"They're not really Christians."

As many American Protestants think...

AmCon: The Most Invisible Christians in Washington by Kelley Vlahos
Even as Middle Eastern churches face extinction, their lobby struggles to be heard.

Related:
The Optimism of the Cross in the Face of Genocide by Jonathan Coppage

Lt. Col. Daniel “Danny” Davis Vindicated?

AmCon: Lessons from a Surge Skeptic By KELLEY VLAHOS
Lt. Col. Daniel Davis reflects on the state of the Army as Afghanistan winds down.

Related: US Army Considers 3 COAs for Camo Replacement

AntiWar: A Book the Military Won’t Want You To Read by Kelley B. Vlahos
Ann Jones on They Were Soldiers

Save the A-10

Chuck Spinney, Should the Air Force Retire the A-10?
Kelley Vlahos, Why the Warthog Matters

Fred Reed on the Fighter Mafia

The Fighter Mafia
Of Oodle-oops and Error

See 40 Years of the ‘Fighter Mafia’ by Kelley Vlahos
An informal group begun by Col. John Boyd and mathematician Tom Christie calls for military reform—by doing more with less.

A Realistic Portrayal of Law Enforcement in the US?

‘COPS’ at 25 by Kelley Vlahos

Items of Interest, 9 March 2012

Russell Kirk in Time Magazine

Don’t Subsidize Sex — Or Anything Else by Daniel McCarthy

Kelley Vlahos, Tell the Truth Already (about Afghanistan)

Interview with Paul Gottfried (mp3)

Srdja Trifkovic, Putin's Victory

John Robb, You Don't Need a Cyber Attack to Take Down The North American Power Grid

Mona Charen, Gender Specific Writer (via VFR - see also A new leftist standard on speech is announced)

Fabius Maximus: The hidden dynamics of the 2012 campaign, and what it’s doing to America

After-birth abortion by Stratford Caldecott

Fighting for Women’s Freedom

Wes Jackson, Localism, and the Carbon-Based Community

Prophet and Loss
Environmentalist James Howard Kunstler has a new worry: "techno-narcissism"

Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report

Gardening Without a Garden

Counterpunch:
BRIAN CLOUGHLEY, Training the Afghan Army
KHADIJA SHARIFE, The Blood on Stratfor’s Hands


Peak Oil and Energy:
JOSEPH MANGANO AND JANETTE SHERMAN, The Dangerous Myths of Fukushima
Frontline: Japan's Nuclear Meltdown
No number crunching in Alan Kohler opinion piece on premature peak oil death by Matt Mushalik (EB)

Catholic:
NLM: Book Notice: The Voice of the Church at Prayer, Fr. Uwe Michael Lang
Zenit: Documents: Pius XII Favored a Jewish Homeland in Palestine
Foundation Continues to Unearth Testimony That Pius Was in No Way 'Hitler's Pope'

Sandro Magister, The America of Obama, or of Liberty Lost
Even in the homeland of law and democracy, freedom of conscience is in danger. This is the unprecedented accusation that the bishops are hurling against the president of the United States. Here is the confidential letter in which they explain why

Education:
Labor, Leisure, and Liberal Education by Mortimer Adler

History:
The Normans: Three Centuries of Achievement, AD 911-1204
Women's Rights in Early England
Holy Dover!: Castles, Crossbows and the Poor Man’s Trebuchet on the third fantastic episode of Battle Castle
A Social History of the Civil War

Courtship and Feminism:
Of sluts and sexual insecurity
CL: Not shaming sluts does not reduce the shame within sluts
Dalrock: Pathological denial and Treating her like a guy

SLPC is busy identifying bad websites for everyone's good. Dalrock: At least I’m banned in China. (IMF)

Men, Women, and Spatial Intelligence

Diet and Health:
The 3rd MovNat Principle: Universal
Ask the Low-Carb Experts: 9: ‘All Things Calories (Calories 101)’ | Mat Lalonde (mp3)
Saratoga High Toughens PE Program

Items of Interest, 13 December 2011

Peter Hitchens, David Cameron’s Phoney War, or A Curse in Disguise
Kelley Vlahos, Iraq: No Comfort in Being Right

Rod Dreher, Russell Kirk, stranger and prophet


FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Why the US & Israel May Agree to Bombing Iran

Fabius Maximus, Why Americans should love Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – we live there

Distributism:
Some recent posts about "Distributism"
Christopher Ferrera, In Defense of Distributism
Why Socialism and Distributism are Wholly Antithetical

Relocalization:
John Robb, Contagion: The communication of disease from one person to another by close contact.

Transition branching out? Land reform: losing and recovering the Commons
by Justin Kenrick (EB)

Economics:
Economics and the Pursuit of Happiness
Rod Dreher, More on the cult of Wall Street
The Journey Home-Wilhelm Röpke & the Humane Economy by Roger Scruton
Commentary: Oil, climate, agriculture and learning to love limits by Sharon Astyk (original)

OWS:
Kevin Carson, Revolution 2.0: Is Occupy Reaching a Takeoff Point?

Peak Oil:
Talkin’ peak oil blues: The new KunstlerCast book
Top 10 Peak Oil Books of 2011

Water:
As Global Population Grows, Water Matters More - interview

Wes Jackson:
Can We Restore the Prairie—And Still Support Ourselves?

The Atomic Bombings:
The Least Evil Option: A Defense of Harry Truman (via MoJ)

Diet and Health:
Karen De Coster, Austrian Economics Meets Primal Blueprint?

Feminism:
The reduction of masculinity
Decoding the Female Happiness Paradox

Catholic:
Msgr. Gherardini: Vatican II is not a super-dogma
The importance and the limits of the authentic Magisterium

Marshall McLuhan & Chesterton: New Touchstone

Items of Interest, 29 November 2011

Catholic:
Facts Prove the Existence of St. Nicholas of Myra

Rorate Caeli: Abp. Nichols praises "Civil partnerships" for "people of the same sex"

Humanum (via Beauty in Education)

NLM: Cardinal Burke's Thoughts on Mutual Enrichment

Rod Dreher, Gaudi, the Anti-Modern Modernist

Conservatism:
Jerry Salyer, With Friends Like These

Peter Hitchens, Why Do We Make Such a Fetish About Voting?

Kelley Vlahos, Don't be a Tool This Christmas

John Robb, HOW TO WIN ANY CONFLICT

Economics:
Rod Dreher, Our resilient, ‘small is better’ future

He links to a column by Bill McKibben.

Club Orlov: A Million Gardens

The Death of the Fringe Suburb

The National Defense Authorization Act:
Rod Dreher, America is a Battlefield, Oh Boy
John Robb, The U.S. is Hollowing Out Quickly




Education:
MoJ: The New York Times on the Nature of Legal Education (the op-ed piece)

Feminism:
The Prehistoric Working Woman

Music:


St. Tikhon's Mission Choir Sings with "Byzantine Brilliance"

History:
Why Men Fought in the 100 Years War


Special Forces:
"Horse Soldier" statue stands proud near Ground Zero

Items of Interest, 9 November 2011

The Big Ideas podcast: EF Schumacher's 'small is beautiful'
"Economist Andrew Simms and Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting are among those joining Benjamen Walker to discuss the legacy of Schumacher's 'Buddhist economics'"
mp3)

Book Review: Radical Gardening: Politics, idealism and rebellion in the garden
by Chuck Morse (EB)

BALLE: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.

"This fun animation provides a vision of what a post-consumer society could look like, with people working fewer hours and pursuing re-skilling, homesteading, and small-scale enterprises that can help reduce the overall size and impact of the consumer economy. Narrated by economist and best-selling author Juliet Schor (julietschor.org)."

Italy's co-ops form a different sort of economy (archive)

Slow Food USA: Have a Slow Food Thanksgiving

Kelley Vlahos, The Ministry of Truth: Justices Invoke 1984

OWS:
Tomgram: Frances Fox Piven, The War on the Home Front
Talking with Matt Taibi
End Bonuses for Bankers

Richard Heinberg, MEMO TO THE #OCCUPY MOVEMENT (A Post Growth Economy)


The Roots of the Protest by George Leef
Occupy Wall Street might never have started If politicians hadn’t oversold higher education.



Guerilla Gardening at Occupy Wall Street

Peak Oil:
Eric Curren, Who Will Sound the Peak Oil Alarm
The biofuel grind by Tom Murphy (EB)

Collapse:
Three paths to near-term human extinction

Catholic:
College of St. Mary Magdalen: New England College Celebrates EF and OF, Ad Orientem

Catholic Life After the Ivy League: The Church of Our Saviour, NYC
(One of my favorite spots in New York. I still haven't been to St. Vincent Ferrer. Next time I'm in the city, perhaps.)

Word on Fire: Spirituality: The Monks of New Melleray
New Melleray Abbey

Music:
Four the Record: Miranda Lambert Comes to Terms with Herself

Items of Interest, 4 November 2011

Clyde Wilson, A Little Rebellion

Patrick Buchanan, Arrivederci, Roma

Elinor Ostrom Outlines Best Strategies for Managing the Commons by Jay Walljasper (EB)

Helena Norberg-Hodge: The Economics of Happiness

As she analyzed the problem further, Norberg-Hodge realized that the basic problem was rooted in the fundamentals of Western economics. “What economics has become as a discipline is a really disgraceful set of myths that were essentially formulated at the time of slavery and colonialism,” she said. “One of the fundamentals that was set in stone was that it’s in everybody’s interests to specialize for export, instead of providing a range of things for their own region or their own people. These theories were put in place at the same time that very wealthy merchants and emerging industrialists were benefiting from turning entire diversified economies into monocultures that produced just cotton, gold or copper, as the whole world was sort of coming under this one umbrella from Europe.

The bolded part makes for a good sound bite, but is it a good history of the discipline? Or bad genealogy?

WWWTW:
Jeff Culbreath, The Social Credit Movement
Paul J. Cella, Monetarism has a conservative pedigree

Counterpunch:
Paul Craig Roberts, On Western Democracy
Andrew Cockburn, Assassination Blowback
Franklin Lamb, Libya’s Liberation Front Organizing in the Sahel
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, Keynesian Myths and Illusions

The Grand Oligarchy Party:
Kelley Vlahos, No Party for Smart Men

Thomas Fleming, High-Tech Lynchings

OWS:
Occupy Wall Street: An Addendum

Rod Dreher, OWS: The liturgy of Moralistic Therapeutic Progressivism

Local Banking for Global Change
Move Your Money Project

David Walker, Solving the Nation's Deficit

Peak Oil:
New Dept. of Energy Priority-Setting Analysis Seriously Flawed

CNA military advisory board: cut US oil use 30% to reduce "grave national security risks"
Release, CNA (EB)

Transition Voice: Live blogging from ASPO-USA Conference

Dmitry Orlov on Fast Collapse & Alex Goldmark on Crowdfunding (EB) (mp3)

Virtus:
Jack Donovan, Is Masculinity a Matter of Money?

3GW:
Fabius Maximus, Attritionist Letter #10 – Commanders today are too busy to develop subordinates!

Catholic:
Insight Scoop: "It’s not often that a historical novel comes along that is ...

Researcher thinks Pius XII went undercover to save Jews by David Kerr

MoJ: Coptic Christian student beaten to death, by teacher and classmates, in school

Diet and Health:
Does High Circulating Insulin Drive Body Fat Accumulation? Answers from Genetically Modified Mice


Music:
Two from Stift Heiligenkreuz, the second a commercial for their new CD:



(Spem in Alium Productions)

David Ianni

I don't understand why they thought the piano accompaniment was necessary. Trying to be different?

Items of Interest, 18 October 2011

'Catholicism' Series Comes to PBS
Chicago priest Father Robert Barron takes viewers on a catholic, and Catholic, journey
by Steven D. Greydanus

Local TV listings.

Age-Old Distributism Gains New Traction

The breakdown the populace of the United States into factions that transcend state borders, or the failure of the National Government to unify disparate elements? With the loss of a proper scale to the political community there is a loss of identity and solidarity. The criticism of those participating in OSW and such as whiners and slackers and spoiled has not been little. The latest example is the counter-protest mounted on twitter: "We are the 53%": Hardship over Societal Well-being



Going back to diversity? by Catrina Pickering

Why You Should Care About Food Policy With Judith McGeary

If You Eat, You Better Occupy Wall Street

John Robb, Why the US Middle ClASS IS Broken

It's Time to Break the Power of the Political Parties

Patrick Cockburn, How Greeks Were Driven Back to the Land

Kelley Vlahos profiles Winslow Wheeler

Julius Evola, American "Civilization"
A Contemporary Evaluation of Francis Parker Yockey, Part 2

Stephen Pinker on Violence:
Delusions of peace by John Gray
Stephen Pinker argues that we are becoming less violent. Nonsense, says John Gray
The Better Angels of Our Nature: the Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes
WSJ
Guardian review
Big Think
A History of Violence

Thomas Fleming:
Barry of a Thousand Days and Republican Cain might be keen, but is he able?

Rod Dreher:
What I Wish Every Bishop Would Get
Nihilism, Emotivism, and Our Millenial Future

Overpopulation:
The secular humanists are raising the alarm again...
Feeding 9 Billion by 2050
Seminar Series: "Is the planet full?"

Population 7 Billion: It’s Time to Talk - WEBCHAT

I used to be a big fan of the Population Research Institute, and they are right to uphold natural law and the Church's teaching on contraception and abortion, but it seems to be rather naive about limits and the dependence of the global food system on cheap energy. The Green Revolution in agriculture which enabled industrial agriculture to support so many people was only possible because of oil. It would be right for PRI to recognize this, and push for local solutions and sustainable development.

Diet and Health:
Mark Sisson introduces his new book.

Bear Grylls

Music:
Enya My My! Times Flies!


Ensemble Caprice: La Follia and the Gypsies, San Francisco Early Music Society

Items of Interest, 20 September 2011

Andrew Kern, The Place of Logic and the Place of Philosophy

Holy Resurrection Monastery: Latest on the Movie

NPR: In The Obama White House, A Crisis Of 'Confidence'

Community Policing, Afghan-Style by by Kelley B. Vlahos

A documentary in the works: Farmlandia

Thoughts on a Sustainable Human Ecosystem

Slow is the New Black: Why Slow Money is the Next Best Thing IMHO

Karen De Coster reviews Paleo Comfort Food

TV:
The two strongest competitors on the most recent episode of Hell's Kitchen made it to the finals. Good!

Music:
Chant Cafe: ATHLETA PATRIAE A Tribute to Professor László Dobszay (1935-2011)
Handel and Hayden Society adds four years contract with Harry Christophers
Music for Henry V the House of Lancaster
Alamire: Sample John Taverner: Imperatrix inferni

Items of Interest, 31 August 2011

Joel Salatin: How to Prepare for A Future Increasingly Defined By Localized Food & Energy (mp3)

City Forest Farming
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer, Mulligan Books

Monsanto’s cotton strategy wears thin (EB)
April Davila, Our World 2.0

Facing the new reality (EB)
Various contributors including Sharon Astyk, Nate Hagens, Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov..., Community Action Partnership
The full report (pdf).

Review: Life Without Oil by Steve Hallett With John Wright (EB)
Frank Kaminski, Mud City Press

Carson Rejoinder to Gregory

Lloyd Kramer: Why the History of Nationalism Matters in a Global Age, Part 1
Lloyd Kramer: Why the History of Nationalism Matters in a Global Age, Part 2

What about the problem of scale in relation to identity-formation? He does not seem to address this. (A proper scale enables one to make judgments about how much consolidation is necessary.)

Kelley B. Vlahos, Who Says Obama’s Bad for Business?

Lew Rockwell interviews Donald W. Miller, Jr. MD: Government Is Sending Us to Early Graves

The Paleo Solution – Episode 95 (mp3) - (an interview with William Davis MD, author of Wheat Belly)

The LLVLC Show (Episode 492): Dr. Ernest Curtis Exposes The ‘Cholesterol Delusion’ And Low-Carb Physician Dr. Steven Horvitz (mp3)

Counterpunch:
MAXIMILIAN C. FORTE, The Top Ten Myths in the War Against Libya
DIANA JOHNSTONE, Gaddafi’s Libya as Demon
PATRICK COCKBURN, Islamists at the Heart of the Libyan Rebellion

Items of Interest, 10 May 2011

Coutnerpunch: Army Interrogators on Torture
By STEPHEN SOLDZ

America the Immature and Superficial
by Kelley B. Vlahos

A call for front yard gardeners
Christine Patton, Peak Oil Hausfrau

If you don’t like your story, can you create a new one?
Dave Pollard, how to save the world

Max Keiser interviews Kurt Cobb Video
by On the Edge with Max Keiser

Items of Interest, 15 March 2011

An Afghan War ‘Turning Point’ Revue by Kelley Vlahos

The Flipside of Feminism: Relief for the Discombobulated Woman

More on Nuclear Energy:
Safety of nuclear power and death of the nuclear renaissance by Euan Mearns
Ten reasons why new nuclear was a mistake – even before Fukushima: a guest post from Alexis Rowell
ClubOrlov: Earth Shakes, Sea Surges, Nukes Blow
Fabius Maximus: About the atomic crisis in Japan – background information and reliable news sources
Mish: Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise; "Way Past Three Mile Island"; Major World Indices an Ocean of Red;Nikkei -12.5%,US Futures -2.5%

Some "conservatives," including Chuck DeVore, have reacted against those proclaiming the dangers of nuclear power and asking that we rethink our energy strateagy. Apparently Mr. DeVore thinks that we should be focused on the human tragedy in Japan, rather than using it to make a political point or focusing on the environmental implications of the disaster. I must disagree with him. I think it is appropriate to talk about whether expanding the use of nuclear power here in the US is appropriate, in light of the disaster. (Especially since Obama is all too keen on nuclear energy.)

Whether you look at the $ or the energy consumption, it is clear we are "living beyond our means."

Mr. DeVore is right about many things, but if he believes nuclear energy is a solution, he is wrong.

DeVore’s Silence on Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Surprises

Kelley Vlahos, How’s that population-centric COIN going?

AmCon

Kelley Vlahos Gives an Assessment of Jim Webb's Tenure in the Senate

Sen. Jim Webb Loses Steam by Kelley B. Vlahos

Kelley Vlahos on the Failure to Renew the Patriot Act

Kelley Vlahos, Wow … Just Wow

From this comment, I learn that Senator Jim Webb will not seek re-election.

Kelley Vlahos interviews Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Kelley B. Vlahos, Lt. Col Shaffer vs. the Pentagon
An interview with the embattled author of Operation Dark Heart