Imagine Even Lennon Knew "Imagine" Was A Crock

It's easy if you try, especially if you start with what he said. Turns out, in his own words, he liked making money, he wasn't an atheist...and thought evolution was a crock. (He & Yoko both thought overpopulation was a crock, too.) He may even have been a wanna-be Reagan voter.

Cosby to Christians: Man Up!

Here's a link to a post that transcribes Bill Cosby's speech at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. You're probably familiar with his "young people are selling out the civil rights heroes by conceiving out of wedlock and failing to parent" message. I don't think there's a thing he says here that doesn't apply equally to every race at this point and I've never seen him take the Christian community to task (appropriately) like this before.

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you (clapping). You can’t keep asking that God will find a way.... God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it… I’m making this up (laughter). But it sounds like what God would do (laughter).

Lots of good stuff on the entitlement mentality, and people teaching their kids nothing but gimme, gimme in an effort to buy them off and parents not accepting piggy behavior.

People putting their clothes on backwards. –isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? (laughter) Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up (laughter and clapping ). Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack…and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? (laughter). We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

That refrain --are you waiting for Jesus to do it for you?-- keeps repeating, but he is not mocking Christianity, he's knocking Christians who won't take elementary responsibility for their own communities:

you don’t read “Black Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.” You don’t read that. They don’t shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all (laughter). And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can’t do it . I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time (clapping). 

One more little piece. 

What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven’t they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where “you are nobody..,” this is a sickness ladies and gentlemen and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees, “(crying sound) He didn’t do anything, he didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on too (laughter, clapping).

Now if only someone would talk like that to white folk.

The Force of Greenpeace

Cute Greenpeace ad, I'll give them that. Now let them tell us which and how many of those children they wish weren't here because they're endangering the planet.

Curtsy:Hot Air

And You're In This Party Why?

From the only Democrat in the NY Senate to oppose same-sex marriage. Ruben Diaz of the Bronx is also a Pentecostal preacher, and he says same-sex marriage signals the apocalypse. That'll help us win the debate, I'm sure. But get a load of this. Blaming the defeat of marriage in NY (rightly) on Republicans, he says:

“All Democrats do is abortion and gay marriage, but the Republican party has always been the party that protects traditional values and family values,” he said. “I’m disappointed with them and [Senate Majority Leader] Dean Skelos. They lost their vision and became a tool of the Democratic party.”

Leave Wallace Alone

Eh. I don't understand what everyone's so angry at Chris Wallace for, or why he should have apologized. He's exactly right, she is dogged (outside Tea Party circles) by a reputation for flakiness, and she is going to have to confront it head on. In my view he did her a favor by letting her combat that with a solid answer. That's in fact, in message management, exactly how you do combat a bad message: show up and answer a direct question on tv.

I think Wallace asked a fair question that helped inoculate her against some of the opposition ads that will come if she continues to be successful. Conservative touchiness on the question shows poorly, and to the extent there's griping coming from her campaign, I think it's graceless.

Ledeen On The Sophomores

You know how I always complain Obama's speeches read like they're written by sophomores --that they misuse history in ways that shows they haven't actually read it, and Obama is the epitome of a Harvard education?

I feel vindicated, since Michael Ledeen agrees. Ledeen connects the dots on the huge number of presidential gaffes: not just slips of the tongue, but truly embarrassing mistakes, like saying a deceased medal of honor winner was alive. I don't blame necessarily blame the President for the former, but who the heck briefs him?

Ledeen notes there are few White House leaks, and suspects that means only a few people ever see anything the President is going to say:

I think they are only circulated among a very small number of people for comment, and those people are probably very busy, and don’t have the time to check things like the precise name and history of a Medal of Honor recipient.

However, fact-checking failure doesn't explain everything.

That would explain today’s embarrassment (embarrassment to us, to the nation–he speaks for us, after all–since he doesn’t seem to suffer embarrassment very often), but it doesn’t explain things like the apology for his lack of fluency in “Austrian” or his lack of knowledge that we have  a Marine Corps (pronounced “core”).  That comes from lousy education, from lack of basic knowledge about the world.  And if I’m right about the small number of administration officials who get to see his words before they’re delivered in public, it tells us that they, too, aren’t properly educated.
It tells us that the president and his trusted advisers are the products of the atrocious, politically correct educational system that’s wrecking the country in so many ways.  And it’s very worrisome.  It’s part of the Orwellian universe that envelops many of our leaders, a universe in which they feel free to simply invent “facts” so long as they fit the emotional and ideological pattern that really matters to the elite.

Quite.

Instacurtsy

Potpourri of Popery, Corpus Christi Edition

Reuters/Max Rossi

Happy feast of Corpus Christi, transferred! If you scroll around at the photo link, you'll find nice pictures of Thursday's procession through Rome. (I cannot resist commenting that AP calls attention to a "corrected caption" on many of them, and then says the Pope is carrying the "corpus christi relic." That's the correction?) Three big homilies and two papal voyages to cover since last time. So: onward!

Popery:

Corpus Christi homily. As ever, I'm tempted to just paste in the whole thing, but here are the two decisive passages.  

...bodily food is assimilated by the body and contributes to sustain it, the Eucharist is a different bread: We do not assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become conformed to Jesus Christ and members of his body, one with him. ... Indeed, precisely because it is Christ who, in Eucharistic communion, transforms us into him, our individuality, in this encounter, is opened up, freed from its self-centeredness and placed in the Person of Jesus, who in turn is immersed in the Trinitarian communion. Thus, while the Eucharist unites us to Christ, we open ourselves to others making us members one of another: We are no longer divided, but one thing in him. Eucharistic communion unites me to the person next to me, and to the one with whom perhaps I might not even have a good relationship, but also to my brothers and sisters who are far away, in every corner of the world. Thus the deep sense of social presence of the Church is derived from the Eucharist, as evidenced by the great social saints, who have always been great Eucharistic souls. Those who recognize Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, recognize their brother who suffers, who is hungry and thirsty, who is a stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned...

What are the practical ramifications of this doctrine? For one thing, the embrace of gentleness and freedom as opposed to ideology.

There is nothing magic in Christianity. There are no shortcuts, but everything passes through the patient and humble logic of the grain of wheat that is broken to give life, the logic of faith that moves mountains with the gentle power of God. This is why God wants to continue to renew humanity, history and the cosmos through this chain of transformations, of which the Eucharist is the sacrament. Through the consecrated bread and wine, in which his Body and Blood is truly present, Christ transforms us, assimilating us in him: He involves us in his redeeming work, enabling us, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, to live according to his same logic of gift, like grains of wheat united with him and in him. Thus unity and peace, which are the goal for which we strive, are sown and mature in the furrows of history, according to God's plan. Without illusions, without ideological utopias, we walk the streets of the world, bringing within us the Body of the Lord, like the Virgin Mary in the mystery of the Visitation.

I've been pondering as related phenomena the upheaval in U.S. Catholicism over Fr. Corapi's situation and the search for savior politicians on the part of social issues voters. Isn't the problem (speaking of disillusionment) that we look for magic and shortcuts? Why are we so continuously surprised by human weakness?

June 19th the Pope traveled to the tiny Republic of San Marino (pictures here). His homily in Olympic Stadium happened to coincide with the feast of the Holy Trinity. He admits the obvious: we don't really understand the Trinity as such.

When one thinks of the Trinity, one usually thinks of the aspect of the mystery: they are Three and they are One, one God in three Persons. Actually God in his greatness cannot be anything but a mystery for us, yet he revealed himself. We can know him in his Son and thus also know the Father and the Holy Spirit.

We do know, however, what the Trinity means:

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one because God is love and love is an absolute life-giving force; the unity created by love is a unity greater than a purely physical unity. The Father gives everything to the Son; the Son receives everything from the Father with gratitude; and the Holy Spirit is the fruit of this mutual love of the Father and the Son. The texts of today’s Mass speak of God and thus speak of love; they do not dwell so much on the three Persons, but rather on love which is the substance and, at the same time, the unity and trinity.

The remainder of the homily reflects on aspects of God's love as drawn from the liturgical readings. This from Exodus, for example, when God forgives Israel for making graven images:

Moses then asked God to reveal himself, to allow him to see his face. However, God did not show his face, but rather revealed his being, full of goodness, with these words: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” This is the Face of God. This self-definition of God expresses his merciful love: a love that triumphs over sin, covers it, eliminates it. We can always be sure of this goodness which does not abandon us. There can be no clearer revelation. We have a God who refuses to destroy sinners and wants to show his love in an even more profound and surprising way to sinners themselves, in order to always offer them the possibility of conversion and forgiveness.

At a certain point he changes gears and talks about the urgency for those who believe in this love, who have experienced it, to stand firm in it and share it. He speaks, for example, of the darkening of the mind and the difficulty of educating people when families are so unstable.

This is a theme he'd addressed at more length in his meeting with government and diplomatic officials. 

You have to read his remarks to young people for yourselves! He invites them to take up the perennial human questions about the meaning of life:

Learn how to reflect, how not to interpret your human experience superficially but rather in depth: you will discover, with wonder and joy, that your heart is a window open on the infinite! This is man’s greatness but also his difficulty. 

At the beginning of June, the Pope was in Croatia (here's the in-flight Q&A, in which he sets out the major goal of his visit: to strengthen Croatia in its Christianity as it enters the EU, so that it will give that to a less healthy Europe). His main address there was a stunning homily on family life on the occasion of Croatian National Catholic Family Day. It's a very encouraging homily, but I call attention to this portion because lately I've been pondering the connection between marriage and "solidarity" as understood by the social magisterium:

In today’s society the presence of exemplary Christian families is more necessary and urgent than ever. Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge the spread of a secularization which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe. Freedom without commitment to the truth is made into an absolute, and individual well-being through the consumption of material goods and transient experiences is cultivated as an ideal, obscuring the quality of interpersonal relations and deeper human values; love is reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life.

An authentic family, founded on marriage, he says, is in itself good news, because it's a sign that love is possible:

Alongside what the Church says, the testimony and commitment of the Christian family – your concrete testimony – is very important, especially when you affirm the inviolability of human life from conception until natural death, the singular and irreplaceable value of the family founded upon matrimony and the need for legislation which supports families in the task of giving birth to children and educating them. Dear families, be courageous! Do not give in to that secularized mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage! Show by the witness of your lives that it is possible, like Christ, to love without reserve, and do not be afraid to make a commitment to another person! Dear families, rejoice in fatherhood and motherhood! Openness to life is a sign of openness to the future, confidence in the future, just as respect for the natural moral law frees people, rather than demeaning them!

His message to bishops is similar: be who you are called to be, but it's a little tougher. He holds out for them the example of Bl. Cardinal Stepinac and a generation of Croatian martyrs to Nazism and Communism and says they are called to be as firm and bold in upholding the faith as they.

Regarding your priests, do not neglect to offer them clear spiritual, doctrinal and pastoral directions. While the Christian community admits legitimate diversity within itself, it cannot render faithful witness to the Lord except in the communion of its members. This requires of you the service of vigilance, offered in dialogue and with great love, but also with clarity and firmness. Dear Brothers, adhering to Christ means “keeping his word.” 

To this end, Blessed Cardinal Stepinac expressed himself in this way: “One of the greatest evils of our time is mediocrity in the questions of faith. Let us not deceive ourselves… Either we are Catholic or we are not. If we are, this must be seen in every area of our life.” The Church’s moral teaching, often misunderstood today, cannot be detached from the Gospel. It falls particularly to the Bishops to propose it authoritatively to the faithful, in order to assist them in evaluating their personal responsibilities and in harmonizing their moral choices with the demands of the faith. In this way, your society will make progress towards that “cultural shift” necessary for promoting a culture of life and a society worthy of man.

His first address in Croatia, though, was to political and civic leaders, on the topic of conscience. Straight at 'em, once again. Let's not mince words when the future really is at stake.

Truly, the great achievements of the modern age – the recognition and guarantee of freedom of conscience, of human rights, of the freedom of science and hence of a free society – should be confirmed and developed while keeping reason and freedom open to their transcendent foundation, so as to ensure that these achievements are not undone, as unfortunately happens in not a few cases. The quality of social and civil life and the quality of democracy depend in large measure on this “critical” point – conscience, on the way it is understood and the way it is informed. If, in keeping with the prevailing modern idea, conscience is reduced to the subjective field to which religion and morality have been banished, then the crisis of the West has no remedy and Europe is destined to collapse in on itself. If, on the other hand, conscience is rediscovered as the place in which to listen to truth and good, the place of responsibility before God and before fellow human beings – in other words, the bulwark against all forms of tyranny – then there is hope for the future.

Here's an observation Henry Adams would approve. Speaking of the Christian roots of so many institutions he says:

We need to be reminded of these origins, not least for the sake of historical truth, and it is important that we understand these roots properly, so that they can feed the present day too. It is crucial to grasp the inner dynamic of an event such as the birth of a university, of an artistic movement, or of a hospital. It is necessary to understand the why and the how of what took place, in order to recognize the value of this dynamic in the present day, as a spiritual reality that takes on a cultural and therefore a social dimension. At the heart of all these institutions are men and women, persons, consciences, moved by the power of truth and good.

What is the engine of Western culture? Adams' "Virgin or dynamo"? Or, as the New York Senate would have it, the quest for erotic fulfillment? Is that liable to engender universities and hospitals in the future? This is my favorite of his various wonderful addresses, and it again addresses the connection between family life and solidarity:

It is by forming consciences that the Church makes her most specific and valuable contribution to society. It is a contribution that begins in the family and is strongly reinforced in the parish, where infants, children and young people learn to deepen their knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, the “great codex” of European culture; at the same time they learn what it means for a community to be built upon gift, not upon economic interests or ideology, but upon love, “the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity” (Caritas in Veritate, 1). This logic of gratuitousness, learnt in infancy and adolescence, is then lived out in every area of life, in games, in sport, in interpersonal relations, in art, in voluntary service to the poor and the suffering, and once it has been assimilated it can be applied to the most complex areas of political and economic life so as to build up a polis that is welcoming and hospitable, but at the same time not empty, not falsely neutral, but rich in humanity, with a strongly ethical dimension.

In between travels, he was continually teaching about prayer in his Wednesday Audiences. Prayer with the Psalms.The prayer of Elijah. The Prayer of Moses. And his beautiful Pentecost homily. He's also received a flurry of ambassadors and such (check out his remarks to the new Syrian Envoy.) And yesterday he gave a rousing speech on the rights of Christians in the Middle East.

Potpourri:

• Vatican: Israeli ambassador praises Pius XII; 2012 to be "year of Faith"?
• Belgium: Ewww: Organ harvesting.
• China: Patriotic church getting really aggressive with illicit ordinations. Holy See issues clarification about how to handle. "Resist Beijing," say the real bishops. 
• Egypt: Government may grant more freedom to build churches; on the other hand, new attacks. 
• Lebanon: Patriarch not sanguine about "Arab Spring."
• Russia: First Corpus Christi procession in 93 years in St. Petersburg!
• Sudan: worsening situation for Christians. Support Sudan relief effort.
• US: Lots o' religious freedom tests: bishops of NY on passing of same-sex marriage there; religious freedom threatened by pending CUA lawsuit; Illinois Catholic Charities suing for right to be Catholic Chaput the Great on increasing threat to Catholic institutions from govt; MD Church vandalized, tabernacle stolen; On the other hand: NH to become 5th state to defund Planned Parenthood; another schismatic monastery comes home; first Anglican ordinariate in US underway, two MD Episcopal parishes ready to join. My favorite response to Fr. Corapi situation. Eucharistic Congress underway in Atlanta.

And finally, appropriate for Corpus Christi, Franciscans takin' it to the peeps: Eucharistic flash mob, sort of. I find it incredibly moving, moreso as it goes on.

"There But For the Goad of Grace Grow I"

A Catholic basher and Pope-hater changes his mind by opening it. "Gagdad Bob" on how he changed his mind about John Paul II.

John Paul is another one of those people -- like Reagan and Thatcher -- to whom I didn't pay sufficient attention while they were alive, mainly because of my stifling moonbattery, but also because, sad to say, Catholicism was completely off my muleheaded braydar anyway. I might add that I had even been laboring under lingering delusions about Catholicism until reading this very book, persistent moron which below.

I am now resigned to the fact that it will take the rest of my life to eradicate the secular indoctrination I assimilated through osmosis just by virtue of living in this time and place, but greatly exacerbated by my passage through the upper reaches -- or darkest depths -- of academia. 

And:

One of the major things I learned... is that I am actually -- surprise! -- a Vatican II guy. Prior to reading the book, I was an anti-Vatican II guy, oddly enough, because I knew literally nothing about it

Yes, I find all of Catholicism is like that. Awful until you actually contend with it.

And Part II.

Curtsy: Brutally Honest (who, with his wife, returned to the Church recently, btw. Yay!)

Preferring Smith to Thackeray

I'm reading Vanity Fair for book club. Hate it. It's sort of Austen-esque, except where Austen has good will and affection for all her characters and their foibles, Thackeray hates everyone. It's funny, but it's acidic and wearing. Could you read Tina Brown for 700 pages? Then he punctuates every chapter with a little re-cap, in which he points out the characters' witticisms, which are really of course his own, just to make sure you caught them. Very needy. Not sure I'm going to persevere, even if it is a classic.

On the bright side I'm listening to At The Villa of Reduced Circumstances on my commute and love it. I'm jumping in media res (this is book three) to the exploits of  Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. In this volume, our very German hero becomes a visiting scholar at Cambridge, and doesn't understand the English at all. Completely thrown by their use of metaphor and their habit of making assumptions such as, "Your journey went well, I trust," when in fact your journey has been miserable. I have to share one such exchange with you, which you must read imagining the accents of a cautious and humorless German  professor and a wry Cambridge Don. The Cambridge Don has just made a light-hearted remark about having to sit next to people we don't like even in heaven (in response to von I's complaints about his trip).

Von Igelfeld stared at the Master. Was this a serious remark, to which he was expected to respond? The English were very difficult to read. Half the things they said were not meant to be taken seriously, but it was impossible, if you were German, to detect which half this was. It may be that the Master was making a serious observation about the nature of the afterlife, or it may be he thought the idea of heaven was absurd. If it were the former, than von Igelfeld might be expected to respond with some suitable observation of his own. Whereas if it were the latter, he might be expected to smile or even to laugh.

"The afterlife must surely be as Dante described it," said von Igelfeld after a short silence "and one's position in the circle will determine the company one keeps."

The Master's eyes sparkled. "Or the other way around, surely. The company one keeps will determine where one goes later on. Bad company, bad fate."

"That is if one is easily influenced," said von Igelfeld. "A good man may keep bad company and remain good, I have seen that happen."

"Where?" said the Master.

"At school," said von Igelfeld. "At my gymnasium there was a boy called Mueller who was very kind. He was always giving presents to the younger boys and putting his arm around them. He cared for them deeply. He was in a class where most of the other boys were very low, bad types. Mueller used to put his arm around these boys, too. He never changed his ways. His goodness survived the bad company."

The Master listened to this story with some interest. "Do people read Freud these days in Germany?" he asked.

Von Igelfeld was rather taken aback by this remark. What had Freud to do with Mueller? Again there was this difficult English obliqueness. Perhaps he would become accustomed to it after a few months, but for the moment it was very disconcerting. In Germany, people said what they meant. They had the virtue of being literal and that meant that everything was much clearer. This was evidently not the case in Cambridge.

"I believe that he has his following," said von Igelfeld, "There are always people who are prepared to find the base motive in human action. Professor Freud is a godsend to them."

The Master smiled. "Of course, you are right to censure me," he said, "We live in an age of such corrosive cynicism, do we not?"

Von Igelfeld raised a hand in protest. "But I have not censured you! I would not dream of censuring you, you are my host!" He was appalled at the misunderstanding. What had he said which had caused the Master to conclude that he was censuring him? Was it something to do with Freud? Freudians could be very sensitive, and it was possible that the Master was a Freudian, in which case perhaps his remark had been rather like telling a religious person that his religious views were absurd.

"I meant no offense," said von Igelfeld. "I had no idea that you were so loyal to Vienna."

The Master gave a start. "Vienna? I know nothing about Vienna?

"I was speaking metaphorically," said von Igelfeld hastily. "Vienna, Rome...these are places that stand for something beyond the place itself."

"You are referring to Wittgenstein, I take it" said the Master.

He is not, of course, referring to Wittgenstein at all, but they get to chatting about Wittgenstein's influence on the college, and somehow arrive at how little respect the Master gets. At this point the conversation takes a turn for the bathetic and the Master begins to cry a little, for which he's profusely sorry and apologizes. Von Igelfeld puts his arm around him to comfort him.

Just like Mueller, he reflected.

 Hilarious, and not at all acidic.

NY SSM Senate Debate -Live Feed

Given how influential NY will be on other states, the big story in the US tonight is the vote on same sex marriage there. The Conservative Party says it will pass --the pro side just got the 32nd vote on a weak religious liberty protection. Watch the live feed here (it should be the last question to come up).

Update: scratch that, the rumored 32nd vote seems to be a "no" after all. Still a crap shoot and two senators need phone calls.

Update 2: 10:16, watching NY Sen. Grisanti's speech. Worst thing I've ever heard. He says he's Catholic and was raised to believe marriage is between a man and a woman, but he was also trained as an attorney to use his reason...and he can't come up with a legal reason to oppose. But dozens of US Courts and judges, not to mention the majority of the American People have. He says, "who am I?" to prevent rights? Who are you to overturn human history and the majority of New Yorkers?

Update 3: 10:29 New York just abolished marriage, 33-29, to thunderous applause in the chamber

Beautiful Tree of Life

Is it Letterman who asks, "Is this something, or is it nothing?"  I hesitate to recommend Tree of Life too highly, because it's so slow moving and impressionistic, I could forgive anyone for concluding it's nothing.

Here's why I think it's something. The story is chiefly about the eldest son of a Texas family in the 1950s, his loss of innocence (through confrontation with death and human weakness in his parents), and his quest to recover that innocence and find God.

An early memory is of his mother telling him what the nuns told her:

There are two ways through life: the way of nature, and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.

 She also says:

The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by. 

His mother embodies "the way of grace," his father, "the way of nature," and these two "ways" are at war in the boy once he enters adolescence. He starts on the way of grace, shifts to the way of nature --and can he go back?


The film in a sense poses a challenge to the viewer, "which way is the right way?" It heavily stacks the deck in favor of the way of grace, by interspersing the family's story with scenes from nature: from space, from deep beneath the sea, from windswept deserts, from microbiology. A moving sequence is an interlude which recapitulates creation in impressionistic fashion: beginning with the stars, moving to lush jungle life amidst the dinosaurs, moving eventually to life in the womb...and then cut to the birth of the couple's first child, our hero.
Everything about life is shown to be miraculous, beautiful, mysterious and fragile. But then again, would the family's life be as beautiful if it weren't interspersed with all the nature scenes?

The pace is achingly slow...perhaps a bit self-indulgent in places, but really you have to choose the way of nature or the way of grace even as a viewer. Are you going to be annoyed by the pace, anxious to get to "the point," or are you going to surrender to the beauty all around you and allow it to become a meditation on the gift and goodness of life? 

I don't really want to say more about it than that except that it's an extraordinary piece of work from Brad Pitt, who earns my respect with this film. It is a unique piece of film-making -- I can't think of anything else like it. And I think it might be as good an argument as can be made in favor of the value and dignity of life (don't jinx it by telling anyone). It's the argument from beauty, filmed.

"Critical Need"

NY marriage decision is coming down to the wire. NOM says they need New Yorkers to write in right now. Follow the link to write or to read up.

Life's Little Mysteries

Seven Things I Do Not Understand. Not an exhaustive list by any means, but on my list today.

1. The Fr. Corapi phenomenon. We don't have cable and had no Catholic radio in our market until a couple of months ago, so while I'd heard of him, barely, he was simply not on my radar screen. That's made this week in the Catholic blogosphere somewhat surreal. Odd to be so completely outside (apart from wishing the good for everyone) something everyone else can't stop talking about. A bit like the time I tried to watch an episode of Lost half-way through the run. Didn't get it.

2. 
High wedge sandals. I guess it's the city girl in me, but to me these do not say "sexy" or "wild" or "fun." To me, they say, "Mug me, I cannot run."
(Knock yourself out, however.)







3.

This looks to me like you've worn a hole in your shoe. When my little boys get peep-toe sneakers, we replace them.










4. What was so bad about Rebecca Black. I understand that "Friday" is an insipid little ear-worm with stupid lyrics I myself could not bear to hear through even once. And? It's no worse than "Party in the USA," on which it's obviously patterned. (Noddin' my head like yeah.)

5. Price points. Why can't we just say "price," as in the good ol' days?

6. People who use Facebook to complain about Facebook. Holy entitlement mentality, Batman! Use it or don't use it, but you have no right to demand anything: they're providing it to you free.

7. Why all of a sudden everyone has a "bucket list." Except, as it turns out, Betty Beguiles, who's hosting this week.

How Stupid Is The NY GOP?

We's about to find out. A move to create same-sex marriage in NY will die this evening unless the GOP saves it, which it is apparently just stupid enough to do.

Forget marriage, religious liberty, right and wrong, principle, the common good. As a matter of pure political self-interest, it is completely idiotic for the GOP senators to hand Gov. Cuomo and the Dems a cudgel with which to cut them all.  No matter what they actually think about the issue, they'll be fine if they stand together and simply don't allow the vote to come to the floor. If they let it come to a vote, then they will each have to cast an up or down vote, and they are the ones who stand to hang on those votes because they're the ones with the divided party on this issue.

National Organization for Marriage explains Critical Action Needed. Use the link provided to keep up the pressure on the on-the-fence senators...especially if you're from NY.

Update: They went home w/o doing anything last night. Keep up the pressure today.

Yelena Bonner

I don't want to let the passing of Yelena Bonner of heart failure a couple of days ago go unremarked. I learned much about her I didn't know from the various obituaries --some of it slightly contradictory.

I knew her only as the brave pediatrician wife of Andrei Sakharov, which would be enough, but she has a really interesting biography on her own. Born into a family of Communist agitators who fell afoul of the Great Terror (her father was "disappeared" in a Soviet prison, and her mother, Ruth Bonner, spent 15 years in the Gulag); sent as a nurse to the Russian Front during WWII, where she was wounded often and received "top Soviet honors."

In 1965, in spite of her family's experience, she joined the Communist party --a thing she later called the worst mistake of her life. By 1972 she'd left the Party, married Sakharov, had started a fund for the children of dissidents and was one of those who helped smuggle the diaries of another famous dissident, Edward Kuznetsov, into the West.

Radio Free Europe has my favorite of the obituaries. Jay Nordlinger describes the moment I remember her for. Sakharov was in internal exile, unable to leave the USSR, when he won the Nobel prize. She happened to be in Italy receiving medical treatment when the announcement was made, and she stayed out of Russia so she could deliver on her husband's behalf his acceptance speech and his Nobel lecture:

In the middle of the lecture, Sakharov did something amazing: He named the names of about 100 political prisoners “known to” him. Through Bonner, he just started reciting their names, beginning with “Plyush, Bukovsky, Glusman, Moros . . .”
Bonner said to me that “the listing of names brought joy to the prisoners of conscience, and to their relatives. More important, it somewhat protected them from the camp administration. Besides, listing specific people, and caring about a particular person, as opposed to general arguments about human rights, fulfilled a most important inner need for Sakharov.”

It's because I remember this (more accurately, I remember Soviet dissidents talking about what it meant to them in the 80s; I was a little young to have been paying attention in 1975) that I so admired President Bush's insistence on meeting with dissidents and talking about human rights wherever he traveled and am so disheartened and disgusted by President Obama's refusal to do so.

Nordlinger reveals that in her later years she became reconciled to Gorbachev's Nobel prize and came to respect him personally, but was disgusted with Yasser Arafat's (PLO thugs came armed to her house and threatened to kill her whole family in 1973), and indeed with the creeping anti-Semitism of the Nobel Committee.

I also found this lovely remembrance from long-time friend Vladimir Tolz about a recent visit with her. She called and said, "Come, it's time to say goodbye."  There are some good anecdotes there, including this one. He'd been living in their apartment while they were in internal exile, and he tells this about their return:

after Lusya and Sakharov had returned from internal exile in Gorki (now, Nizhny Novgorod), I called them (I was already working in Munich then) and she said: "Listen, while we were gone you left all your samizdat and copies of the 'Chronicle of Current Events' under our couch! What are we supposed to do? It is really uncomfortable when Andryusha wants to lie down." And in the background I could hear Sakharov laughing and brushing it off, saying it could wait.

She was a tough old broad, the kind of woman you don't want to fall afoul of. Solzhenitysn likened her to Lady Macbeth if I'm not mistaken, which is amusing. There's a hardness in all the old Soviet dissidents I like to call, "crusty, but benign." Her friends have warm memories of her, however, and her fierce devotion to her husband speaks well of her. Nordlinger ends his reflections with this, which is what reading about her evokes in me too:

I loved Yelena Bonner — the best kind of fighter — and I’m grateful for her life.

Secular World Figures It Out

In The Economy of Sex, sociology professors stumble upon the bleeding obvious.

“When women collude to restrict men’s sexual access to women, all women tend to benefit,” he said, noting that “if women were more in charge of how their romantic relationships transpired … we would be seeing greater male investment in relationships, more impressive wooing efforts, fewer hookups, fewer premarital sexual partners … shorter cohabitations, more marrying … and more marrying at a slightly earlier age. In other words, the price of sex would be higher. It would cost men more to access it.”However, he said, “none of these things are occurring today. Not one. The price of sex is pretty low.”

I think your great-grandma had a pithy saying about dairy products to cover that.

In An Ideal World, Kung Fu Fighting Isn't The Hill I'd Have Died On

This is everywhere today, but I really think everyone should watch it, so go ahead if you haven't. An excellent short defense of free speech against group grievances and an exemplar of the polemicist's craft as well. As Andrew Bolt, the man being defended, writes:

of all that was said on the night and sent, Mark Steyn’s contribution was the one that brought down the house. I confess to being in awe of it - not just because I appreciate the compliment of having it come from probably the most brilliant columnist in the English-speaking world, but because it’s such a tremendous piece of writing.

Mark Steyn on Free Speech at the IPA from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.

Update: While we're at it, if you're thinking it's not that bad here yet, the Justice Dept. is going after jokes on campus, certain absurd policies and attorneys general not included.

Update 2: On the other hand, Geert Wilders found innocent!

A Global Warming Achievement

It has caused Peter Singer to renounce his own philosophy. Sort of.

Climate change is a challenge to utilitarianism on at least two accounts. First, the problem of reducing the carbon output of humanity is tied to the problem of rising human populations. The more people there are, the greater becomes the difficulty of tackling climate change. This fact sits uneasily for a preference utilitarian, who would be inclined to argue that the existence of more and more sentient beings enjoying their lives – realising their preferences – is a good thing. As Singer puts it in the new edition of his book, Practical Ethics: "I have found myself unable to maintain with any confidence that the position I took in the previous edition – based solely on preference utilitarianism – offers a satisfactory answer to these quandaries."

Whew! At least he still hates people!

Keeping The Private Schools Populated

My home state becomes the first to require "environmental literacy" in order to graduate high school. It's called the "No Child Left Inside Act" --as if the authors, those who voted for it, and the governor who signed it were not entirely serious about the matter.

Graduate from a public high school and Maryland and you are guaranteed to know that same-sex relationships are the same as marriage and only bigots like your parents think otherwise; how to put a condom on a banana or cucumber; and now, presumably, how to repeat environmentalist claims without thinking critically about them. You know: all the Liberal arts.

The Little Lady's Birthday

A sweet reflection on Harriet Beecher Stowe from Peter Schramm, on the occasion of her birthday last week.

I Am Amazed

Not by what is said, but by who is saying it, and where. The President of the Vatican bank says government intervention worsened the economic crisis. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, he says:

The Vatican Bank president observed that the West has become a major consumer while its manufacturing productivity has declined, and that GDP has largely grown in terms of debt. “When all of this became too much, they [Western nations] threw in the towel,” he wrote. “Emergency measures from the State became necessary in order to raise public spending, but to be sustainable, it needs GDP growth, otherwise taxes become unbearable. In fact, this is what has happened.”

But the Italian financier believes it's possible to stem the West's economic decline, and he proposes some possible solutions. Most importantly, he argues for a “growth in productivity,” generated in part through making maximum use of “technology and the digital economy,” as well as “channelling savings into small and medium-sized businesses through the banking system.” Finally, he advises “studying appropriate currency measures.” All of this, however, “implies a change in the mentality of manual work, which needs to be rethought,” he said.

He also advised making exports of Western goods easier which would balance the loss of competitiveness. “One could then re-import production activity, favoring employment,” he said.

He ended by criticizing state intervention, saying it had exacerbated the economic crisis. Gotti Tedeschi wrote: “Many think that individual States need to intervene in order to resolve economic problems. But that happens with an increase in public debt. Countries that have chosen this path now regret it; others have not taken that road thanks to their politics, which are more attentive to the budget. But it is also necessary to be able to count on savings, on entrepreneurs, and on good banks — important elements, if not the only ones, to re-invent labor.”

Church Politics

I like this Pete Wehner post on church involvement in politics. On the one hand he highlights the important message of VA AG Ken Cuccinelli, explaining to religious leaders that they have First Amendment rights and "separation of Church & state" is a limitation on the federal government, not on churches:

Cuccinelli assured the pastors, though, that speaking out on political issues is not only legal, but appropriate.
“When you became a pastor, you didn’t leave your First Amendment rights at the door,” he said. “Continue to be good shepherds to your congregations – and don’t be afraid when your shepherding includes giving guidance on issues that fall in the political world, because those are the same issues your congregants face each day in their world. Let your voice be heard. Speak out and guide your flock toward what is right and what is true.”

Excellent.
Wehner goes on to make a point I have sometimes wished our bishops --and sometimes even folks in the Vatican--would consider more carefully.

what individual ministers have to determine is not simply what their rights are but how to wisely exercise them. It’s not as easy as it may seem.
Over the years, for example, liberal and conservative churches and their pastors have damaged their credibility by taking stands on issues to which they brought no special competence or insight. In addition, there is a strong temptation to simplistically connect the dots between moral principles and particular public policies. Most issues, however, involve prudential judgment about which honorable people can disagree. And even on matters on which pastors may believe a biblical principle is clear, it’s not self-evident what the proper course of political action might be.

That's excellent as well. There is an obligation, when we speak in the name of religion, to avoid making dogmas out of prudential opinions. The Church Left does have a point when it complains about "creeping Magisterium," even if it is the usual wielder of that particular cudgel. It's wrong when the Left talks as if federal programs were the only possible means of fulfilling "preferential option for the poor," and it's wrong to use "the pope says so" in the same way fundamentalists use single Bible verses as "proof texts." I like the way B16 put in his recent address to Caritas International: 

In the political sphere - and in all those areas directly affecting the lives of the poor - the faithful, especially the laity, enjoy broad freedom of activity. No one can claim to speak “officially” in the name of the entire lay faithful, or of all Catholics, in matters freely open to discussion (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 43; 88). On the other hand, all Catholics, and indeed all men and women, are called to act with purified consciences and generous hearts in resolutely promoting those values which I have often referred to as “non-negotiable.”

[The "non-negotiables" for Catholics are the right to life from conception until natural death; marriage betwen one man and one woman; and the right of parents to educate their children. All other political matters are subject to debate.]

I have heard sermons (not recently, I must say; this was more prevalent in my neck of the woods 10 or 15 years ago) in which it was clear the preacher had no idea what he was talking about....simply had the facts of the issue wrong. You have an obligation to have your facts straight and to have some mastery of the issue if you expect to oblige people in conscience.

I have also read countless op-eds in Catholic periodicals which defended the Church's opinion with completely specious reasoning and unjust accusations against those who disagreed....which is a good way to actually encourage dissent. If you insist, wrongly, that a matter is not open to debate and a man cannot in conscience accept your argument, you are only teaching him that he can't trust Church teaching.

Furthermore, it's an old principle of good governance that you shouldn't needlessly multiply laws. No one can follow everything, and too many statutes leads to people picking and choosing what's important to follow. A priest or pastor might be a political genius, but if he issues a comment on every bloody issue, he lessens the impact of his preaching on truly important matters. (Does anyone pay attention to various pronouncements from the different Vatican & USCCB committees? Perhaps if there were fewer of them.....) It's wise for pastors to hold their fire on most political questions and let the laity handle things: having the expertise and being in the thick of things, they're generally better at it anyway, and constant pastoral intervention actually usurps their legitimate role, as Benedict XVI has been at pains to point out over and over again.

Finally, as Wehner points out, people live in the City of Man all week long and generally go to Church to encounter God. You will lose them if it's all politics all the time.

Still: where politics crosses into moral matters, pastors can have at, freely, and without being bullied about their tax exempt status or lectured about imposing their values on others.

Seven Quick Takes

1. Just thought I'd try to be one of the cool kids just one time.

2. Did you know that "inflammable" means "highly flammable."? I didn't. Probably never would have had I not been prepping Girl Weed for her vocabulary final a few weeks ago. Seems like an odd thing to miss.

3. I have re-discovered All Creatures Great & Small, the British sitcom based on the James Herriott novels. The first few episodes are a bit stiff and I've read that the last seasons (with replacement actors for some parts) aren't as good, but the first three seasons at least are wonderful. As a kid I came for the animals, but now I love and am fascinated by:

4. Adults and adult behavior. No sense of entitlement, profound desire to work and contribute, the pervasive sense of decency and the common good. Fulfills the Seinfeld motto, "No hugs, no learning," without nihilism.

5. Real faces. The homogenization of the human face in our time I find increasingly freaky.

6. Smoking and drinking. Not that I love them so much, but seeing them you realize they're GONE now.

7. No sarcasm or cheap one-liners, but real pranks and affectionate mockery of people's idiosyncracies. At its best, the program is hilarious, but the sources of humor are completely different than today's. It's a much tougher humor (no sympathy for people who behave foolishly), yet far less cruel.

David Tyree Defends Marriage

When Life Hands You Lemons, Get A $500 Fine

How to turn natural go-getters and entrepreneurs into people on the dole with a killer sense of entitlement 101, as taught by Montgomery County, MD.

Inadvertently Revealing

Nicholas Kristof in the Formerly Gray Lady has penned a gaffe of a column, if we accept Michael Kinsley's definition of "gaffe" as accidentally revealing what you really mean.

As we search for paths out of America’s economic crisis, many suggest business as a paradigm for cutting costs....
The military is innately hierarchical, yet it nurtures a camaraderie in part because the military looks after its employees. This is a rare enclave of single-payer universal health care, and it continues with a veterans’ health care system that has much lower costs than the American system as a whole.
Perhaps the most impressive achievement of the American military isn’t its aircraft carriers, stunning as they are. Rather, it’s the military day care system for working parents.
While one of America’s greatest failings is underinvestment in early childhood education (which seems to be one of the best ways to break cycles of poverty from replicating), the military manages to provide superb child care. The cost depends on family income and starts at $44 per week.
“I absolutely think it’s a model,” said Linda K. Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, which advocates for better child care in America. Ms. Smith, who used to oversee the military day care system before she retired from the Defense Department, said that the military sees child care as a strategic necessity to maintain military readiness and to retain highly trained officers. 

Max Boot writes the only possible rejoinder:

Good idea. And while we’re at it, why don’t we mandate that all Americans have to accept orders from a government employee who will tell them when they can go to work, what jobs they will perform, when they can exercise, when they can go to sleep, where they can live, what they can wear, where they can travel, etc?

Which I think is pretty much the model we're moving towards. A liberal is just one who plans to BE the government employee who tells you what to do.

The slight problem with this benign police state model of democracy is that even that doesn't work.

Sure, the military’s Tricare medical benefits for retirees are so costly as to be “unsustainable,” in the words of Defense Secretary Bob Gates. But no doubt Kristof can perform some budget legerdemain that can make a far larger version of single-payer cost-effective for the entire country. And while we’re at it, why don’t we offer everyone government-subsidized groceries just like at military PXs?

Here's the conclusion:

Some unkind critics might suggest Kristof is making the same kind of arguments Hitler and Mussolini once made. They too were inspired by the military model and wanted to apply it across society writ large. But that would be to miss the larger point: Kristof is only joking. Right?

We're the fascists, remember.

When You've Lost Jon Stewart...

The usual language/crudity warnings....Stay for the utter smackdown of Andrea Mitchell.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Happy Flag Day

From The Peanut Gallery

So I've just come in and Mr. W., against wisdom, logic and his usual preferences, was watching the CNN GOP debate. I refuse on principle to consider candidates until after Labor Day, but am willing to report what my 7-yr-old (who's been sort of watching with Dad, I guess) just volunteered to me.

I don't think any one of them is bad. Mitt Romney for some reason is annoying. I can't say why, he just is. Herman Cain is cool!

I watched for a minute or two just to keep my husband company, but was driven from the room by CNN's questions. I wish they could hire people who had a clue about what is important in the world.

Melt The Frozen, Warm The Chill

Pentecost, Marcello Venusti, shamelessly pinched from here.

Sequence for Pentecost

Come, O Holy Spirit, come!

From Your bright and blissful Home

Rays of healing light impart.

Come, Father of the poor,

Source of gifts that will endure

Light of ev'ry human heart.

You of all consolers best, 

Of the soul most kindly Guest, 

Quick'ning courage do bestow.

In hard labor You are rest, 

In the heat You refresh best, 

And solace give in our woe.

O most blessed Light divine, 

Let Your radiance in us shine, 

And our inmost being fill.

Nothing good by man is thought, 

Nothing right by him is wrought, 

When he spurns Your gracious Will.

Cleanse our souls from sinful stain, 

Lave our dryness with Your rain, 

Heal our wounds and mend our way.

Bend the stubborn heart and will, 

Melt the frozen, warm the chill, 

Guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful who in Thee, 

Trust with childlike piety, 

Deign Your sevenfold gift to send.

Give them virtue's rich increase, 

Saving grace to die in peace, 

Give them joys that never end. 

Amen.

Happy feast day! Here's B16's Pentecost homily.

Assisted Suicide Effectively Rebutted

A single Onion headline says it all.

On another note, why do I find it more difficult to pray for the soul of Jack Kevorkian than al-Qaeda guys? Just the heebie-geebie factor, I guess.

End It, Don't Mend It

What if we've been asking the wrong questions. For too long the focus has been on alleviating poverty. The real question is: How do we create wealth?
PovertyCure is a network of individuals and organizations dedicated to promote enterprise solutions to poverty, rooted in the proper understanding of the human person at the center of the economy.

My google reader highlighted the Acton Institute's contribution to an international conference on poverty a couple of weeks ago. Here's the video they showed.