Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Zenit: Papal Letter on Society of St. Pius X
"We Must Have at Heart the Unity of All Believers"
Pius X Society Response to Benedict XVI
"We Fully Share His Utmost Concern for Preaching to Our Age"
"We Must Have at Heart the Unity of All Believers"
Pius X Society Response to Benedict XVI
"We Fully Share His Utmost Concern for Preaching to Our Age"
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Maximos has intimated that paleoconservatives, Dr. Fleming in particular, are guilty of a kind of nihilism. This criticism of Dr. Fleming is shared by others over at WWWTW, so I'm a bit dismayed by the name-calling among "conservatives." Just because Dr. Fleming does not share the same political "advocacy" (since he does not think the solutions and measures being advocated are feasible, or agree with the underlying principles) does not mean that he is a nihilist. It's a difference of opinion about what is possible and what can be brought about as a result, and what therefore deserves out time, energy, and support.
What is the possible basis of agreement in American society over sexual morality and life issues? Not religion or natural law arguments. There is no rational consensus to be achieved, no argumentation or rhetoric that will persuade. Justifying opposition to the legal recognition of same-sex marriages through natural law morality will not be successful due to the lack of education (both moral and intellectual) among the masses. (There are differences even among Natural Law theorists which would probably serve as an obstacle to the non-adherent.)
Politics has thus become a power play, with the majority determining what the laws will be. A neutral "liberal democratic" state, governed by a "neutral" public reason is simply not possible given the fallen state of mankind and the loss of tradition and morals.
I think Dr. Fleming's lesson is being missed: when all of society is infected with, careful with giving more power to the state, even if one must seek to use the system to prevent further erosions of traditional morality and the common good. Perhaps he could have been more clear in his column, but it is more a blog than a journal, is it not?
Maximos writes:
This is especially true if the number of Christians in this country is decreasing, as a recent survey seems to indicate.
So those who are concerned with protecting tradition must be politically involved in some way -- either pushing for legislation they favor (laws in conformity with traditional morality) or advocating for controls on the state. What is our primary goal in the political sphere? Dr. Fleming and others believe that tradition cannot win in such a social and political environment--the ideology of rights will be used to overturn traditional morality, strengthening court and government. Even if some notion of right can be reconciled with traditional Natural Law (and Dr. Fleming does not think it has been, though perhaps he might be open to its demonstration), how many people will remain attentive while we explain to them why their notion of right is wrong, and that ours is right? Wouldn't they rather rely upon their notion of right and its associations, divorced as they are from justice and duty and community?
(Some object to the use of rights language by the popes for similar reasons--how many can read such statements within their context, rather than with their own notions in mind and seeing papal affirmations of rights as a confirmation of modern rights theories?)
Dr. Fleming's proposal involves working for limiting the power of the state -- hence, the strategic alliance between paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians in the past. We saw this at work again with Ron Paul's campaign, but one fears that the number of people who actually want the government to have less power is small, while those who endorse the managerial welfare state are many and grow with each day as the economic crisis continues.
He advocates limiting state 'authority,' while seeking the conversion of others. Mobilizing those who abide by traditional morality to be politically active and to push for laws with which they agree is not enough, if it's just about numbers -- many have already commented that the passing of proposition 8 in California, even if it is upheld by the California Supreme Court, is a temporary victory. The youth are increasingly indoctrinated into sexual liberality and have no problems with same-sex marriage, and are repulsed by the strictures of traditional morality. If we can make a valid generalization about the state of things in America, the culture wars have already been lost.
Dr. Fleming concedes that such political action may be necessary, but one must ultimately reform society by seeking to bring others to Christ. If this is not done, political action can only be a stop-gap measure. Some groups of Christians may be reproducing more than their secular counterparts, but many of them are not doing a good job of reproducing Christians--that is, of raising their children to be serious about their faith, because they themselves do not provide a full witness to their Faith. As American continues its decline, we can no longer believe that America is populated by a "moral majority" that can no longer afford to be silent.
Are there some conservatives who think that winning elections is enough? Or believe that, conversely, the problem is merely a political one, of not having enough votes? Undoubtedly there are. The culture war may be a tool by the parties to gain and maintain power, especially in the case of the Republicans. Not a few Democrats actually believe in their radical libertinism.
Maximos argues that limiting the power of the state, instead of advancing the right sort of legislation, would leave voluntarism as the public orthodoxy intact:
But what is more likely to be attainable? A defense of Christian morality through laws, or the reduction of the power of the state? If those who are in power wish to eradicate traditional [Christian] morals and persecute those who follow them, they will do so--it seems to me that at the Federal level at least there are not enough votes to put defenders of traditional morals into office to make a difference, or to even force the Federal government to abide by the Constitution.
An view opposed to Dr. Fleming: Jennifer Roback Morse: Privatizing Marriage is not the Answer to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
An interesting post about Burke: Edmund Burke, Anarcho-Conservative (via the Western Confucian).
What is the possible basis of agreement in American society over sexual morality and life issues? Not religion or natural law arguments. There is no rational consensus to be achieved, no argumentation or rhetoric that will persuade. Justifying opposition to the legal recognition of same-sex marriages through natural law morality will not be successful due to the lack of education (both moral and intellectual) among the masses. (There are differences even among Natural Law theorists which would probably serve as an obstacle to the non-adherent.)
Politics has thus become a power play, with the majority determining what the laws will be. A neutral "liberal democratic" state, governed by a "neutral" public reason is simply not possible given the fallen state of mankind and the loss of tradition and morals.
I think Dr. Fleming's lesson is being missed: when all of society is infected with, careful with giving more power to the state, even if one must seek to use the system to prevent further erosions of traditional morality and the common good. Perhaps he could have been more clear in his column, but it is more a blog than a journal, is it not?
Maximos writes:
It is far from clear that the opponents of the deconstruction of marriage law are actually arguing, as a substantive matter, that moral principles should be determined by public and democratic processes, as opposed to making the procedural point that, under the systems of law we have in this country, the judicial branches are not licitly empowered to legislate on these questions.Even if traditional conservatives are successful in passing legislation that is in accordance with their moral precepts, relying on numbers may not work in the future, and the use of majoritarian democracy to decide morality is a bad idea in principle (Dr. Fleming: "What I am objecting to is the blanket assumption that moral questions can be settled by an appeal to the principle of majority rule. Our goal should be to protect what we have left of our moral traditions from the intrusion of government, and therefore we should be very chary about appealing to the state and federal courts, if only because they gain power from every appeal–like the SciFi monsters that gain strength from attacks on them.") To what, then, can we appeal if the numbers are in favor of recognizing same-sex marriages, and such legislation is passed licitly by the legislative authority?
This is especially true if the number of Christians in this country is decreasing, as a recent survey seems to indicate.
So those who are concerned with protecting tradition must be politically involved in some way -- either pushing for legislation they favor (laws in conformity with traditional morality) or advocating for controls on the state. What is our primary goal in the political sphere? Dr. Fleming and others believe that tradition cannot win in such a social and political environment--the ideology of rights will be used to overturn traditional morality, strengthening court and government. Even if some notion of right can be reconciled with traditional Natural Law (and Dr. Fleming does not think it has been, though perhaps he might be open to its demonstration), how many people will remain attentive while we explain to them why their notion of right is wrong, and that ours is right? Wouldn't they rather rely upon their notion of right and its associations, divorced as they are from justice and duty and community?
(Some object to the use of rights language by the popes for similar reasons--how many can read such statements within their context, rather than with their own notions in mind and seeing papal affirmations of rights as a confirmation of modern rights theories?)
Dr. Fleming's proposal involves working for limiting the power of the state -- hence, the strategic alliance between paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians in the past. We saw this at work again with Ron Paul's campaign, but one fears that the number of people who actually want the government to have less power is small, while those who endorse the managerial welfare state are many and grow with each day as the economic crisis continues.
He advocates limiting state 'authority,' while seeking the conversion of others. Mobilizing those who abide by traditional morality to be politically active and to push for laws with which they agree is not enough, if it's just about numbers -- many have already commented that the passing of proposition 8 in California, even if it is upheld by the California Supreme Court, is a temporary victory. The youth are increasingly indoctrinated into sexual liberality and have no problems with same-sex marriage, and are repulsed by the strictures of traditional morality. If we can make a valid generalization about the state of things in America, the culture wars have already been lost.
Dr. Fleming concedes that such political action may be necessary, but one must ultimately reform society by seeking to bring others to Christ. If this is not done, political action can only be a stop-gap measure. Some groups of Christians may be reproducing more than their secular counterparts, but many of them are not doing a good job of reproducing Christians--that is, of raising their children to be serious about their faith, because they themselves do not provide a full witness to their Faith. As American continues its decline, we can no longer believe that America is populated by a "moral majority" that can no longer afford to be silent.
Are there some conservatives who think that winning elections is enough? Or believe that, conversely, the problem is merely a political one, of not having enough votes? Undoubtedly there are. The culture war may be a tool by the parties to gain and maintain power, especially in the case of the Republicans. Not a few Democrats actually believe in their radical libertinism.
Maximos argues that limiting the power of the state, instead of advancing the right sort of legislation, would leave voluntarism as the public orthodoxy intact:
Without desiring to belabour the point, this is, notwithstanding its historical truth in outline, purely hieroglyphic, in the Voegelinian sense of a form of discourse which somehow marches onward even though its historical, social, and material conditions have been espied by Minerva's owl in the shades of night: Where once this discourse evoked concrete social circumstances, it now evokes nothing at all, save the desire of some to both acknowledge reality and pretend that it is something other than it is. For while Fleming acknowledges the reality of the modern managerial state and its deformations of the moral life, it is fantastical to imagine that, if only we were to expose the nakedness of this idol, returning to our non-existent communities to undertake the impossibility of enforcing moral norms upon people who, in liberal society, will always have the option of checking out, like good voluntarists, whenever their whims are thwarted, the reality of the managerial state would somehow be altered. No, it wouldn't. The de facto moral orthodoxy would be that marriage is a purely private, voluntaristic contract, which the state either recognizes as such or takes no notice of, and those who dissent from this vision of (dis)order would be but one more voluntaristic faction among others, paradoxically creating themselves socially as people who do not believe that social formations are artifacts of will. The liberal/leftist doctrine that moral order and social order are artifacts of will would remain pristine in its operations, functionally the de facto orthodoxy of the society. However, the elect would at least remain untainted by the ontological evil of The State - if, that is, The State deigned to leave them to their conventicles, which it wouldn't. There is, in the end, an atmosphere of despair here, a sense, not that a mere political campaign is fruitless, but that an entire life-world must be hastened to its ultimate desolation, regardless of the consequences in the interim - which will be, beyond all caviling, the indefinite enthronement of a voluntaristic ethic and a state predicated upon that ethic, as upon an orthodoxy.Maximos is making the case that since ecclesiastical authority is no longer recognized, only political authority can now enforce traditional mores. Otherwise, without resistance and reform, that authority will be used against those mores--it would not be content to leave alone those who dissent from the prevailing public orthodoxy.
But what is more likely to be attainable? A defense of Christian morality through laws, or the reduction of the power of the state? If those who are in power wish to eradicate traditional [Christian] morals and persecute those who follow them, they will do so--it seems to me that at the Federal level at least there are not enough votes to put defenders of traditional morals into office to make a difference, or to even force the Federal government to abide by the Constitution.
An view opposed to Dr. Fleming: Jennifer Roback Morse: Privatizing Marriage is not the Answer to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
An interesting post about Burke: Edmund Burke, Anarcho-Conservative (via the Western Confucian).
GL, The aim is joy
The aim is joy
Gene Logsdon, Dave Smith, OrganicToBe.org
I’ve taken lovely vacations over the years, but the latest one, at an exclusive hideaway we were lucky enough to know about, had to be the best ever. ... We could not have enjoyed the weekend just described without a very intimate knowledge of our surroundings.
(original)
Obama, Geithner get low grades from economists: report
I was starting to think it would be a credible criticism to use against the administration, but then I read this:
Mike Whitney, Haircut Time for Bondholders
Time for Geithner and Bernanke to Go
I was starting to think it would be a credible criticism to use against the administration, but then I read this:
On average, the economists gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42 percent of respondents rated Obama below 60, the paper said.Professional economists really don't know anything if they are giving Bernanke such high marks.
Geithner received an average grade of 51, while Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71, the paper said.
Mike Whitney, Haircut Time for Bondholders
Time for Geithner and Bernanke to Go
Former mentor of Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, has his own cooking competition show--The Chopping Block. First episode on Hulu.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Fatal Distraction by Gene Weingarten
Forgetting a child in the back seat of a hot, parked car is a horrifying, inexcusable mistake. But is it a crime?
(via Rod Dreher)
Still, can we find anything in common among the parents? Have such accidental, yet seemingly preventable deaths, happened in families where the division of labor is clear, when one parent is taking care of the child while the other one works? In some families, both parents have to work. But in others, this is a chosen lifestyle. More victims of wage slavery and of radical egalitarianism?
And do we allow ourselves to be distracted too easily, by failing to prioritize properly? If our children's well-being were really paramount, would we not make sure to have done our duty to ensure it, rather than making assumptions? There is a line between proper parenting and becoming compulsive or controlling, but do moderns suffer from an inability to prioritize, which leads to becoming easily distracted and loss of focus? Is this a problem with modern practical reason?
Some may not be able to balance their lives in such a way that they can take their time and act calmly--but is this not another indictment of our political economy?
Or if it is so easy for human beings to lose track of things, maybe we should abandon the sort of lifestyle that contributes to this, because it puts others at risk.
Forgetting a child in the back seat of a hot, parked car is a horrifying, inexcusable mistake. But is it a crime?
(via Rod Dreher)
There is no national clearinghouse for cases of infant hyperthermia, no government agency charged with data collection and oversight. The closest thing is in the basement office of a comfortable home in suburban Kansas City, Kan., where a former sales and marketing executive named Janette Fennell runs a nonprofit organization called Kids and Cars. Kids and Cars lobbies for increased car safety for children, and as such maintains one of the saddest databases in America.The author of the article appears to be defending the parents--"it could happen to anyone." Busy people who forget, because we are not gifted with powerful memories, but fragile ones...
Fennell is on a sofa, her bare feet tucked under her, leafing through files. Amber, her college intern, walks up and plops a fax of a new wire service story on the table. "Frontover," Amber says. "Parking lot, North Carolina."
There's a grisly terminology to this business. "Backovers" happen when you look in the rearview mirror and fail to see the child behind the car, or never look at all. "Frontovers" occur almost exclusively with pickups and SUVs, where the driver sits high off the ground. There are "power window strangulations" and "cars put in motion by child" and, finally, "hyperthermia."
In a collage on Fennell's wall are snapshots of dozens of infants and toddlers, some proudly holding up fingers, as if saying, "I'm 2!" Or "I'm 3!" The photos, typically, are from their final birthdays.
Fennell has met or talked with many of the parents in the hyperthermia cases, and some now work with her organization. She doesn't seek them out. They find her name, often late at night, sleeplessly searching the Web for some sign that there are others who have lived in the same hell and survived. There is a general misconception, Fennell says, about who these people are: "They tend to be the doting parents, the kind who buy baby locks and safety gates." These cases, she says, are failures of memory, not of love.
Fennell has an expression that's half smile, half wince. She uses it often.
"Some people think, 'Okay, I can see forgetting a child for two minutes, but not eight hours.' What they don't understand is that the parent in his or her mind has dropped off the baby at day care and thinks the baby is happy and well taken care of. Once that's in your brain, there is no reason to worry or check on the baby for the rest of the day."
Fennell believes that prosecuting parents in this type of case is both cruel and pointless: It's not as though the fear of a prison sentence is what will keep a parent from doing this.
The answer to the problem, Fennell believes, lies in improved car safety features and in increased public awareness that this can happen, that the results of a momentary lapse of memory can be horrifying.
What is the worst case she knows of?
"I don't really like to . . ." she says.
She looks away. She won't hold eye contact for this.
"The child pulled all her hair out before she died."
For years, Fennell has been lobbying for a law requiring back-seat sensors in new cars, sensors that would sound an alarm if a child's weight remained in the seat after the ignition is turned off. Last year, she almost succeeded. The 2008 Cameron Gulbransen Kids' Transportation Safety Act -- which requires safety improvements in power windows and in rear visibility, and protections against a child accidentally setting a car in motion -- originally had a rear seat-sensor requirement, too. It never made the final bill; sponsors withdrew it, fearing they couldn't get it past a powerful auto manufacturers' lobby.
There are a few aftermarket products that alert a parent if a child remains in a car that has been turned off. These products are not huge sellers. They have likely run up against the same marketing problem that confronted three NASA engineers a few years ago.
In 2000, Chris Edwards, Terry Mack and Edward Modlin began to work on just such a product after one of their colleagues, Kevin Shelton, accidentally left his 9-month-old son to die in the parking lot of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The inventors patented a device with weight sensors and a keychain alarm. Based on aerospace technology, it was easy to use; it was relatively cheap, and it worked.
Janette Fennell had high hopes for this product: The dramatic narrative behind it, she felt, and the fact that it came from NASA, created a likelihood of widespread publicity and public acceptance.
That was five years ago. The device still isn't on the shelves. The inventors could not find a commercial partner willing to manufacture it. One big problem was liability. If you made it, you could face enormous lawsuits if it malfunctioned and a child died. But another big problem was psychological: Marketing studies suggested it wouldn't sell well.
The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them.
Still, can we find anything in common among the parents? Have such accidental, yet seemingly preventable deaths, happened in families where the division of labor is clear, when one parent is taking care of the child while the other one works? In some families, both parents have to work. But in others, this is a chosen lifestyle. More victims of wage slavery and of radical egalitarianism?
And do we allow ourselves to be distracted too easily, by failing to prioritize properly? If our children's well-being were really paramount, would we not make sure to have done our duty to ensure it, rather than making assumptions? There is a line between proper parenting and becoming compulsive or controlling, but do moderns suffer from an inability to prioritize, which leads to becoming easily distracted and loss of focus? Is this a problem with modern practical reason?
Some may not be able to balance their lives in such a way that they can take their time and act calmly--but is this not another indictment of our political economy?
Or if it is so easy for human beings to lose track of things, maybe we should abandon the sort of lifestyle that contributes to this, because it puts others at risk.
Opus Dei - RELATED DOCUMENTS - Statutes of Opus Dei
From the US Opus Dei site:
The Vocation to Opus Dei
This essay on the vocation to Opus Dei may be of interest to those who are discerning a vocation to Opus Dei, to their families, or to anyone else who would like a more in-depth description of the vocation to Opus Dei. The author is a member of Opus Dei who is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. The essay was first published in 1994.
Vatican Declaration on Opus Dei
This is the Vatican document, issued by the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and approved by Pope John Paul II, that explains the fundamental traits of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
This section gives in translation the chapters of Itinerarios de vida cristiana by Javier Echevarría (Planeta, 2001).
Bishop Javier Echevarria speaks of divine filiation. Opus Dei - WHAT IS OPUS DEI? - Message.
Opus Dei - FROM THE PRELATE - Letter from the Prelate (January 2009)
Opus Dei - FROM THE PRELATE - The True Face of Opus Dei
Related links:
ODAN: 1982 Statutes of Opus Dei -- Latin and English and 1950 Constitutions of Opus Dei -- Latin and English
Opus Dei info - Opus Dei 1982 Statutes
Edit. I just ran across this--Opus Dei cartoon and TV series to boost image - Telegraph.
From the US Opus Dei site:
The Vocation to Opus Dei
This essay on the vocation to Opus Dei may be of interest to those who are discerning a vocation to Opus Dei, to their families, or to anyone else who would like a more in-depth description of the vocation to Opus Dei. The author is a member of Opus Dei who is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. The essay was first published in 1994.
Vatican Declaration on Opus Dei
This is the Vatican document, issued by the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and approved by Pope John Paul II, that explains the fundamental traits of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
This section gives in translation the chapters of Itinerarios de vida cristiana by Javier Echevarría (Planeta, 2001).
Bishop Javier Echevarria speaks of divine filiation. Opus Dei - WHAT IS OPUS DEI? - Message.
Opus Dei - FROM THE PRELATE - Letter from the Prelate (January 2009)
Opus Dei - FROM THE PRELATE - The True Face of Opus Dei
Related links:
ODAN: 1982 Statutes of Opus Dei -- Latin and English and 1950 Constitutions of Opus Dei -- Latin and English
Opus Dei info - Opus Dei 1982 Statutes
Edit. I just ran across this--Opus Dei cartoon and TV series to boost image - Telegraph.
Rod Dreher asks, "Chuck Norris, president of Texas?" Doing a search on Google, I found Texas Secede! and Texas Secession. There's also the Texas Ordinance of Secession. (For more on that part of Texas's history, see Narrative History of Texas Secession and Readmission to the Union.)
Creating a Home Graywater System (video)
Peak Moment #141
Trathen Heckman takes us on a step-by-step tour of how to make a safe, ecological and legal suburban home graywater system. Follow the water as it drains from the bathroom tub (and sink and laundry) through a unique valve leading into the backyard garden. It flows into an optional wetland and underground pond for filtering. The water is then piped below ground to several destinations in the yard, where it will supply water for plants growing above it. Trathen discusses the process with local government agencies, the system design and construction (with pictures), costs, resource books, and why to undertake a graywater system in the first place. (http://www.daily-acts.org/)
(via EB)
Peak Moment #141
Trathen Heckman takes us on a step-by-step tour of how to make a safe, ecological and legal suburban home graywater system. Follow the water as it drains from the bathroom tub (and sink and laundry) through a unique valve leading into the backyard garden. It flows into an optional wetland and underground pond for filtering. The water is then piped below ground to several destinations in the yard, where it will supply water for plants growing above it. Trathen discusses the process with local government agencies, the system design and construction (with pictures), costs, resource books, and why to undertake a graywater system in the first place. (http://www.daily-acts.org/)
(via EB)
The economic crisis impacts on public health
Dan Bednarz, PhD, Energy Bulletin
Today I report on a study with public health officials from across the nation... The questions are not about peak oil per se; that topic would make for a short interview, indeed. I’m inquiring about the current fiscal and economic crisis... (transcript of talk for the “After Peak Oil” Conference, Johns-Hopkins University, March 12)
Dan Bednarz, PhD, Energy Bulletin
Today I report on a study with public health officials from across the nation... The questions are not about peak oil per se; that topic would make for a short interview, indeed. I’m inquiring about the current fiscal and economic crisis... (transcript of talk for the “After Peak Oil” Conference, Johns-Hopkins University, March 12)
Academic Labor in Dark Times By HENRY A. GIROUX
Making Democracy Matter
While Aristotle does say the ruler must make provisions for the education of the young to be citizens, this is not what he meant. And at this point conservatives and Christians should be wary of the state being involved in the moral and civic training of our children.
Making Democracy Matter
While Aristotle does say the ruler must make provisions for the education of the young to be citizens, this is not what he meant. And at this point conservatives and Christians should be wary of the state being involved in the moral and civic training of our children.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Keira Knightley vids
The Edge of Love - Clip 1 - Keira singing Blue Tahitian Moon
The Edge of Love - Clip 2 - Keira singing Maybe
alt
Keira Knightley singing in The Edge of Love
Keira Knightley, The Edge of Love Interview - BBC Breakfast
The Edge of Love - Clip 2 - Keira singing Maybe
alt
Keira Knightley singing in The Edge of Love
Keira Knightley, The Edge of Love Interview - BBC Breakfast
Aaron Newton on the Bulls-Eye Diet
His blog
Growing Our Own And More On The Bullseye Diet
100 million new farmers? North Carolina writer calls for agricultural revolution
by Morgan Glover (EB)
The 4 Day Work Week
Aaron Newton | Hen and Harvest
Aaron Newton on sustainable land use planning and infill agriculture
A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil
Casaubon’s Book » Blog Archive » The Bullseye Diet
Asia News: Severe crisis for traditional model of Vietnamese family by J.B. VU
More people are divorcing, or separating into nuclear families. Preoccupation with making money is overshadowing concern for children's education. Since last year, the bishops have been urging family education. A pastoral letter from Cardinal Pham Minh Man.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)