslims think of his evil slanders against the last Prophet of God and his message.

Heh. Probably they mean "dual," but one never knows....
But it seems to be a smallish blog. My mind runs more to the idea that plenty of MPs would like to see the Pope's visit canceled, and will do what they can to make it seem impossibly difficult.

Now there is protectthepope.com, and I note that a womyn's ordination group is likewise predicting "heightened tensions" around the pope's visit.

Muslim radicals and feminists, together again.

P.S. FWIW, the blogger at the Islamic Standard denies he's inciting anyone to violence.

Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days

Curtsy: The Corner

Signs From God

Had this random thought this morning that it's been years since I had a piña colada and I was in the mood for one, preferably poolside, this afternoon. Put the thought out of my mind, drank coffee, rounded up kids, went to Mass.

Pastor's homily included the assurance he would keep it short, since he knew we needed to get home to our fruity drinks and pools.

Honestly, I was going to let it go, but since it's Your will, Lord....

Journalistic Neutrality

Tweet from a (London) Times columnist:

The Catholic Church: they hate women and gays, and f*** kids. On a day-to-day level, that’s a tough sell.

Charming.

Don't Blame The Swiss

Did Eric Holder Free Roman Polanski? The DoJ never turned the trial transcripts over to the Swiss, AP reports.

And You Thought Only The Government Was Unstable

Earthquake in DC.

My Facebook Friends Amuse Me

Two college chums of mine are having a virtual knock-down drag-out over economics on facebook. Right now they're on ethanol subsidies and clean energy. The liberal complains that "millions of people starving" is "hysterical BS" along the lines of the "DDT ban holocaust." To which the libertarian responds:

"Millions of people starving" is, I admit, shorthand for higher corn prices in Mexico but there are a lot of people down there who need tortillas worse than I need to buy gas that will destroy the motor in my weedwhacker.

Empire Has Its Perks

The Official Cartoonist of Wheat & Weeds reports from Iraq that his base PX sells nothing but items made in China. And Turkey. To send home genuine Iraqi merchandise, he had to give some bills to the unit interpreter before he left for vacation, with the request to please return with something made in-country.

Is my conscience troubling me about my participation in this plunder of a host nation? Not remotely.

In Lieu Of Flowers

ninme has a worthy candidate for "absolutely the funniest item of the day," but I submit this for your consideration. Poor Charlotte McCourt, 84, passed away this week outside Reno. She once worked for the Senate Majority Leader. From her obituary:

We believe that Mom would say she was mortified to have taken a large role in the election of Harry Reid to U.S. Congress. Let the record show Charlotte was displeased with his work. Please, in lieu of flowers, vote for another more worthy candidate.

Alas, notes Matthew Archbold:

the fact that she's a dead Democrat means she'll probably be voting for Reid no matter what this year.

Even if ninme still wins, surely this takes the bloom off "absolutely"?

NASA Litella: Nevermind

Robert Gibbs says all that NASA Muslim outreach stuff was just a misstatement.

"That was not his task and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said. 

So his interview with Al Jazeera and speech in Cairo were just flukes. Ah.

Say, while we're on the topic of misuse of Science, a bunch of scientists are complaining about being pressured by the Administration to hide or alter conclusions for political purposes. Jonathan Adler comments.

Instacurtsy. I enjoyed his headline for scientists believing Obama: More rubes self-identify.

Meanwhile, another triumph for bad, politicized science of the Bush-era variety from which we're now liberated: adult stem cells restore sight to 75% of folks blinded by chemical burns.

Potpourri of Popery, Summer Vacation Edition

The pope's retired to his summer digs for a "rest," which includes writing his encyclical on faith, completing the trilogy. He's also reportedly writing a book on the infancy narratives of Jesus, in spite of once having remarked the forthcoming second volume of Jesus of Nazareth would be his last book. Vacation this year will be at Castel Gandalfo, not northern Italy as usual.

Popery
What's he been up to since Cyprus?  
Keeping up with his Audience series on the great theologians of the Church, notably several on St. Thomas Aquinas, which I'll let Against the Grain tell you about. Wednesday before parting the Vatican he spoke of Duns Scotus, the great theologian of the Incarnation. There's a very interesting catechetical passage in which Benedict remarks on Scotus' contribution to the defining of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Valuable theologians, such as Duns Scotus with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, enriched with their specific thought what the People of God already believed spontaneously about the Blessed Virgin, manifested in acts of piety, in the expressions of art and, in general, in Christian living. Thus faith in the Immaculate Conception or in the bodily assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpret it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith. Thus the People of God precede theologians and all this thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit, which qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith, with humility of heart and mind.

In this sense, the People of God is "magisterium that precedes," and that later must be deepened and intellectually accepted by theology. May theologians always be able to listen to this source of faith and have the humility and simplicity of little ones!

A common objection to Catholicism being that celibate old men impose their views on the helpless faithful, it's refreshing to be reminded the precise opposite is true.

Last weekend he travelled to Sulmona for one of his intra-Italian pastoral visits. He had a nice chat with young people. Can't find a transcript of their questions, but here's his response.

true prayer is not at all foreign to reality. If prayer should alienate you, remove you from your real life, be on your guard it would not be true prayer! On the contrary, dialogue with God is a guarantee of truth, of truth with ourselves and with others and hence of freedom. Being with God, listening to his word, in the Gospel and in the Church's Liturgy, protects you from the dazzle of pride and presumption, from fashions and conformism, and gives you the strength to be truly free, even from certain temptations masked by good things.

Good news/bad news:

faith and prayer do not solve problems but rather enable us to face them with fresh enlightenment and strength, in a way that is worthy of the human being and also more serenely and effectively. 

Prayer is not magic, in other words. Love this next part:

If we look at the history of the Church we see that it is peopled by a wealth of Saints and Blesseds who, precisely by starting from an intense and constant dialogue with God, illumined by faith, were able to find creative, ever new solutions to respond to practical human needs in all the centuries: health, education, work, etc. Their entrepreneurial character was motivated by the Holy Spirit and by a strong and generous love for their brethren, especially for the weakest and most underprivileged.

The saints as entrepreneurs of grace? I like it. (See why Catholic Americans are the best Americans and the best Catholics? At least potentially: corruptio optimi pessima. Or maybe what I mean is that Americans are especially suited to be Catholic.)

Very nice homily for the July 4th Mass in Garibaldi Square, too. He talks about Pope St. Peter Celestine, whose 800th anniversary the pilgrimage was observing, and particularly about his "listening."

From his youth Pietro Angelerio was a "seeker of God", a man who sought the answers to the great questions of our existence: Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I alive? For whom do I live?   ... Here there is a first important aspect for us: we live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment must be "filled" with projects, activities and noise; there is often no time even to listen or to converse. Dear brothers and sisters, let us not fear to create silence, within and outside ourselves, if we wish to be able not only to become aware of God's voice but also to make out the voice of the person beside us, the voices of others. 

Here's the homily for the feast of Ss. Peter & Paul, on which occasion he presented the pallium to 38 Metropolitan archbishops. Cool pictures here -- including of the statue of St. Peter dressed for the feast, and of the Pope & the new bishops descending to pray at the tomb of St. Peter.

Note this (but, yikes! I think the regular translators must already have gone on vacation, as here and in the above texts there are some barbarities. "Millenniums"? "Inconsistence" for "inconstancy"? Really?). He's been speaking about terrible persecutions and says:

despite the suffering they cause, they do not constitute the gravest danger for the Church. Indeed she is subjected to the greatest danger by what pollutes the faith and Christian life of her members and communities, corroding the integrity of the Mystical Body, weakening her capacity for prophecy and witness, and marring the beauty of her face. ...  The First Letter to the Corinthians, for example, responds precisely to certain problems of division, inconsistence and infidelity to the Gospel that seriously threaten the Church. However, the Second Letter to Timothy a passage to which we listened also speaks of the perils of the "last days", identifying them with negative attitudes that belong to the world and can contaminate the Christian community: selfishness, vanity, pride, the attachment to money, etc.

There follows an interesting meditation on the pallium as a sign of freedom and how union with the Holy Father is a sign and guarantor of freedom. A little difficult to excerpt, so RTWT.

The evening previous, in a vespers ceremony, he reflected on the Church's missionary vocation. Nice distinction here regarding the "new evangelization":

"new" not in its content but in its inner thrust, open to the grace of the Holy Spirit which constitutes the force of the new law of the Gospel that always renews the Church; "new" in ways that correspond with the power of the Holy Spirit and which are suited to the times and situations; "new" because of being necessary even in countries that have already received the proclamation of the Gospel.

Some words of encouragement for those ascending to the throne at a time when no one in his right mind would wish to be a bishop:

The challenges of the present time, the historical and social and, especially, the spiritual challenges, are certainly beyond the human capacity. It sometimes seems to us Pastors of the Church that we are reliving the experience of the Apostles when thousands of needy people followed Jesus and he asked them: what can we do for all these people? They were then aware of their powerlessness. Yet Jesus himself had shown them that with faith in God nothing is impossible and that a few loaves and fish, blessed and shared, could satisfy the hunger of all. However, there was not and there is not hunger solely for material food: there is a deeper hunger that only God can satisfy. Human beings of the third millennium want an authentic, full life; they need truth, profound freedom, love freely given. Even in the deserts of the secularized world, man's soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Which is why he's created a new Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization.

Neat:

• at the end of June he blessed a new statue --and therefore visited-- a cloister and prayed with the nuns there.
• And ordained 14 new priests for the diocese of Rome
• And blessed a fountain created for him, taking the occasion to reflect on St. Joseph.
• And my favorite thing he does all year: the Q&A with priests, this time an international gathering for the closing of the Year of the Priest. Each answer is my favorite, but if I'm limited to two...

A Brazilian pastor asks how a priest can possibly keep up as society de-Christianizes and he's in charge of a huge parish or perhaps several. If it's not possible to do it all, what should he do?

To this the pope replies that it's less important to try to do everything than to radiate Christ. If people see your joy and sincerity, they'll help you, and you ought to let them help. Then, prioritize: Sacraments, Proclamation of the Word and caritas --being present to the sick, poor, suffering. Also vital is the priest's own prayer:

St Charles Borromeo, a great shepherd, who truly gave all of himself, and says to us, to all priests, "Do not neglect your own soul. If your soul is neglected, even to others you can not give what you should give. Thus, even for yourself, for your soul, you must have time". Or, in other words, the personal colloquy with Christ, the personal dialogue with Christ is a fundamental pastoral priority in our work for the others! And prayer is not a marginal thing: it is the "occupation" of the priest to pray, as representative of the people who do not know how to pray or do not find time to pray. The personal prayer, especially the Prayer of the Hours, is fundamental nourishment for our soul, for all our actions. Finally, to recognize our limitations, to open ourselves up even to this humility. Recall a scene from Mark, chapter 6, where the disciples are "stressed out", they want to do everything, and the Lord says: "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." Even this is work, I would say pastoral work: to find and to have the humility, the courage to rest.

Then comes a Q from an African priest distressed over theologians whose approach is academic and doesn't support true spirituality. Comes the A:

Even St Bonaventure distinguished two forms of theology in his time and said: "There is a theology that comes from the arrogance of reason, that wants to dominate everything, God passes from being the subject to the object of our study, while he should be the subject who speaks and guides us". There is really this abuse of theology, which is the arrogance of reason and does not nurture faith but overshadows God's presence in the world. Then, there is a theology that wants to know more out of love for the beloved, it is stirred by love and guided by love. It wants to know the beloved more. And this is the true theology that comes from love of God, of Christ, and it wants to enter more deeply into communion with Christ. 

Hmm. Who are you thinking of? He defends the numerous theologians throughout the world who follow the latter model, but this is priceless:

"Do not be afraid of this ghost of science!" I have been following theology since 1946. I began to study theology in January '46 and, therefore, I have seen about three generations of theologians, and I can say that the hypotheses that in that time, and then in the 1960s and 1980s, were the newest, absolutely scientific, absolutely almost dogmatic, have since aged and are no longer valid! Many of them seem almost ridiculous. So, have the courage to resist the apparently scientific approach, do not submit to all the hypotheses of the moment, but really start thinking from the great faith of the Church, which is present in all times and opens for us access to the truth. Above all, do not think that positivistic thinking, which excludes the transcendent that is inaccessible is true reason! This weak reasoning, which only considers things that can be experienced, is really an insufficient reasoning.

Can't help myself, he continues:

 we must have the courage to use the great, broader reason and we must have the humility not to submit to all the hypotheses of the moment and to live by the great faith of the Church of all times. There is no majority against the majority of the Saints. Saints are the true majority in the Church and we must orient ourselves by the Saints! Then, to the seminarians and priests I say the same.

...and he goes on in that vein about knowledge of Scripture. RWTW or I will go off in exultations on the other Q&As, too, and nobody wants that.

Potpourri

• Big doings in the Vatican: Archbishop de Paolis named administrator of Legion of Christ;  Ouellet to head bishop-picking dicastery (Yay!); CDF to define new procedures for people who try to ordain women and doing a doctrinal assessment of liberal women religious in US. New universal norms on clergy abuse said to be released imminently. Card Kasper retires from Christian Unity dicastery, replaced by a man with a more Ratzingerian approach. And that new dicastery, about the re-evangelization of the West, to be headed by Archbishop Fisichella, formerly of the Council for Life. Plus: various takes on Summorum Pontificum at 3: a debate, Damien Thompson, and Fr. Z & his readers.
• Austria: Panel recommends payments for victims; Card. Schonborn got himself in hot water, had to clarify. (Apparently all is forgiven.)
• Belgium. Good, if distressing, round-up of the disgrace of the Belgian church. Card. Danneels files suit. Also, washing the dead down the drain.
• Britain: ongoing rumblings about papal pilgrimage in September. 
• China: new bishop ordained for See 50 years empty. Bishop Zhiguo released. Priest & nun of underground Church murdered.
• Cuba: releasing 52 political prisoners after Church negotiation.
• Iraq: Christian nurse killed by bomb.
• Sudan: update from Bishop Gassis.
• U.S.:  U. of Illinois fires professor for expressing tenets of Catholicism in a course about Catholicism. Campus Newman center fires him too. Notably the issue was homosexuality. Nuns & the new evangelization. Catholic Giving up despite economy. Court case against Vatican. SCOTUS stuff.
• Relations with Islam: Fr. Samil Samil on whether Islam is part of God's plan;  Christian misionaries arraigned in Michigan for "disturbing" Muslims.

And finally: prayer beneath the sea; and the Very Model of a Modern Seminarian.

Photo credit

NASA As APA

Shamelessly pinched from here.

The story that NASA is being re-purposed as an agency of Muslim self-esteem broke while I was away, so everyone's already had good fun with it, especially vanderleun ("One of these days, Islam...right to the moon!").

Well... I s'pose if we're ending the shuttle program and the moon and Mars programs (so much for that Gerard), the agency has to do... something.

Most folks are dwelling on why we'd want to share any rocket science with people committed to blowing us up, which indeed shows questionable judgment. 

But I mean to say... how benighted is it to give an agency peopled with "right stuff" fly-boys on the one hand and physicists and engineers on the other the job of raising people's self-esteem? I know when I hang out with a room full of cocky, physically perfect smarty-pantses, I always feel better about myself. And considering the disproportionate number of math and physics geniuses with Asperger's Syndrome, we've just entrusted a delicate field of human relations to people with difficulty picking up social cues. Brilliant!

That's not my real beef, though. What truly angers me about the policy is that the President continues to breech the genuine wall against establishment of religion. If he were reaching out to the Arab world, that would make sense. Why is he reaching out only to persons of a particular religion? So Christians in the Middle East or Buddhists in Indonesia or Hindus in Pakistan wouldn't be eligible for any NASA programs that develop? 

The man is creating distinctions of persons that ought not to exist and which are antithetical to our founding principles.  The United States is a political entity engaging with other political entities. It has no standing to engage a religion, unless we now consider ourselves a religion (maybe there's more to this Obama-worship than we thought?). It's deeply offensive.

Here is NASA administrator Charles Bolden's speech in Cairo last month. It's a lot of one-world palaver, but --here's that cultural sensitivity kicking in?-- I notice he talks about the International Space Station and then throws in, "but, hey, you guys have the pyramids as an impressive achievement."

The pyramids are, um, not Islamic. If the Taliban ruled Egypt, they'd blow 'em up.

Freudian Snip

Freud had his hang-ups, apparently, even if his cigar was just a cigar. He had a vasectomy at the age of 67.

Hmm. We are piously assured that sex had nothing to do with it. He was trying to halt the aging process.

Nearly a century ago it was believed that tying off one's spermatic cords could thwart the effects of aging.

Ah. Still sounds a bit pathetic.

Gabriel the Builder

I trust this post will be taken in the affectionate spirit in which it is intended, but three guesses the nationality of the men repairing the blizzard-induced sinkhole in our basement. I'll give you two clues.

One, left at the worksite:

And two, left in the yard:

Happy Independence Day!

The Declaration of Independence.
Churchill's July 4th message to America.
The eternal meaning of Independence Day, part 1, part 2

De Gustibus...

Some kindly older teen divested herself of her nail polish collection, bequeathing it to our young niece, who brought the set with her on the cousin visit. She & Girl Weed have been running a nail salon for each other for days, but yesterday they tired of experimenting on themselves and needed fresh meat.

I made the mistake of sitting still for three minutes. (Even the dog knew better.)

That is how it happens that I have American flags on my toes, artfully created with the help of blue, red & silver lacquers, plus blue sparkles top coat.

The little girls think this is absolutely beautiful as Spacious Skies or Amber Waves of Grain. Beautiful-er, in fact, because there are sparkles.

Gramma, however, took one look and exclaimed, "How awful, you look like a wh--e!"

Fortunately not in earshot of the little beauticians, who would have found her opinion distinctly unpatriotic. She's a little bit right, though. There's little I wouldn't do to win the Coolest Aunt competition.

Clean Energy

Shamelessly pinched from here, where there's a caption contest

Out Of Frying Pan

ninme found this interesting article on whether the Bible actually calls homosexuality an abomination. Apparently the word translated as "abomination" is the Hebrew "toevah."

The term toevah (and its plural, toevot) occurs 103 times in the Hebrew Bible, and almost always has the connotation of a non-Israelite cultic practice. In the Torah, the primary toevah is avodah zara, foreign forms of worship, and most other toevot flow from it. The Israelites are instructed not to commit toevah because other nations do so.

Interesting, but not comforting:

Deut. 12:31, 13:14, 17:4, 27:15, and 32:16 further identify idolatry, child sacrifice, witchcraft, and other “foreign” practices as toevah, and Deut. 20:18 says that avoiding toevah justifies the genocide of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanaites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. So, toevah is serious, but it is serious as a particular class of cultic offense: a transgression of national boundary. It is certainly not “abomination.”

Not sure that last sentence follows. The problem God has with idolatry is that "other" nations do it? Child sacrifice would be just fine if it weren't foreign --if the Israelites had come up with it as an organic practice instead of importing it?

In the Book of Proverbs (which comes late in the Bible but which scholars believe to have been composed prior to the Deuteronomic and Levitical material), toevah is used twenty-one times to refer to various ethical failings, including the ways, thoughts, prayers and sacrifices of the wicked (Prov. 3:32, 15:8-9, 15:26, 16:12, 21:27, 28:9), pride (Prov. 6:16, 16:5), evil speech (Prov. 8:7), false weights (Prov. 11:1, 20:10, 20:23), devious heartedness (Prov. 11:20), lying (Prov. 12:22, 26:25), scoffing (Prov. 24:9), justifying the wicked and defaming the righteous (Prov. 17:15). Interestingly, Proverbs 13:19 says that “to turn from evil is toevah to fools,” again suggesting that toevah is something relative in nature. Similarly, Prov. 29:27 says poetically: “An unjust man is toevah to the righteous, and the straightforward man is toevah to the wicked.”

I think I see the distinction the author is trying to make, and the Church beat him to it long ago in saying love the sinner, not the sin. What tempts a man is his cross to bear --a sparring partner in life that will make him a better person if he fights and drag him down and enslave him if he doesn't.  It doesn't make him in himself, ontologically, an abomination. So if what's intended is a rebuke to the "God hates fags" types, bravo. God loves fags, as he loves all of us sinners -- and as He is Mercy itself, the weaker we are, the more we have a claim on that mercy if we care to exercise the claim --sort of a Divine Triage.

But homosexuality still ain't kosher, and this seems willfully dishonest, stretching the distinction beyond where it will go.

Now, if by “abomination,” the King James means a cultural prohibition—something which a particular culture abhors but another culture enjoys—then the term makes sense....In fact, toevah is mostly about idolatry, and male homosexual behavior is only as abominable as remarriage or not keeping kosher.

Or, as noted above, as abominable as idolatry and child sacrifice, deviousness, lying, cheating, stealing and scoffing --i.e. not consistent with goodness and leading man to his own isolation and misery. Only as abominable as other abominations. Only as sinful as other sins.

Furthermore, while the author seems to want to say homosexual acts are like eating bacon --and bacon, we know, makes everything better-- there's the wee little problem of St. Paul, conveniently neglected in the catalog of instances of the term "abomination" in the King James New Testament. Possibly because he refers to homosexual acts --again, acts, not persons-- as "shameful" instead.

So, Homosexuals....you're only as sinful as the heterosexual liars, thieves, gluttons, fornicators, cynics and generally impious all around you. Feel better?

Retrieving Lost Luggage

Here's an excellent piece from a priest explaining how he got his parish to accept the Extraordinary Form of the Mass with little difficulty -- and improved the quality of worship in the Ordinary Form as well. RTWT, but I very much like this analogy, in rebuttal and rebuke of those who say free use of the EF is "going backwards." 

Such recovery is not “going backwards”, or doing a U-turn, since the Ordinary Form will continue in use. Rather, it is a halting of the train to retrieve what has fallen from the carriage before our continuance. Many folk seem unable to grasp the distinction. 

Curtsy: Fr. Z.

Obamacare Doesn't Cover Sick People

From The Hill:

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Curtsy to CMR. Here's a little more:

“There’s a certain amount of money authorized in the statute, and we will do our best to make sure that that amount of money insures as many people as possible and does as much good as possible,” said Jay Angoff, director of the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “I think it’s premature to say [what happens] when it’s gone.”
The administration has not discussed asking Congress for more money down the line if the $5 billion runs out before Jan. 1, 2014. Uninsured sick people could start applying for participation in the high-risk insurance pools on Thursday.
Healthcare experts of all stripes warned during the healthcare debate that $5 billion would likely not last until 2014. Millions of Americans cannot find affordable healthcare because of their pre-existing conditions, and that amount would only cover a couple hundred thousand people, according to a recent study by the chief Medicare actuary.

Hey, I want my grim props for calling this last year:

Why do we need a government program to just not treat the difficult, costly illnesses? Isn't that a lot like being uninsured?