Hofbrauhaus "Express" is open at the Cupertino Square foodcourt, according to the reviews at Yelp. They're still planning on opening the full restaurant this year.

So, David Irving does have a website... (via Stephen Hand) I was reminded of the controversy surrounding him by the discussion of this post at Chronicles.

More links:
David Irving Archive
David Irving: Britain's Holocaust "revisionist"
wiki
Holocaust Denial on Trial

How to Save the Suburbs: Solutions from the Man Who Saw the Whole Thing Coming
Jebediah Reed, The Infrastructurist

(via EB)

Zenit: Papal Address to American Jewish Organizations

Brothers at War trailer

Sarge, what do you think?

Russell Arben Fox, British Conservatives are Better (via Daniel Larison)

In the United States, thoroughly Lockean country that it is, any such conservative theory is going to have a very difficult time finding some way of thinking that will allow it to address liberalism and modernity on a conceptually equal level; without that, all you have is a pleasantly angry dissidence (or, again, an outright or at least quasi-religious faith in a remnant out there).

Does the South not have as its resource the Southern political tradition? If only it would return vigorously to it, in its selection of legislators.

Hrmm... there are plenty of guys who pass the "Orthodoxy" test at CatholicMatch.com--why aren't more of them making matches through the website? And in this area, does one sex have a numerical (dis-)advantage when compared to the other?

American Papist: Posted: "Grisez's Response to a Critic and a Friend" {AmP Exclusive} (the response) and What the head of the Legion is saying to members (the text)

As he hasn't written much in a while (because he's been out of the country), I link to TJF's latest: To Brighten Your Day.

The Lily Allen song "The Fear" is not bad pop... and Fred Reed is retiring his regular column. That's too bad, even though I wasn't a regular reader.

More from the Chronicles special issue on Lincoln: Clyde Wilson, The Treasury of Counterfeit Virtue. Plus an older piece by PJB, Mr. Lincoln’s War: An Irrepressible Conflict?

Thomas Short, Divergent Sources of Conservatism (from Modern Age 44:1, Winter 2002)

We can identify some ancient and medieval thinkers as conservative, e.g., Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, but they did not think of themselves as conservative: they applied no word to their views that could be translated by “conservative.” That word was first applied, by his disciples, to Edmund Burke’s reaction to the radicalism of the French Revolution. Burke’s reaction might be explained by the views and attitudes he expressed in writings, and in political speeches and actions, prior to his Reflections on the Revolution in France. But it is the latter that showed those to be conservative. Beliefs are identifiably conservative only as they are opposed or opposable to radicalism. And radicalism can be traced back only so far: to Rousseau or, I would say, to Descartes, or, some would say, to William of Ockham. If we identify Aristotle’s or St. Thomas’s ideas as conservative, it is because they can be used to justify those sentiments which radicalism outrages.

Dr. Barry Alan Shain, Varieties of Conservatism (from Modern Age 44:1, Winter 2002)

Conservatism, however, demands more than a deep respect for a people’s inherited ways. It also rests on a philosophical rejection of the hubris readily associated with the last years of the Enlightenment. Conservatism reflects a pervasive humility concerning the ability of unaided reason to understand the moral universe and to create appropriate social structures. At its essence, conservatism is shaped by an epistemic stance that embraces traditionalism, not out of a dogmatic love of the past, but out of a radical uncertainty concerning man’s ability to understand complex social systems. As Edmund Burke noted, “it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.” And, clearly, almost all conservatives accept this moderate skepticism as an essential element of philosophical conservatism.

Of course, there are other essential elements which most conservatives would identify as part of the core holdings of conservatism. They include communalism, localism, familism, a recognition of human depravity, and foundational religiosity. As Russell Kirk observed, “the family, religious association, and local community—these, the conserva­tives insist­ed, cannot be regarded as the external products of man’s thought and behavior; they are essentially prior to the individual and are the indispensable supports of belief and conduct.” And each of these elements can be readily understood as a reflection of the epistemic humility and the distrust of abstract reason at the core of philosophical conservatism. For conservatives, then, most men in order to flourish need others in close proximity to help shape their moral and political environments. Almost all of us, alone, are too weak, selfish, and benighted to live well without the close cooperation of others. Aristotle knew as much. The Christianity that undergirds the moral anthropology of American conservatism teaches the same.

Inglourious Basterds teaser @ Yahoo! Movies

QT's latest.

Sandro Magister, Bad News from China. A Rift Has Opened in Beijing

Between obedience to the pope and to the communist party, some bishops are choosing the latter. The most stunning about-face has taken place in the capital. A secret letter from Cardinal Bertone. The alarm of Cardinal Zen

Sal Landau, The Wrestler: an American Tragedy
A Parable for an Empire in Decay

official site; trailer

Sam Tanenhaus, Conservatism is Dead

Responses:
Andrew Bacevich, What Conservatism Should Look Like
Patrick Deneen, Against Authoritarianism, Rightly Understood
Daniel McCarthy informs us that there are responses over at The University Bookman.
Roger Kimball

Edit. Daniel Larison comments on the Bacevich-Linker-Deneen discussion: Authority.

Fabius Maximus, A nickel summary about the state of the world (the geopolitical big picture) and Change you should not have believed in.

End of Consumption
Hans Noeldner, Entropic Journal (blog)

(via EB)

James Howard Kunstler, Redux -- an interview with Robert Birnbaum (via EB).

RB: Yeah, I gather. So, three years ago you published The Long Emergency. I was surprised it didn’t get much attention at the time; I don’t know what’s happened subsequently.

JHK: Man, it wasn’t reviewed anywhere! I got about two columns at the end of another review in the Washington Post. None of the other major newspapers paid attention to it at all. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco papers—they all totally ignored it. I don’t know why.

RB: Did they think you were a crackpot?

JHK: Well, I think that because the subject matter is so terrifying there’s a tendency to put me and what I’m saying in a crackpot folder. But, look, since I published that, the price of oil has tripled, the economy is tanking, the housing bubble imploded exactly the way I described it imploding three years ago. The truth of the matter is: We’re not going to run Walt Disney World, Wal-Mart, and the interstate highway system on any combination of wind, solar, nuclear, bio-diesel, ethanol, or used French-fried potato oil. Or dark matter.

RB: [Laughs]

JHK: Or any other combination of anything you can imagine. But the wish to continue doing that is tremendous. The main symptom of where our heads are at collectively and the failure of collective imagination in this country can be seen in the fact that the only conversation that’s going on about this all over the country is: how are we going to run the cars on some other kind of fuel. That’s all anyone wants to talk about. And it’s not just the stupid people and its not just the NASCAR people, it’s the policy wonks and the environmentalists. The conversation is the same, and it is a huge fantasy, because that’s not going to happen. We have to really, comprehensively make other arrangements for daily life in this country—and [yet] we can’t think about it. And there’s a reason we can’t think about it: It’s called “the psychology of previous investment.” And what it means is that we put so much of our national treasure and invested so much of our identity in all the infrastructure of daily living and happy motoring that we can’t imagine letting go of it. We can’t even imagine reforming it.

Zenit: Papal Address to Tribunal of the Roman Rota

Papal Address to Tribunal of the Roman Rota

"The Truth About Marriage and About Its Intrinsic Juridical Nature"

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 10, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Jan. 29 to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year.

* * *

Distinguished Judges, Officials and Collaborators of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota,

The solemn inauguration of the judiciary activity of your Tribunal offers me again this year the joy of receiving you its distinguished members: Monsignor Dean, who I thank for the noble opening address, the College of Prelate Auditors, the Officials of the Tribunal and the Advocates of the Studio Rotale. I address to all of you my cordial greeting, together with the expression of my appreciation for the important task to which you attend as faithful collaborators of the Pope and of the Holy See.

You are expecting the Pope, at the beginning of your working year, to say a word of light and guidance on carrying out your delicate duties. We could dwell upon many topics in this circumstance, but at the distance of 20 years from the Addresses of John Paul ii on psychiatry's incapacity in the nullification of matrimony, of 5 February 1987 (Address to the Roman Rota, L'Osservatore Romano English edition [ORE], 23 February 1987, p. 6), and of 25 January 1988 (ORE, 15 February 1988, n. 7, p. 7), it seems opportune to ask oneself whether and to what extent these interventions have had an adequate reception in the ecclesiastical tribunals.

This is not the moment to draw up the balance sheet, but the fact of a problem that continues to be very real is visible to everyone. In some cases one can, unfortunately, still sense the pressing need of which my venerable Predecessor spoke: that of preserving the ecclesial community "from the scandal of seeing in practice the value of Christian marriage being destroyed by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity, in cases of the failure of marriage, on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness on the part of the contracting parties" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 9, 5 February 1987, ORE, 23 February 1987, p. 7).

At our meeting today I am intent on recalling the attention of lawyers to the need to treat the cases with the due depth required by the ministry of truth and charity that is proper to the Roman Rota. To the need for a rigorous procedure, in fact, the above mentioned Addresses, on the basis of Christian anthropological principles, furnish the basic criteria, not only for the close examination of psychiatric and psychological evidence, but also for the judicial definition of the causes.

In this regard it is opportune to recall again some distinctions that draw the demarcation line above all between "psychic maturity which is seen as the goal of human development" and "canonical maturity which instead, is the basic minimum required for establishing the validity of marriage" (ibid., n. 6, p. 7). Secondly, the distinction between incapacity and difficulty insofar as "only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage" (ibid., n. 7). Thirdly, the distinction between the canonistic dimension of normality, that is inspired by an integral vision of the human person "also includes moderate forms of psychological difficulty", and the clinical dimension that excludes from the concept of it every limitation of maturity and "every form of psychic illness" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 5, 25 January 1988, ORE, 15 February 1988, p. 6). And lastly, the distinction between the "minimum capacity sufficient for valid consent" and the idealized capacity "of full maturity in relation to happy married life" (ibid., p. 7).

I then attest to the involvement of the faculties of the intellect and the will in the formation of matrimonial consent, Pope John Paul II, in the above mentioned Address of 5 February 1987, reaffirmed the principle according to which a true incapacity "is to be considered only when an anomaly of a serious nature is present which, however it may be defined, must substantially vitiate the capacity to understand and/or to consent" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 7, ORE, 23 February 1987, p. 7).

In this regard it seems opportune to recall that the Code of Canon Law's norm concerning mental incapacity, and the application thereof, was further enriched and integrated by the recent Instruction "Dignitas connubii" of 25 January 2005. In fact, in order for this incapacity to be recognized, there must be a particular mental anomaly (art. 209 1) that seriously disturbs the use of reason (art. 209 2, n. 1; can. 1095, n. 1), at the time of the celebration of marriage and the use of reason or the critical and elective faculty in regard to grave decisions, particularly in freely choosing a state of life (art. 209 2, n. 2; can. 1095, n. 2) or that puts the contracting party not only under a serious difficulty but even the impossibility of sustaining the actions inherent in the obligations of marriage (art. 209 2, n. 3; can. 1095, n. 3).

However, on this occasion, I would also like to reconsider the theme of the incapacity to contract marriage, of which canon 1095 speaks, in the light of the relationship between human persons and marriage and recalling some fundamental principles that must enlighten lawyers.

First of all it is necessary to rediscover the positive capacity that in principle every human person has to marry by virtue of his very nature as man or woman. Indeed, we run the risk of falling into a form of anthropological pessimism which, in the light of the cultural situation today, considers marriage as almost impossible. Besides the fact that such a situation is not uniform in the various regions of the world, one cannot confuse the real difficulties confronting many, especially young people who conclude that marital union is normally unthinkable and impracticable with the true incapacity of consent. Rather, reaffirming the innate human capacity for marriage is precisely the starting point for helping couples discover the natural reality of marriage and the importance it has for salvation. What is actually at stake is the truth about marriage and about its intrinsic juridical nature (cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Rota, 27 January 2007), which is an indispensable premise if people are to understand and evaluate the capacity required to wed.

In this sense the capacity must be associated with the essential significance of marriage, that is "the intimate partnership of life and the love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws" (Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et spes, n. 48), and, in a particular way, with the essential obligations inherent to it, that must be assumed by the couple (can. 1095, n. 3).

This capacity is not measured in relation to a determined level of existential or effective realization of the conjugal union through the fulfillment of the essential obligations, but in relation to the effective will of each one of the partners, who makes possible and operative this realization already at the moment of contracting marriage.

The issue of the capacity or incapacity, therefore, has sense in the measure in which it regards the very act of the marriage contract, since the bond put in act by the will of the spouses constitutes the juridical act of a lofty biblical interpretation of "one flesh" (Gn 2: 24; Mk 10: 8; Eph 5: 31; cf. can. 1061 1), whose valid subsistence does not depend on the successive behavior of the couple during their married life.

On the other hand, in the reductionist optic that fails to recognize the truth on matrimony, the effective relationship of a true communion of life and love, idealized on a level of pure human well-being, essentially becomes dependent only on accidental factors, and not, instead, on the exercise of human freedom sustained by grace.

It is true that this freedom of human nature, "wounded in the natural powers" and "inclined to sin" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 405), is limited and imperfect, but not for this reason does it become inauthentic and insufficient to accomplish that act of self-determination of the parties who form the conjugal pact, that give life to matrimony and to the family founded on it.

Obviously some anthropological and "humanistic" currents aimed at self-realization and egocentric self-transcendence idealize human beings and marriage to such an extent that they then deny the mental capacity of many people, basing this on elements that do not correspond to the essential requirements of the conjugal bond.

Faced with this concept, canon law experts cannot fail to take into account the healthy realism that my venerable Predecessor indicated (cf. John Paul ii, Address to the Roman Curia, 27 January 1997, n. 4, ORE, n. 6 5 February 1997, p. 3), because the capacity makes reference to a basic minimum so that the couple can give their being as a male or as a female to establish that bond to which the great majority of human beings are called.

It follows, in principle, that the causes of nullity through mental incapacity require the judge to employ the services of experts to ascertain the existence of a real incapacity (can. 1680; art. 203 1, DC), that is always an exception to the natural principle of the capacity necessary to understand, decide and accomplish the giving of self upon which the conjugal bond is founded.

This is what, venerable members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, I wished to set forth on this solemn occasion, that is always a pleasant circumstance for me. In exhorting you to persevere with a lofty Christian conscience in the exercise of your office, whose great importance for the life of the Church emerges also from the things just said. May the Lord accompany you always in your delicate work with the light of his grace, to which the Apostolic Blessing that I impart to each one with deep affection is a pledge.

© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

知床旅情ー青葉城恋歌ー琵琶湖就航の歌ー女ひとり

Four great jojoka (叙情歌・lyrical ballads), which are not enka, are sung by three great enka artists. Interesting to see how these singers looked some 20 years ago.

1. Shiretoko Ryojo - Ishikawa Sayuri (about 30 years old in 1988)
2. Aobajo Koiuta - Sakamoto Fuyumi (about 20)
3. Biwako Shuko no Uta - Sagawa Eiko (about 40)
4. Onna Hitori - Ishikawa Sayuri

Sagawa Eiko sings Biwako Shuko no Uta in somewhat enka style.

House on the egoism vs. altruism debate. (FF to 7:50.)

Telegraph: Kissing feels so pleasurable due to hormone surge, find scientists (via LRC)

"Stonewall" extols the positive effects of the English Civil War: Commemorating Republicanism.

I am not that familiar with the English Civil War, and who can untangle the truths, assign rights and wrongs, and figure out which side had "God's support"? Just because one does not endorse the supposed "divine right of kings" or divine absolutism does not mean that one must support the Parliamentarians or Cromwell or their claims.

How important was the English Civil War to the development of a written constitution or a 'constitutional' order in England? Can we really classify post-Stuart England (or the United Kingdom as a whole) as a republic? Was it another step in the creation of Great Britain as a modern nation-state, with all that it involves, centralization of political and economic power, and so on? How dependent upon the English Civil War is the historical narrative of the English political tradition and its promotion of political liberty? Was the Parliament really of the people at that time? Or was it merely serving its own interest and making its own disordered power play?

Moreover, if we accept that American culture is predominantly an Anglo-Celtic-(Latin?) heritage, we may still ask what the place of Protestantism is in that culture. Is it central to the American identity? What of the influence of Catholicism? What do we do with competing Christian traditions and bodies? If American culture is tied essentially to Protestantism, can one be Catholic and American?

The same question could be asked by English Catholics, after the rupture that was caused by Henry VIII and his Protestant successors. "Which [culture] do we appropriate as our own? Which history do we accept?" Both Catholics and Monarchists probably have a different view of Cromwell. (I'll have to look for a copy of Belloc's biography of Cromwell, and read his evaluation.) Certainly, the have a different opinion of the so-called Glorious Revolution and of William of Orange. (Are there any Jacobites who aren't Catholic?)

Is there a separate American culture rooted in Catholicism? Can this be reconciled with the old republican tradition? Which is the true Anglo-American culture? It seems to me that rather than there being just one Anglo-American culture, there are many versions of Anglo-American culture. [Otherwise, we would be reifying or substantializing something that is actually an accident, rather than a substance.] Of course, peoples can be separated not only be familial descent and ties, but also by their cultures (or by the cultural identity they adopt). We pick our sides in conflicts and our heroes.

(How many American Loyalists are there left in the United States, who aren't a bit eccentric?)

Catholicism does not oppose republicanism in itself, though it may be opposed to certain ideologies justifying it. (And the case that we no longer live in a federation of sovereign states needs to be made over and over again, so they can understand the continuing political crisis.) One can be a American Catholic, so long as what is understood to be proper to American culture is not Americanism, or the ideology of the proposition nation, or some other false system. Still, how many differences can be tolerated before unity of culture is broken? Paleos are fighting a losing battle, as more and more 'citizens' assimilate the new ideology and equate it with what it means to be American, while remaining ignorant of, or rejecting traditional American culture.

This underscores the difficulty of maintaining a single identity in a polity that is too big, and seems to me to recommend that secession is the only peaceful option in the long run. Peaceful, in the sense that we should agree to part with those who disagree with us about the important political questions peaceably and to leave them alone. Whether the National Government would permit this to happen, or if it would once again prevent it through the unjust application of military force...

To Kill a King received mostly negative reviews--that's too bad. I suppose I will have to just watch BBC documentaries instead. There was one series focusing on great battles, I believe--one episode was on Culloden, and another on the English Civil War. I believe the following is from a different documentary:

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 1/4
Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 2/4
Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 3/4
Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 4/4


English Civil War
wiki
The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain
The English Civil War: The Essential Readings
BBC/OU Open2.net - Civil War
English Civil War main page
English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor » HistoryNet

Oliver Cromwell
The Oliver Cromwell website
wiki
Google Books: Peter Gaunt, Oliver Cromwell
Modern History Sourcebook: Thomas Macauley: On Oliver Cromwell
A Little History of Ireland - The Curse of Cromwell

House of Stuart (wiki)
The House of Stuart
House of Stuart - Genealogy
Jacobitism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Jacobite Heritage

Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalist Institute Home Page
The American Loyalists: Or, Biographical Sketches of Adherents to the British Crown in the War of the Revolution
DAVID LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (doc)
Loyalist Songs and Poetry
Osprey Publishing - American Loyalist Troops 1775–84
The War of American Independence

The American Conservative -- Why Belloc Still Matters

Begun on January 31.

Woo sees productions migrating to China - PART 1/3


Woo working within the Hollywood system - PART 2/3

John Woo sets sights on civil war drama - PART 3/3

playlist

Karena Lam (林嘉欣) breaks free in Claustrophobia