The New Beginning

Items of Interest, 26 January 2012

2012-01-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

Patrick Buchanan, Who Gave Us the Right to Remake the World?
Daniel Larison, Is It Possible to Reclaim American Exceptionalism From Its Distortions?
Vermont Commons: Obama's Failed State of the Union

Philip Gilradi, Avoiding a Dumb War with Iran

Hawaiian Libertarian: Finding Your Freedom
Is the book too Liberal, that is does it endorse autonomy as self-fulfillment? Still, even traditionalists need a wake-up call and realize that our understanding of social realities may be false, judging things to be more continuous with traditional societies than they really are. And men should aspire to some measure of excellence and mastery.

Fabius Maximus: The key to building an effective military that we can afford: bring back the militia!

Peak Oil and Energy:
Dmitry Orlov, Perfectly Comfortable

Farming:
UN expert makes case for ecological farming practices to boost food production

Relocalization:
Erika Block's Local Orbit

Education:
Shannon Hayes, Love Trumps Math

Dieet and Health:
Fried food heart risk a myth

Dawn Landes: Southern Accents

Dawn Landes - Southern Accents from Live & Breathing on Vimeo.

Only now do they complain about the constitutionality of Obamacare

2012-01-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

Top U.S. Catholic Bishop: ‘Administration is on Wrong Side of the Constitution Again’

The American bishops didn't know that Obamacare was unconstitutional to begin with, not only because it requires Catholics "to purchase health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including abortifacients"?

Australia Day

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today

Some want Waltzing Matilda to become the national anthem for Australia. I don't think the multicultists would be happy with this.

Bluegrass music in Redwood City this weekend

2012-01-25T23:13:00.000-08:00

An Evening Of Bluegrass Dining In Downtown Redwood City This Friday, January 27

A part of the 5th Annual NCBS Bluegrass on Broadway Festival

Items of Interest, 25 January 2012

2012-01-25T23:09:00.000-08:00

The Archdruid Report: The Myth of the Machine

Kirkpatrick Sale, The Decline of the American Empire

Paul Craig Roberts: How Dogmatic Republicans Are Sabotaging Ron Paul's Campaign (plus, via CHT, More on Ron Paul)
War Abroad, Austerity at Home

Gareth Porter on crimes committed by mercenaries: See No Evil

2012 League of the South National Conference
Please Let Rebellion Survive

Homesick Nation by Susan Matt

On James Schall, SJ: My Favorite Liberal Arts Professor and I Never Had Him for Class

Theodore Dalrymple on the value of Charles Dickens: Hard Times, Again

Relocalization:
John Robb, I started a new site: ResilientCommunities.com - Resilient Communities

Local Economies for a Global Future

The new geography of trade: Globalization’s decline may stimulate local recovery by Fred Curtis, David Ehrenfeld (EB)

Sharon Astyk, Eat the Food and Food Waste

Urban Gardens, the Future of Food

Fibershed: A case study in sourcing textiles locally by Rebecca Burgess (EB)

Farming:
Organics and Sustainability: Reflections on my New York Times Misquote by Michael Bomford (PCI)

Gene Logsdon, Talking to Animals (EB)

Economics:
The plow and the iPhone: Conservative fantasies about the miracles of the market by Robert Jensen
Challenging Republicans on the Five Myths of Inequality

Review of Growthbusters: Hooked on Growth

Peak Oil and Energy:
Fossil fuels vs. renewables: the key argument that environmentalists are missing by Kurt Cobb (EB)

Article in Nature: "Oil's tipping point has passed"

The peak oil crisis: On closing our refineries by Tom Whipple (EB)

Duncan Crary, From Suburban Sprawl to Peak Oil: Talking With James Howard Kunstler

Tom Murphy, The motion of the ocean - updated (EB)

Diet and Health:
Processed meat 'linked to pancreatic cancer'

Links Between Diet and Behaviour (pdf)

The LLVLC Show (Episode 537): Paleo Blogger David Csonka From ‘Naturally Engineered’
(mp3)

The LLVLC Show (Episode 538): Dr. Lowell Gerber Discovers Low-Carb Promotes Health & Weight Loss (mp3)

The Paleo Health & Longevity Spectrum
Vitamin K2, Menatetrenone, Weston A. Price Activator X…or Whatever…It’s Amazing

Barefoot Running and Minimalist Shoes:
Run Barefoot, Run Healthy Book Review

SeeYa Vibram FiveFingers Review

Rand Paul on TSA

2012-01-25T21:29:00.000-08:00

CNN

WH response
TSA releases video footage of Sen. Rand Paul at Nashville Airport (with video)

Like I care...

2012-01-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

President Obama's Lunar New Year Message

The State of the Union Address
Sen. Rand Paul delivers the response.

Patrick Deneen going to ND

2012-01-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

He gives his reasons for leaving Georgetown: Front Porch Republic and What I Saw in America

Daniel Larison comments.

The Cranberries's comeback

2012-01-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

"Tomorrow"

The Cranberries' O'Riordan: 'We Went a Bit Mental'

Because the original wasn't good enough

2012-01-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

Or, because it wasn't sufficiently woman-friendly for Peter Jackson. AICN: Evangeline Lilly On THE HOBBIT... links to this article in Entertainment Weekly, in which the actress talks about the new character created for the movies. Will this be enough to turn Tolkien fans away?

New Website for the Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle

2012-01-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

Vultus Christi has the announcement and more details on the move. The website.

Dan Phillips offers his thoughts on TAC

2012-01-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

Has The American Conservative gone liberal? (Cross posted at CHT.)

2012-01-24T23:27:00.001-08:00

3 family members in the hospital in one week. A rather lousy week.

Catholic feminism

2012-01-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

A young woman asks on the occasion of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade... Is There Such a Thing as a Pro-Life Feminist?

I’m going to try to make it simple. What does it mean to be a feminist? Can you be both pro-life and a feminist? First, looking up “feminism” in the dictionary, leads me to this definition:

the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men

Hmm…ok, pretty simple to understand. There’s no formula or step-by-step beliefs you must ascribe to in order to fit into this category. Basically, a feminist believes that women deserve equal rights—in all areas of life—to men. A feminist is pro-woman. This simple definition leads me to five conclusions.

1) Anyone, including a man, can be a feminist. Ok, this really is a serious article, but silly thoughts first. I find it very odd when women fighting for their equal rights shun men who also want to fight for women’s equal rights. We should welcome them! Men can be pro-women. Men can believe in equal rights for women. I know. I happen to have exactly two brothers, one father, and one husband like this. And they’re not rare in my circle of friends. Feminists should not be anti-men.

2) Though “rights” should be equal, talents or roles cannot always be. There is a big, big, BIG difference in saying that women should have the right to play sports and saying that women can play tackle football just as well as men. Personally, while women may arguably have the right to play any sport they want, I will not be allowing my daughter to get tackled and splatted to kingdom come by 250 pound men. Just a thought. Now if there was only an all-women’s football team…

Seriously, though, watch small children, and you will see that there is an inherent difference in little boys and little girls. We are created differently and we suit different roles better. It’s not a violation of “equal rights” to say that women and men are different.

But what if 1 and 2 are in opposition? What part of the definition of justice requires that what is unlike must be made like?

Some rights may pertain to all in so far as they are human. But what if some rights pertain specifically to men as male (and all that is attendant upon being of that sex) and some specifically to women as female (and all that is attendant upon being of that sex)? Equal pay may sound nice, but does a woman have the same responsibility to the family as a father? Even if women claim they are willing to shoulder 1/2 or all of the burden of financially supporting a family, how many of them would be satisfied with a man willing to give up that role?

2012-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Political Correctness on the Right by Thaddeus J. Kozinski

The political correctness ideology of which I speak, as I suggest, is not seen to be debatable whatsoever by its staunchest and most outspoken proponents, and not only this: it is assumed a priori to be in line with Christian orthodoxy; in fact, any view that contradicts its principles or application to political or economic reality is determined to be, a priori, heresy or proof of unbelief, and even immorality. For example, if one articulates a skeptical position with regard to the justice of the war in Iraq, one may be accused of approving of genocide and of hating one’s country. If one expresses skepticism about general truthfulness of government pronouncements and intentions with regard to war, one may be accused of a kind of modernist skepticism about truth in general.

One's version of American conservatism should not be identified with Christian orthodoxy. Dialogue with conservatives may be futile if they are unwilling to examine their own assumptions and received opinions, especially with respect to history and their understanding of the Constitution. Is there much point in trying to reach a mass audience over the Internet? Some paleos may have been more successful through personal contact and conversation.

CNN spot on the Carolina Chocolate Drops

2012-01-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

Carolina Chocolate Drops transport listeners with old-time roots music

If you were the only Girl in the World - Stanley Holloway

2012-01-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

Downton Abbey has made a lot of new fans for this song...

Hanneke Cassel

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Her website. MS and FB.

This Red Rock has some more videos.

2012-01-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

Visited my grandfather on my father's side today at the hospital. He looked rather fragile, just like the last time he was hospitalized. The bump on his head was rather big. I also learned that the surgeons were unable to remove my uncle's tumor. St. Joseph, pray for us.

2012-01-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

On his FB page, a Catholic blogger, who might be considered a theocon, asks why some Catholics are so enthusiastic about Ron Paul, disagreeing with him primarily on foreign policy, I believe. Another Catholic, associated with Ignatius Press, argues that Ron Paul has an incorrect view of the state in his desire to reduce social programs. Those who attempted to defend Congressman Paul's position by appealing to subsidiarity were told they their understanding of subsidiarity is incorrect.

With respect to the latter -
1. The modern understanding of subsidiarity may be more of a prudential guide developed in reaction to the growth of the modern state but at variance with the proper organization of human society as laid out in political science. See my other posts on subsidiarity.

2. The Constitution does not give the Federal Government for such social programs; Ron Paul would not abolish them outright, but would have a sufficient period for transition, using money saved from the "defense budget" to fund those programs.

3. The only long-term solution, political and economic, to the current crises is decentralization and localism. Re-emphasizing the states is the first step on that path. Perpetuating the power of the National Government will only delay the implementation of a real solution and may exacerbate the effects of collapse.

Perhaps such Catholics are being realists with respect to the national constitutional order as it actually exists, and would concede that the old constitutional order, as we understand it, is dead, if it ever existed. Nonetheless, they must realize that their advocacy of the current order is wrong-headed because the current order is not sustainable.

Alas, the first Catholic is the one who criticizes Obama for temporarily refusing to authorize the Keystone Pipeline and thus not being sufficiently concerned with American jobs or American energy independence. Such Catholics, despite their erudition, are just ignorant of our energy predicament.

MICHAEL LEONARDI, The Great Pipeline Scam
BRIAN J. HOREJSI, The Politics of Tar Sands

One less reason to move to Oklahoma

2012-01-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

Oklahoma was attractive as a possible site of relocation because of Clear Creek and the Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle. But the latter is now relocating in turn. From Rorate Caeli: Traditional Benedictine Monastery plans move to Ireland.

New Year Greetings from DAL SHABET

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

Paul Howe's latest vid

2012-01-22T05:59:00.000-08:00

Promo:

DVD for LEOs and military only

Australian Peak Oil Report

2012-01-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Transport energy futures: long-term oil supply trends and projections (Australian peak oil report) by Dr David Gargett
Australian Peaky Leaks goes mainstream by Matt Mushalik

Mark Richardson on Civic Nationalism

2012-01-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Part 1 (See also his chapter on nation and ethny.)

In a comment he writes:

A people is not just a culture. There are Americans who think that all that matters is if the Anglo or Euro culture survives - it doesn't matter if actual Anglos/Euros disappear from view.

This assumes, first, that you can have a culture minus the people who created it.

Can there be long-lasting assimilation without a significant rate of intermarriage between members of the "majority" and the immigrant "minority"?

2012-01-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

With the addition of Noah Millman's blog to The American Conservative, Rod Dreher asks the question that may have been on the minds of some TAC readers: Has TAC gone liberal? (Millman used to be at The American Scene.) Is this supposed to give TAC greater credibility as being "open-minded" among those not associated with any form of conservatism? Rod Dreher writes: "To the extent that in Noah, we have a thoughtful critic of conservatism, one who understands and respects conservatism, even though he doesn’t share all our values, it can only make us more thoughtful and, ultimately, more persuasive." Maybe MacIntyre would appreciate that sort of defense. If this were a discussion of what is prudentially best by those with authority, I could understand why differing opinions might be needed. But TAC should be devoted first to the defense of American laws and customs in so far as they instantiate natural law precepts. Not everything can be put up for debate.

We can't pretend that any sort of discussion at a website with a rather limited readership will lead to some sort of political change. The progressive usurpers who like to troll the website for their amusement or to demonstrate their moral superiority remain unpersuaded; what basis do we have for thinking that other committed idealogues will have a moral conversion by reading the website, if they even bother to do so? "Read TAC because we now have Noah Millman writing for us!"

For the dissemination of tradition and to articulate a defense of that tradition, that is the limit to what most conservative websites (e.g. Chronicles) can aspire intellectually. These websites can also provide a place for like-minded people to meet and converse, and diminish some of that loneliness we may feel. But in the end we have to turn our attention to our role and duties, rather than mobilizing opinion on the internet in hope of enacting wide-scale change. Rather, we must form and conslidate real relationships if we are to effect change.

I haven't seen anything by Daniel McCarthy on the new addition.

2012-01-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

Lunar New Year's dinner at New Port tonight, as my mother will be going out of town to visit family members and KK and her family will be leaving later next week for vacation in HK. While I was there I saw that one of the TVs in the restaurant had CNN coverage of Newt Gingrich's campaign. I wasn't sure what the reason was, though the coverage did last a long time, and the anchors even talked a bit with his daughters. Turns out he won SC so the coverage was probably of his victory speech. The results will give some semblance that the nomination is still in play, but it is inevitable that the Grand Oligarchy Party will nominate someone unsatisfactory to traditional conservatives.

Daniel Larison, Gingrich Wins South Carolina, But He Will Not Be The Nominee

SHOT Show 2012 videos

2012-01-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

Daniel Defense:

Shakespeare: Original pronunciation

2012-01-21T17:09:00.001-08:00

Tafelmusik Media

2012-01-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tafelmusik
Announcement

Ron Paul Talks About SOPA And The NDAA Bill At N.H Airport Hanger Rally

2012-01-21T16:55:00.001-08:00

December 2009 interview of Paolo Pandolfo

2012-01-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

His website. MS and FB.

Items of Interest, 21 January 2012

2012-01-21T16:41:00.000-08:00

Leon Hadar, Another War That Nobody Wants
Patrick J. Buchanan, Who Wants War with Iran
Daniel Larison, The Complete Folly of an Iranian War

Playing Our Strength - Why COIN Doesn't Work
Foreign Internal Defense in Iraq

Philip Giraldi, Creating American Terrorists

Defending corpse urination begs the question: who’s the racist? by Kelley Vlahos

The Military-Industrial Complex: The Enemy from Within by John W. Whitehead

Daniel Larison, Murray’s Proposal for Reducing Cultural Inequality

Elite and Underclass
A review by F. Roger Devlin of Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 by Charles Murray

Globalize or Localize? Beyond the Post-American World by Carl L. Bankston III

Tradition and Critique: On Wanting to Know by R. J. Snell

Decline and Fall by Thomas F. Bertonneau

(A review of At the End of an Age by John Lukacs. Another review)

Economics:
John Médaille, The Content of ‘Business Ethics’ Isn’t Ethics, or, The Hangman and the State

Link to a Nicole Foss interview at Automatic Earth: Infinite Rehypothecation

Allan Carlson, Röpke’s Conundrums Over the Natural Family

From last November, Richard Heinberg's appearance at the Commonwealth Club: The Great Disruption

Peak Oil:
Why Oil Prices Will Stay High
The Happy Hoarder: Fire in the belly

MRA:
Men's Earnings Haven't Just Stagnated Over Past 40 Years--They've Fallen

Jack Donovan interview (Dunbar's Number)

Dunbar's Number:
The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes
NPR: Don't Believe Facebook; You Have Only 150 Friends
Why Dunbar's Number is Irrelevant
Robin Dunbar: we can only ever have 150 friends at most…

Robin Dunbar: How Many Friends Does One Person Need? from The RSA on FORA.tv

Robin Dunbar: How Many Friends Does One Person Need?

Feminism:
Is Feminism a Heresy? by Donna Steichen

Diet and Health:
Understand the calcium myth; here's what really makes healthy bones
Aloe Vera Gel
All Things Leptin - Leptin 101

Office Hours with Eric Westman:

A Gut Check for Many Ailments

The Daily Lipid: My Interview with Dave Asprey and Armi Legge

Catholic:
The Other Successors of Peter: The Patriarchs of Antioch

Père Abbé du Barroux sur Direct8/Dieu merci !

Fontgombault: Claude Pateau interviewé par l’Homme nouveau

John Hunwicke preaching in Latin - Anniversary Sermon in Newman's Pulpit

Music:
Something recent with Jero.

Misc:
Chris Costa!

Trailer for I Am Bruce Lee

2012-01-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

official

Innovation in the name of plurality?

2012-01-20T16:47:00.000-08:00

Rorate Caeli: Neocatechumenal Rite approved?
Let us call it the New Liturgical Way

"How can we prevent the work of the Holy Spirit?"

The traditionalists and conservatives got Summorum Pontificum and the Anglican Ordinariate, so why can't liturgies at the other "extreme" be sanctioned, so that all may be appeased? This goes beyond Pius V, who at least allowed for the maintenance of rites that had been in existence for over 2 centuries. Maybe a more firm critique of ecclesial movements has to be written, in order to rid ourselves of the dangerous notion that because the Holy Spirit is at work we must approve of all that results. After all, isn't it too early to judge the fruits of the movement? Increase in membership and "vocations" aren't sufficient in themselves. Remember the dangers of cults?

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

FERFRANS NEW SOACR .308 Semi-Auto Rifle

Alison Krauss

2012-01-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Alison Krauss (and Union Station) on 'The Talk'

The uploaded episode of the Tavis Smiley Show doesn't include her performance, so here is a clip--

(alt)

Jason Falla

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Website; blog. FB. He also has links to Grey Group.

Increase your push-up potential

Items of Interest, 18 January 2012

2012-01-18T20:37:00.000-08:00

The Archdruid Report: Waking Up, Walking Away

It so happens that I don’t own or drive a car, and indeed I never have. Among its other benefits, that’s a good way to see the limits on the alleged freedom of choice that the consumer economy provides its inmates. In today’s America, you can live without a car, but most other choices you make are going to be sharply curtailed by that decision. When my wife and I decided a few years back to leave the west coast and settle in the Rust Belt, scores of pleasant towns we might otherwise have chosen were ruled out in advance because the only way to go from there to anywhere else was to drive a car, and our options for buying a house were just as tightly constrained by the need to be within walking distance of groceries and other necessary services. All those choices the propagandists of the consumer economy prattle about? They exist, but only if you give up your right to make any of the decisions that matter.

Peter Hitchens, One Reason Why I hate Cars, and a brief note on Lifestyle Choices

Ron Paul only GOP candidate to publicly denounce SOPA; What is SOPA and Why Won't it Work?

Fabius Maximus: Is Killing Iranian Nuclear Scientists Terrorism?
Is Killing Iranian Nuclear Scientists Terrorism?

Ron Paul: Killing of Iranian nuke scientist "an act of terrorism"
Ron Paul may have gone to an extreme claiming Michele Bachmann "hates Muslims," but those who are leaving comments at JW (and the one who operates the website?) may be irrational in their fear of them. How much of a threat do they really pose to the West, when we are armed with nuclear weapons?

Patent Nonsense
Intellectual property enforces a monopoly over the mind.

Are Intellectual Property Rights Bad for Innovation?
By Jordan Bloom

BRIAN J. TRAUTMAN, Why the NDAA is Unconstitutional

Taking Action to Fix our Debt

The High Achievement of Christopher Dawson

Economics:
Heinrich Pesch on Solidarist Economics
What Happens When a City Girl Reads Wendell Berry

Farming:
Gene Logsdon, Can a godless farmer be a good steward of the soil? (EB)

Energy:
Basking in the sun by Tom Murphy (EB)
Why Biofuels Are Not a Good Idea (EB)
Technological Progress for Dummies Part II (EB)

Catholic:
Training Leaders in Christian Virtue
Franciscan University’s Center for Leadership Has Global Outlook but Focuses on the Local

According to the director, the center’s program will promote authentic Catholic social teaching as well as an understanding of the principles of America’s founding: “The goal is toward a healthy patriotism with gratitude for all the gifts we enjoy in this country, but also with the idea to build upon what’s good in our nation and work to improve where we need to improve.”

Emm... I'd need more information to attempt an evaluation...

From last year: Center for Leadership Launched

Yo-Yo Ma on Tavis Smiley

2012-01-18T14:09:00.000-08:00

From November.

Watch Cellist Yo-Yo Ma on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Rick Santorum, clueless about the Constitution

2012-01-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

Daniel Larison, Santorum’s Muddled Constitutional Theory

How many American bishops join Santorum in his views on the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, appealing to the former as a ~~theistic~~ Christian statement of natural law by which the Constitution is to be interpreted?

"This Is Why"

2012-01-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

Via the Daniel Defense FB page:

Mark A. Signorelli contributes to the FPR/Joe Carter debate

2012-01-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

Democracy and Coercion

As I mentioned in a comment on Mr. Salyer’s article, to govern simply means to coerce, in some form or other. This is just a definitional truth.

In the state of fallen nature, governing may require coercing, the threat of punishment, but to govern is merely to order the community with respect to the common good. I am not sure about how good the essay is; certainly it doesn't address Mr. Carter's presuppositions about the ordering of the economy. Mr. Carter attributes wrongly his freedom to choose and pursue a certain lifestyle to liberalism, when it is actually due to the type of economy that we have and his relative wealth. Liberalism may be used to defend the marriage of ["democratic"] government and big business, but it is not the cause.

I don't think much progress will be made with respect to convincing Mr. Carter.

2012-01-18T00:11:00.000-08:00

Someone posted this on FB, and since I had just recently written on the topic of make-up, I thought I'd share it...

Grumpy old white men would have something to say about the following movies.

2012-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Safe House (Apple)

I'm a Denzel Washington fan, but was putting him in the role of a former CIA agent gone rogue a PC casting choice? Soft Ryan Reynolds plays the CIA newbie who has to prove himself.

This Means War (Apple

Modern liberated woman who has the attention of two alpha males who in turn have to literally fight each other for her affection. (The trailer doesn't show what she really has to offer to either.)

Man on a Ledge (Apple)

Elizabeth Banks as a tough police psychologist/negotiator, with Pooja Kumar in an action role as a friend of the main character who is trying to prove his innocence.

Why Do Catholics Feel the Need to Appropriate Martin Luther King, Jr.?

2012-01-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

Fr. Barron comments on Why Dr. King Still Matters

Matthew Schmitz, Who Gets to Use MLK’s Legacy?

Some use his authority to persuade others on questions like abortion. But it goes beyond that, when they accept his civil rights activism as the correct means for dealing with the problem of racism and injustice and see in him someone to admire and emulate. It is one thing to let non-Catholics have their heroes and figures; it is another to embrace those heroes and figures as one's own, even if only to try to facilitate dialogue and to be able to better identify with them. Maybe the division between groups is so great that this sort of cultural appeasement is necessary. But will it be successful in the long run? There are plenty who say the right things on race and engage in other PC grandstanding, but nonetheless will not accept "ractial integration" for themselves or their families. Can national myths and exaggerated sense of identity ever be wiped away, so that people can begin anew and deal with others as they are?

Paul Gottfried, The Cult Of St. Martin Luther King—A Loyalty Test For Careerist Conservatives?
(A reaction by Lawrence Auster to a talk Mr. Gottfried gave in NYC, based on second-hand info.)

Paul Gottfried, The Minicon Mind and MLK as Twentieth-Century Jesus
Marcus Epstein, Myths of Martin Luther King

Whiskey: Martin Luther King: The Return of Otto von Bismarck

Items of Interest, 17 January 2012

2012-01-17T20:57:00.000-08:00

John Zmirak, Ron Paul and Pius IX

The Crash-and-Burn Future of Robot Warfare

Is the United States Still the Land of the Free

Economics:
The Problem With Citizens United Is Not Corporate Personhood

Dave Pollard, Gangsters and Bankster (EB)

Transition Voice: What’s really in and out for 2012

Janelle Orsi: Sharing Economy (EB)

Farming:
How farms are using permaculture design to survive and prosper

Jason Bradford, One acre feeds a person (EB)

Your Prius Won’t Save You: Questions for David Owen, Author of The Conundrum

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER AND JIM LOBE, Obama Delays U.S.-Israeli War Exercise
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, The End of Something
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, America’s Last Chance
PATRICK COCKBURN, The Newsfakers

Diet and Health:
Cherries for Gout and Arthritis

The LLVLC Show (Episode 533): ‘Minding Your Mitochondria’ TEDx Viral YouTube Sensation Dr. Terry Wahls (mp3)

Low Carb Mistakes

Music:
BBC3: Daniel Hope, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Julian Marshall (expires in 7 days)

2012 SHOT Show - Media Day at the Range

Paul Howe: Advanced Tac Pistol/Rifle Operator

2012-01-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

The daughter of my mom's friend is dating someone who had pursued her before, but in whom she wasn't interested - because she couldn't respect him - tai dak m hei. She had gotten divorced from someone else, who was probably more successful and intelligent, but probably catered to her demands too much at first. Because of that, it is possible that he might have had enough before he went looking for love elsewhere, not that bad behavior on her part, if it happened, exculpates him completely from his decision to do so.

So is she settling now, in order to avoid loneliness? From what the mom says, it seems like he is a "nice guy," no doubt a genuine beta.

2012-01-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

Fathom Events is presenting a live performance by Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, and Stuart Duncan of the Goat Rodeo Sessions on January 31.

East Asian standards of male beauty

2012-01-16T00:11:00.000-08:00

East Asian idol singers tend to be rather effeminate in appearance; even non-Asians have remarked about this - shouldn't this be a source of embarrassment to those who like to tout Asian pride? Are the entertainment companies simply meeting the expectations of [young and not-so-young] female consumers? Does this show the inability of female fans to deal with males as males? Their lack of familiarity with what constitutes "authentic masculinity? Is this a symptom of their immaturity which will ave an impact on expectations for romance and marriage?

The standard has tended towards the soft, fair and good skin, fancy hair that was done in a beauty salon. It wasn't always this bad in East Asian pop music, although singers have always been careful about their appearance and spent time taking care of it. East Asian actors still maintain some appearance of masculinity, but that may be going away as the popular actors age and will eventually be replaced. The Korean and Japanese pop music industries seem to value tall, lanky young men. They may work out and be mascular, but in general they are closer to looking like ectomorphs. Does being thin in that way make their height stand out more? Maybe 2 years of military service isn't enough to toughen the idols up.

Your face is an illusion

2012-01-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

There are some comments about Katy Perry's "natural face" over at Traditional Christianity. I like how some have described the removal of makeup for certain women as "removing their face" as the difference is so stark. I was thus reminded how much Asian women rely upon makeup. In an episode of a Taiwanese show (Queen, with 藍心湄), a makeup artist was demonstrating how to create the illusion of a bigger eye through the application of makeup and colors. Walking through Kinokuniya the other day I was looking at the women's fashion magazines, searching for the ones that discuss makeup techniques as they usually include before and after photos. It's enough to make one swear off looking at women, lest one be beguiled by feminine deception. At the very least one can attempt to withhold making a judgment about beauty until one has seen the natural face? Yeah, good luck.

A double helping of Girl Power next weekend...

2012-01-15T00:25:00.000-08:00

Underworld Awakening and Haywire:

Apple

(Apple)

Related: Gina Carano fan site
GQ

Gina Carano Haywire Interview from gina carano on Vimeo.

Sarge should check this out:

Special Operations Advisor Haywire Interview from gina carano on Vimeo.

2012-01-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

After watching Young Adult, LJY and I were joking about red hardtop Mini Coopers because Charlize Theron's character, Mavis, drives one. Was it intentional on the part of the filmmakers to have her character's high school car be a VW Cabriolet? That did seem to be the cute car of choice for daddy's little princess in high school.

I first saw an ad for the coupe around the same time as the movie; it might have been during the previews in fact.
What to make of the design?

Can't they design a small car with good gas mileage and a decent engine?

Related:
Mini working up new John Cooper Works GP edition
Mini USA
Mini SF
wiki

My Trip to Phoenix

2012-01-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

On my last day in Arizona, I was thinking that this might be one of the last times I see Po Po. She is getting old and her health is not so good. She refuses to give up carbs in order to cope with her diabetes because he is not a "picky eater" (gan yam jaak sik).

I can't presume things will stay the same that I'll always be around, or that airplane flights will conveniently get me to where I need to go. A greater concern, affection, and appreciation for one's family and friends (along with foresight) develops as one matures, along with the sense of the morality of others, but the natural affections should be cultivated and trained into the form of filial piety, etc. at a young age. We shouldn't count on people growing to have the right dispositions on their own, and besides, having the right dispositions is not the same as having good character, even if they are the foundation for it.

Do we not have an innate desire to live with family close by, if nothing has happened in our lives to turn us away from family? We can't take being with family and other simple things for granted.

At one of the dinners, her sister-in-law told my cousin that she resembled her brothers after she said something--I don't resemble the way she phrased it, but I asked my cousin what her sister-in-law meant, and she said, "My brothers are assholes." This led me to ask myself if they had been successful with woman precisely because of their assholish qualities. On the Tuesday before I left, her first brother's ex, the one he impregnated, was at his father's house to pick up their child. She put on some weight, but in the right places, sorta like J-Lo but shorter. She seemed even more attractive, since before she was too skinny. Alas, she's off-limits because she was with my cousin and she had his child. Besides, would she even consider a nice guy? Would they even show up on her radar? Maybe she has reformed or she has quit relationships. But she also has a second job at a bar, so what does that say about her... ("It was the only part-time job I could find that pays well.")

I did see Mission: Impossible 4 with some of my cousins and my uncle. The movie was rather good; I think it was the best in the series. (I won't consider the first one because of what they did to Mr. Phelps and because of the obvious CGI.)
It was a decent action flick, but it showcased our obssession with technology and the love of gadgets. Does the movie convey the sense that Ethan Hunt's IMF team is scraping by with limited resources, are relying more on their wits? Not really -- even though they do not have the full resources of the IMF they still have some equipment which enables them to move from one set piece to another.

I had wanted to try some of the local burger places in Phoenix, and I did try two: Lenny's Burger and Rocket Burgers and Subs. The burgers at Lenny's were probably a better value. They were grilled and the taste reminded me of Burger King. The patties at Rocket were a bit smaller. The meal deal at Lenny's isn't that economical - fries + a drink adds another $3.30 to the price of the burger. As for the quality of the meat - I suspect they get their beef from a normal restaurant supplier.

My cousins and I went shooting in the desert on Friday morning. I was able to try out the HK USP in .40, along with the Taurus in 9mm. I missed having a Glock handy though. MW also brought a shotgun and his AR15.

While at my grandmother's I saw a few episodes of Show Me the Happy (依家有喜). It's not really a drama, more of a dramedy, centered on family dynamics and such. TVB dramedies used to be family-friendly, so I was shocked but how the series approved premarital sex even though it wasn't depicted onscreen. Rather, the viewer learns that the main love couple are engaging in relations because the woman gets pregnant by her boyfriend, even though they are not married yet. Fornication is assumed to be normal for a "relationship," even for the main characters who are supposed to be "good and decent."

The link of sex to marriage and children has been severed in Hong Kong popular culture, although protecting the appearance of propriety is still important. The two characters are encouraged to marry because she is pregnant, as it is the "right" thing to do, and they don't want to be known as the two who had a child out of wedlock. They are not rebuked by their family or seniors for engaging in relations before marriage. I think TVB probably does show the loosening of traditional morals in Hong Kong. The natural teleology of the sex act towards procreation is ignored; couples engage in relations for the standard modern rationale - because of romance or express "love" which is just a dressed up version of lust, although we deny it.

Hong Kong mass media and celebrity culture is rather disgusting, but I think South Korea is not far behind. Only mainland China tries to maintain a "puritan" facade. It's rather sad, since I still have an emotional attachment to the language and traditional culture, but I have less and less in common with Hong Kong.

One can think that certain details of marital intimacy were not included in novels of the past out of right reticence, a classical sense of restraint. This is contrasted with the glorification of all aspects of the mundane, making no distinction between virtue and vice, which destroys rather than enhances the "nuptial mystery."

Can bawdy humor (e.g. Chaucer) be reconciled with a healthy respect for the marital act?

Don't know if these links for the series are still current.

TVB's Youtube Channel

The fundamental question..

2012-01-14T14:52:00.000-08:00

is not an economic one, but a political one.

Thomas Storck writes in Catholics, Distributism and Occupy Wall Street:

Unfortunately as part of the turmoil and loss of faith that followed the Second Vatican Council and the many changes in Catholic praxis that were instituted in the decade following, many Catholics lost both knowledge of the Church’s social doctrine and the passionate concern for economic justice that previously was fairly widespread among informed Catholics. Today among Catholics who might be said to display interest in the faith and a desire to understand it or to engage in apostolic activity, most are only vaguely aware of the body of Catholic social doctrine, and as a result they take their socio-economic views from the secular culture. Others are indeed aware of Catholic social doctrine, but they do not approach it with the docility that ought to characterize a Catholic. In some cases they make use of selective quotations to try to make the Church’s social teaching fit in with their classical liberal capitalist ideology.

Later, he offers a plan of action:

What, if anything, is the remedy for this? In my opinion, probably the best means for addressing this selective dissent from Catholic teaching is simply a recovery of our Catholic identity, a recovery of a sense that it is more important to be a Catholic than to be a conservative, a liberal, an American, or indeed anything else on the face of the earth. All these other identities are acceptable only if, and to the extent that, they harmonize with our primary identity of being a Catholic. There are many, in fact, who are discovering this. People, for example, who begin by recognizing the beauty of the traditional Latin liturgy, and are led from that to the entire range of traditional Catholic thought on subjects from theology and philosophy to art to history, and not least to economic and social thought. Quite tragic, on the other hand, and in a way ridiculous, is the position of those who passionately adhere to traditional Catholic thought in some few areas, but whose primary identity remains as conservative Americans, whose Catholicism is simply their way of participating in the American Way of Life, as the sociologist Will Herberg noted many years ago.

A call for American Catholics to embrace the Church's teaching with respect to economics and politics, rather than picking and choosing in accordance with their ideological affiliations.

Undoubtedly we need better laws to foster economic freedom, along with commutative and distributive justice. But if a group of individuals lacks a sense of community and identity, what sort of lasting political and economic reform can be undertaken?

Only a few American Catholics realize the pickle they are in. It is not merely a problem with the laws dealing with the marketplace, but with the core of politics - politics presupposes the existence of a single people who live in community with one another. This is what is lacking. How, then, can one legislate for change without first concentrating the power necessary to do so? Like-minded individuals must first band together and commit to one place and to one-another - they must make their stand. Legislative reform is unlikely to be achieved at the federal level, and even if it could, it would probably violate the standard Catholic understanding of subsidiarity. Rather, we have to turn to the local level for a reinvigoration of existing communities (whatever still remains) and the creation of community, if it is still possible. It may be too late for the latter in many places.

The lack of community is the fundamental problem of the United States, especially with respect to the megapoleis, but applicable everywhere the exercise of physical mobility is seen as a proper lifestyle choice. It is also probably present to a lesser degree in Europe, where oversized polities in the form of the nation-state have been in existence for quite some time. We should be advocating for CTS or distributism not just to rectify injustice but as a means of restoring and promoting communal life. Distributism or locaclism cannot be separated from the ordo caritatis and a proper understanding of what community is and what it requires.

Related:
Is Distributism a Form of Capitalism? by David W. Cooney

Excerpts from The American Woman by Eric Dingwall

2012-01-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

Angry Harry (via namae nanka)

I believe the same excerpts are also posted at menstribune.

How much of the same dynamic exists in certain classes of Eastern Asian societies?

Amazon

Related:
In a thread on some blog someone praised No More Mr. Nice Guy as helping him begin to assert his masculinity; but he still needed the advice of marriage game blogs to help him in his relations with women.

Accepting boys as what they are

2012-01-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

Raising Boys in A Culture that is Often Alarmed By Them by Msgr. Charles Pope and The Killer Instinct by Sally Thomas (both via Catholic Fire)

The natural reaction of females to the threat of violence is fear, but that this be the basis of legislation for a polity? Stupid.

Items of Interest, 14 January 2012

2012-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

Ethika Politika: What We’re Reading (1.12.12)

The Christian Humanist: Neither Stickit Minister nor Sp'iled Praist

More from Peter Hitchens on Scottish independence: A free Scotland? No, it's being fed into the Euro-blender.

Counterpunch:
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If”
DAVID ROSEN, Mitt Romney: Banker and Pornographer
JOSEPH GERSON, The Grim Implications of Obama’s New Defense Plan

Woody Guthrie at 100 by BILL MOYERS and MICHAEL WINSHIP

Economics:
Will New Zealand be the first developed country to evolve a steady-state economy? by Jack Santa Barbara (EB)

Relocalization:
MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT by Wendell Berry

Outside In with Michael Shuman and Stephanie Mills

Outside In with Michael Shuman and Stephanie Mills from Robert Russell on Vimeo.

The Fundamental Issue is Land

What it looks like when food grows everywhere

Back in the day, urban gardens everywhere

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening - Preface

Feminism:
LAMIA OUALALOU, Defying the Macho

Catholic:
William Mahrt, The Musical Shape of the Liturgy - The Great Work is Here

Sandro Magister, "Placet" or "Non placet"? The wager of Carmen and Kiko, Music New and Old, from the Jungles of Paraguay, Vatican Diary / Sant'Egidio in supervised freedom

After the talks: "Would you kindly explain where the continuity is?"

New light on Roman Britain

"Spanish Johnny" - Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Catholic Courses

2012-01-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

So now there is a Catholic version of The Great Courses, and it seems to be a more "orthodox" alternative to Now You Know Media, featuring authors like Regis Martin, Joseph Pearce, Fr. Alfred McBride, O. Praem., Anthony Esolen, and Benjamin Wiker.

Catholic multimedia companies... there is an article at AmCon about EWTN. Is it really the case that the company has no episcopal oversight? Why is the local ordinary allowed to prohibit ad orientem for televised Masses if he has no jurisdiction whatsoever? Or does it only pertain to liturgical matters? Even if it is beneficial for the cause of orthodoxy, the lack of episcopal supervision for an organization dedicated to teaching the faith is rather troubling, even if the organization is merely carrying out the duty incumbent upon all the faithful.

Boom: A Journal of California

2012-01-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

Received an ad for this magazine in the mail. I don't think I'd subscribe to it, even if I had the extra money. It's published by UC Press. I don't see it promoting anything other than the leftist, multiculturalist utopian fantasy predicated upon continued economic growth. The mailing features an endorsement from Lisa See:

Boom explores how our diversity - culture, politics, art, history, society, race, geography is shaping our future and the greater culture. For as they say, as California goes, so goes the country.

Let's see what SPWLs and their non-white affluent allies living in the suburbs think after they are required to live in actual minority communities.

Josh Groban - "If I Walk Away"

2012-01-13T18:25:00.001-08:00

2012-01-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

So a car with two Indian teens, one female and one male, was parked down the street, and they discarded an empty fountain drink cup onto the road. I thought maybe they would have the decency to reconsider and to pick it up since they were parked there for a short time, but when I came back to that area later, the cup was still there. Regardless of whether this sort of association is premature, littering does not leave a witness a good impression of your ethnic group.

Zmirak on Dawson

2012-01-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

Dawson’s Usura Canto by John Zmirak

Does Mr. Zmirak consider himself to be a student of Wilhelm Röpke? He offers some appropriate criticisms of Dawson's essay; Dawson goes to one extreme in reacting against modern capitalism. But Dawson's critique is salvageable.

Then Mr. Zmirak writes this:

Dawson clearly follows the Classical, pagan preference for soldiers and noblemen, who make their living employing force against their fellow men, over businessmen who traffic in voluntary exchange. While soldiers sometimes fight justly, nobles can rule fairly, and businessmen can engage in evil trades (like slavery), surely it’s deeply perverse to prefer force to persuasion, serfdom to salesmanship, and conquest to commerce. The Church sees war as evil in itself, allowing it only in narrowly circumscribed cases, setting standards that very few wars waged even by Catholic monarchs ever fully met. Conversely, she sees ordinary business and commerce as the means by which most men earn their bread by the sweat of their brows—though she marks off certain methods of business which are evil. But sins of business are the exception, not the rule. For a war to be good, it must climb through the eye of a needle. So why should we as Christians prefer soldiers to salesmen, militaristic empires to bourgeois republics? Because the former are more romantic, and leave in their wake such poignant ruins?

It is not so much a concern with sin but the good that is the object of each role or function. The soldier is properly concerned with the defense of the polity, the aristocrat with its rule (and by extension the common good). But what is the object of the bourgeois? Making a living through commerce or facilitating some other exchange. (Or worse, profit.) I don't think St. Thomas differs that much from Confucius in their evaluation of the status of merchants in comparison to other classes (roles) in society - it's rather low. Dawson does not have in mind a degraded aristocracy, but one which lives up to its duties and is cultivated accordingly. A businessman's success does not indicate that he will be a good ruler, and yet many had pretensions to that part of political life.

As for Baroque Spain - yes, its cultural achievements may have been possible only because of its empire, but let's not miss Dawson's point, which is about priorities and orderings - or the end of society and how leisure is practiced. Is it ordered to something beyond itself or not?

Items of Interest, 12 January 2012

2012-01-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

Peter Hitchens, Reflections on the Rule of Law, on Scotland and on an astonishingly cruel portrayal of Lady Thatcher
Daniel Larison, Thoughts on Scottish Independence

Recessing the Constitution By W. James Antle, III

Bring Order to the Commonwealth by Ordering the Soul

Virginia’s New Ecclesiasticism

Afghanistan:
Obama's Mission Accomplished Moment?
And a military-first policy on a destabilizing planet
Don’t Count on Obama’s Defense Cuts by Ivan Eland
Marine Corps Manual Offers a Blunt, Revealing Portrait of Afghan War
New National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan: War Still a Stalemate

Iran:
RALPH NADER, Iran: the Neocons Are At It Again
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, The Next War on Washington’s Agenda
GARETH PORTER, Clinton Revives Dubious Charge of “Covert” Iranian Nuclear Site

What War With Iran Might Look Like by Philip Giraldi

Fabius Maximus, Status report on the war with Iran (we’re ignorantly drifting into yet another illegal war)
What happens if Iran gets nukes? Not what we’ve been told.
What happens when a nation gets nukes? Sixty years of history suggests an answer.
What does the IAEA know about Iran’s nuclear program? Enough to start a war?

Farming and Relocalization:
Greener Pastures with Lunatic Farmer Joel Salatin (EB)
If you want more local food, stop criminalizing family farmers (EB)
How resilient is the food system? by Adam Streed (EB)

The Happy Hoarder: Put a cork in it

Gene Logsdon, Hail, The Mighty Pocketknife (EB)

Economics:
The Faustian bargain that modern economists never mention (EB)
Dr. Gary Peters, Our Finite World
Friends and Strangers: A Meditation on Money by John Médaille
Peter Hitchens, Does Immigration cause Unemployment? And other matters
The return of "The Limits to Growth" by Ugo Bardi (EB)
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

Peak Oil and Energy:
Warm and fuzzy on geothermal? by Tom Murphy (EB)
What do triple digit oil prices mean for growth? by Jeff Rubin
The peak oil crisis: gasoline in 2012 by Tom Whipple (EB)
Richard Heinberg, Geopolitical Implications of Peak Everything
The End of Growth

The Crisis of Civilization

The Crisis of Civilization: Trailer from thecrisisofcivilization on Vimeo.

Catholic:
British Jesuit welcomes Scorsese's latest film project (via First Thoughts)
Dominican friars appointed to the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Music:
Shelby Lynne: A Murder Ballad Hits Close To Home by Lynne Margolis

Documentary with Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart

California Pickers: Butch Waller

TV:
‘Justified’ Star Timothy Olyphant On Violence And Villain, Neal McDonough

2012-01-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

Watched a few minutes of an episode of Up All Night on the flight back from Phoenix. I couldn't tell if we were supposed to laugh with the couple (played by Christina Applegate and Will Arnett) or laugh at them. Shouldn't one sympathize with the main characters in a comedy? I found them to be rather annoying, even if the episode made fun of their desire to maintain a hip, relevant status. Conspicuous consumption was otherwise on display, and the husband was an indecisive male, worse than a beta. Those who delay or wish to delay having children until their 30s and 40s (if they are able to have children then) may enjoy the comedy, but I found it rather stupid. I'd rather watch I Love Lucy which is a more clean and has occasional slapstick.

Rhonda Vincent & the Rage - Orange Blossom Special

2012-01-12T11:49:00.001-08:00

QSB

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

2012-01-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Late notice - only 2 days left before this episode of the BBC Early Music Show expires: The Students of William Byrd: 'Father of British Musick'

Annulments

2012-01-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

A sort of continuation of this post on divorce. A marriage may be invalid and an annulment declared because of deception involved. Deception concerning what, though? (Besides the intent to be faithful and to have children.)

Apparently Catholic wedding vows have never included a promise to obey or submit to the authority of her husband. (It's a CoE thing.) Nor is a wife required to promise that she will live in the family in a certain way (as a homemaker). If she tells her fiance that she intends to do this in practice, but fails to actually follow through, can one get an annulment? Can it be shown that she never intended to do this, even though she said she would? If so, is the marriage invalid? Or is divorce the only solution to a recalcitrant wife? The authority of the husband in the family may have been part of the theology of marriage of the past and assumed by all in the past, and so was not really discussed by the pastor. But a discussion in Catholic marriage prep is needed now. If the Church is not willing to back up the authority of the husband in some concrete way, then we should not be surprised that men who are traditionally-minded turn their backs on the Church.

It used to be that a husband could try to "put the wife away" (usually to attempt to contract a second marriage?) or return her to her family. What other solution can there be nowadays than separation and divorce?

Related:
Ed Peters's blog is now at Wordpress.

Edit. I am reminded that two of Law Yi's sons married "good Catholic girls" - one does not want to be a stay at home mom, prefers her job as a social worker, and I think she has said there will be a limit to the number of kids they have. The other wife has already said no to kids. Good luck finding a decent Catholic woman in Hong Kong. I'm not wasting my time there, if that's the best the Church can do there. I wouldn't consider them to be beautiful or intelligent (or entitled or conceited) so you would think that there'd be some measure of humility and deference, but the feminist brainwashing, whether explicit or subtle, has done its work.)

Gary Taubes on Lew Rockwell's podcast

2012-01-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

Why We Get Fat, and What To Do About It
Lew Rockwell talks to Gary Taubes about how to be thin by disobeying the government and the medical establishment.
(mp3)

Related:
George Did the Opposite of What the Government Says
Malnutrition –> Health Degeneration –> Obesity & Other Diseases of Civilization

2012-01-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

Hespèrion XXI , Anonymus: Canarios

Anonymus: The Lancashire Pipes

Forgot this in the last round-up

2012-01-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

The symposium on distributism at Anamnesis Journal on distributism (via Peter Haworth):
Equity and Equilibrium: The Political Economy of Distributism by John C. Médaille
Capitalism, Distributism and the Hierarchy of Human Goods by Thomas Storck
What's Wrong with "Distributism" by Thomas Woods Jr.

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Energy Wars 2012

Bluegrass Today: New season – and new video – for Justified

2012-01-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

New season – and new video – for Justified

Cumberland River (MS)

2012-01-09T22:41:00.000-08:00

On one of the blogs I frequent, someone commented that young men who have turned their back on marriage may be looking to network with men with families and successful marriages and work to provide resources, etc. to promote those families. In turn, the husbands would act as mentors for those men. Seems to be one strategy we should embrace once we become aware of the difficulties young American men may be having meeting young women worthy of marrying. If I could only find that original comment...

Joe versus the FPR Volcano

2012-01-09T18:13:00.000-08:00

Joe Carter, Monarchists to the Left of Me, Socialists to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle with You Liberals

Jerry Salyer, Who Gets To Be The Czar of Human Evolution?
Mark T. Mitchell, Agrarian Hypocrisy and the Evils of Distributism

Discussion at Rod Dreher's blog. (Dreher on Scruton: Conservatism as conservation)

Items of Interest, 9 January 2012

2012-01-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

Daniel McCarthy: Conservative Movement at a Crossroads (mp3)
Tom Landess, R.I.P.
Alt Rght interview with PJB

The US-Iran economic war

CIA Chief Endorses Ron Paul (Michael Scheuer, of course.)

Rick Santorum Sounds Like Rachel Maddow on Nullification

Patrick Deneen, University, Community, Universe

Economics:
Do We Really Understand What an Economy Is? by John Willson

Lee Cheek, Agrarianism and Cultural Renewal

Is Distributism a Form of Capitalism?

John Zmirak, Say It Loud: Bourgeois and Proud

Ryan Grant, How to Prepare for Catastrophe

David Korten: Walking Away From the King from Katie Teague on Vimeo.

Money and Life

Via JM:
How US Policies Fueled Mexico's Great Migration
and

Energy and Sustainability:
Enough is Enough

Occupy Educated: Educating and Uniting 100% of the 99%

Tom Murphy, The Future Needs an Attitude Adjustment and Nuclear Options

There Is More to It than Oil by Chris Clugston
Oil Shock - The No Growth World by Alex Smith (EB)
Occupy sustainability by Juliet Schor (EB)
Economics: pre- and post- Copernican by Erik Lindberg
Heinberg, Kunstler, Foss, Orlov & Chomsky on A Public Affair

Relocalization:
What Is 'Slow Money'?

The Storm Surge of Decentralization
Death of an Institution: Desperate Mergers & Destructive Acquisitions

Everything you could possibly want to know about ‘In Transition 2.0′ by Rob Hopkins (EB)

Blog: Catholic Land Movement

Maybe old tractors do die by Gene Logsdon (EB)

As economic growth fails, how do we live? Part II: Out with the old
by Craig A. Severance (EB)
In with the new: part III of "As economic growth fails, how do we live?"
by Craig A. Severance (EB)

Wendell Berry:
On Wendell Berry: As farms go, so go the cities by Erik Curren (EB)

Counterpunch:
The Whole World is Watching by KEVIN CARSON
Why America Can’t Afford Its Military by Col. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR

Feminism:
Oz Conservative: Brainwashing Norway

Diet and Health:
Gary Taubes on Dieting

2012-01-08T23:49:00.001-08:00

Rorate Caeli: Summorum advances in Moscow and San Francisco, under the banner of the Immaculate Conception

Peter Hitchens continues to reject Stephen Moffat's Sherlock

2012-01-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

His latest for the Daily Mail.

2012-01-08T23:29:00.000-08:00

Downton Abbey returns tonight on Masterpiece Theater. An analysis of the reasons behind its popularity would probably confirm that this sort of entertainment reveals more about us to whom it appeals than how people of the past actually lived. A sentimental view of history, a longing for a more civilized time? Dan Stevens thinks that we who are familiar with hook-up culture miss the romance of days past. There are those who like it as a soap opera dealing with the rich and not-so-rich, their trials and personal drama.

Words were put to the music of the theme to the series. More sentimental tripe?

I may not continue watching beyond the first episode.

*Spoiler warning*
Knowing how the Matthew-Mary plot thread is brought to some finality in the Christmas special, I have lost some enthusiasm for the series, as it cements Matthew Crowley's status as an insufferable, unadmirable beta. She has a fling with an exotic, dangerous foreigner only for it to end in a mishap. Previously it seemed that she was interested only in marrying for money, but she may have warmed to Matthew not only because he was the heir but because he was sincere in his affection and devotion. Is it plausible that a woman who gave it up for a bad boy would fall in love with the nice guy? A story written for women? She does not show any sign of contrition for her fornication. I do not know if Matthew demands such a sign; if he doesn't I'd write the series off. The other plot threads aren't sufficient to hold my interest.

2012-01-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

JA replies to Joe Carter on freedom:

The problem with Joe Carter’s reading of “freedom” is that he is completely unaware of his presuppositions. It is ahistorical. “The Market” does not occur naturally, as some liberalizing backdrop that merely has to remain uninhibited to bring freedom. Rather, the market is socially and historically constructed. For instance, a medieval farmer did not have access to an all embracing market autonomous of social and sacred concerns. He did not store his grain in hopes of more favorable prices at a later date, sell it to speculators while still in the field, or travel from village to village to fetch the best price. He didn’t even really own it. There were no property rights for individuals because people weren’t individuals; rather, the relevant entity was the community, and economic behavior was subordinate to the imperative to live communally as the church and care for one’s brother.

The conceptualization of the market as a place for all goods, or even a single good, that was autonomous from the social and the sacred aspects of human life, did not emerge until the triumph of the modern state. Prior to centralization of power under the monarchies of Europe, most human life was relegated to the communal level and freedom was understood as comportment with one’s nature taking place under a number of overlapping authorities and obligaitions all hierarchically arranged. Call this conceptualization of political, social, and economic space “complex.” It was under these arrangements that the common good — a common telos — could be sought, one based on shared affections and a shared vision of the good under subsidiarity and solidarity. It was here — in civil society, in churches, in local control over social and economic relations — that freedom manifested. People were rooted in community and place, which is the natural expression of human life.

With the monarchies of Europe, centralization by law and by force was prosecuted by the mobilization of war, which culminated with the absolutism of the sovereign monarch. The “complex space” of community, common good, and freedom was gradually displaced by a “simple space” that leveled community and subjected it to the centralization of governmental authorities. Liberalism eventually displaced this arrangement; however, it not only retained the absolute power of the state, it simultaneously magnified and limited it. The limiting is familiar to you all: the creation of political rights guaranteed by law. These rights, however, followed the construal of the individual and the government as the political and legal agents of any real legitimacy. This move — the creation of individuals unencumbered by community, family, and the social sphere — who look to the state to guarantee their equality, much like Christians look to Christ as an intermediary (this modern social construction REALLY is a secularization and distortion of very Christian ideas), further entrenched the state. What we now call civil society is simply an intermediary between the individual and the state and has no autonomy or authority of its own. People are individuated and cast into the mass of society, alienated and powerless. Further, political life has gone from seeking the common good together to the mediation of self-interested individuals through the organ of political and economic institutions. Liberals–left or right–and socialists adhere to this vision. The former merely prefers that the mediation between individuals occurs through state-created markets, while the latter prefers state-managed bureaucracies. Carter is under the mistaken presumption that these things are opposed, but if they are, it is a dispute in the family. “Porcherism,” localism, communitarianism, decentralized socialism, agrarianism, Anarcho-Monarchism (David Bentley Hart’s felicitous moniker) or whatever you want to call it, is a vision of society in opposition to the absolutism of the state and individualism.

In fact, both of these visions of socialism and modern capitalism, twinned as they from the same branch, are great evils. They assume a public-private division that denies the lordship and authority of Christ in political and social space, effectively separating grace and nature, the natural and supernatural, into totally different realms; they deny human nature by the marginalization of community and family;and they destroy any possibility of seeking the common good and instead treat society as an aggregation of naturally opposed and self-interested individuals, with avarice now the greatest of social virtues rather than charity. The anthropology of monadic individualism is anything but Christian, which approaches every aspect of human life in relational and communitarian terms. And with this basis, modern democratic capitalism and socialism has its own telos, liturgies, and sacred objects. For the truly self-autonomous individual who finds freedom in libertine choice rather than in Christ, the purchasing of commodities takes on a sacred mystique. To tame this individual, the state has its own anti-Eucharist in the institution of torture and other forms of coercion, which are essentially forms of intimidatory power that reinforce the legitimacy of the state, as William Cavanaugh, a prominent political theologian, has argued.

Mr. Carter would do well to read not only the likes of William Cavanaugh and Alasdair MacIntyre, but those who publish regularly in First Things who depart from the “theocon” consensus. David Bentley Hart has written about the “Optics of the Market” in one of his books, has repeatedly proclaimed his suspicion to both socialism and modern capitalism, and, as noted, adheres to what he playfully calls “Anarcho-Monarchism.” Likewise, Peter Leithart writes about the market and the state in the same manner, even going so far as to call such heresies on his blog.

2012-01-08T09:48:00.001-08:00

An open preserve today?

Tea at Trianon: More Photos from the New Flick

2012-01-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

Tea at Trianon: More Photos from the New Flick

Related:
Les Adieux à la reine - Chantal Thomas
LES ADIEUX A LA REINE (FAREWELL MY QUEEN) to open Berlin Film Festival
LES ADIEUX A LA REINE - Interview de l'équipe du film
Les Adieux à la Reine – oh goody, another travesty!

If I could have come back earlier, I would have.

2012-01-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

Then I would have had more time to clean.

Pete Takeshi was in the area briefly for a test on Thursday. I met with him for dinner over at The Counter at Santana Row. Afterwards we chatted for a bit more at Peet's. He seems to be the content married man; is he still in the honeymoon period?

LJY is in town this weekend and I picked her up at SJC today. I think I might have seen a teacher in the arrivals area as well, Ms. AW. It has been good talking to LJY -- the company has lifted my spirits a bit. Dinner was at Jade Cathay in SJ, and we went to see Young Adult at Bluelight. Charlize Theron was definitely a hot mess. Was the link between her self-destructive behavior and her choies and desires sufficiently evident?

Rod Dreher refers to a discussion of the movie by John Presnall and Peter Lawler, and the implications of the story for the romantic view of small towns. I don't think the movie intends to criticize small town life -- that's just Mavis' rationalization hamster being fed by her wannabe groupie, Matt's sister.

I posted the following comment:
Lawler and Presnall are misunderstanding the story. Mavis does not return to her hometown in order to find a solution to her happiness in living there, she goes back in order to try to get her old boyfriend back, because she believes that the life he now has with his wife should have been hers, and she tries to coax him to return to Minneapolis with her. The movie is a look at female narcissism and how she is unable to find happiness because of her own disordered desires.

Is this the best the Pomocons can do?

I should watch Blue Valentine as well.

2012-01-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

Heinberg, Kunstler, Foss, Orlov & Chomsky on A Public Affair

Alison Krauss: Tavis Smiley interview

2012-01-06T23:48:00.000-08:00

Bluegrass music superstar Alison Krauss

Watch Bluegrass music superstar Alison Krauss on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Bluegrass Today

Archbishop Dolan to become a cardinal

2012-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

His blog. Today clip.

Inevitable, perhaps, but galling, nonetheless. How can I judge when I do not know the burden of being an archbishop in the American Church? It could be that difficult to restore liturgical sanity and promote the reform of parish life. But I think he is a sincere believer in many of the core beliefs of egalitarianism and liberalism in his "public policy advocacy."

The Archdruid Report: Waiting for the Great Pumpkin

2012-01-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

The Archdruid Report: Waiting for the Great Pumpkin: With the coming of the new year, predictions of what’s in store during the next twelve months are showing up here and there in the peak oil ...

Happy New Year!

2012-01-05T10:10:00.001-08:00

Back in the "real world" -- California. A friend is in town and I'll be seeing him this evening, and another friend will be staying here for the weekend. Lots to do, but I have a lot to write about my trip to AZ, as well. Not sure if I will have the time...

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

Slim Dusty - A Pub With No Beer

Sunny Sweeney - One More Christmas Beer

More Alasdair Fraser

2011-12-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

In April, at Freight and Salvage - the 26th and 27th: San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers w/ Alasdair Fraiser
26th Annual Spring Concert

2011-12-29T02:44:00.001-08:00

Going to Arizona for a few days; I'll be back next week. Have a Happy New Year!

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: The Fresh Air Interview

2011-12-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

NPR (mp3)

2011-12-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

Going to miss Vienna Tang tomorrow at Freight and Salvage; apparently she grow up locally. She will also be performing there on Friday.

A-hem.

The Archdruid Report: Hope in a Cold Season

2011-12-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

The Archdruid Report: Hope in a Cold Season: Last week’s post on the empty promise of December 21, 2012 and other apocalyptic fantasies fielded me a fair number of denunciations. That ...

2011-12-28T01:40:00.000-08:00

I didn't know there was a Downton Abbey Christmas Special; I read this article: Downton 'is far too clean': Real servants were a grubby lot, says historian who brands hit show 'infuriating to watch'.

Related:
For 'Downton' Fans, A New Season And A New Book

2011-12-27T22:48:00.000-08:00

Mark Richardson talks about the ordo caritatis and opposes it to the ideal of benevolence proclaimed by liberalism. I didn't know the old CE had a discussion of the ordo caritatis. Which theologians does it rely upon in its implicit claim of a conensus?

Jeffrey Tucker, In Defense of Bourgeois Civilization

2011-12-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

Crisis
I'm a bit surprised that John Zmirak praises this article, but maybe I shouldn't be.

Advances in technology that give comfort and improve health are welcome, but what is the cost? And what problems do the solutions solved that could have been solved by other means? Is the increase in lifespan due more to improved sanitation and other preventative measures, rather than the discovery of cures? Would sanitation have been a problem if we had lived according to better-conceived, sustainable patterns? Is "civilization" forced to find solutions to problems that it causes in order to maintain itself? It would seem so, but why should that deserve to be called "civilization," rather than a way of life that is more rational and restrained? So, I find his two charts very misleading. The second chart, about the increase in population - Mr. Tucker fails to consider the role cheap energy plays in all of this, as well as colonialism and imperialism and the union between "capitalism" and a strong central government, etc. etc.