朱咪咪 - 多多福
Hilarious. mom should hear this.
朱咪咪 - 南屏晚鐘
南屏晚鐘 徐小鳳
馮文樂+朱咪咪~~風的季節
風的季節@1982年新秀比賽 (Anita Mui)
朱咪咪/張偉文 - 戲鳳
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Just came back from dinner with the sisters @ Casa Vicky's. On the drive back the front passenger window broke. Bah. More repairs... cars are really a _____ nuisance.
(To be more accurate: whatever it is that raises and lowers the window and/or keeps the window in place so it can be raised and lowered is broken.)
(To be more accurate: whatever it is that raises and lowers the window and/or keeps the window in place so it can be raised and lowered is broken.)
Some Contra Dance videos
What is more important? The dancing? Or doing so with the appropriate attire as a sign of respect, both for others and for the traditions of a community? (Not necessarily Regency wear or formal wear, but not casual wear either... Festivity was not an excuse to be a slob, or dress like one.)
Brace yourselves:
Dancing among the stars - 1
Dancing among the stars - 2
Dancing among the stars - 3
Dancing among the stars - 4
Dancing among the stars - 5
Dancing among the stars - 6
Dancing among the stars - 7
Dancing among the stars - 8
Dancing among the stars - 9
Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance; Old-Time Music and Dance Weekend
Contra in Carrboro 8-8-08
St. Louis Youth Contra July 2008
July 2008 Flash Contra
Fiddle Tunes Contra Dance
Fiddle Tunes 08 - Participants Concert - Contra(1of2)
Fiddle Tunes 08 - Participants Concert - Contra(2of2)
Brace yourselves:
Dancing among the stars - 1
Dancing among the stars - 2
Dancing among the stars - 3
Dancing among the stars - 4
Dancing among the stars - 5
Dancing among the stars - 6
Dancing among the stars - 7
Dancing among the stars - 8
Dancing among the stars - 9
Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance; Old-Time Music and Dance Weekend
Contra in Carrboro 8-8-08
St. Louis Youth Contra July 2008
July 2008 Flash Contra
Fiddle Tunes Contra Dance
Fiddle Tunes 08 - Participants Concert - Contra(1of2)
Fiddle Tunes 08 - Participants Concert - Contra(2of2)
Discussion and comments @ Rorate Caeli about what Cardinal Kasper said regarding the founder of Taizé.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Cardinal Kasper answers the question: Was the Founder of Taizé Protestant, or Catholic?
Sure to elicit critical responses from traditionalists.
Sure to elicit critical responses from traditionalists.
Summer went by quickly--was at work for today. One of the teachers went on leave--I heard it was because of a relative, but there's more to it. She also injured her knee, and before that she went on stress leave b/c of the administration.
Public schools! They should be avoided.
Miss B. is no longer teaching at the school. Did she go back to her home state, or did she transfer to another school?
I saw a bunch of the 2nd and 3rd graders from last year today. That was nice.
30 minutes into the school day I was feeling rather bored. Some of it had to do with not having enough sleep. But part of it was just the activities and the number of the students. By the end of the day I was more energetic. But I don't think I could be a primary level teacher. I could handle homeschooling the kids--one is free to space their activities throughout the day, and do other tasks while they are engaged in something. It's another to have to devote one's attention for 8 hours to 20 students of varying abilities. Mass tutoring is not as intellectually engaging as experiencing the world with one's children. (Or even doing so mediately, through pictures or printed words.) At times it does feel more like management than teaching.
Edit: Mom describes niece #2 as ok--she didn't like having a full diaper so she ripped it off in frustration. Fortunately she didn't make a mess on the floor or anything like that when she did so. haha.
Public schools! They should be avoided.
Miss B. is no longer teaching at the school. Did she go back to her home state, or did she transfer to another school?
I saw a bunch of the 2nd and 3rd graders from last year today. That was nice.
30 minutes into the school day I was feeling rather bored. Some of it had to do with not having enough sleep. But part of it was just the activities and the number of the students. By the end of the day I was more energetic. But I don't think I could be a primary level teacher. I could handle homeschooling the kids--one is free to space their activities throughout the day, and do other tasks while they are engaged in something. It's another to have to devote one's attention for 8 hours to 20 students of varying abilities. Mass tutoring is not as intellectually engaging as experiencing the world with one's children. (Or even doing so mediately, through pictures or printed words.) At times it does feel more like management than teaching.
Edit: Mom describes niece #2 as ok--she didn't like having a full diaper so she ripped it off in frustration. Fortunately she didn't make a mess on the floor or anything like that when she did so. haha.
Search results...
for English Country Dance... some of the videos I found on the first page of the most recent additions:
Jane Austen Ball Alexandria VA
Tata young • She is A Superstar
An Inside Look at Ballet Shoes - Starring Emma Watson
Jane Austen Ball Alexandria VA
Tata young • She is A Superstar
An Inside Look at Ballet Shoes - Starring Emma Watson
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Regarding the "Laws" of Economics
Evidence of bad genealogy at work:
Those who adhere to Catholic Social Teaching, and the scholastic theologians who criticize "free-market capitalism" are probably not nominalists. They do not deny the existence of natures. This professor at a Catholic school continues:
Scholastics and distributists do not assert that there is no human nature, or that human nature is the same for all. What they would assert is that not all have the same desires, and our desires can be shaped by our choices and habits. While we are inclined by our nature to certain goods (God, living in society, procreation, and so on), our desires themselves may become disordered through bad choices, and as a result we become vicious. Our habits, whether good or bad, shape our practical reasoning. Because human beings differ in character, such laws cannot be universalized or absolutized. They remain generalizations resting on presuppositions about the character of the people involved.
On the question of law, as the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas should tell us, the meaning of law is first derived from what is most familiar to us -- human law. Human beings participate in the Eternal Law in a way that the rest of material creation cannot, because human beings have reason (and thus freedom). This participation in the Eternal Law is none other than Natural Law. Other creatures participate in the Eternal Law in so far as they are ruled and measured by it. It seems to me that the physical laws of the modern scientists can be harmonized with this understanding of law; creatures have natures and by these natures they are ordered to certain ends and act accordingly.
But it seems to me to be a mistake to take this notion of law, as it is applied to the rest of material creation, and then apply it back to human beings, when it is the other way around in the order of knowing and naming. To do so obliterates the distinction between human beings and other material creatures and creates confusion with respect to the word law.
Cost-benefit analysis is just an instantiation of practical reasoning. With the goods we desire in mind, we examine the means to achieving them and then decide which means to take. What sort of laws do we use though when deciding? We base our decisions in part on the precepts of Natural Law -- not solely on if-then reasoning. The precepts of Natural Law (including those which are known through human law) are first in "governing our decisions." If-then reasoning is dependent upon what we desire and is the prelude to our weighing the alternatives. But as I've said before, not only are the conclusions reached by the virtuous man and the vicious man different, but how they reason is different. What the virtuous man will consider in his if-then reasoning will not be the same as what is considered by a vicious man, as the goods they desire or the means deemed acceptable will not be the same.
This particular writer, and those trained in his school, which he denies is the German Historical School, but it is, operate from a nominalistic approach. Nominalism, a school of thought begun in the Middle Ages by the Franciscan, William of Ockham, denies that there is any human nature. Therefore, human beings have no necessary consistency in them. In ethics, each person makes up his own code, and the codes can be very much at odds. To a nominalist, everything is will alone, not reason. This is why the writer in question asserts that people are at the “mercy of markets.” To those who think like this, everything is power. Even in moral theology, the reason one obeys the Ten Commandments is that it’s God’s will only, and there is no connection with those commandments and the nature of things. God could have commanded ten other things we were to avoid, and we would be required to obey them, because they are His will, even if they were the opposite of those actually listed. (I am sure many people would not have any trouble with the commandments were that the case) Thus, to those who think in this manner, markets are power, and that’s why there are no laws of economics. That’s why corporations are evil; because money gives them power, which they use to take advantage of others.
Those who adhere to Catholic Social Teaching, and the scholastic theologians who criticize "free-market capitalism" are probably not nominalists. They do not deny the existence of natures. This professor at a Catholic school continues:
The truth of it is that human beings do participate in a common nature, created by God, and this common nature leads people to think and act alike generally speaking. The laws of economics come from this consistency of human nature.
Scholastics and distributists do not assert that there is no human nature, or that human nature is the same for all. What they would assert is that not all have the same desires, and our desires can be shaped by our choices and habits. While we are inclined by our nature to certain goods (God, living in society, procreation, and so on), our desires themselves may become disordered through bad choices, and as a result we become vicious. Our habits, whether good or bad, shape our practical reasoning. Because human beings differ in character, such laws cannot be universalized or absolutized. They remain generalizations resting on presuppositions about the character of the people involved.
On the question of law, as the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas should tell us, the meaning of law is first derived from what is most familiar to us -- human law. Human beings participate in the Eternal Law in a way that the rest of material creation cannot, because human beings have reason (and thus freedom). This participation in the Eternal Law is none other than Natural Law. Other creatures participate in the Eternal Law in so far as they are ruled and measured by it. It seems to me that the physical laws of the modern scientists can be harmonized with this understanding of law; creatures have natures and by these natures they are ordered to certain ends and act accordingly.
But it seems to me to be a mistake to take this notion of law, as it is applied to the rest of material creation, and then apply it back to human beings, when it is the other way around in the order of knowing and naming. To do so obliterates the distinction between human beings and other material creatures and creates confusion with respect to the word law.
Think about the decisions in your life, and see if there are no laws governing your decisions. If gasoline is $.10 per gallon cheaper in the next town, which is 45 minutes away, would you think it is worth it to drive there to get that particular gas, given not only the price but the time involved, and whether it is raining or snowing, and other things that you have to do? Well, you just did a cost-benefit analysis, which every sane human being does in their head many times a day whether they realize it or not. How can anyone say that there are no laws of economics.
Cost-benefit analysis is just an instantiation of practical reasoning. With the goods we desire in mind, we examine the means to achieving them and then decide which means to take. What sort of laws do we use though when deciding? We base our decisions in part on the precepts of Natural Law -- not solely on if-then reasoning. The precepts of Natural Law (including those which are known through human law) are first in "governing our decisions." If-then reasoning is dependent upon what we desire and is the prelude to our weighing the alternatives. But as I've said before, not only are the conclusions reached by the virtuous man and the vicious man different, but how they reason is different. What the virtuous man will consider in his if-then reasoning will not be the same as what is considered by a vicious man, as the goods they desire or the means deemed acceptable will not be the same.
Before I dropped Watcher off at the airport this morning, I took him to Holy Martyrs Korean Catholic Church, over in Sunnyvale. (He likes the convenience of BART, and says the subway in LA doesn't compare.) Everything was in Korean, so naturally I didn't understand the words, though I knew which parts of the Mass were which, and when certain prayers were being said, or the Words of Consecration.
(Still, in an age of print, I do not think it is too high of an ideal for the laity of the Roman rite to know the ordinary parts of the Mass in Latin. As I've said before, I can see why vernacular might be used in certain parts for the sake of the laity. I am puzzled why Fr. Taft thinks the use of hieratic or sacred language in the vernacular is not necessary--I would think that someone who has studied the Byzantine rite would have a different opinion. Fr. Bouyer and Fr. Schmemann, as far as I know, did not advocate the use of an ordinary vernacular in the liturgy. Are there some in the preconciliar liturgical movement who did?)
The priest was wearing a green chasuble that was made of gauze-like material--it reminded me of the outer (black) garment that Chinese officials would wear--that same sort of diaphanous material, whatever it was. Did the chasuble come from Korea, or did it originate here in the U.S.? The priest was wearing a cassock as well, though I am thinking this is just for the liturgy.
He was also hearing confessions before Mass! Wonderful!
The liturgical music was ok, better than what one might here in an English-speaking parish here in the diocese. The alleluia did sound a bit strange when they were rehearsing it before Mass--almost like that music you might here in a gothic horror movie. But it didn't sound the same when they were singing it during the liturgy. Did they switch? Or was I just imagining the difference?
There were maybe 4 or 5 women wearing chapel veils. The 10:30 Mass was another "dead-end," with lots of middle-aged people and greyheads, though Watcher commented, "They have daughters." Hah. Perhaps he would have more of an opportunity to meet young ladies at the 1:00 Mass. (There were a few young families at Mass, some of whom were in the 'cry room.')
What else? Of course, I didn't understand the homily since it was in Korean. The priest was talking about love (sarang), and he even asked the faithful to make a heart with their arms. Not sure if that was a pop culture reference or something else.
I wouldn't go back there without Watcher. I would feel just a bit out of place by myself. Haha.
No kneeling for the consecration. I believe they kneel in Korea. Not sure about LA. Is it because the church doesn't have kneelers? Or because they're following the instructions of the bishop?
I can see why the parish has produced vocations. (Unlike, say, the Chinese community.) I don't know which order the nuns are in, but there were 3 or 4 serving as (extraordinary) Eucharistic ministers, plus some men in cassocks and surplices. Perhaps the community could use a permanent deacon or two. The church itself looks like a converted commercial building, but there are probably those who could use their talents to improve the appearance of sacred space. I didn't see many signs of inculturation (besides the use of a gong at the consecration and the vernacular) -- no Korean sacred art, everything seemed rather Western.
Does the community stick around after Mass for coffee (or tea)? (We had to leave after Communion so Watcher could catch his plane.)
Apparently the construction on the departure side of terminal A at the SJ airport is done? When I drove my mom's acquaintance (the cv, consecrated virgin) to the airport a couple of weeks ago, it was closed off, and I had to drive up to the "international terminal" to drop her off.
Edit. Watcher says they have see-through chasubles down in LA as well. A Korean contribution to the vestment tradition? They might be suitable in hot climates. But I think some traditionalists would have a problem with the material not being fine enough.
(Still, in an age of print, I do not think it is too high of an ideal for the laity of the Roman rite to know the ordinary parts of the Mass in Latin. As I've said before, I can see why vernacular might be used in certain parts for the sake of the laity. I am puzzled why Fr. Taft thinks the use of hieratic or sacred language in the vernacular is not necessary--I would think that someone who has studied the Byzantine rite would have a different opinion. Fr. Bouyer and Fr. Schmemann, as far as I know, did not advocate the use of an ordinary vernacular in the liturgy. Are there some in the preconciliar liturgical movement who did?)
The priest was wearing a green chasuble that was made of gauze-like material--it reminded me of the outer (black) garment that Chinese officials would wear--that same sort of diaphanous material, whatever it was. Did the chasuble come from Korea, or did it originate here in the U.S.? The priest was wearing a cassock as well, though I am thinking this is just for the liturgy.
He was also hearing confessions before Mass! Wonderful!
The liturgical music was ok, better than what one might here in an English-speaking parish here in the diocese. The alleluia did sound a bit strange when they were rehearsing it before Mass--almost like that music you might here in a gothic horror movie. But it didn't sound the same when they were singing it during the liturgy. Did they switch? Or was I just imagining the difference?
There were maybe 4 or 5 women wearing chapel veils. The 10:30 Mass was another "dead-end," with lots of middle-aged people and greyheads, though Watcher commented, "They have daughters." Hah. Perhaps he would have more of an opportunity to meet young ladies at the 1:00 Mass. (There were a few young families at Mass, some of whom were in the 'cry room.')
What else? Of course, I didn't understand the homily since it was in Korean. The priest was talking about love (sarang), and he even asked the faithful to make a heart with their arms. Not sure if that was a pop culture reference or something else.
I wouldn't go back there without Watcher. I would feel just a bit out of place by myself. Haha.
No kneeling for the consecration. I believe they kneel in Korea. Not sure about LA. Is it because the church doesn't have kneelers? Or because they're following the instructions of the bishop?
I can see why the parish has produced vocations. (Unlike, say, the Chinese community.) I don't know which order the nuns are in, but there were 3 or 4 serving as (extraordinary) Eucharistic ministers, plus some men in cassocks and surplices. Perhaps the community could use a permanent deacon or two. The church itself looks like a converted commercial building, but there are probably those who could use their talents to improve the appearance of sacred space. I didn't see many signs of inculturation (besides the use of a gong at the consecration and the vernacular) -- no Korean sacred art, everything seemed rather Western.
Does the community stick around after Mass for coffee (or tea)? (We had to leave after Communion so Watcher could catch his plane.)
Apparently the construction on the departure side of terminal A at the SJ airport is done? When I drove my mom's acquaintance (the cv, consecrated virgin) to the airport a couple of weeks ago, it was closed off, and I had to drive up to the "international terminal" to drop her off.
Edit. Watcher says they have see-through chasubles down in LA as well. A Korean contribution to the vestment tradition? They might be suitable in hot climates. But I think some traditionalists would have a problem with the material not being fine enough.
A surprising recommendation from Alexander Cockburn?
From "Change," "Hope" ... Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!:
Edit: Reaction from Dylan Hales.
Face it, if you want to stay true to reason and conscience, the man to vote for is Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate.
Edit: Reaction from Dylan Hales.
Hey Sarge, check out this article from Time: Cocaine Capital (Mexico's Cocaine Capital)
Culiacán - Wikipedia
Bloody Culiacan | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
Culiacán - Wikipedia
Bloody Culiacan | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
Dixie Chicks - Travelin' Soldier
For Sarge.
Toby Keith - A Little Too Late
Heard this the first time today. Not bad for a Toby Keith song. The MV, on the other hand, is a bit psychotic. (Even if it is funny at the end. Is it another example of the negative portrayal of men as bumbling fools, which one sees in contemporary sitcoms? Or is it just self-deprecating fun?)
Toby Keith - Beer For My Horses
For Sarge.
Toby Keith - A Little Too Late
Heard this the first time today. Not bad for a Toby Keith song. The MV, on the other hand, is a bit psychotic. (Even if it is funny at the end. Is it another example of the negative portrayal of men as bumbling fools, which one sees in contemporary sitcoms? Or is it just self-deprecating fun?)
Toby Keith - Beer For My Horses
Mission San Jose
I was thinking of dropping by this morning with Watcher, but it doesn't open until 10, so I don't think we'll be doing that. But it's relatively close by, so one of these days I will have to go visit...
does it have a giftshop that sells the cds?
Mission website; California Missions page; Athanasius Schaefer's page.
Is Mission Alehouse worth a visit?
I suppose if I ever visit San Antonio, I'll have to visit Mission San Jose there too.
does it have a giftshop that sells the cds?
Mission website; California Missions page; Athanasius Schaefer's page.
Is Mission Alehouse worth a visit?
I suppose if I ever visit San Antonio, I'll have to visit Mission San Jose there too.
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