Items of Interest, 2 June 2012

What Did Americans Inherit from the Ancients?
by Russell Kirk

Homer and the Power of Men That Have Chests

Thomas Fleming, State Failure, Human Success

Thoughts on the Queen's Diamond Jubilee: Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp

Squat, Cough and Spread Your Cheeks! Is This Really Constitutional?

Fantasies of Liberty

A Stasi for America

Send In the Homeland Police Drones, Says Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell

Joel Salatin

Judge Napolitano Reacts to Texas Judge’s Decision to Jail Honor Student

The Homophile Agenda and the Attack on Free Speech


Daniel Larison, Some Strange Christian Nostalgia for Pre-Chrisitan Antiquity
Daniel Larison, American Exceptionalism, Foreign Policy and the Washington Rules

Andrew Bacevich, The Golden Age of Special Operations

Rod Dreher, We Should Be More Pagan and Wodehouse Cures Everything

John O'Callaghan, Pentecost and the Mandate (via MoJ)

The NG moms breastfeeding while in uniform

One Human Heart: Wordsworth’s Old Cumberland Beggar and the Sweetness of Being Human by Anthony Esolen

The Rhetoric of Alexander Hamilton by Forrest McDonald

The Household Gods of Freedom
by M. E. Bradford

A review: James Madison and the Making of America: The real story of the early American republic

Courtship, Etiquette, and the Adolescent Male
by Randall B. Smith

The Urgent Need for The Next Great Idea by Robert Nisbet

Investment and the Common Good, by Christopher Blum

Corporate Personhood and 14th Amendment Rights, by Thomas Storck

Subsidy or Subsidiarity, by Gerald J. Russello

Zeal: The Fourth Lively Virtue, by Anthony Esolen

Chinese Natural Law by Zac Alstin

How Modern Heresies Have Isolated Us and Left Us Unfulfilled

An Introduction to the Social Theories of the Middle Ages

JHK, Ponzi's End
Turn Out The Lights - The Largest U.S. Cities Are Becoming Cesspools Of Filth, Decay And Wretchedness


'Americans don't share global domination policies of their leaders'


Cardinal Wuerl:


EB: Fukushima Update, May 29

Christopher Dawson:
Christopher Dawson on Liberalism, Part I
by Brad Birzer, TIC co-editor

In Defense of Christopher Dawson
by Gerald J. Russello

Sustainability:
The Endangered Waters Beneath Our Feet
Five Questions for Carl Safina

Another documentary about overpopulation...


Relocalization:
BALLE Conference: The Heart and Soul of Local

Slow Money Northern California

6th Annual Building Green Communities Conference



Peak fiction excerpt — Buck: A Survivor of The Shut Down

Project Urban Food Forest

Why We Need to Put the Local Back into Local Enterprise Partnerships

Health Care Reform:
Misunderstanding Subsidiarity
By Peter Brown

Dan Bednarz, Goodbye, Bad Knowledge (EB)

Diet and Health:
Farm Fresh Less Expensive than Junk Food

Under Yellow Light: Mark Sisson


The Paleo Diet Moves From The Gym To The Doctor's Office

Episode 11 – Chris Masterjohn on cholesterol & heart disease (Part 1)

The Truth About Cholesterol With Chris Masterjohn (mp3)

How a Low-Carb Diet Affected My Athletic Performance

Misandry:
Hawaiian Libertarian: Diagnosis: ODD

Education:
David Mulroy, The War Against Grammar

The Beauty of a Christendom College Liberal Arts Education

Sales pitch...

The Most Honest Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

Christian:
Pageau Carvings

Evangelization -- One Family at a Time



Who is St Philip Neri according Benedict XVI


Vatican translates rules for assessing apparitions for first time

Music:
NYT obit on Doc Watson

Stetson and Cia Get Married

Misc:
Christina Cha on What Duvet Said Podcast


Top Chef tour - SF, June 16 and 17

The American West 150 Years Ago

How Do You Win a Gunfight

Debunked: 3 Reasons the AR Isn't Reliable

The Ramen Girl

Pertinacious Papist on the film.

KK likes to go to ramen restaurants. Her favorite is Shin-Sen-Gumi. I don't taste their appeal.

Probably too late to win male viewers back to TV

Even though the genre is best suited to giving male viewers what they want, there is a pressure to make them more "relevant" and in accordance with contemporary "values" - e.g., feminism.

Will The Success Of ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ Spur A Wave Of Western-Themed Series?

Just two weeks ago, TV networks’ infatuation with period Westerns seemed to have waned. Of the slew of such projects put in development by the broadcast networks last season, only one, NBC’s The Frontier, had been picked up to pilot, and it didn’t make the cut to series. At the same time, TNT passed on its own period Western pilot, Tin Star.

Cowboys & Indians:
Take 2: 'Hell On Wheels'
By Joe Leydon

Repost of piece on Longmire.

Spaghetti Western Giveaway: 'The Grand Duel' And 'Keoma'

Three on Libertarianism

Vulgar Libertarianism Watch, Part 1
How To Do Things With Words
Kn@appster: A bit about bourgeois libertarianism

Robert Spencer, Liberal

Background and statements at VFR.

Richard Heinberg and Gar Alperovitz

EQUALITY & INEQUALITY in a shrinking economy--strategies and consequences

Political economist, activist and writer Gar Alperovitz and Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg discuss 'Equality and Inequality in a Shrinking Economy--Strategies and Consequences'.

Gar Alperovitz, The Rise of the New Economies

Gus Speth Discusses America the Possible (mp3)


Something I've posted before -
VIDEO: CROSSOVER WITH RICHARD HEINBERG: END OF CHEAP ENERGY ERA

Helena Norberg-Hodge

Progressive Commentary Hour – 05/28/12 (mp3)

Related:
Rethinking Economic Growth

San Francisco Free Folk Festival

Next weekend - June 9 to June 10 - schedule.

Welmer asks, "How Did Feminism Grow So Powerful?"

A comment:

I totally agree. In Sweden we have a culture of having small country houses with few amenities. Watch the chattering egalitarian classes change into traditionalists for a few weeks when going on summer holiday. Men work in the garden and make repairs/construction, women cook, clean, wash and take care of the children. Egalitarian life is just “playing (alternative) house”, which possible by cheap energy to inter alia reduce house work and buy buying (outsorcing) services from traditionalist lower income people (men working in construction, repairs, gardening etc. and women cleaning and taking care of children).

Vandana Shiva vids

A Global Call: Eco Warriors, Arise!
Ahead of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, a call for a paradigm shift
by Vandana Shiva









anOther Story Of Progress


the whole film

Cookalong Live | How To Prepare Steak | Gordon Ramsay on Channel 4


Steak Diane



Gordon Ramsay Steak

Catholic ‘Americanism’
Mario, E. J., Nancy, Kathleen, and the return of the Americanist controversy.
By George Weigel

Was Fr. Isaac Hecker a good Yankee? If Americanism is inseparable from a certain American way of life, was it, perhaps, an adoption of the Yankee mythos and mentality and the adapting of Catholicism to it?

Paulist

An intro to St. Josemaría Escrivá's teachings on lay spirituality

Holiness for Everyone
A recent book by Eric Sammons looks at the inheritance St. Josemaría left to the Church. As Scott Hahn says in the foreword: "I could not have written a book as useful as Eric’s, for he sees my family inheritance from a different perspective."

Opus Dei - Holiness for Everyone
The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaría Escrivá
by Eric Sammons

Scott Hahn has his own book about his experiences with Opus Dei.

Worthy of a review; who wants to obtain a copy for me? Does it mention love of parents and family while neglecting how the ordo caritatis is an ordering principle for one's life? Does it give the theological foundation for Catholic "relocalization"? I wonder if the local Catholic bookstore might carry it, or the bookstore at the shrine.

Mr. Sammons was on The Catholics Next Door several days ago, but the show isn't archived, as far as I can tell.

Related:
author's website
The Thin Veil review (weekly giveaway)
Jennifer Fitz's review (Amazon)

Josemaria Escriva. Founder of Opus Dei -News


Peter Hitchens on Philip Larkin: They Tuck you Up, Your Mum and Dad
Saint Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480 - ca. 547)

Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, "Muleskinner Blues"

2001:



2008:


another

"Muleskinner Blues" & "Orange Blossom Special"

Obama, Chief Decider

Officials Confirm Obama Decides Who Lives and Who Dies
NYT

Burkean Social Mobility?

Why We Need a 'Burkean' Approach to Social Mobility By Dr Patricia Kaszynska

Is social mobility more important than communal stability? If it is enhanced while the mass state is preserved, what benefit is there to the community when none really exist? (See FPR discusssions on "meritocracy.")

With social mobility in the UK remaining at the level it was for those born in 1970, and the inequality gap haemorrhaging the aspirations of those at the bottom, a radical rethinking of public policy is needed. In fact, one could go even further and suggest that in order to address the problems of intergenerational deprivation and institutional disadvantage that compounds the lack of opportunities for too many children and young people in the UK, a shift of perspective is needed. Whereas many of the past policy solutions designed to tackle these problems were focused on individuals, new set of measures has to operate on the level of groups and communities as well as individuals.


For instance, the Pupil Premium has been heralded as the central policy tool to address the problem of underachievement for underprivileged students. While it presents a valuable policy intervention to help students from poor backgrounds to get into better schools, it simply does not go far enough in addressing the root causes of disadvantage. Indeed, the effect of the Pupil Premium, as well as many other policies targeted at improving social mobility, set out to move a small number of individuals up the social ladder, but leave their communities behind. Rather than individuals, 'the little platoon we belong to in society' should become the level targetted by policy makers to answer the challenge of social mobility. In order to tackle the problem of intergenerational disadvantage we need a new set of policy measures and a new 'Burkean' approach.

Amerika.org: New Right, as the blog labels itself - truly it is so. Religion: a primer by Forest Johnson.

KunstlerCast #207: Leon Krier @ CNU 20 (mp3)

Went to AS for lunch today as ah Fai was treating for a special occasion. While the food was top quality, I have to say that in some ways I take after my mother. I couldn't appreciate the distinction sufficiently to pay for it regularly. How difficult can it be to learn how to grill a steak well?

At a nearby table was a group of Japanese women - housewives? No wedding bands, but it's not really their tradition, and I don't think you are likely to find Japanese women of that age group single in SV, self-supporting, and able to take lunches at AS. Some of the derision heaped upon stay-at-home wives by certain distrungled men is understandable. Is there an equitable division of labor in such cases? Why shouldn't feminists be expected to support themselves and contribute 50% to the expenses of purchasing a house (and paying interest for home loan) or paying rent?

Review: Jeff Rubin on The End of Growth (EB)
Andrew McKay, Southern Limits

Random House Canada (is a US version on the way?)

From the summary provided by the review:

Population


•Japan is an opportunity to be studied as it has had a declining population for the last decade. It can be treated as a microcosm for where the rest of the world is heading.
•Because economic growth is directly linked to lower birth rates, in an age of zero growth it is essential to focus on female education to reduce birthrates.
•Hungry people have three choices: rebel, migrate or die. With lower energy use per capita migration is becoming increasingly difficult. The Arab Spring was in Rubin’s view Malthus come true. A huge population with very few economic options rebelled and overthrew a number of governments

The popular correlation between female education and decline in birthrates - instead of looking at education (which is advocated by feminists and industrialists alike), should we not look instead at the los of economic freedom as the cause? Women who are compelled into the labor force in a newly emerging "capitalist" system in order to survive may find that they cannot afford to have more than one or two children. We should also look on the negative pressure of urbanization up on reproduction.


Globe and Mail review
Say so long to cheap oil, economist says


Related:
Surviving Progress (EB) (high/low)
Justin Ritchie & Seth Moser-Katz, The Extraenvironmentalist

Rethinking Economic Growth (EB)
Justin Ritchie & Seth Moser-Katz, The Extraenvironmentalist


Episode #40 // Corporate Influence (high/low)

Christopher Doyle

videos at Youtube

Tom Wolfe, Traditional Conservative

Steve Sailer: Loyalties: Boyish concentric conservatives v. adolescent leapfrogging liberals


his website

CNS: Religious liberty is focus in 'For Greater Glory'

Zenit: The Cristero War: the Story Behind the Cover Up
Historian Gives Evaluation of Film, Explains What Happened in 1920s Mexico

Duncan Stroik on Crystal Cathedral

The timing of this is wrong

One of the major criticisms of Catholic architecture during the past fifty years is that it has incorrectly adopted many of the forms of low-church Protestantism: the theater form, a fear of sacred images, asymmetrical layouts, vacuous sanctuaries, minimalist liturgical elements, prominently placed Jacuzzis for baptism, and the banishment of the Blessed Sacrament to the baptistry. The altar area becomes a stage with a focus on entertainment alongside praise bands that perform upbeat m sic.


In response, liturgists have argued that all of these things are simply the outgrowth if not the requirement of Vatican II. Are they finally admitting their agenda by purchasing a ready for TV mega-church complete with a jumbotron and three huge balconies for the "spectators"?

Reflecting the demographics of the diocese?

Or the failure of the diocese to produce vocations outside of ethnic parishes? Diocese of San Jose: Ordination to the Priesthood 2012

ANA MOURA + JORGE FERNANDO - "POR UM DIA"

Federal appeals court rules DOMA unconstitutional

Yahoo

'In the Cluster Blues' Mark O'Connor

Factory Farming

Factory Farms Produce 100 Times More Waste than US Population

A River of Waste - Dr. Michael Greger

Connie Lim - LA City (Official Video)

She's attractive, but the song is wrong about LA. Shouldn't it be known in English as the City of the Queen of Angels (if the name has to be shortened), rather than the City of Angels?

Rare Video - Bill Monroe & Doc Watson Duet - Sally Goodin - 1990

NYT
Fresh Air

Waylon Jennings - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

RHK and I were talking about the 20th HS reunion; why keep in touch with people who hardly give a ---- about you? How many of them will bother with a Happy Birthday on FB, even when FB makes it convenient for you to keep track of such information? (There are many reasons why I keep my personal information hidden.) Dr. Fleming:

As for high school and college reunions, I have never attended one and do not intend to. Although sentimental to the core, I object to institutionalized sentimentalism. Part of growing up is putting away childish things, among which are "the New Year's Eve we did the town, the day they tore the goalpost down." If we have "moments to remember," they need not be enshrined in high school yearbooks, Kodak moments, and class reunions. It was different when graduates of the alma mater either stayed in the same town or at least were part of an enduring network. For the most part, the world is gone. Anthony Powell's 12 volume novel in which characters weave a "Dance to the Music of Time" across two thirds of the 20th century may still exist in England, but not here. Most of us keep up with a few good friends, but as we grow older we have less and less in common with the strangers we once thought we knew.

That sums it up.

"Family life" class, i.e. sex ed, for the 5th graders today. I was in charge of those students who were opted out. Whew. That would have been awkward if I had to give one of the programs. Should parents be leaving sex ed up to public school teachers? Probably not - I don't think the curriculum has changed from its "naturalistic" form when I was exposed to it many years ago. It's about "health" and "biology," there is probably no talk about morality or even love. Or love is used to cover a multitude of sins.

LoS: Interview with Taylor Rose, Author of: Return of the Right: How the Conservative Movement is Taking Back Western Civilization
(via Rebellion)

Peter Maurin

Peter Maurin: A Fool for Christ by Christopher Shannon

Related:
Peter Maurin's Personalist Gift to the Catholic Worker
The Roundtable
Easy Essays (CW, CJD)
Peter Maurin: Wisdom from Easy Essays


Club Orlov: Sustainable Living as Religious Observance

Cowboys Indians: Review: History Channel's 'Hatfields & McCoys' Miniseries

Reviews have generally been mixed, but leaning more to the negative than to the positive (too many minor characters, too long, too boring).









Premiere

Doc Watson passes

Bluegrass Today
NPR


(the full documentary)

Went to RHK's housewarming party; he and his gf bought a new house a couple of streets over from their other house. He also has a new blue Mini, a 4-door... I enjoyed spending time there, but the house consumer culture isn't for me.

Charles Murray on Uncommon Knowledge

(via Jeff Culbreath)

El Canto Mozárabe ~ (Canto Hispánico)

Choeur des Moines de Chevetogne - Pentecôte