The New Beginning: Stratford Caldecott

Those millions of Mexicans who could care less for the Catholic Church – and there are more than would likely admit it – might also have asked Ratzinger to comment on the slew of sex-abuse complaints made against members of the country’s clergy. In fact, the papal visit coincided with the launch of a book by a group of priests who in 1998 brought charges against Legion of Christ founder Marciel Maciel for having abused them when they were seminarians. “La voluntad de no saber” (“The Will not to Know”) includes powerful evidence that the Vatican knew of the notorious Maciel’s altar-ego – drug addict, paedophile – decades before it acted. Maciel was “disciplined” by Joseph Ratzinger in 2005 and died three years later.

Not all of Mexico’s clergymen are pederast, pro-militarization fanatics, however. Since the earliest days of the Spanish conquest, the Mexican church has been littered with rightly-celebrated dissident voices; from Bartolome de Las Casas, who stood up for indigenous rights in the 16th century, to Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, a liberation theologian who risked his life by sympathizing with the Zapatista rebels in the 1990s.

Feminism:The Volokh Conspiracy: "Slut" and Postmodern Me

Jack Donovan’s The Way of Men by Jef Costello
Review at Amerika.

Diet and Health:
James Howard Kunstler, Matrix of Rackets

Is Your Baby a Good Baby? by Heather M. Carson (via Thinking Housewife) - see The Baby Book by Dr. Sears

The LLVLC Show (Episode 560): Dr. Peter Attia Has Declared ‘War On Insulin’ (mp3)

Chris Masterjohn, Good Fats, Bad Fats: Separating Fact from Fiction

MDA: Dear Mark: Food for Skiing, Menstrual Carb Cravings, a Stubborn Teen, and More

Exercise Your Eyes

Learning MovNat is Making Me a Better Strength Coach: Guest Post by Jeff Turner

History:
The Roman elite and the power of the past: continuity and change in Ostrogothic Italy

Hoard of Roman Coins Found in England

Men in Poufy Trousers

Military:
Special forces are special, not magical

Movies:
Politically incorrect film reviews – Coriolanus

TV:
'Mad Men' Creator On What's Next For Don Draper

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Items of Interest, 15 March 2012

John Michael Greer, America: Modes of Expansion
What would paleos make of his series on American culture and history?

Republicans Pushing Mandates on State Courts

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, The Myth of the Rational Market
BARBARA EHRENREICH, Rediscovering Poverty

The Rise of the Machines by Stratford Caldecott

PJB: Rush Limbaugh and the New Blacklist

The death of manners by Kristin Marino

The Higher Education Monopoly is Crumbling As We Speak by Kevin Carey

Does College Destroy Your Faith? By Zachary Gappa
Is the Chronicle of Higher Ed a dependable source? It is noted that RC institutions may have a detrimental impact on students, as was noted many years ago by Arbishop Fulton Sheen and repeated by many Catholics since then. But what of public and non-religious private schools? Are the culture and the environment of these schools toxic to someone who is a beginner and still trying to resist temptation?

Relocalization and Resiliency:
RALPH NADER, The Parasites of Big Finance

The U.S. does not need to be shackled by the global corporatists to what may happen in Greece or Spain or Portugal. We should be less dependent on financial economies abroad and more self-reliant and independent of the global economy’s dangerously contagious risks.

That is why the more community-based economic activity there is in our country – credit unions; renewable, efficient energy; community health clinics; community food markets, etc. – the more insulated we will be from global seismic ravages. Those same community economies would have helped shield the Greek people from the wily clutches of Goldman Sachs and other aggressive casino creditors.