The New Beginning

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Items of Interest, 5 May 2012

Libertas et Memoria: Mel Bradford on the Founders, religious establishment and the First Amendment

Nicholas C. Lund-Molfese, Peter Maurin, The Distributists and the Nature of Work

Driving Britain to ‘Popular Capitalism’ with the Social Franchising Co-operative Model

Global civil society and the rise of the civil economy by Robin Murray (EB)

Mish: China's Population Poised to Crash in Perfect Demographic Storm

From Republic to Empire - a leftist perspective

6 People You Need to Start a Revolution
Farmers markets move online by Katherine Gustafson (EB)
Food, Inc. Chicken Farmer has a New Humane Farm

Catholic:
Pope: 'Sound education in faith' is 'most urgent challenge' of the Church in America
Our Lady of Atonement Parish Withdraws Request to Enter Ordinariate

Archbishop Sheehan of Santa Fe: recovering Catholic identity
(mp3)
Does he go far enough in diagnosing the problem?

Chant Before and After the Solesmes Revolution

Feminism:
Obama Campaign: Women are Helpless
The same line of attack that Michelle Malkin takes, grounded in feminist strength and autonomy?

Army opens combat positions to women
Men in the military are being thrown into the meat grinder, and when invariably bad incidents happen when men and women are thrown together in stressful (or boring) situations, men will be thrown under the bus. The Pentagon is a bunch of perfumed princesses seeking to appease the feminists in control. What more evidence do men in the military need that their leadership hates them? After all, if there is a serious lack of qualified men for these positions, then maybe we can make military service more popular by limiting imperial misadventures overseas. And if there isn't a lack of qualified men, then how can we justify their displacement by women in the name of facilitating their career advancement and a better representation of women in the military? What a joke. Soon any true patriot will have to avoid anything to do with the National Government, which does not serve the common good but actively seeks to subvert it for private interests.

History:
Roanoke found? N.C., British researchers find clue to location of Lost Colony

Why All The Fuss About the Body: A Medievalist's Perspective
Eh?

Popular Ethics:
Rory Sutherland: Perspective is everything

Music:
Doc Watson & Earl Scruggs Play At Doc's Home

TV:
Jim Caviezel on Person of Interest

Larry Vickers:
Speed is Fine, Accuracy is Final

Rob Fraser's Welcome to San Francisco

Affirmative action or fair representation?

Should a police deparment be composed of officers who are representative of the demographics of its community? Is it likely that people are more likely to be abusive towards members of another ethnic group? Would having officers of the same ethnicity assist in the answering of a call help safeguard against abuse?

All things being equal, why shouldn't someone of a specific ethnic background be given "preference" over a white in order to better reflect the demographics of the city? If the deparment reflects the ethnic make-up of a city, is it less likely to be seen as being staffed by outsiders, thus inspiring greater confidence and preserving a better appearance of impartiality?

In megacities are the police more like mercenaries than fellow citizens, since they do not inhabit the areas they patrol? What if the deparment has to hire outsiders in order to meet an ethnic quota, because there isn't enough interest in that city? Doesn't the lack of real connection remain the same, unless there is some sort of natural affection between people of the same ethnic group? Natural affection may help LEOs of a certain ethnicity prevent abuse of his co-ethnics by other LEOs who do not share that ethnicity. But what positive motivation exists to prevent abuse and misconduct?

What if a certain ethnic community cannot police itself, nor produce qualified recruits for the department because it lacks the "moral resources" to do so? Can a police deparment of a big city ever get away from being a form of outsourced help?

Can one be motivated purely by economic/contractual justice to do a good job as a LEO? (I don't doubt that there are many who work as police officers in California merely for the big paycheck and because the job is "fun," despite the paperwork.) What is the foundation that undergirds commutative justice (and prevents abuse), if legal justice or civic friendship is lacking? (1. The officer lives elsewhere. 2. The city in which he works is too large or community does not actually exist there.) If there is no community, then neither virtue cannot exist.

Chris Martenson for Climate One

His appearance at the Commonwealth Club last month as a part of its Climate One series; Tom Van Dyck was also a guest.

podcast

Even though I would disagree with Mr. (Dr.) Martenson on "social issues," he, like many of those who talk about Peak Oil, walks the walk. He quit his corporate job, simplified his life - he has a smaller house, grows a garden, installed solar, and so on. And he sought out a community in which to live.

Still, he was able to do this in part because he already had a supportive family and wife. How many Uhmerican women today would acquiesce to marrying a confident guy who had no real financial future but wanted to have a simple life? They might be willing to be bedded by him for the short-term, but most princesses like their things and want someone who can provide them.

Friday, May 04, 2012

Some letters from NOR

April 2012:

Decoding Casual Dress

Frederick Marks (“The Rush to Radical Informality,” Jan.-Feb.) uncovers a point rarely considered as a cultural phenomenon: the way a narcissistic generation dresses only out of self-regard for comfort. The way people dress in any generation certainly says something about what they think they are, or want to be, but it also indicates a regard for others. In a demoralized culture, neglect of dress expresses moral lethargy. In some New York firms that instituted “casual Fridays,” leisure clothing resulted in leisurely job performance.

Beyond civilian dress, uniforms dispose people to the service of others. This is why priests and judges do not wear whatever they want. And when vesture in churches and courts is slovenly, you can be pretty sure that the officials are more concerned about themselves than about what they represent. If I dress better for a cocktail party than I do when I commune in God’s house, which is my real sanctuary? On the other hand, if I wear a T-shirt in a restaurant, I am clothing myself in the sartorial equivalent of a belch. And if I am in shirtsleeves while the waiter wears a jacket, I am pulling reverse rank on him.

In the prosperous suburbs people dress down for Mass. The best-dressed people in church on Sundays in New York are the poorest: hats and gloves in Harlem and in the neighborhoods populated by immigrants from Haiti and the Caribbean islands. People dress best in storefront churches and worst in the cathedral.

Clothes do not make the man, but they indicate what a man has made of himself. Forms of dress do matter. The baptismal rites refer to the candidate’s white garment (and the candidate is called such precisely because the garment is white, candida) and the Elect before the Throne wear white garments. Christ told a parable about wearing the proper wedding garment and, while it symbolizes baptismal grace, it nonetheless refers to visible raiment as well. The Lord’s garment was seamless, and I suppose it may have been made with devotion by His mother.

What it boils down to is this: God’s inscrutable providence can make slobs into saints, but saints are not slobs.

Fr. George W. Rutler, Pastor
Church of Our Savior
New York, New York

One more:

Frederick Marks makes an excellent point about “radical informality” (Jan.-Feb.): It has spread like a contagious disease in our society. In the old films from the 1930s and 1940s, people getting on and off the subway in New York’s Times Square were well dressed. The men wore a suit, tie, and hat, and the women wore long dresses, a hat, and gloves. That was at a time when most people were poor. Now the dress code there seems to demand, for men, jeans or shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap. The same tendency to “dress down” is apparent in many Catholic churches on Sunday.

When I lived in New York a few years ago, I noticed that the men and women going to the local synagogue on the West Side were well and formally dressed. The same thing was true of those attending Baptist churches in the Bronx or Brooklyn. Proper dress at church shows respect for God. Those with an appointment to meet the governor of a state or the president of the U.S. dress accordingly, as Dr. Marks notes. They dress up for man but not for God.

Radical informality is an assault on form. Form in our culture has taken a big hit since the 17th century. Jay Richards, in his book God and Evolution, points out that Descartes identified quantity with essence and thereby eliminated form. We know from Aristotle that there are four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Since Descartes, science has discarded formal and final causality; for modern science, the only real causes are material and efficient. One result is that, if there is no form to make a thing be what it is, then each thing is just an accumulation of atoms and molecules that can be arranged in any way. According to this thinking, there is no formal difference between a dog and a cat. And if there is no formal or final cause, then nothing really makes any sense — and you can do or dress as you will.

This metaphysical error is at the root of the fraudulent error of materialistic evolution. It is also, in my opinion, the root of the dominance of the philosophy of relativism in our culture today, or what Pope Benedict XVI has called the “dictatorship of relativism.”

The culture of informality has also influenced priests and religious men and women. It is very common today that priests and religious do not wear their religious garb either in public or in private, contrary to many exhortations from Rome. One reason they give is that it makes it easier for them to associate with the laity. But it seems to me that it is hard for them to influence others as imitators of Christ if no one knows who or what they are.

Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.
Editor Emeritus, Homiletic & Pastoral Review
Tacoma, Washington

There is a problem here with an equivocation on the word form? The shape/pattern/design of the clothing may be dictated by some convention, yes. What about casual? Are some designs intrinsically better than others?

The full article to which the letters respond is available to subscribers.

Items of Interest, 4 May 2012

M.E. Bradford' s Constitutional Theory: A Southern Conservative's Affirmation of The Rule of Law by Marshall DeRosa

PJB, A Decade of War for What?
Obama's 2024 Afghan 'Transition' Deal Not Convincing Everyone
What Is the Proper Role of Military Power

H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian by Murray N. Rothbard

The Panderer-in-Chief's Pitch for the Female Vote: The Life of Julia
Welmer: Meet Julia
The Men in Julia's Life
Jack Welch, Julia and the fallacy of working women ‘having it all’

False autonomy and empowerment disguised as radical equality, false because it is only possible through the government (and the enslavement of men to pay for it) - evil. (D/d)emocrats should be despised - their policies destroy family and community by destroying female responsibility.

The Contraception Mandate and Secular Discourse by R. J. Snell

How Patriarchy Crubmled: Silent Assent

Everything But Sex, Everything But Divorce

Liberalism Is Bad for Literature by Mark Bauerlein (marriage and courtship)

Democracy's Arc by John Michael Greer

Fred Reed, Enstupidation

Liberals will interpret things their way:
Five Lessons in Human Goodness from “The Hunger Games”
By Jeremy Adam Smith

Kevin Gutzman:
James Madison and the Making of America
The Virginians

Economics:
Ethical Labor

Is It Possible To Build An Economy Without Jobs? by Frank Joyce

Why are we striking? Or to put it another way – what’s wrong with the world?

Farming:
On Being a Worthy Heir of the Agrarian Contrarians (makes mention of Gene Logsdon)
Wendell Berry, Hater and Idealogue

Beyond Fossilized Paradigms: Futureconomics of Food
The economics of the future is based on people and biodiversity - not fossil fuels, toxic chemicals and monocultures.
by Vandana Shiva
In the Rain, Alice Waters Visits School Gardens to Celebrate Hard Work and Edible Education
Full Circle Farm: A New Level of Community

Factory Food is Making Us Dumber and Dumber

Shannon Hayes, One Chicken, Three Meals: The Best Bargain at the Farmers’ Market

Peak Oil and Energy:
Seven myths used to debunk peak oil, debunked by Andrew McKay (EB)

Living for free: a community thriving by recycling other people's waste

Diet and Health:
The 4-Hour Work Week

MovNat N. Am. Workshops

Catholic:

Benedict XVI, On the Prayer of the First Christian Martyr

Relics of 6 Martyred Priests Tour US

From Pagan Cosmos to Christian Creation: A Historical Path from Late Antique Priscillianus to Medieval Hildegard

Orthodox:
"Svenskaya" (Kiev Caves) Icon

Masculinity:
F. Roger Devlin reviews Jack Donovan's book: The Origins of Manliness

How Chemicals Affect UsBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The Stark Truth: Andy Nowicki in Defense of Squares (mp3)

Music:
Cappella Artemisia

Jubal's Kin, Boy Blue

Delta Goodrem:

How to build a better trebuchet

TV:
NPR with Steven Moffat

Misc:
Gear Blog: Interview with an Arc'teryx Designer

College Dropout Jason Padgett Becomes Accidental Mathematical Geniusu After Brutal Mugging

The College of Saint Mary Magdalen Sponsors the 2012 Napa Institute

The conference is July 26 to 29. I haven't finished that post on a couple of last year's lectures on the topic of immigration. So what is the current financial state of Magdalen College like now? (How long before the enterprise tanks? It probably has more money than the St. Anthony of Padua Institute.)

Creating a new political party in California

Someone tried to get me involved with the Citizens Party. While I agree with the economic part of its platform (detailed version) and its stand on immigration, I can't agree with its position on "social" issues. Being against outlawing abortion might be appropriate at the Federal level - somewhat similar to the position of Ron Paul. But at the state level, such legislation is valid even if not popular. What other parties in California, though, have anything close to the economic platform of the Citizens Party? How likely is a party oriented towards relocalization/sustainability/Peak oil to succeed if it is also against abortion, same-sex marriage, and the like? Could it be possible for such a party to not have a stand on such questions, serving only to expedite relocalization and preparing for the post-carbon future? Would the citizens of California agree to setting aside social questions until more "pressing" matters had been resolved? Could the party also advocate a possible splitting of the state, facilitating the movement of conservatives and liberals into their own region of the state so that they could go their separate ways?

林憶蓮 - 情人

Sandy Lam's cover of the Beyond classic.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Girls

CEB told me that her sister was to be confirmed tomorrow; she was excited to be going to church, since she doesn't go often (or at all). She seems to have mellowed out a bit this year; last year she had more of an attitude. Bad influences by some of her friends, perhaps; they are gone this year. Still, she was having problems getting along with CN. "I don't like her." She insulted her by saying she was still a kid, and CN was crying. "She's being mean to me." I didn't do much except to keep them apart and to console CN a bit. It's somewhat sad, since they were rather good friends in 3rd grade. What happened in the following three years?

I was in Berkeley headed to the Ron Paul ralley when I passed by someone handing out advertisements for the International Academy of Wing Chun, located in Berkeley. What is the lineage of the founder? Some of the uniforms remind me of the uniforms associated with Leung Ting, and the alternative English translitteration of 永春 does not necessarily mean that it isn't linked to LT. Having some knowledge of WC, I was not given much confidence in the school by the photos on the card.

KK is thinking of having nephew #1 learn some WC when he gets older. Too many Yip Man movies...

A video with Leung Ting:

Tim Kennedy at it again

Fr. McCloskey on some lessons from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs and the New Evangelization by Fr. C. J. McCloskey

Fr. McCloskey's archive at CatholiCity has this review of a book by Michael Novak and William Simon on the lay vocation. Where's the meat of the political theology that is needed after discussion of the spiritua life?

I met him once, over at Christendom.

From July of last year:

Hrm...
JP2, Theology of The Body
Should men take the initiative
I want to marry a virgin
More clips.

George Marlin writes on Bad Religion

Ross Douthat's book - Traditional Christianity versus Christian Heresies by George J. Marlin

Douthat, however, disagrees and argues that the onset of Christianity’s locust years was more complicated. In his judgment, there were five major catalysts:

•Political Polarization – Vietnam war, civil rights movement;
•Revolution in Social Mores – Birth control, promiscuity, abortion;
•Global Perspectives – People seeking spirituality without rules turned to Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation;
•Ever-growing Wealth – America’s new Gilded Age confirmed John Wesley’s observation: “Wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion;”
•Decline of establishment ties to Christian religions – Elitist institutions, newspapers, networks, universities, law schools, and major foundations dismissed Christianity as déclassé.

Douthat points out that religious bodies that fought these trends, particularly the Catholic Church, have been accused of being out of touch, authoritarian, close-minded, and responsible for turning many of their members into neurotic, repressed bigots.

On the other hand, accommodating Christian sects (i.e., mainline churches) have only hastened moral decline. For their followers, religion “has become a license for egotism and selfishness,” the result being a society “where pride becomes ‘healthy self-esteem,’ vanity becomes ‘self-improvement,’ adultery becomes ‘following your heart,’ greed and gluttony becomes ‘living the American dream.’”

The decline of traditional Christianity, Douthat concludes, has not led to surging atheism, rather it has led to the spread of Christian heresies that hold the Kingdom of God is built in this life not the hereafter.

The replacement of Christianity by one [secular] heresy or another is plausible. But I think his explanation of the decline is incomplete. Then again, he's more of a Yankee conservative than one who is rooted in a more solid intellectual tradition? In my view, the decline of Christianity is linked to the growth of the modern American state and the accompanying economic changes which lead to the loss of community. The 60s only hastened the collapse of Christianity that had been brought upon by other social changes (and its replacement by the American creed?).

Related:
Interview: Ross Douthat on Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Christian Nationalism and His Charismatic Roots

Douthat's talk for the Augustine Institute:

vimeo

Been away from Boston for a while

So I had not been aware that Harry Christophers (of The Sixteen) had replaced Grant Llewellyn (who is now with the NC Symphony) as artistic director of the Handel and Hadyn Society.

From several years ago:

H&H YT channel
wiki

Marié Digby, "I Won't Give Up"

Digbyholics

Helena Norberg-Hodge: an overview of localization

Artists or political activists?

Or both. The CCD protesting against North Carolina Amendment One (GA bill), which limits the kinds of legally recognized domestic unions and the rights of its members, giving privilege to marriage between a man and a woman:

Musicians are citizens too, and hence they have a right to be political advocates. But should those who supposedly have a vocation to bring beauty to the community not also respect the mores of that community? Are they subject to tradition or are they privileged, by reason of their celebrity, as moral innovators?

A first response would be to boycott entertainers with whom one disagrees on moral/social/political issues and are rather vocal about it. Why subsidize their living which also enables them to undermine the community? If musicians (or actors) had to work a real job, would they have time to make such political statements? What would the argument for continuing to patronize them be?

Folk Alley Sessions: Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band, "Ashokan Farewell"

Folk Alley

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Music at Stanford

From the calendar for the Stanford Music Deparment:

Saturday, May 26
8:00 pm
Campbell Recital Hall

Stanford Gu-Zheng Ensemble
The Stanford Gu-zheng Ensemble is a group of Stanford students from all disciplines that have been drawn together by their interest in gu-zheng (Chinese harp). This instrument is considered the ancestor of other Asian zither instruments, such as the Japanese koto. Performances are given each quarter, demonstrating the ensemble members’ talents and their appreciation for classical Chinese music. Led by renowned gu-zheng player Daisy You, the group explores both traditional and contemporary pieces for gu-zheng and occasionally incorporates other Chinese instruments as well.

Wednesday, June 6
8:00 pm
Memorial Church

Early Music Singers
William Mahrt directs