What else happened on Sunday...

KK and PS went to St. Thomas Aquinas for Mass today. That was nice. Afterwards she met one of her teachers from the Saint Ignatius Institute at USF. (I couldn't find his faculty page. Does he have one?) We also met Kerry McCarthy today. I recognized her name when we were introduced... She is a part of the Byrd Festival; if I had known that before, I would have asked her about it. Here's her book, Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia. Apparently she is going home to Texas soon, and there was to be a farewell dinner for her tonight. (But she'll be returning for Christmas? That would be nice. (iirc, for Good Friday she sang Psalm 22 for the stripping of the altar.)

KK's professor invited her to the Humanae Vitae conference in Oakland next weekend. (KK, here's the website for the St. Anthony of Padua Institute.) It'd be nice to see the Big Mac again, but I can't afford the banquet. And I won't be going to the Center for Ethics and Culture conference this Fall... As for the rest of the conference, I just don't think I have time.

KK told me that she and her husband thought STA was a "dead-end," confirming my observation that everyone who attends the 12 Mass there is old and/or married. She suggested going to St. Margaret Mary in Oakland; apparently some of the IP employees and their families go there. (One family even goes all the way to Sacramento, if they have time--apparently they prefer the FSSP to the ICRSS.) Maybe I will see what's happening at the 5:30 at the oratory next Sunday. (Any single people at St. Basil?)

Things are bleak in San Francisco--no Catholic parish with a decent liturgy and no good cheapie Chinese restaurant. I don't think things will be improving in SF or in the South Bay any time soon... At least there's hope for Oakland.

Today an IVE priest, Fr. Carlos Perreira, talked about missions during the homily--he was originally from Argentina but is currently doing missionary work in Egypt; I believe he is helping out the Catholics but has contacts with the Copts as well. (Alas, I started losing focus during the homily, so I didn't get all of the details. I wanted to ask him about Catholic-Coptic relations after Mass, but I didn't have the opportunity to do so.) I wasn't surprised that he knew Latin; I am pretty sure seminarians for IVE need to learn it as part of their education. I was impressed though that he knew how to chant the Latin for the Eucharistic Prayer. Can all of the IVE priests sing the Mass in Latin? My mom told us that the IVE priests at OLP had taken over the Latin masses on Saturday (EF for the first Saturday of the month, OF for the rest) after Fr. Sweeney retired, but the bishop put a stop to that after the oratory was recognized and given to the ICRSS. Our bishop probably needs to read Summorum Pontificum. Would he try to prevent the liturgy from being celebrated in Latin (either OF or EF)? In the meantime, may IVE continue to be blessed with vocations.

I wonder what sort of Spanish accent Fr. Perreira has. Priests who can speak Spanish seem to have a similar accent, and it's not the sort of Spanish you would hear from the working classes. Does he have an accent particular to Argentina, or to a certain socioeconomic class? (I think Fr. Marlo has a similar accent...)

Stanford professor's Palo Alto choir keeps Gregorian chant alive
Chronicle Podcasts : St. Ann Choir performs Gregorian chant
Essays from a Little Library: Dr William Mahrt

Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate

Eh! Just found out about this--Second Annual MacIntyrean Philosophy Conference. Ah well, it's over already. Here are the conference abstracts. (Michael Baur's paper looks good.)

Reminder: I should get this special issue of Analyse & Kritik.

Kurt Cobb, The problematic future of U. S. energy investment

The problematic future of U. S. energy investment

Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

We have in essence a dysfunctional investment system, both public and private, that seems to be providing the equivalent of very expensive end-of-life care to the moribund fossil fuel economy without much consideration for what comes afterward.

JHK reviews The Dark Knight

Dark (K)Night

After reading this you may know why people might say he's a cranky crank. Perhaps he is more interested in criticizing our political economy than in giving a review of The Dark Knight, and this affects his interpretation. (It makes one ask if he's ever seen a comic book superhero movie before. What would he think of Iron Man?) Or is there some merit to what he says?

By the way, forget about God here or anything that even remotely smacks of an oppositional notion to evil. All that's back on the cutting room floor somewhere (if it even got that far). And I say this as a non-religious person. But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive. In the world of "the Batman," humanity at its very best is capable only of being confused about itself. This is perhaps an interesting new form of dramaturgy -- instead of good-versus-evil you only get befuddlement-versus-evil. Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can't ask that much of ourselves. It's too difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, The People -- that is, the citizens of Gotham City -- literally banish even the possibility of heroism from town at the end of the movie -- they take an axe to it! -- perhaps indicating that they deserve whatever befalls them or, shall I say, "us."

Compare it with Steven Greydanus's review:

Heroes may not be untarnished, but heroism is still possible. Good guys may bend or break the rules, but they may also be willing to fall on their swords for the greater good, to take a hit for something they believe in. A single quasi-messianic figure may inevitably let down those who put their hopes in him. Yet even when all seems lost, people may still do the right thing, taking their last recourse in prayer rather than in Nietzschean ruthlessness. It may be a mistake to believe in Harvey Dent. But I want to believe in the best of The Dark Knight, and back that against the darkness.

From JHK's post last week, The Coming Re-becoming:

The tattoo quotient among both men and women there is impressive. In the days when the Harmony Mill was built, only South Seas cannibals and sailors wore tattoos. You wonder: are tattoos now the only way left for this class of Americans to assert their selfhood? And what exactly are they proclaiming? I am a warrior. Or is it: I am a television (I display pictures, too) !? The expanding class of the poor-and-idle has been remarkably passive in the face of their dwindling prospects. Perhaps they passed the point years ago (a generation or two ago!) when there was any sense of sequential improvement for the family's station-in-life. The destiny of their everyday lives must seem totally beyond their control. They are subject to the fate of distant corporations who sell the staple corn-syrup byproducts and gasoline on which daily life is based. Where government is concerned, they are all potential victims of Katrina-ism, awaiting their own personal disaster.

And there's this 'gem':

Hopelessness infects this landscape like a miasma. Whatever young adults remain in these places are not thinking about a plausible future, only looking to complete their full array of tattoos and lose themselves in raptures of sex, methedrine, and video aggression.

Some accuse Kunstler and others of wanting the bad peak oil scenarios to happen, because they want one way of life to be replaced by another. It's not a wholly unfair criticism of Kunstler, though I think he would prefer a more pleasant transition.

The sclerosis of American life is shocking. If you go further north up the Hudson River, to Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, you'll see a nation that seems ready to crawl off and die. There, it appears too far gone to even put up a proxy fight on a video screen. Frankly, I don't want that version of America to survive -- the America of chain stores, and muscle cars, and grown men obsessed with video games, drugs, and pornography, and women decorated like cannibals, and the vast, crushing purposelessness of it all. I have no doubt we're heading into a convulsion that will wring much of this junk and dross into the backwaters of history. We're capable of being something better than this, of putting our time on earth to better use, including a more respectful treatment of the land we inhabit. This year and the next will be the years of letting go, and out of that we'll commence a re-becoming.

Kunstler just doesn't think we have what it takes to work for that sort of peaceful transition. Look at the presidential campaign--who is really discussing about the tough questions with the American people? Neither candidate. Those who are caught up in Obama adulation need to wake up and realize he's an empty suit.

Björk interviews Arvo Pärt

Interesting!



Arvo Pärt
David Pinkerton's Arvo Pärt Information Archive
Arvo Pärt and the New Simplicity

björk.com (MySpace, Atlantic Records)
77island • official Björk discography - Oliver Fritsch

Bjork - Human Behaviour


First time I really heard her songs... was at Christendom, thanks to DS and MW.

Probably my favorite track off her debut album:
Bjork - There's More To Life Than This - Live!


Haven't really listened to her since then... ah the good ole days at Christendom? Not sure...

Celtic Spring Band

(They appeared on America's Got Talent, 1st season?)

Celtic Spring - "The Sleeping Tune" - LA Irish Fair 3-10-07


Celtic Spring Final


Celtic Spring finale @the Celtic Fling '08 6.28.08


Celtic Fling closing ceilidh

Richard Spencer: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn--RIP

Some thoughts about Buca di Beppo Palo Alto--it is better than the one in Campbell, but perhaps not by so much. KK remain unimpressed. We had the chicken saltimboca today--KK's husband thought it was too salty, and I tend to agree. I don't think I've had saltimboca that was only moderately salty in the United States, except perhaps at an Italian restaurant in Ohio, when I was visiting Fr. V. The saltimboca over at ______ in Rome was not that salty, if my memory is reliable. Everything else was ok, though KK and my mom liked the calamari. Since I don't care for squid, I can't offer an opinion on it, except that it wasn't rubbery.

Apparently this restaurant needs to hire some more staff as well. And while the other one ran out of vinegar, this one was short on olive oil. Go figure.

An excuse to look up Rosamund Pike

Jane Bennet & Mr. Bingley(Right Here Waiting)


Pride & Prejudice - Diaries (Part 1/4)
Pride & Prejudice - Diaries (Part 2/4)
Pride & Prejudice - Diaries (Part 3/4)
Pride & Prejudice - Diaries (Part 4/4)

Not worth watching for the opinions presented therein, but just for the visuals. (What did you expect?)

Pride and Prejudice Interview - Rosamund & Keira


Pride and Prejudice 2005 Forum
ROSAMUND PIKE ONLINE| Your Source for Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Pike Web
ROSAMUND PIKE FANSITE

It's sad I'm putting all of the P&P 2005 stuff up, as I didn't really care for the movie.

Rosamund Pike (Fugitive Pieces) - Part 1


Rosamund Pike (Fugitive Pieces) - Part 2


Fugitive Pieces trailers and video clips on Yahoo! Movies

Latin Quarter videos

From some movies that are used for learning Latin...

The Consolation of Philosophy - Latin Language Learning

LATIN QVARTER

Dido & Aeneas


Dean Winchester speaking Latin

Peter Hitchens, Rage is no excuse for murder ... not even for women

The Law Commission is a mysterious but amazingly potent body which seems to think its job is to weaken the laws of the land.

It is astonishing how many such bodies there are, working away like termites, deep in the ancient oak roof beams of our civilisation, helped by civil servants, kept in fees and biscuits by taxpayers who would shudder if they knew what their money was being spent on.

Its latest idea is to invent more excuses for murderers. In this case, they seem mainly designed to help women who decide to hack or burn their ‘partners’ to death (leaving them is apparently not viewed as an option), though others will also be able to claim provocation, too.

There’s obviously a politically correct motive for this. But it’s not really the worst part of it.

What shocks me is the way it weakens the whole idea that deliberately killing someone else for your own benefit is always wrong.

It also quietly spreads the idea that we now live in a more vicious society, where violent assaults spawned in rage and resentment can be allowed, especially if women are the killers.

In the end, I suspect it will be used to ensure that killing a fellow human will no longer automatically mean a ‘life’ sentence.

This will mean the final dishonouring of the promise given by the liberal elite when they abolished hanging. Don’t worry, they soothed, murderers will still get life sentences.

This was a lie when it was first said, and it has become a deeper lie as the years have passed and the ‘life’ sentence has become a sicker and sicker joke. It almost never means anything of the kind.

Now they think the public has been so completely softened up that the courts can stop pretending altogether.

When on reads about some of these murders, it appears that they were not done out of passion or self-defense, but premeditated. And yet, no one wants to talk about the bias in how they are presented in the media or judged by the courts, with the exception of people like Dr. Helen.

Law Commission
wiki entry

Sarge, here is the PCED document I was talking about.

Cop the Truth: LtCol. Dave Grossman on 'Warrior Values'

AFP: Australian doctors warn against 'designer vagina' craze
via Drudge

What a world.

Rorate Caeli interview with Luc Perrin

Theme song for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games-We Are Ready


I find the introduction a bit annoying. And the rest of the song as well. So sue me.
Normally I don't go along with the hooplah surrounding the Olympic Games because it aims for a sentimental feel-good display of world harmony, and yet has betrayed the original intentions of the modern founder, becoming another stage for nationalism to rear its ugly head. The fact that China has invested so much money and effort in order to prove its emergence as a world power just makes my reaction worse this time around.

2008 Beijing Olympics song"Welcome to Beijing" MV(full)


A Mei - Forever Friends 永远的朋友 (Beijing Olympic song)

鄧麗君~~但願人長久

Our Ohio: The Amish

夜来香 / 上戸彩　YeLaixiang by Ueto Aya　「李香蘭」夜來香

鄧麗君 Teresa Teng 贺新年 New Year Blessings


Ok, it's not the right occasion for the song, but since I just found the song and it's Teresa Teng, why not post it.

Oh no. Twitch: ‘Space Battleship Yamato’ returns to space after 25 years!

It looks like it will get the computer-generated animation treatment...

I blogged about the series here.

Youtube video of Clear Creek.

This is interesting too: Abbey of Our Lady of the Annunciation, Church Dedication

China Philharmonic performs Mozart for Pope Benedict XVI at Vatican

It's a good thing I don't work at the library... I think it would wear out my patience faster than a classroom of children. Certain people remain clueless about not using cell phones within the library... and then there are the old people who are clueless about computers, the volume of their voices, and many other things... and then there are those who take it upon themselves to remind people of the rules but in a less than uncivil manner... the messiness of ordinary life.

U.S. Economy Loses Another 51,000 Jobs by PETER MORICI

Daniel Larison, Democratic Globosclerosis

What a multipolar world really shows is the limits of multilateral institutions. During most of the Cold War, the U.N. did not provide much in the way of collective security because the member states were either divided between the two superpowers or organized under the Non-Aligned Movement, and after the Cold War the U.N. was able to provide meaningful collective security only when the remaining superpower backed the action. Now that there are multiple new powers emerging in the world, the multilateral framework, which presupposes a consensus that will almost never exist among so many divergent interests, has been breaking apart. This has been exacerbated by the consistent targeting of Russian and Chinese satellites for sanctions and attack, while leaving U.S. allies that have their own egregious records unscathed, but these are simply symptoms. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that the artificial and unusual disparity of power between the U.S. and the rest of the world that occurred in the wake of WWII has been steadily narrowing, and it will continue to do so. This is essentially a return to something more like a normal state of affairs after the extremely abnormal 20th century.

An effective single supranational authority over the common good of all humanity? Looks less and less likely to be achieved by human power alone. Perhaps this is one of those things that will never be achieved because of original sin, and has been reserved to Christ alone.