Ronnie Cummins, Whole Foods or Whole Hypocrisy?
"Something else" - Heather Gray, Head South: the Southern Mindset, 150 Years After the Civil War
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Peter Hitchens on capital punishment, again
Peter Hitchens, Killing no murder? and The Civil Sword
He comments on the prohibition of veils in France: What not to wear.
He comments on the prohibition of veils in France: What not to wear.
But if you don't want an Islamised society, rather than messing around with clothing laws, here's another thought. May I suggest that you work out what your answer to that fierce, simple and easily-understood religion's consoling precepts is. Yes, we currently have bigger guns and better bombing planes, but so what? We are richer. But will we always be? We can get drunk (and we do). Is this a big advantage, either morally or materially? Likewise, the use of our women's freedom to dress as they like. Faced with the choice of beholding a tattooed ladette displaying a muffin top glowing with fake tan, or a Muslim woman in full niqab, most of us would at least hesitate. I put this mildly.
I have more than a suspicion that our existing society continues to survive without revolt or collapse only because it gets a little richer each year. Once that prospect is gone, and the succeeding decades instead bring shrinking pay packets, higher prices and fewer jobs, where will minds hungry for solace and comfort and hope turn to? Thanks to half a century of active secularism, most people in this country are quite clueless about Christianity and wouldn't know where to begin with it. If a religious revival comes (and we're about due for one) who is best placed to take advantage of it?
Gary Taubes on that ubiquitous ingredient in the SAD
NYT:Is Sugar Toxic?
A discussion of Robert Lustig's research on fructose.
Childhood obesity caused by "toxic environment" of Western diets, study says
Why is America fat?
His interviews on the LLVLC last year and for encore week.
UCSF Diabetes Center
A discussion of Robert Lustig's research on fructose.
Childhood obesity caused by "toxic environment" of Western diets, study says
Why is America fat?
His interviews on the LLVLC last year and for encore week.
UCSF Diabetes Center
Friday, April 15, 2011
Art of Manliness: Classical Rhetoric 101: The Five Canons of Rhetoric- Memory
The original post has links to the previous parts in the series.
The method of loci memory technique was first described in written form in a Roman treatise on rhetoric called ad Herennium, but it also made appearances in treatises by Cicero and Quintilian. It’s an extremely effective mnemonic device and is still used by memory champions like Joshua Foer, author of the recent book, Moonwalking With Einstein.This reminds me of what Jonathan Spence wrote on the same sort of mnemonic techniques in The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.
To use the method of loci, the speaker concentrates on the layout of a building or home that he’s familiar with. He then takes a mental walk through each room in the building and commits an engaging visual representation of a part of his speech to each room. So, for example, let’s say the first part of your speech is about the history of the Third Punic War. You can imagine Hannibal and Scipio Africanus duking it out in your living room. You could get more specific and put different parts of the battles of the Third Punic War into different rooms. The method of loci memory technique is powerful because it’s so flexible.
When you deliver your speech, you mentally walk through your “memory house” in order to retrieve the information you’re supposed to deliver. Some wordsmiths believe that the common English phrase “in the first place” came from the method of loci technique. A speaker using the technique might say, “In the first place,” in reference to the fact that the first part of his speech was in the first place or loci in his memory house. Fascinating, isn’t it?
The original post has links to the previous parts in the series.
95.7 has changed format -- it's no longer country but is now a sports station. First we lost the 24-hr classical music station. Now one of the local country music stations is gone. That leaves just KRTY. Soon I won't be bothering with the radio but will just bring a mp3 player with me instead.
There Be Dragons from the Actors' Perspective
Iffy statements ("We're created to make mistakes...") but they're actors. And Joffe on "Child of God" is iffy too. (Too often we think of "child/son of God" as referring to everyone, regardless of their personal state (grace or sin), but a creature is not a child of God in virtue of being a creature, but in virtue of being elevated to a supernatural union with God. I don't doubt that what is taught by Opus Dei with regards to divine filiation is orthodox in this respect. If the movie is viewed with a proper understanding of grace and charity as love, then there probably won't be problems. But if love is understood as referring to natural love, then it may seem Pelagian.
Romana: Some publications about St. Josemaría and Opus Dei
Children of God
Jacques Philippe
Scepter
Zenit interview from 2008
The Community of the Beatitudes (US)
New Urbanism | The Case for Looking Beyond Style
Taking on the “avant-garde establishment,” Andrés Duany attempts to set the record straight. (Note to the avant-garde: feel free to respond.)
By Andres Duany
Taking on the “avant-garde establishment,” Andrés Duany attempts to set the record straight. (Note to the avant-garde: feel free to respond.)
By Andres Duany
More of the CW regarding diet and exercise?
Even if the spokesperson is a bit more pleasing to the eyes (for some)...
Dr. Fleming on the origins of the jerk
Chronicles
He remarks on children:
A classical education had its advantages. It meant that most people who had finished high school had read many of the same books, which they could use as points of reference in a general conversation. A girl who was loyal to her family was another Antigone, a loyal wife was an Alcestis, and a strong but boastful man could be described as a modern Hercules. Sometimes the examples were negative. Some of Homer’s heroes are paragons of pride and selfishness who threaten death to anyone who thwarts their will. Achilles, who wants both Greeks and Trojans to exterminate each other so that he and his friend can have all the glory and booty for themselves, is perhaps the greatest Jerk in the history of literature.
He remarks on children:
Han Hye Jin videos
KBS America just started airing The Thorn Birds (가시나무새 ) the last week of March. The love rectangle and all the other relationships are very complicated, but I am watching it because of its star, Han Hye Jin.
She may be no different in real life from narcissistic American princesses, as I was reminded during her recent appearance on Happy Together that she and her boyfriend Naul have been dating for 7 years. Such a long dating period doesn't seem appropriate for a Christian or healthy. Actresses of any country may be like modern Uhmerican womyn who want to have it all -- career, love life, and eventually marriage and children, when they're ready to take a break from their career. But onscreen and in interviews she does have a winning sweet personality, which beats that of modern shrews.
She may be no different in real life from narcissistic American princesses, as I was reminded during her recent appearance on Happy Together that she and her boyfriend Naul have been dating for 7 years. Such a long dating period doesn't seem appropriate for a Christian or healthy. Actresses of any country may be like modern Uhmerican womyn who want to have it all -- career, love life, and eventually marriage and children, when they're ready to take a break from their career. But onscreen and in interviews she does have a winning sweet personality, which beats that of modern shrews.
Begun on April 1.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Esotericism, Philosophical and Religious
VFR posts an interesting bit on Alexander the Great, from Plutarch's Lives.
He sent for Aristotle, the most learned and most celebrated philosopher of his time, and rewarded him with a munificence proportionable to and becoming the care he took to instruct his son. For he repeopled his native city Stagira, which he had caused to be demolished a little before, and restored all the citizens, who were in exile or slavery, to their habitations. As a place for the pursuit of their studies and exercise, he assigned the temple of the Nymphs, near Mieza, where, to this very day, they show you Aristotle's stone seats, and the shady walks which he was wont to frequent. It would appear that Alexander received from him not only his doctrines of Morals and of Politics, but also something of those more abstruse and profound theories which these philosophers, by the very names they gave them, professed to reserve for oral communication to the initiated, and did not allow many to become acquainted with. For when he was in Asia, and heard Aristotle had published some treatises of that kind, he wrote to him, using very plain language to him in behalf of philosophy, the following letter. "Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. You have not done well to publish your books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all? For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion. Farewell."Here we see the desire to keep some knowledge secret for the elect. Despite Plutarch's appraisal of Alexander's virtue, the vice of pride seems to be obvious in him. (Does Plutarch get the catalog of virtues wrong? It's been a while since I've flipped through his biographies.)
One more thought about that school
Due to incidents of bullying, the principal recently inaugurated a special pledge to be said by the students after the pledge of allegiance. How many students have memorized the pledge after a week or two? How many pay attention or care about what they are saying? It's a bureaucrat's solution and an autocrat's solution -- something to put on a piece of paper to show that administrative action was taken to address the problem, in addition to normal quotidian enforcement of discipline. But will the pledge really accomplish anything? I doubt it.
How did communities handle this in the good ol' days? Let the boys fight it out? (Yes, there is bullying by girls too -- what used to be done through other means - ostracization and backbiting - has now morphed into direct violence, and I suspect that psychological differences between boys and girls entail different solutions.)
I don't think education, as we members of the modern liberal nation-state understand it, is a good that is owed to children. The moral formation of citizens (and potential citizens) is the responsibility of the community (and the government), but I wouldn't trust our public schools to handle this task. If the schools were aimed primarily at the moral development of children, then maybe bullying could be better resolved. But is there a place for the old solution, at least when boys are concerned? Having adults intervene doesn't seem to be the best way to deal with it, if what a boy needs to do is stand up for himself, even if he is initially unsuccessful.
When you discard what is traditional, in the name of "scientific" reason or modern psychology), you can't compare the ideology you've absorbed with other possible answers.
How did communities handle this in the good ol' days? Let the boys fight it out? (Yes, there is bullying by girls too -- what used to be done through other means - ostracization and backbiting - has now morphed into direct violence, and I suspect that psychological differences between boys and girls entail different solutions.)
I don't think education, as we members of the modern liberal nation-state understand it, is a good that is owed to children. The moral formation of citizens (and potential citizens) is the responsibility of the community (and the government), but I wouldn't trust our public schools to handle this task. If the schools were aimed primarily at the moral development of children, then maybe bullying could be better resolved. But is there a place for the old solution, at least when boys are concerned? Having adults intervene doesn't seem to be the best way to deal with it, if what a boy needs to do is stand up for himself, even if he is initially unsuccessful.
When you discard what is traditional, in the name of "scientific" reason or modern psychology), you can't compare the ideology you've absorbed with other possible answers.
Promoters of the Nanny State
Some social workers may be earnest and well-intentioned, but how many are busybodies who don't take care of their own kids, yet take it upon themselves to tell others how to parent? "Experts" who are there to undermine parental authority and weaken the family, promoting the notion that children are property of the state. And how bad are the "new parenting" methods and principles that are in vogue these days?
Another live performance by Alison Krauss and Union Station of Paper Airplane
Today Show: Krauss & Union Station finally find right songs
This performance sounds better than last night's Letterman appearance -- as good as the CD, in fact! An off night on Letterman?
I don't think I could watch the Today show everyday, though I came close to doing so a while back. American TV hostesses just sound so... unrefined.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This performance sounds better than last night's Letterman appearance -- as good as the CD, in fact! An off night on Letterman?
I don't think I could watch the Today show everyday, though I came close to doing so a while back. American TV hostesses just sound so... unrefined.
Communion Des Saints
The latest cd from the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest. (French)
Photos from the recent [American] priests' retreat.
A French movie for Sarge
I've posted trailers for this before, but Yahoo has the American trailer for The Princess of Montpensier.
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