Photos: Benedict XVI, Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul

Pope Benedict XVI prays with Eminence Gennadios Limouris Metropolitan of Sassima of the Orthodox Church, (L) in front of the tomb of Saint Peter and Paul, after the celebration of the feast for the apostles Peter and Paul, patrons of the church, prior to giving the pallium to 38 cardinals, bishops and archbishops from around the world in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on, on June 26, 2010. (Getty/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI leads a mass at St Peter's Basilica to celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29, 2010 at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI placed palliums around the necks of 38 new archishops, a symbol of their authority and responsability. (Getty/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI gives Pallium to Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Belgium during a solemn mass to celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican June 29, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)

Archibishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Belgium walks in front of Pope Benedict XVI after getting the Pallium during a solemn mass to celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican June 29, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)


André-Mutien Leonard Archbishop of Mechelen, Bruxelles (L) receives the Pallium from Pope Benedict XVI during the solemn mass at St Peter's basilica to celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29, 2010 at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI placed palliums around the necks of 38 new archishops, symbol of their authority and responsability. (Getty/Daylife)


André-Mutien Leonard Archbishop of Mechelen, Bruxelles receives the Pallium from Pope Benedict XVI (unseen) during the solemn mass at St Peter's basilica to celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29, 2010 at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI placed palliums around the necks of 38 new archishops, symbol of their authority and responsability. (Getty/Daylife)

Andre-Mutien Leonard (3L) Archbishop of Mechelen from Brussels prays after receiving the Pallum from Pope Benedict XVI (unseen) during the solemn mass at St Peter's basilica during celebrations of the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29, 2010 at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI placed palliums around the necks of 38 new archishops, a symbol of their authority and responsability. (Getty/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful as he leaves at the end of solemn mass at St Peter's basilica to celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29, 2010 at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI placed palliums around the necks of 38 new archishops, symbol of their authority and responsability. (Getty/Daylife)


From First Vespers:


Pope Benedict XVI walks in procession as he arrives to lead the Vespers mass to celebrate the feast of Saint Peters and Paul in the Saint Paul Outside the Walls basilica in Rome June 28, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI arrives to celebrate the first Vesper at Rome's St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica on June 28, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI announced that the Vatican will create a new Church ministry aimed at reviving the Christian faith in Catholic countries where it has been eroded by securalisation. (Getty/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI prays during the first Vesper at Rome's St. Paul outside the Walls Basilica on June 28, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI announced that the Vatican will create a new Church ministry aimed at reviving the Christian faith in Catholic countries where it has been eroded by securalisation. (Getty/Daylife)


Pope Benedict XVI leads the Vespers mass to celebrate the feast of Saint Peters and Paul in the Saint Paul Outside the Walls basilica in Rome June 28, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI prays as he leads the Vespers mass to celebrate the feast of Saint Peters and Paul in the Saint Paul Outside the Walls basilica in Rome June 28, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)

Pope Benedict XVI leaves St. Paul's Outside the Walls Basilica at the end of a Vespers Mass, in Rome, Monday, June 28, 2010. (AP/Daylife)

Items of Interest, 29 June 2010

Laura Wood, Twilight: Emotional Porn for Women
Wlmer, Women Leaving their Husbands for Vampires

Asia Times:
Petraeus circles two camps
With General Stanley McChrystal out of the picture in Afghanistan, pressure is growing on US President Barack Obama to move up his July 2011 troop withdrawal timetable and get behind a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. Voices calling for an open-ended military commitment are equally strident. Incoming General David Petraeus is soon to reveal how he will weave his way between the two camps. - Jim Lobe

Obama risks all on flip of a COIN
General David Petraeus, US President Barack Obama's new commander in Afghanistan, is the "guru" of the counter-insurgency (COIN) cult. Petraeus' policy demands a decade-long war, involving nation-building, waged village by village, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and countless casualties. That simply doesn't square with troops supposedly due to start leaving Afghanistan next summer. - Robert Dreyfuss

Energy Bulletin:
Live dangerously: 10 easy steps (original)

Shannon Hayes, Yes! Magazine

When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.

Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia

Watch high-res video.

Dr. Fleming on natural law and McDonald v. Chicago

He responds to a comment left on his latest abortion post. First, natural law:

Before thinking about a political tactic, one has to frame an overall strategy, and before framing a strategy, one has to settle on the objective(s). So it hardly makes a difference what the accidental effects of Roe v. Wade are. If the objective is, regardless of any other principle or law or constitutional principle, to eliminate abortion, then returning the decision to the states might seem like a bad idea. However, eliminating abortion is an absolute impossibility, so in the name of an impossible objective we are scarcely justified in overturning an otherwise sound constitutional system that left homicide law up to the states.

Then there are questions of fact, having to do with diversity of abortion law. In the first place, it is not at all clear that all pregnant women would have the resources or the inclination to leave the state for an abortion. There is no useful parallel with fugitive slaves for several reasons: 1) slavery is a normal human institution and it is morally wrong to set up any equation of slavery=homicide, 2) slaves were property and it seems not unjust and not unconstitutional to insist upon the return of property from one state to another, 3) so what if there were a problem? Would that be worse than the current situation that permits a group of anti-constitutional jackasses on the court to dictate laws to states in which a majority oppose abortion? In fact, the price of our own liberties is to permit the wicked to lead their lives the way they wish to in their own communities.

Now, the question of higher law. The early Greeks did not have a concept of a universal moral law that could be rationally understood. I do agree with those scholars who have argued that Greek religion–especially the ideas that crystallized around the figure of Zeus–has an ethical component. The gods forbid certain activities, like mistreating a guest or seducing a man’s wife or stealing his property, but since these prohibitions are enacted into specific legal codes and traditions, there is no need to appeal to them. In general, it is not up to a judge or councillor to have ideas of his own or to appeal to an authority beyond the traditions that have given him his office.

Now, suppose there is a conflict between what everyone knows to be a divinely commanded rule and the decisions of a legal government? That is the situation in Sophocles’ Antigone, but, let us remember, that Creon has on his own account, thus acting as a tyrant, invented a new rule: the bodies of traitors are not to be buried. Antigone is acting not simply out of love for her brother–though that is her first motive–or even love plus respect for the gods–though she invokes that principle as well. but she is also doing what everyone in the community thinks his right. She does appeal to the higher law embedded in her people’s traditions, while Creon appeals to the higher law of all tyrants, raison d’etat.

Philosophers–Aristotle followed by the Stoics–did establish the principle of natural law, which Cicero introduced into Roman political and legal thought. But one cannot ordinarily appeal from Roman law to the natural law. It is by observing the laws of the Romans, the Greeks, and other peoples that one can sketch out a ius gentium, a general law adhered to by all decent nations, e.g. prohibitions on theft, murder, adultery, and by applying philosophical reasoning to the ius gentium, one may develop an understanding of a natural law that can be invoked when one is considering the rightness or wrongness of a tradition or a legal innovation, but no mere judge or even praetor may from his own mind use an abstract principle to overturn a longstanding tradition.

Our problem in understanding this lies, I think, in our habit of viewing the state as an institution of entrenched power controlled by leaders who are separate from the people. In the ancient world, such a perspective applied to tyrannies and not to legitimate governments

Then, yesterday's SCOTUS decision:

Here is a dilemma somewhat parallel to the question you raise. Suppose you are a Supreme Court justice who actually understands the Constitution–not a claim I would make for even the best of them, by the way. How do you vote on Chicago’s handgun ban? Obviously, the 2nd Amendment was not intended to apply to the states or municipalities in any way, but now that by the miracle of incorporation, the Bill of Rights means the opposite of what it actually says, do you uphold the ancient position and allow the Chicago crooks to deprive citizens of their guns or do you bow to necessity? My own view is that such a justice should take the opportunity to restate the original intent of the Bill of Rights then, bound by stare decisis, declare–as they did–that whatever is sauce for the First Amendment is sauce for the Second.

Peter Hitchens continues his response to "Stan" and others

Peter Hitchens, The History Boys

I think Patrick Buchanan's 'Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War' (which I suspect 'Stan' has not read, and urge him to obtain) shows beyond doubt that the conventional narrative of World War Two is simply unsustainable in the light of modern knowledge. Its poor reception arose partly out of the fact that, like all courageous history, it upset so many academic and political vested interests.

One of this book's most profound effects on me had nothing to do with the Polish guarantee. It was the realisation that my long-held view - that Britain and France should have acted against Hitler when he reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 - was hopelessly unrealistic. I notice some other readers till cling to this idea. I warn them against this. Alas, it is a rotten branch, and will snap beneath their weight.

Ivan Illich on the Right to Health Care

BRAVE NEW BIOCRACY: HEALTH CARE FROM WOMB TO TOMB:

LIFE AS PROPERTY | The ideology of possessive individualism progressively affected the way life could be talked about as a property. Since the 19th century, the legal construction of society increasingly reflects a new philosophical radicalism in the perception of the self. The result is a break with the ethics which had informed western history since Greek antiquity, clearly expressed by the shift of concern from the good to values. Society is now organized on the utilitarian assumption that man is born needy, and needed values are by definition scarce. It becomes axiomatic that the possession of life is then interpreted as the supreme value. Homo economicus becomes the referent for ethical reflection. Living is equated with a struggle for survival or, more radically, with a competition for life. For over a century now it has become customary to speak about the "conservation of life" as the ultimate motive of human action and social organization.

Today, some bioethicists go even further. While up to now the law implied that a person was alive, they demand that we recognize that . . . there is a deep difference between having a life and merely (sic!) being alive. The proven ability to exercise this act of possession or appropriation is turned into the criterion for personhood and for the existence of a legal subject.

During this same period, homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency. Bacteria are imagined to mimic "economic" behavior and to engage in internecine competition for the scarce oxygen available in their environment. A cosmic struggle among ever more complex forms of life has become the anthropic foundational myth of the scientific age.

His manifesto has some resonance with what Dr. Fleming wrote about health care reform a while back:

Hygienic Autonomy: A Manifesto

Many persons are confused today about something called "health." Experts prate knowingly about "health care systems." Some persons believe that without access to sophisticated and expensive treatments, people will be sick. Everyone worries about increasing costs. One even hears talk of a "health care crisis." I would like to say something about these matters.

First, I believe it necessary to assert the truth of the human condition: I suffer pain; I am afflicted with certain impairments; I will certainly die. Some undergo greater pain, some more debilitating disorders, but we all equally face death.

Looking around me, I see that we -- as people in other times and places -- have a great capacity to care for one another, especially in the moments of birthing, accidents and dying. Unless unbalanced by historical novelties, our households, in close cooperation with their surrounding communities, have been wonderfully hospitable, that is, generally adequate to care for the real needs of living, celebrating and dying.

In opposition to this experience, some of us today have come to believe that we desperately need packages, commodities, all under the label of "health," all designed and delivered by a system of professionalized services. Some try to convince us that an infant is born, not only helpless -- needing the loving care of household -- but also sick, requiring specialized treatment by self-certified experts. Others believe that adults routinely require various drugs and interventions in order to become old, while the dying need medical treatment.

Many have forgotten -- or are no longer able to enjoy -- those common-sense ways of living that contribute to one's well-being and ability to recover from illness. Many have allowed themselves to become dependent on a self-aggrandizing technological myth, against which they nevertheless complain, because of the impersonal ways in which it impoverishes many while enriching a few.

Sadly, I recognize that many of us are infected with a strange illusion: a person has a "right" to something called health care. Thus, one states a claim to receive the latest assortment of technological therapies, based on some professional's diagnosis, to enable one to survive longer in a situation which often ugly, injuries,or depressing or just boring.

I believe it is time to state clearly that specific situations and circumstances are "sickening," rather than that people themselves are sick. The symptoms which modern medicine attempts to treat often have little to do with the condition of our bodies; they are, rather, signals pointing to the disorders and presumptions of modern ways of working, playing and living.

Nevertheless. many of us are mesmerized by the glitter of high-tech "solutions, " we pathetically believe in"fix-it" drugs, we mistakenly think all pain is an evil to be suppressed, we seek to postpone death at almost any cost.

I appeal to the actual experience of people, to the sensibleness of the ordinary person, in direct opposition to professional diagnosis and judgement. I appeal to people's memories, in opposition to the illusions of progress. Let us look at the conditions of our households and communities, not at the quality of "health care" delivery; health is not a deliverable commodity and care does not come out of a system.

I demand certain liberties for those who would celebrate living rather than preserve "life":

* the liberty to declare myself sick;
* the liberty to refuse any and all medical treatment at any time;
* the liberty to take any drug or treatment of my own choosing;
* the liberty to be treated by the person of my choice, that is, by anyone in the community who feels called to the practice of healing, whether that person be an acupuncturist, a homeopathic physician, a neurosurgeon, an astrologer, a witch doctor or someone else;
* the liberty to die without diagnosis.

I do not believe that countries need a national "health" policy, something given to their citizens.

Rather, the latter need the courageous virtue to face certain truths:

* we will never eliminate pain;
* we will not cure all disorders;
* we will certainly die.

Therefore, as sensible creatures, we must face the fact that the pursuit of health may be a sickening disorder. There are no scientific, technological solutions. There is the daily task of accepting the fragility and contingency of the human situation. There are reasonable limits which must be placed on conventional "health" care. We urgently need to define anew what duties belong to us as persons, what pertains to our communities, what we relinquish to the state.

Yes, we suffer pain, we become ill, we die. But we also hope, laugh, celebrate; we know the joy of caring for one another; often we are healed and we recover by many means. We do not have to pursue the path of the flattening out of human experience.

I invite all to shift their gaze, their thoughts, from worrying about health care to cultivating the art of living. And, today, with equal importance, to the art of suffering, the art of dying.

Query: Modern Catholic education

What Catholic orders lead the development of modern Catholic mass education? The Christian Brothers? What was their pedagogy and curricula, and what sort of books did they use? I read in the CE entry for the Christian Brothers that they promoted instruction in the vernacular, not Latin. Does this mean that they dropped the study of Latin and Greek? (Or abandoned the ideals of a classical education, in general?)

What of the methods of the teaching orders of women religious (particularly in the United States)?
Does modern Catholic mass education have any affinities with secular mass education in Europe and the US? When did Catholic schools introduce co-education at the primary and secondary level?

Diocesan schools have some sort of accreditation -- how flexible are their accrediting agencies? Could they adopt a classical education with the agencies they currently use?

Audio files of Ivan Illich

Thanks to comment left by Winslow for this post. The search results. (Right click and save on the middle icon in the downloads column.) The five parts of "The Corruption of Christianity" can be found towards the bottom of the list.

Bacevich on the McChrystal affair

Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance (via Rod Dreher)

But indications that the military's professional ethic is eroding, evident in the disrespect for senior civilians expressed by McChrystal and his inner circle, should set off alarms.

Earlier generations of American leaders, military as well as civilian, instinctively understood the danger posed by long wars. "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War," Gen. George C. Marshall once remarked. The people who provided the lifeblood of the citizen army raised to wage World War II had plenty of determination but limited patience. They wanted victory won and normalcy restored.

The wisdom of Marshall's axiom soon became clear. In Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson plunged the United States into what became its Seven Years War. The citizen army that was sent to Southeast Asia fought valiantly for a time and then fell to pieces. As the conflict dragged on, Americans in large numbers turned against the war -- and also against the troops who fought it.

After Vietnam, the United States abandoned its citizen army tradition, oblivious to the consequences. In its place, it opted for what the Founders once called a "standing army" -- a force consisting of long-serving career professionals.

For a time, the creation of this so-called all-volunteer force, only tenuously linked to American society, appeared to be a master stroke. Washington got superbly trained soldiers and Republicans and Democrats took turns putting them to work. The result, once the Cold War ended, was greater willingness to intervene abroad. As Americans followed news reports of U.S. troops going into action everywhere from the Persian Gulf to the Balkans, from the Caribbean to the Horn of Africa, they found little to complain about: The costs appeared negligible. Their role was simply to cheer.

This happy arrangement now shows signs of unraveling, a victim of what the Pentagon has all too appropriately been calling its Long War.

The Long War is not America's war. It belongs exclusively to "the troops," lashed to a treadmill that finds soldiers and Marines either serving in a combat zone or preparing to deploy.

To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed conflict without end. Once begun, wars continue, persisting regardless of whether they receive public support. President Obama's insistence to the contrary notwithstanding, this nation is not even remotely "at" war. In explaining his decision to change commanders without changing course in Afghanistan, the president offered this rhetorical flourish: "Americans don't flinch in the face of difficult truths." In fact, when it comes to war, the American people avert their eyes from difficult truths. Largely unaffected by events in Afghanistan and Iraq and preoccupied with problems much closer to home, they have demonstrated a fine ability to tune out war. Soldiers (and their families) are left holding the bag.

Throughout history, circumstances such as these have bred praetorianism, warriors becoming enamored with their moral superiority and impatient with the failings of those they are charged to defend. The smug disdain for high-ranking civilians casually expressed by McChrystal and his chief lieutenants -- along with the conviction that "Team America," as these officers style themselves, was bravely holding out against a sea of stupidity and corruption -- suggests that the officer corps of the United States is not immune to this affliction.

To imagine that replacing McChrystal with Gen. David H. Petraeus will fix the problem is wishful thinking. To put it mildly, Petraeus is no simple soldier. He is a highly skilled political operator, whose name appears on Republican wish lists as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. Far more significant, the views cultivated within Team America are shared elsewhere.

The day the McChrystal story broke, an active-duty soldier who has served multiple combat tours offered me his perspective on the unfolding spectacle. The dismissive attitude expressed by Team America, he wrote, "has really become a pandemic in the Army." Among his peers, a belief that "it is OK to condescend to civilian leaders" has become common, ranking officers permitting or even endorsing "a culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. Once the previously forbidden becomes acceptable, it soon becomes the norm.

"Pretty soon you have an entire organization believing that their leader is the 'Savior' and that everyone else is stupid and incompetent, or not committed to victory." In this soldier's view, things are likely to get worse before they get better. "Senior officers who condone this kind of behavior and allow this to continue and fester," he concluded, "create generation after generation of officers like themselves -- but they're generally so arrogant that they think everyone needs to be just like them anyway."

He repeats the recommendations that he has written previously:

The responsibility facing the American people is clear. They need to reclaim ownership of their army. They need to give their soldiers respite, by insisting that Washington abandon its de facto policy of perpetual war. Or, alternatively, the United States should become a nation truly "at" war, with all that implies in terms of civic obligation, fiscal policies and domestic priorities. Should the people choose neither course -- and thereby subject their troops to continuing abuse -- the damage to the army and to American democracy will be severe.

Peter Hitchens, Is Football A Pagan Cult?

I care about quite a few things, rather a lot, as readers of this site will know. Is it just an individual thing that I find the whole thing laughable, and actually quite want the English football team to lose, if only to bring home to these fanatics that this country is in fact in decline, and that its decay cannot be stopped by winning a football game - and that our inability to win tournaments in games we invented is a sign of that decline?

I am almost permanently furious that they can rush on to the streets to show 'patriotism' over a football game, but appear unmoved by the theft of our national independence, the rape of our countryside, the destruction of our culture and all the many real and lasting ways in which this country daily loses the Real World Cup of Nationhood.

Is it because I am one of the last living survivors of the public school era of compulsory sport and of semi-compulsory enthusiasm for it ('Stop slacking, get out there on the touchline and support your house, Hitchens!')

Perhaps it is, but if so, am I really worse than they are. I have marched in huge demonstrations and dissolved myself in crowds, and increasingly I regret having done so. I now prefer not to surrender to mass feelings, which are almost always wrong. More importantly, why do they care?

I do think a lot of people get pleasure from feeling they belong to something bigger than themselves. I also think there is a special satisfaction to be got from rituals, from unified chanting, and from the emotions of crowds.

The huge football stadiums of the 21st century are the pagan temples of today, in which we can take part in ceremonies of hero-worship, sing what pass for hymns, feel as one with our fellow-creatures and, if the thing is properly conducted, walk away afterwards with a feeling that life has been enhanced in some mysterious way.

People even wear special clothing for these occasions, the extraordinarily strange habit of dressing up in footballers' kit, with the name and number of a favourite player displayed on the torso.

I am told (but would like to know more) that the atmosphere and the pattern of major football matches is quite similar to those which would have been found at the great festivals of sacrifice which were held before enormous crowds in the temples of Ancient Greece and Rome.

If our civilisation were to be overcome by a volcanic disaster,as was Pompeii (which Heaven forfend), what would the archaeologists of 4010 make of football, if they had nothing to go on apart from the perfectly-preserved remains of the fans?

I think they would conclude that it had a religious purpose.

The Constitution is dead.

The truth told by a Republican nominee to the court, Samuel Alito. From Aaron Wolf's If I Could Turn Back Time:

Here’s the bottom line of today’s SCOTUS decision regarding the incorporation of the Second Amendment, which amounts to an explicit rejection of traditional federalism on the part of the conservative majority. (Full disclosure: I’m of the Hestonian “cold, dead hands” persuasion.) Writing for the majority, Justice Alito admits the original intent of the Bill of Rights: “The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, originally applied only to the Federal Government.” The Marshall Court “firmly rejected the proposition that the first eight Amendments operate as limitations on the States, holding that they apply only to the Federal Government.” Then comes the “big but” of American history: “The constitutional Amendments adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War fundamentally altered our country’s federal system.”

So who dissented? Not the supposed originalist Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.

Supreme Court extends 2nd Amendment protection to state, local levels‎
NY Times
wiki: McDonald v. Chicago

Rebellion: The Second Amendment trap

Related:
Reclaiming the Jeffersonian Tradition of Nullification By Kevin Gutzman
(Professor Gutzman reviews Tom Wood's Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century.)

See also his "Dubious Victory," written in the wake of Nordyke v. King and Heller.

ISAF: Statement by General Stanley McChrystal

André Angelantoni on getting ready for a post-peak oil future

André Angelantoni, Creating a Post-Peak Future You will Want to Live Into





Post Peak Living

Martina McBride, "Wrong Baby Wrong"

official, myspace

Items of Interest, 28 June 2010

A review of the LWRCI M6A2 in Guns & Ammo.

The Prisoner of Gen. Petraeus by Patrick J. Buchanan

Zenit:
Pope's Homily at Vespers for Sts. Peter and Paul
"The Church Is an Immense Force of Renewal in the World"

Papal Address to Orthodox Delegation
"Your Presence ... Brings Great Gladness to the Hearts of Us All"

Asia Times:
Macau chief Chui talks the talk
In his first six months in office, Macau chief executive Fernando Chui Sai-on has said all the right things - from promising new public housing units to protecting local workers from imported labor. But many in Macau wonder when his actions will begin to match his good intentions. - Muhammad Cohen

Truly detached from war (original)
The newest American form of war, drones, captures perfectly a larger detachment from the wars the United States fights. This is not just the separation by thousands of kilometers of pilots from the battlefields on which they shoot their missiles, but the very detachment of the American public from the conflicts they send their army (and a vast corps of for-profit private contractors) out to fight. - Tom Engelhardt

Energy Bulletin:
Wine, local food, and local resilience, Part 4 (original)

Don Plummer, The Trillium Patch

In this series’ previous post, we discussed making wine at home as a possible solution to wine availability in an age of declining cheap energy. In this the final post of this series, we will discuss in some detail the advantages of home grape growing and wine making. Along the way, we’ll mention organic viticulture methods and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specific grape varieties that might be considered for a home vineyard.

Polo shirts

(source)

A continuation of this post.

Polo shirts are considered to be casual, in comparison with dress shirts. Is this because they are simpler in design (resembling a T-shirt or undershirt in that respect) and do not have buttons all the way down in the front? They have a collar but are usually short-sleeved -- but am I wrong in thinking that dress shirts with short sleeves are still considered to be more formal? Probably not as formal as long-sleeved dress shirts. Are short-sleeved dress shirts acceptable for formal occasions? Apparently not, and those answering someone's query seem to think that it is worse than a polo shirt, in a business environment, even if the dress code is business casual.

It seems that the answer lies in the origins of the polo shirt, rather than a judgment based upon reason alone by the fashion gods. The polo shirt originated as athletic wear and was associated with sports; only later was it worn off the athletic field. (Cotton was the first material used for polo shirts?) So it is not the "nature" of the polo shirt that makes it casual, but rather its original use and convention.

One can ask the question why the original design of the polo shirt was created -- was it adapted from the existing design of contemporary dress shirts?

Guide to Manliness: How to Dress in the Summer, Parts 1 and 2.

Mary Anne Marks, "Cor Harvardianum, Cor Nostrum"

Warning: "classical" pronunciation.



(via the Pertinacious Papist)

Learn of the young commencement speaker's future plans at Pertinacious Papist's post.

Robert Dreyfuss, Mesmerized by COIN

Greg Sisk, The Case for Catholic Schools (Part Three): Expanding Access to Catholic Education for All Catholics

Greg Sisk, The Case for Catholic Schools (Part Two): Integrating Personal Faith in Life, Education, and Community

Some are quite critical of our Catholic schools, finding them to fall short of the mark (even if superior to the public schools). In a setting where the only available Catholic parish school is woefully inadequately, I understand why a parent would lean to alternatives. I must also say, however, that living in two major cities, and having carefully explored many, many Catholic parish schools when joining the Church and then when moving to a new city, I have yet to find one that was educationally inferior or that could justly be denigated as "nominally Catholic." To be sure, as one would expect, some surpassed others in academic quality, and some were more vibrant or more orthodox in Catholic faith. But not one of the Catholic schools that I visited and investigated was a discredit to the parish to which it belonged. Sadly, I appreciate that others may have had different experiences, and I do sympathize with those who face such difficult burdens in educational choice.

Alternative Catholic schools tend to be better than diocesan schools, which resemble their secular counterparts in their theory of education, curricula, and use of textbooks.

In the end, however, withdrawal is not an option for Catholics (we're not Protestants after all, who start a new church whenever a flaw is identified in the existing church). As we must resist the temptation to withdraw from parish life when we are disappointed with our local Catholic Church, I submit that the truly Catholic response is to become even more engaged so as to prayerfully and energetically work to correct any problems with Catholic education. When we work with other parents and parishioners to strengthen the Catholic school at the heart of our parish, we just may find that God is working dynamically and deeply in that school and that the rewards, temporal and spiritual, for our Catholic kids are great!

Good luck to parents who seek to reform the diocesan schools.

I think the problems affecting the life of the local Church and diocesan schools are rather understated in his post; can parents persuade their pastors and bishops to adopt a new model of education? If they can't, will they be able to start their own schools?

A conspiracy of dunces

Laura Wood reacts to the NYT article on friendship coaches and writes the following:

THE AIM of public education is an impersonal society. That’s why, in a hundred obvious and hidden ways, mass education stands in the way of childhood friendship. It shifts children around purposefully, so that they never spend time with the same people for long, so that both friendship and feuds are thwarted. It breaks up the school years into unnatural divisions, in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, to keep people from settling into deep and longstanding bonds, whether of enmity or love. Casual and superficial good will to all is the desired social objective.

I think this is the first time I've read this charge leveled against [public] mass education. The social mobility of Americans is not a small contributor to children not forming deep, long-lasting friendships with other children. Many parents are unwitting accomplices to a bad political economy that does not value human goods; others just don't care. As for the moneyed elites who have no qualms over destroying local economies, they're a different story.

But I suspect that in more rural areas or small towns, the public schools are less of a problem.


Some other reactions to the same NYT article:
Russell Arben Fox
Rod Dreher

ABC/Disney deserves the ratings it gets

(source)
30 seconds into the first episode of Rookie Blue -- 5 rookies, 3 female, 2 male, all pretty people. (And all adultlescents.) Who is surprised that Canadian mass media is as dominated by feminism as American mass media, if not more so?

Rookies hesitant for more than 2 seconds to draw their weapon and back up their partner? I really doubt this would be tolerated in real life -- I think it could only happen in the imagination of people who have no experience with law enforcement. And the quality of the dialogue? It's a Canadian-produced show. Did they consult any real police officers for this garbage? Southland seems better than this -- one can understand what the creators of Southland were trying to achieve with their dialogue when you hear what is being said in Rookie Blue. But you'd be better off watching The Academy.

CBS had Flashpoint last Summer, the Canadian-produced show about a metropolitan SWAT team. Are American television networks so hard up on talent that they have to import garbage from Canada? Or is their garbage just cheaper?

(And what is with the lack of capitalization in the credits?)

Great programming choices, ABC! I hope you get put out of business soon.

Edit. Ignorant Candian scriptwriters -- if you're writing a show that you're trying to sell to an American audience, learn about the culture. Often a LEO has a backup pistol, which may not be the same as his off-duty weapon. He doesn't need to take his duty pistol home in order to satisfy some gun "fetish" (as you're trying to portray it as -- and the geek male they hired for the role is just making your show sound stupid).

The female officers are constantly double-checking as to whether they should have their guns drawn or not. Are you serious? This just makes women police officers look bad. Clearing a building is something that is covered in repeated drills at the academy, so that it becomes reflexive and there is no danger of over-thinking. Why am I wasting my time on this trash? And who still forces doors open with their shoulders? You do it with a kick so as to not injure your shoulder. The technical consultant (if there is one) should be fired.

The rookie's shy schoolgirl behavior in the presence of an attractive homicide detective? "Who me, professional?"

It's almost as if someone on the staff is being subversive, and trying to make the case that women shouldn't be LEOs.

An undercover officer almost breaking cover to a uniformed officer on the scene in order to salvage an operation? Does that really happen? The dialogue involving the rookie and the undercover officer -- reminds me of what you see in a TV drama about high school students. Adultlescent petulance irritates.

The rookie goes to search a building where an armed suspect may be hiding, and she does this without a partner or her pistol ready and first clearing the building? This show needs to die a quick death.

Turns out her father was a homicide detective, and she's carrying on a family legacy. And of course one of the other female rookies is a single mom. Who happens to be black. In trying to be realistic the producers of the show have recorded the social pathologies that contribute to feminism.

Sebastian Junger is on this week's Meet the Press. (Click on netcast for streaming video; transcript.)

Archbishop Marchetto on higher education

Zenit: "Higher Education in a Global Context"
Paper Delivered by Archbishop Marchetto at ACCU Seminar

There is much that could be written in response -- on what he says about the mission of the university in a globalized world, for example. But how many people will really be influenced by the archbishop's paper?

Links:
Brief Historical Overview -- Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers

Zenit: On Following Christ
"One of the Most Beautiful Experiences"