Privacy

Does Alasair MacIntyre discuss the origin of the notion of [modern?] "privacy" in After Virtue? I think he does, but I will have to check. Who else talks about the division of public and private and how this came about? There is some discussion of the two realms in this post on Henry James' The Bostonians over at The Thinking Housewife: The Anti-Feminist Prophecies of Henry James. Is the division between private and public better explained by the division between domestic and communal? (And even the domestic may have its own divisions - that which pertains to the whole family, that which pertains to relations between husband and wife, that which pertains to the father, that which pertains to the mother, etc.).

And then there is the communal, which can be divided into the men's network and the women's network. Both involve cooperation of its members for the support and betterment of families, mutual support, and friendship. But the men's network also involves political action (and rule/self-governance), which the women's network does not given that men are the head of families, not women. So while there may be some similarities between the two networks, there are profound differences rooted in sex differences. The men's network is more open not only to the immediate help of their families, but for the communal good, since only men, as head of families, can properly adjudicate their responsibilities to one another as members of a whole.

We can also work an analysis of guilds and other associations based on trade/vocation into such an analysis, but this should be a beginning for recovering a better understanding of politics and community life.

Related:
Something by Thomas F. Bertonneau on the novel.

On Friday afternoon I was walking near my old jr. high (a middle school now), which was having a dance that evening. I was curious as to what music was going to be played. Back in my day, we had some pop music, but also some "alternative" stuff - typical '80s music. What did I hear? A lot of ghetto music, along with what passes for contemporary pop -- music you might hear at an [import] auto show, but now being played in a middle school. Plenty of bump and grind music; that sort of physical contact probably isn't allowed at school, but why not? The music is already corrupting the young. From what I saw, there is no longer any dress code. I think the dances used to be semi-formal when I was at the school - dress shirt and slacks, coat, and maybe a tie too. I could be wrong about the tie. But now, anything goes. I saw a group of boys walking along the field towards the dance, and they looked like wannabe thugs with their ghetto wear. I bet there were no dresses on the girls, though some may have been wearing some form of a skirt. This is supposed to be a good school in a middle-class suburb. It would be too much to expect the school to step in and teach them something about traditional dances (along with the rituals and values they represent). No square dancing here. How can you trust the degenerates in charge of the moral formation of students? "FAIL." And what do the parents think of this? Those who allow their children to go to such dances can be called permissive.

I once was in a math classroom in the 95-6 school year. Standards of behavior had fallen, as the students were so talkative during the lesson. We would never have done that in our day. What a let-down.



VFR: A dress code and its effects, 1957 - there is a mention of
Diana West.

E. Europe or Japan?

Had lunch with KK and her family along with my mom this morning over at the local BJ's.

At the table next to ours was a Japanese couple with a baby. The wife was rather thin; the baby was a typical Asian baby, plump, maybe 6 months old? She wasn't the most beautiful Japanese woman, but she she had the kind of face to which I am normally attracted. Nice eyes and Japanese nose; I doubt she had any work done on her face. (But what would I know about that?)
Her husband had the typical Japanese hipster look (complete with the hat), fuzz passing for a beard and moustache. Figures. I think the average Japanese woman acts more "feminine" (even if in an exaggerated or annoying manner) than the average Korean woman. (In that claim I am ignoring the teenagers of both countries.) Either would be preferable to the typical HKer or Mainlander.

Welmer reports on E. Europe: A Different World, People of Europe and Curvy Women in Perspective

Model Minority, American, or...

HBO "East of Main Street: Small Talk" Trailer


Trailer for the first series:

Vimeo

Items of Interest, 27 April 2012

Patrick Buchanan on Uncommon Knowledge


National Review TV: The U.S. & the World with Patrick J. Buchanan: Chapter 5 of 5 (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4)

Jordan Bloom, Paul Ryan, Thomas Reese and Anti-Subsidiarity

Paul Gottfried, Human Rights, the Useless Fiction

Rod Dreher, How Boomers Ruined Education

Only One Way to End the Indecencies of War

How Highbrows Killed Culture

Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote
Cybersecurity Bill CISPA Broadened Then Passed Through House

As California Collapses, Obama Follows Its Lead

Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: A Response

The Game of Drones

Recognizing Heroes by RALPH NADER

Joel Salatin:
Video of him at Tara Firma Farms



Slideshow: Feeding the Future

Economics:
Economics Can't Explain Everything
Love and money; Why Chrisitianity is incompatible with capitalism

Relocalization:
Fence Post Economics
Festival of Transition
The Hidden Power of Co-Ops (EB)

Sustainability:
Debunking the Myth that Only Industrial Agriculture Can Feed the World

Energy:
DAVE LINDORFF, Relax, It’s Just a Run-of-the-Mill Nuke Spill
Private Empire, Steve Coll's Book on Exxon-Mobil
(The Dark Side)
Can Renewable Energy Sustain Consumer Societies
Breaking Point: The End Of The Cheap Energy Economy

VIDEO: CROSSOVER WITH RICHARD HEINBERG: END OF CHEAP ENERGY ERA


Is the Chinese government already planning for a postcarbon future? Many, including Chris Martenson, seem to think that it is ahead of the US in this respect, even if its transition could be better.

Catholic:
A Perfectly Imperfect Vocation Story: Sr. Juliana Schmitt, O.Cist. (’86)
Guillaume de Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” in the context of fourteenth-century polyphonic music for the Mass Ordinary

Education:
Thomas Storck, Think Different: A New Model for University Administration

Diet and Health:
How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet
ERWAN LE CORRE: THE 10 MOVNAT PRINCIPLES
Latest in Paleo 56: Who You Gonna Trust? (mp3)
LCC (Episode 47): Dr. Joe Leonardi And Tara Grant Dig Into The Disconnect Between Medical Care And Chronic Disease (mp3)

Islam:
Islam's Origins: Where Mystery Meets History

Music:
I Shall Be Released - Up On Cripple Creek (tribute to Levon Helm)


Punch Brothers: Sophisticated Strings

Allegri: Motets, Miserere, Missa In lectulo meo & Missa Christus resurgens
Choir of Kings College London, David Trendell

Bourne Vivaldi (Bourne Soundtrack/Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto) - ThePianoGuys

The Zombie Apocalypse Test

Take you zombie apocalypse or some other scenario where TSHTF and you have to struggle to survive. Extreme circumstances. What men have your back and whose back would you cover? Upon how many other men can you rely? With whom you can band? In a recent interview (I think this one) Jack Donovan alludes to the popularity of "disaster porn" - movies about cataclysmic destruction or disasters, and posits that one reason why people watch them is that they fantasize about being able to make life-or-death decisions when it counts. So we can ask ourselves a related question (as many do, tongue-in-cheek, on Facebook): whom do we want to be with us when the zombie apocalypse arrives? Who's got your back? I think if those of us living in the suburbs or the urban parts of megacities were honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that there wouldn't be many.

What Star Wars fanatic wouldn't want this on his desk at work?

Grand Moff Tarkin and I-TO Interrogator Droid
Alterego Comics
It is featured in the latest issue of Star Wars Insider magazine. Toys for Uhmerican men... Japanese otaku have their model figurines as well.

Tonight I saw the Dr. Pepper Avengers commercial, with the 4 men representing 4 archetypes (leader, warrior, genius, and... strongman?) Yes, the commercial is noteworthy for its positive depiction of men. The video is also available at The Real Stan Lee.

Related:
Dr Pepper Unveils Limited-Edition “Marvel’s the Avengers” Cans, Online Game and New Commercial

TAC-TV Episode 4 Preview - MOH Warfighter

Icon painting class at Thomas More College

Or, icon writing for those who prefer that word.

NLM: Learn to Paint Icons in the Western Tradition at Thomas More College this Summer

Aidan Hart's book is rather expensive, but I'd still like to get a copy. Alas, I don't think I could become an iconographer.

Adam De Ville: Aidan Hart on Iconography (an interview with Aidan Hart)

A prediction

Most of the comments left here will be by those protesting the action of the CDF, Catholic dissenters or non-Catholic (even non-Christian) liberals: Rod Dreher, Radical Nun Pity Party.

The group's official website.

From last week: LCWR 'stunned' by Vatican crackdown

Mayumi Kojima

小嶋真由美, 初恋 (はつこい






Nintendo


More:

真夜中のパーティー


真夏の海


Not exactly pop... more like jazz...

Libertarians clueless about energy

Acton Lecture Series: Andrew Morriss on ‘The False Promise of Green Energy’

In his Cato book, Morriss and co-authors warn that “the concrete results of following [green energy] policies will be a decline in living standards around the globe, including for the world’s poorest; changes in lifestyle that Americans do not want; and a weakening of the technological progress that market forces have delivered, preventing us from finding real solutions to the real problems we face.” Many of those lifestyle changes will come from suddenly spending far more on energy than we’d like. Green technologies mean diverting production from cheap sources, such as coal and oil, to more expensive, highly subsidized ones, like wind and solar. These price spikes won’t be limited to our electricity bills either, the authors argue. “Anything that increases the price of energy will also increase the price of goods that use energy indirectly.”

In God's Hands?

In the latest episodes of the Kunstlercast, James Howard Kunstler repeats his judgment that Arizona (along with S. California) has no future, and that it isn't a good idea to move there. I was thinking about this while looking through some materials for Our Lady of Solitude Monastery, which is located just north of Phoenix. (The nuns have a blog.)

Their homepage features a photo of the altar:


The monastery chapel was built rather quickly once sufficient funds were raised? Some photos of the exterior of the chapel and the grounds here. A visit by Fr. Anselm in 2011. And here is a video of the chapel dedication in 2011:


Easter 2012.

As you can see, the chapel is neo-Gothic in style, like the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama. It's ok, but not my favorite. I hope neo-Gothic doesn't become the standard for the Anglican Ordinariate parishes, unless the rood screen is also brought back.

Now there are monasteries located in the desert, like St. Catherine's in Egypt. Where does St. Catherine's get its food? Do the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration use air conditioning in the Summer? How much electricity does the monastery consume? What about the water needs of the monastery? Would they be able to secure enough food if gas prices get too high, if industrial agriculture in Arizona is not sustainable? If not, then can Divine Providence do anything to maintain the monastery into the future, if it is not sustainable? If it is not naturally sustainable, then it seems a miracle or two might be needed.

Nonetheless, it'd be nice to take one of our uncles there in the near future.

Their FB page.

Hollywood: China, the Push-over

*spoiler warning: this post is about the latest episode of Person of Interest*

Items of Interest, 26 April 2012

The Revolutionary Conservatism of Jefferson's Small Republics by Arthur J. Versluis

John Michael Greer, Seascape With Methane Plumes

CISPA is the New SOPA
Jordan Bloom, The Cyber-Narc Bill

Peter Hitchens, The Over-Rating of Oscar Wilde

Chief Justice Says States Have Compromised Their Sovereignty

The False Idol Of American Democracyby Michael Hill (via Rebellion)

KunstlerCast #203: Live Audience Podcast – Part 2 (mp3)
JHK & Duncan at Union College Humanities Seminar

A good Republican - Kristi Noem, My Voice: Focus on real issues, not sideshows

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Soldier by Steve Sailer (on Tiger Woods)

Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, A Full Spectrum Confrontation World?
Tomgram: Nick Turse, Memory Failure at the Pentagon
Tomgram: Lewis Lapham, Machine-Made News

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme

How Intellectual Property Destroyed Men's Shaving

via some Left Conservatives:


Economics:
Redefining wealth by Craig K. Comstock
To young people, justice is a key ingredient in good food by Yoni Landau (EB)

Relocalization:
Sustainable Local Economies - Nick Osborne Transition Network Speaker at 7GGC

Occupy the Farm, A Model of Resistance

Gene Logsdon, It Pays to Stay Home (EB)

Hiding Behind the Screen

Permaculture:
raised garden beds: hugelkultur instead of irrigation
Hegelkultur
Why Permaculture Design Inspires Me

Catholic:
Kathleen Blum, A Tuscan Childhood
The legacy of the 13th Apostle: origins of the East Christian conceptions of church and state relation
What is “Lectio Divina” and will it help my prayer life? – A Guide to Lectio Divina
Cats, Compliments, and Whit Stillman
8 Reasons Catholics Are the Worst Protestors
Who cares about protesting? Catholics have been neutered as an effective political force, whether they have been complicit or not in this process. (E. Michael Jones talks about the destruction of Catholic neighborhoods in the major cities.)

A liberal Protestant who doesn't understand Church authority (or Christianity, for that matter) - Having the Sisters' Back

CWR: The Church and the Sisters: What Is Really Happening?

Catholic Because I’m a Sinner by Jack Mulder

Teaching Virtue for the New Evangelization


Education:
The Real Business of Liberal Learning

Diet and Health:
Memorandum by Richard Horton (PI 108)
THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY AND MEDICAL JOURNALS
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science



Saturated Fat is Good for You - by Uffe Ravnskov MD - Part 1 of 3 By Uffe Ravnskov MD

MDA: 2 More Common Nutrient Deficiencies
Why Fast? Part Seven – Q&A
Dear Mark: Risk of Gout?

Alas, Tom Murphy buys into the China Study propaganda: Flex-Fuel Humans (EB)

Marriage:
How young should a woman marry? (Part 1)
A Conversation with John Witte about the Evolution of Marriage Law in the West (mp3)

History:
The Methods of Medieval Translators: A Comparison of the Latin Text of Virgil’s Aeneid with its Old French Adaptations


Music:
The Punch Brothers

The complete program.



Larry Vickers:

Melody Walker

She performed at the Freight and Salvage last night (and a couple of months ago she was a guest performer at a house concert featuring Nora Jane Struthers). I didn't go last night, but I hope to catch her next event at the Freight.

official (MS, FB)

Theology and the Good Society

Big Ideas

with: Phillip Blond, Founding director of the ResPublica thinktank
John Milbank, Professor of Politics, Religion and Ethics at the University of Nottingham
Adrian Pabst, Lecturer in Politics at the University of Kent

mp3

I was asked to post the following:


Composting toilets are not feasible in densely populated areas? It might be "easier" to find a solution for sanitation needs than to persuade people to leave those areas, but in actuality the restoration of the nutrient cycle should be a priority. Urban depopulation might be encouraged through the promotion of agrarianism and localism. Is Bill Gates interested in those goals?

Bill Gates to Reinvent Toilet
Why Bill Gates Wants to Reinvent the Toilet

The latest: Good news for Volvic and Evian: Bill Gates funds new machine that filters your toilet waste back into 'drinkable' water
Dawn.com

Will drinking that reclaimed water really be appealing to the majority of people? Dune stillsuits.

As for the graphics -- it doesn't really give information about participating in the contest; it seems rather to just be a means of advertising an online education resource.

Joel Salatin on the Lew Rockwell Show

Ep. 272 The Food Police State (mp3)

Dr. Fleming on the Limits of the State

First:

Here is why I do not think Natural Law requires a state to protect the unborn. By the laws of nature, parents have a primary interest and duty to produce and rear their offspring. In a state of nature, without insanity or extreme threats, that is what primitive humans do, that is what the anthropoid apes do, that is what mammals do. A woman's obligation to bear her child transcends the state's authority, thus if a state declared that she was not permitted to bear a defective child who would be a burden on the taxpayers, a moral mother would be duty-bound to disobey.


The great sin in abortion is not that a post or pre-christian state permits such an abomination but that a mother kills the being she is most obliged to love and protect. In transferring, even in our thoughts, that responsibility to government, we are not only missing the larger moral issue, but we are heading in the direction of the unbalanced christian women, mostly Catholics, who want to adopt embryos and bear them.


By the way, I don't think under the Natural Law that a political authority is bound to protect born children who are the family's and not the government's responsibility. Obviously a decent commonwealth, pagan or Christian, will be concerned but it is not a good idea to transfer, in principle, such responsibility to the rulers of this world. The Roman patria potestas conferred a life-long responsibility on a father to determine questions of life and death for children of any age who were in his manus or potestas. This is a very complicated issue and the cases in which a father exercised such a right with impunity so very few that it indicates the strength of family attachments may be stronger where the state has only a small role than when it assumes full responsibility.

Then in response to a follow-up:

The question was originally posed in terms of Natural Law. Obviously, under different human circumstances, different approaches will be more or less useful. What works in the world of Beowulf will not necessarily do in the world of Booth Tarkington--though the world of Beowulf is becoming every day more relevant.

I'd give up the word state, with all its historical and ideological baggage. Was the Athenian polis a state? I don't think so, at least not in the sense that the UK or the USA today are states. This is much too big an issue for this column, but in general a state implies a permanent administrative system. It is not that a political community has no interest in protecting children, only that its laws and actions must not be undertaken--as they are today--in a way that destroys the very natural institution responsible for children.


I'll give two civilized examples of how it has worked in the past. In Athens, a murderer had to be prosecuted by the citizen-victim's kinfolks, while the city supplied a court. At Rome, when people were found to have violated a law prohibiting bacchanalian ceremonies, the guilty parties were turned over to their families for execution. There is probably an infinite number of possible arrangements that do not put politicians in charge of family relations.

Published today: Arizonans Never Never Never Shall Be Slaves

While opponents of state legislation on immigration are forever repeating the dogma that only the Federal government has jurisdiction in matters of civil status and immigration, this is nowhere stated in the US Constitution. In fact, from the beginning some states had their own laws on immigration. Jefferson and his allies wanted to protect their French friends from the Federalist administration of John Adams. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions drafted by Jefferson and Madison were acts nullifying the Alien and Sedition Acts.


Those were radical measures that are still disputed today, but many states did pass their own citizenship, immigration, and naturalization laws. Here in Illinois, Joseph Smith and his brother were arrested for treason against the state, when the Mormons of Nauvoo refused to allow writs to be served in their community. And after WW I, during the anti-Red hysteria that gripped the country, the state prosecuted Swedish labor leaders in Rockford under a recently passed treason statute. On the frontier, in some communities, non-citizens were allowed to vote in local elections, on the grounds that they paid taxes and had a stake in the community. Until
It is hard for foreigners--and most Americans today--to understand, but in a truly federal system states and local communities enjoy rights and exercise authorities that are undreamed of in more centralized states. If there really was an "American way," federalism was it. Note the past tense.


With the growing centralization of political power, the Federal Government has inevitably become the locus for authority immigration law, and its enforcement, and neither Governor Brewer nor the Arizona legislators wish to reverse this trend. Nonetheless, the fact that the national government is supreme in these matters is not treated, in parallel cases, as a nullification of the states' right to enforce parallel legislation on drugs, alcohol, firearms, and assassination.

The issue before the Court is not really one of jurisdiction but of the rights of the American citizens in the states to decide who will be their neighbors and fellow-citizens. For the American left, all distinctions are invidious, whether they are based on race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, or civil status.


Readers of Roman history known the story of the gradual extension of the franchise that culminated in Caracalla's decision to grant citizenship to the free population of the Empire. In its early phases, this was an enlightened policy that made loyal citizens out of conquered nations, but by Caracalla's time, it was a hollow gesture whose most serious effect was to subject more people to taxation. As time went on, the citizenship of which St. Paul was so proud, became meaningless. It was replaced by distinctions of wealth and status. A mere citizen in Diocletian's day could be tortured like a slave.
The comparison of the American and Roman empires in decline is a platitude, but this parallel is suggestive. Both began as highly decentralized federal systems that permitted local jurisdictions--the Roman municipia, the American states--to manage local affairs. They ended up as top-heavy monarchies where only the privileged few--Roman bureaucrats and American rich people and privileged minorities enjoy anything like the status of citizens.

The Triumph of Liberalism?

Why the Right Can’t Win the Gay Marriage Fight By Daniel McCarthy
Social conservatives lose to liberal modernity

"That people in this group are not negligible in numbers—amounting to perhaps 5 percent of the general population—has also been a slowly dawning realization."

Upcoming Evie Ladin appearances

Her website. (MS)






Stairwell Sisters (FB) at Cafe Du Nord this Friday, along with Arann Harris and the Farm Band (MS/FB) and The Barbary Ghosts(FB event)

CD Release Square Dance! in Oakland, CA on May 18.
CD release show at the Freight and Salvage on May 19.
Workshop at the Freight and Salvage on May 20.


Also at the Freight: Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic (FB) - May 12

I thought it was odd that there wasn't an In and Out near 85 in S. San Jose, but it turns out that there is one, and it's been there for a while (at least 4 years). I hadn't bothered to look it up on the internet until now, relying instead on my memories of driving through the area on the freeway. Now I know where to go for a late-night meal if I am in South San Jose. I was thinking of going to the one near the airport today after work, but instead I settled for the snacks offered in the staff lounge.

Items of Interest, 24 April 2012

What Must Leaders Know to Wield the “Five Swords of Imagination”? by Barbara J. Elliott

Ron Paul attacks CISPA in urgent call to oppose 'Big Brother' bill

New Law Makes Protesting Near the President Illegal; Judge Napolitano Calls It an ‘Assault on Free Speech’

FBI: Hundres of Thousands May Lose Internet in July

Libertarianism, Conservatism, and Egalitarianism by Carson Holloway


Hawaiian Libertarian: This is Your Brain, This is Your Brain on Porn

Obama on soldiers who posed with Afghan corpses: ‘Reprehensible’ conduct merits probe

Are we really more civilized than that? Or have we thrown our soldiers into an insane situation?

Damien Perrotin, Party Politics (EB)

Wendell Berry, American Hero by Mark Bittman
Wendell Berry in D.C. in Two Venues - Wendell Berry at National Cathedral

Economics:
The Exodus of American Manufacturing
Money and wealth: How to heal the disconnect by David Boyle (EB)


Farming:
WATCH: Joel Salatin on Building Resilience into Agriculture
The Value of Our Produce

Peak Oil and Energy:
A Snarky Guide to Peak Oil
Deepwater what?

Catholic:
The First Mass of a Young Ordinariate Priest: Fr. James Bradley
Pope: Women Have Key Role in Building Up Church in America
The statement is a little too facile and brief? Unless "Catholic feminism" has prevailed and dominates the thinking of Uhmerican Catholics on the roles of women.

Feminism:
"Marriage is For Losers"
But how many marriage counselors and therapists are biased towards women? What about respect for the man as a man and his authority as husband and father?
Anna Quindlen Over 50 and Having Plenty of Cake
Jack Donovan, Men in Uncomfortable Shoes

Diet and Health:
MovNat Will Change You: Commentary by Instructor Kellen Milad
Mark Sisson in South Africa
Let's Put an End to Dietary Tribalism

Movies:
Trailer - My S.O. Has Depression (Tsure ga Utsu ni Narimashite)


Music:
Steep Canyon Rangers:


Instrument Interview #3: Carolina Chocolate Drops


Katherine Jenkins & Mark Ballas - Samba - Week 6

More blustering?

From yesterday: N. Korean army vows to turn Seoul to ashes

Who knows anything about the stability of the N. Korean regime and its control over the military?