Catholic seminarian Jeff Geerling tells his blog readers how to enjoy "Venal Sin on a Tortilla."
Jeff is also the sound man and webmaster for the delightfully named Priestie Boyz. I wonder if they perform the great rap ode to the Eucharist, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right to Partake."
Personal to every reader who remembers the Dive, Voxx Records, The Bob, USA Network's "Night Flight," or IRS Records' "The Cutting Edge": If you want to feel young, then, whatever you do, do not click here.
Hat tip—make that a big, throaty wheeze—to Saint Kansas. Did I tell you about my last operation?
[Robert N. Going of The Judge Report posted the following in the comments section of an earlier post. I assume no liability for damage to your computer screen from coffee or any other beverage which this may cause you to spew. — Dawn]
Once I rendered a court decision as a three page limerick, then thought better of it (Thou Shalt Not Get Too Cute) and converted it to much less-interesting prose.
From the archives of Family Court, Montgomery County, N.Y. (the Judge sitting as Acting Supreme Court Justice):
?Bob and Carolyn split. It was fate.
They divorced back around ‘98.
Their marriage a shambles,
They set out on new rambles,
To frolic, perhaps to re-mate.
The lawyer his file did close.
“Nothing left of this case, I suppose.
“All issues resolved.
“No problems to solve.
“It’s as dead as a case ever goes.”
Two years later, and now Bob is back
He has a new cause to attack
“The vows must be said,
“A new wife I must wed.
“And it seems a divorce I do lack.”
“But divorce you we did, I recall,
“We submitted the papers one Fall.
“The Judge took his time,
“But the papers did sign.
“You’re divorced! You’re divorced! That is all!”
“While from Carolyn I’m free from strife,
“It seems there was more to my life.
“I meant not to fool ya’,
“But there’s also a Julia
“With some claims of being my wife.”
She had troubles, it seems, of a sort,
And Bob, wishing to be a good sport,
Took a walk down the aisle,
Later left, single file,
Without an assist from a court.
So later, when Carolyn came,
He wished not to mention his shame.
So to Carolyn wed,
And with Julia not dead,
He was playing a dangerous game.
“So let’s get this straight,” lawyer said.
“With Julia undivorced and not dead,
“You then took the course
“Of seeking divorce
“From a woman to whom you’re not wed?”
“I guess you could say that is true.
“But tell me just what could I do?
“I couldn’t just tell her
“What kind of a feller
“She married. Now tell me, could you?”
So Bob must divorce number one,
With number two already done,
Was there any redress
For this whole freakin’ mess?
His problems had only begun.
So the file so carefully closed
Was summoned from its sweet repose
What could Lawyer do
With this sticky old goo?
“An annulment, I guess, I suppose.”
Since Carolyn didn’t yet know
That her wedding was only for show,
She hadn’t quite weighed
The Default she had made
With the true facts. She might seek more dough.
And Julia, with no thought of makeup
With Bob, might just start to wake up
To her property rights,
And might set her sights
On what Carolyn got in the breakup.
The Court, though amused, took its time,
And replied in Decision sublime,
“There’s nothing I’ll do
“Till the whole bloody crew
“Is before me!” (in Limerick rhyme).
Belief in God, in His mercy, forgiveness, and love, is often looked at as the reward, the goal, or the thing that will bring us to happiness. In a world that holds up individual happiness as the objective in life, and which suggests that we make the right choices to attain that happiness, it is mistakenly believed that faith in God is a quick fix for the problem of attaining happiness. That attitude suggests that, once I have attained faith, I will find happiness, contentment, peace of mind, and fulfillment of dreams. God often, however, has other plans for us.
For that reason, I suspect, there are those who hold out the naïve hope that they can find happiness by other, less demanding means. As I have written before, I tried to find the freedom and happiness in all sorts of places, but was unable to do so. I explored the fulfillment of my own desires, and often attained that satisfaction; the terror of the life I lived was that of an insatiable hunger that grew all the time I tried to satisfy it. The very behaviors I believed would fulfill my longings and desires proved unsatisfactory, and caused me to despair of my ability to love, to feel security and happiness. I came to believe that love and joy were never to be mine, and that I could only escape the loneliness I felt at the time of my death. That I have been found by and reintroduced to God, however, does not mean that my life has suddenly become an easy, comfortable existence.
Although I have come to know great joy as I have grown in my faith in and love for God, I have by no means reached a destination, or a point where I can say, "I have faith now, and I can go about the business of getting happy." Where the world reminds us to work hard now and always plan for tomorrow's happiness, God reminds me, "Be still and know that I am God," (Psalm 46:11) and, "Put not your trust in princes, in man, in whom there is no salvation. When his spirit departs he returns to his earth, on that day his plans perish," (Psalm 146:3-4).
Any time I let my mind worry about what will become of me in the future, I walk away from God. Though I know this to be true, it is still easy to worry and to become afraid. Fortunately, God understands this and is always there to assure me, to save me, and to remove those things that come between us. The more this becomes clear to me, the easier it is for me to be still and to ask for His guidance and protection.
A simple metaphor can be used to explain why I do this. There was a time when I was drowning and found myself unable to swim away from the turbulent waters that surrounded me. My friend jumped in, rescued me, and pulled me to safety. I jumped in again countless times, and my friend was always there to pull me out to safety, and to tell me how to avoid the same calamity in the future. He never got angry with me, or grew impatient, or gave up on me. When I came to see all that He has done for me, I recognized the debt that I owed Him, one that I could never pay off. Fortunately, the only thing He asks of me is to follow Him and to trust that He knows what is best. Out of gratitude for the life He gave me, I gladly seek His friendship.
This post originally appeared on Colin's blog, Fallen Sparrow.
The subject of the end times came up at dinner the other night, apropos of the recent hurricanes: it seems that one of my daughter’s teachers suggested that they might be a sign of the end. I doubt that, myself. For one thing, hurricanes of this strength are far from unheard of, although it’s true that these have been unusually close together in time, were unusually strong at least while they were still well out at sea, and have struck in unusually close proximity to each other. Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, and Rita were all very strong storms, and they all struck a section of coastline from the Texas-Louisiana border on the west to the Alabama-Florida border on the east, a span of roughly four hundred miles, perhaps an eighth (I’m looking at a map and guessing) of the coastline bordering the Gulf of Mexico. I think those of us who live in that area can be forgiven for wondering if there is some design at work here. Still, if the events have been unusual, they can’t be said to have been so improbable as to be anomalous, and the fact is that more and more severe hurricanes struck the United States in the decade of the 1940s.
There’s a simple reason why Americans are engaging in apocalyptic speculation: these hurricanes have affected us dramatically. I don’t remember hearing any of us talk this way in 1998, when Hurricane Mitch, a late-season (October 29) monster, struck Nicaragua and killed some 11,000 people.
I’m a resolute agnostic as regards the end of the world, and in fact tend to believe that the more widespread the belief that it is near, the less likely it is to be so. Sooner or later, of course, someone is going to be right in predicting it, but every age has provided ample reason for those living in it to believe that wickedness is so widespread that it meets the criteria of prophecy, that the end must be soon or else the world will be utterly given over to evil, and so I neither make nor believe any very specific predictions.
There is, however, one thing that gives me pause. The old familiar wickedness of the human race we know very well: the wars, the tortures, the oppression, the lust and the lying. C. S. Lewis once speculated that the quantity of good and evil in the world remains more or less constant, but gets distributed differently in every age: so (for example) our age is horrified by the brutality and cruelty of punishments once handed out for very minor crimes, but has positively encouraged people to abandon on a whim marriage vows made before God, and to throw over the whole concept of sexual morality. Perhaps it all adds up to equal measures of virtue and vice.
But we have invented a new crime. We propose to meddle with the very substance of human life. We propose to destroy human embryos in order to improve our own health. We propose to tinker with the genes of the newly conceived so that when they grow up they will look like we want them to look and behave as we want them to behave. We propose to grow duplicates of living people in a laboratory for purposes of our own.
Once, back in the 1970s when I was more or less testing the waters of Christianity after a long absence, I had a conversation with an Episcopal priest known for his “liberal” views. I had the feeling that he was trying to impress me, under the mistaken impression that I was looking for a modernized and contemporary religion, long on secular enlightenment and short on revelations and commandments. I only remember one specific thing from the conversation; as best I remember, he said something like this: “We (the Episcopal Church) don’t hold the sort of only-God-can-make-a-tree position that the Roman Catholics do. We would see nothing wrong, for instance, in genetically engineering people with gills so that we could mine the bottom of the sea.”
I was dumbstruck and horrified by this, not yet being aware of the apostasy happening within every Christian community at the time. Ten years or so later I related the conversation to a great-aunt of mine, who as far as I know had no religion and was in her late 80s at the time. She considered what I had said for a moment, then replied simply “Well, I suppose people will always want to have slaves.” She saw plainly what the Christian bien-pensant could not.
Perhaps our experiments with cloning and genetic engineering and all the rest of it will prove to be unfeasible. Perhaps they are just slavery under a new name, and perhaps God will let us get away with it, as he has let us, individually and collectively, get away with so much. But it seems to me that they have the potential to distort beyond recognition the elementals of human life: the bond between parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister, one generation and the next. And I find myself hoping, if not expecting, that God himself will put an end to these obscenities, since it seems unlikely that we will voluntarily turn aside from this path, those of us who oppose it being, apparently, in the minority.
I would like to congratulate Buscaraons blogger Xavier Basora, as the guest post he wrote has officially spawned the longest-running comments thread in the history of The Dawn Patrol. It's now at 149 comments—most, I believe, from Philip and Tapetum, who are still going at it (politely, I might add) after nearly three weeks.
As part of its "Who Decides?" campaign, NARAL Pro-Choice issues a report card for each state based on compliance with the organization's abortion-hungry agenda. She's a demanding teacher. Even in this post-Roe era, over a third of her students have flunked and the average grade is only a D+. California, of course, got an A+, and New York an "A", but Miss NARAL decidedly does not grade on a curve.
Not surprising, I suppose. But what baffles me is a statistic that's just sort of dropped in by way of an "Access Fact" box immediately beneath each grade. "98 percent of Kentucky counties have no abortion provider." "93 percent of Wisconsin counties have no abortion provider." What, exactly, is the relevance of the percentage? Who cares?
Technically, NARAL doesn't. If you read its report card methodology, you'll discover that the number of facilities plays no part in the grade. They refuse to come right out and say that a state is "bad" if it doesn't have an aboritorium in every county. After all, it's all about "choice." If 98% of the citizens decide they don't like abortions, don't need abortions, and don't choose abortions, it shouldn't be so shocking that "98% of ______ counties have no abortion provider."
But they throw it in anyway, just beneath the grade. And there it sits, ominously. Since the figure is over 90% for nearly half the states and over 80% in two-thirds, the intent is plainly to scare the reader into thinking "how terrible!" and into considering ways to get the numbers down to something respectable like 4% or 5%. (Perhaps we're were supposed to further consider whether the county is even the proper subdivision; maybe it would be better to have a clinic in every town, block, supermarket, or next to every ATM machine). Obviously there's some huge, untapped demand that isn't being met, some craving which, if "access" were proportionately increased, would ratchet the number of procedures up from a mere 1.3 million annually to a more proper 10-20 million level.
No no no—of course NARAL doesn't want that. Yes, their grading methodology does subtract points for laws that "codify the state's preference for childbirth over abortion," and yes it does subtract points for laws that force people to perform abortions over their moral objections. But they still like their abortions "rare." It's just that when they use that term, they're distinguishing it from "medium" and "well done.
No, this is not the promised guest post from the Raving Atheist—that'll come later—and it's not a joke.
A Christian reader of the Raving Atheist's blog who goes by the name Prayer Tulip has put out the request for prayers for the salvation of her dying 20-year-old son, Matt. RA has posted her request on his blog, closing the comments section to prevent inappropriate postings. He is also approaching Christian blogs and asking them to ask readers to pray for Matt.
RA's atheist credentials are still intact, as far as I know, and I give him a lot of credit for spreading Prayer Tulip's request. If one of my favorite readers wrote to me and told me that an atheist's wish for her dying son would be fulfilled if only I would post her claim that there is no God, I don't think I could do it.
The following is the request in Prayer Tulip's own words, taken directly from RA's blog. (I've made a minor grammatical correction and changed "Rehab" to "Rahab," as I believe that's whom she meant.) James writes, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." When we pray, that righteous Man—Jesus, through his Holy Spirit— prays with us.
Prayer Tulip writes:
As I sit here beside my son in this hospital, Lord, I know Your strength is made perfect in our weakness. You said in Your Word that the effectual fervent prayer of a rightous man/woman avails much. I know I, will never be perfect, while on this earth, and I know that when you see me you don't see my sin, you see The One who died for me, Jesus, and that makes me perfect in Your eyes. Please, Lord show me what you would like me to see/learn through all of these hard days of my son's sickness. I am holding him not tightly only loosely because he belongs to you. Show yourself strong Lord. You have made many promises and you do not lie. Please spare my son and allow him to use this for your kingdom, and give me strength to endure.
UPDATE
The purpose of these updates is for prayer for Matt's salvation. I believe that as long as there is breath in someone, that there is always hope. So far prayers have been answered in that Matt has death to think about right now. He has become resistant to Vancomycin AND is running a high fever. The doctor has changed his antibiotics and now he is on 3 different kinds all hours of the day and night. He stays nauseated. His blood cultures are all coming back positive.
As his mom [I] cannot just say, "He has made his choice to reject God", and just go on about my business. I do not know how anyone could do that, even in the face of his sin. There was hope for Saul, Rahab, Jacob, etc. Do we wrestle with flesh and blood? NO. When I see sin in someone's life, it's like watching a drunk on skid row moving slowly in the face of a Mac truck not realizing that he will be killed if he does not get up and get out of the way. Do I tell him the truth? Yes. Do I abandon him? NO. Do I fervently pray for him? YES. And, like David did for his son, I will stay on my face for Matt constantly until there is no breath in him, then and only then will I know that I did all that I could do. One of those things that I do is ask other people to pray.
joanie
Kathy Shaidle explains in two short essays why you should read an 800-page book by someone you've never heard of—my hero, Whittaker Chambers: Part One and Part Two.
The Telegraph of London reports that women are trying to get pregnant via in vitro fertilization because they don't want to do it the old-fashioned way:
Michael Dooley, a gynaecologist, obstetrician and fertility expert, said that in the past five years he has seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of patients seeking "inappropriate or premature" IVF treatment.Cannon explains that her patients are commuter couples who don't have time for sex, but it's hard to believe that there aren't problems in the marriages as well. After all, if a spouse really want to have sex, he or she will forgo the extra trip to the gym.
"Many of these couples are simply not having sex or not having enough sex," he said. "Conception has become medicalised. It's too clinical. There has been a trend away from having sex and loving relationships towards medicalised conception."...
Emma Cannon, who runs the fertility programme at Westover House, said:...Some people are horrified by the idea that they have to have sex two to three times a week."
"I told one of my patients who is going through IVF that another IVF patient had just conceived naturally. She said: 'What? She's having sex? Bloody Luddite.'"Another expert likewise suggests the couples' problems are more than just not being able to pencil sex into their schedule—testing, after all, takes time:
Dr Tim Evans, the founder of Westover House and the Queen's GP, said: "People are increasingly trying to control it [conception]. They are testing, testing, testing when they should just have sex."So, this is what the sexual revolution has come to. Women get married at 35 or 40, having contracepted for their entire sexual lives, and they discover that they do not know how to have a marital relationship—one that by definition, so long as the two partners are capable, involves having sex.
Sexual union in marriage ought to be a complete giving of each spouse to the other, and when fertility (or potential fertility) is deliberately excluded from that giving I am convinced that something valuable is lost. A husband will sometimes begin to see his wife as an object of sexual pleasure who should always be available for gratification. This tendency is reinforced by the dominant perspective on sexuality in our society, which idealizes unlimited sexual titillation and gratification freed (at least theoretically) from any consideration of pregnancy. Sterilization and hormonal contraceptives especially feed into this prevalent and highly distorted male perspective (which is also adopted by many women). Couples can also easily lose sight of why they have made a decision to avoid pregnancy and then not discuss the issue for months or even years, developing an approach to their sexual relationship largely divorced from even the thought of procreation....
[T]here is a strong "courtship/honeymoon" effect among NFP users, even after years of marriage. Abstinence from genital contact during the fertile phase evokes a sense of periodic "courtship," after which the couple enjoys a periodic "honeymoon" that increases the appreciation and enjoyment of the sexual union. Available research suggests that the overall frequency of intercourse among married couples using NFP is about the same as among most married couples using contraception, but that it is distributed differently. I have known couples in my practice using contraception who routinely have daily intercourse, but these couples do not have anywhere near as satisfying a "sex life" as those couples I see who use NFP. Simply put, NFP enhances marriages in a way that the use of contraception does not.
I find that the following benefits come to those couples who use NFP: 1) they come to a deeper appreciation of fertility as a gift from God rather than a biological phenomenon to be manipulated or a curse to be avoided; 2) they are usually able to consciously and rapidly achieve pregnancy when they so choose ("surprise" pregnancies are rare for NFP users); 3) they reevaluate their choices about fertility on an ongoing basis; 4) in their intimate relationship, each spouse sends to the other the implicit and powerful message: "I accept all of you, including your fertility"; 5) they learn to assume and to exercise joint responsibility for decisions about their fertility; 6) they learn that times of abstinence from genital contact can strengthen their relationship.
Most people who start to use NFP do not do so because they expect to experience the benefits to their relationship and spirituality that I have just described. Research suggests that a majority are initially interested primarily for the health benefits-the absence of medical side effects and the insight into the normal functioning of the body. Others begin use of NFP because of a prior religious commitment. Regardless of the reason for beginning use of NFP, most research has shown that, compared to other family planning methods, a relatively high proportion of users continue to use it. And after some months of use, most users will tell you that they have noticed some of the benefits to their relationships that I have described.
"My ancestors got the Pieta, and all I got is this lousy barbecue grill on astroturf."
—Saint Kansas
According to Jon Sanders, Bill Clinton's had a change of heart. If only. As my great-grandmother would have said to him, Zolst leben un zein gezunt!
Part-Time Pundit John Bambenek, along with Pro-Life Blogs, has started a Carnival of Life, which, if you're not familiar with blog carnivals, is a sort of one-stop shopping for links to the latest prolife blog posts. The second Carnival of Live is up now on Part-Time Pundit. It's pretty brief right now, but I'm sure it'll swell as more of the hundreds of members of Pro-Life Blogs catch on.
As we remember the great Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who died yesterday at the age of 96, I would like to recommend the late Msgr. John M. Oesterreicher's essay "Auschwitz, the Christian, and the Council," especially this excerpt:
In 1938, I saw a photograph of the entrance to a German village that, like many others, had -- instead of the customary road sign or invitation to strangers -- a notice forbidding access to Jews: "Jews are not welcome here!" This dismal board was bad enough in itself. It may be that the village president had been told by higher authorities to erect the warning at the village gate, but certainly no one had commanded him to plant it next to -- a wayside cross. Obviously, neither he nor the other villagers were aware of the abysmal irony of this juxtaposition. Here hung the Crucified -- "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," the inscription above His head proclaimed --, imploring with arms wide open: "Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened. I will give you relief" (Mt 11:28).There was the rejection, directed not only at Jewish passers-by but also at Him who, one might have thought, had found a lasting abode in the hearts of many villagers.
We must not read too much into a story like this. Yet, it shows how little the National-Socialist revolution was understood in those days. It shows how few realized that, to the masters of the Third Reich, Synagogue and Church were one and the same enemy. The really "final solution of the Jewish problem" was to be the doing away of the entire biblical heritage, of gospel and Church, of grace and mercy; the physical slaughter of the Jewish people was only a giant step toward this goal. To put it differently, Jews were made to "pay" for having been the instruments of God's revelation, Is it not appalling that rancor against salvation history should have made Adolf Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg and the rest pierce two thousand years of conflict between Christians and Jews, years of mutual recrimination and bitter hostility, to see their solidarity when, even today, there are still Christians as well as Jews who do not think or feel in terms of their common brotherhood? An inner mutual bond like this is not of our making, nor is it left to our choice. It exists whether we like it or not. For our own good, however, we had better like it.
I can understand that Jews find no comfort in the thought that the Nazis held them responsible for the coming of Christ, that the victims of Auschwitz were, therefore, unwitting martyrs for His sake. For centuries, they had been pursued as Christ-killers. Suddenly, they were attacked as Christ-bearers. Here is an antithesis, an irony a Jew cannot but find hard to take. It may even be offensive to him to think of his kinsmen tortured by the Nazis as forced witnesses to Jesus. A Christian, however, should go down on his knees. The thought that Jews were made to bear the Christian's burden should shake him into the realization of a kinship he has too long forgotten.
Jeremy Gerard, articles editor of Radar magazine, offers two more headlines for the Christian Slater story:
Judge Sets Christian Right But Turns the Other Cheekand
Judge to Groper Christian: Tush, TushJeremy's own headline-writing résumé is as impressive as they come. A veteran theater critic, he was Variety's New York bureau chief for five years, writing such headlines as this, when Bill Clinton first began courting the Hollywood crowd:
Bubba to H'Wood: Don't Be CruelAnd this banner, for the story of an outrageous box-office scandal involving Andrew Lloyd Webber and Glenn Close:
Sunset BULL-evardHe's also written a fine headline for a New York piece on "The Producers" and a great one for a piece about the growing influence of blogger theater critics, which you can see for yourself.
Bard Barred? Or Band Banned?
Thanks to my attempt to ban libelous Anthony from commenting, I appear to have banned everyone and my own mother, as the saying goes. Well, the part about my own mother is true anyway. If you tried to post a nonlibelous comment earlier and were banned, please try again.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Sigh.
Be the first one on your block to see this. Congratulations to Godspy contributor John Zmirak on his new book that the animation promotes, The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living.
The story in tomorrow's National Edition runs something like this:
Christian Slater turned down the real-life role of inmate Monday, taking a plea deal that will allow him to avoid jail time for grabbing and squeezing a woman's buttocks on an Upper East Side street in May.My headline is this:
Edison Alban, a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney's office, said all charges against Slater, 36, will be dropped if he stays clear of trouble for the next six months.
Slater gets off groping charge with a big 'but'
"I don't drink decaf unless it is absolutely necessary for social decorum. Decaf is evil. I am not exaggerating. Coffee by its nature has caffeine. To decaffeinate is to remove an essential good, albeit an accidental good, from the coffee. Therefore, decaf is evil because of the lack of good that ought to be present. Now, where is my grinder?"
— Fr. Shane Tharp of Catholic Ragemonkey
If you liked "Hamlets warned of Ophelia," you'll love this. Make sure you click on scenes one, two, and three. Brilliant, Nightfly.
My new "Blog On!" column will be at this link shortly (the old one's still up as I write this). It's about the Raving Atheist.
Today's Daily News also has a headline I suggested, for a story on the latest payola probe: "SLEAZY LISTENING."
For a future column, I'm looking for blogs that are covering local politics, such as the New York City mayoral race—suggestions?
Bill Hennessy details how a New York Times piece meant to humanize the abortion industry does just the opposite.
Comment on Bill's blog.
UPDATE: Andrea of Least-Loved Bedtime Stories is right that Bill's characterization of the women themselves does no good—but I think he's right to call the abortionists on what they're doing.
On the anniversary of Becky Bell's death, Planned Parenthood digs up her bones in its usual attempt to paint her as a victim of parental-notification laws. It quotes her parents from a 1991 "60 Minutes" interview where they blamed politics for their daughter's death from a supposed illegal abortion.
Know why the article uses quotes from 1991? Because after that, Becky's parents stopped talking to the press*:
Shortly after [the National Right to Life Committee] started distributing copies of the autopsy report and calling for a review of the coroner’s report concluding the death was a result of a “septic abortion” (which the post-mortem contradicted), Mr. and Mrs. Bell dropped out of sight...Attaboy and Jill Stanek have more on abortion advocates' exploitation of the teen, who died of pneumonia and who, according to an autopsy, had not been touched by abortion instruments.
Some weekend viewing for you: While searching for Jack Benny video clips, I found this page, which includes the incredibly politically incorrect "Tijuana Jail" sketch from an early-1960s TV special. I was crying laughing when one of the jailbirds explained why he was arrested—it had to do with boiling coffee twice...
The page also includes two wonderful clips of the We Five, both times miming to a live recording. Great viewing for all you Bev Bivens fans out there.
And of course all those Kingston Trio clips make one realize just what an easy mark they were for the Folksmen.
Tylor Lauck has died.
(Make sure you read the comments on that post, which are very touching. For more on Tylor, see "Love That Never Dies," a couple of entries down this page.)
Trevor Romain says goodbye to Tylor Lauck.
(I wrote about Tylor a couple of months back.)
A judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional yesterday because of the words "under God." The Raving Atheist must be raving with joy at the thought of schoolchildren finally being free from outside religious influence during the school day.
Or is he?
I welcome this opportunity to expand my earlier statement in a comment box that pro-choice feminism "lacks moral standing to make convincing arguments" about other issues of interest to society.
I mean that freedom, reason and morality are intertwined; a corruption of one affects the others. If we hold that it is morally permissible to take innocent life on demand, then we have destroyed the moral basis for the obligation to feed, clothe, house and pay people a just wage. If some can be killed for arbitrary reasons ("arbitrary" means "based on or subject to individual judgment or discretion"), then the moral obligation to value all others is fatally undermined as well.
We can't divorce morality from reason and reality without landing, eventually, in the soup. And so, I think the Feminists for Life are undoubtedly right to give the Life issues priority. A feminist social vision can then expand from a sound foundation, and not from a quaking bog of misplaced (out of order) concepts of social justice. Here’s a little cautionary tale illustrating this point:
Hugo Schwyzer meditates on the old conundrum: Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?
Hugo, a professor, describes himself as a progressive evangelical Christian, and he knows a thing or two about changes in sexual mores over time. And he has put that knowledge to work annihilating an enormous, empty straw man:
"I'd go so far as to suggest that for those of us raised in a more sexually tolerant and affluent culture, when we go to the altar with our college degrees and our IRAs and our own set of past physical experiences, we can offer our new spouse the radical assurance that we are truly marrying them for who they are, not for what we will finally be allowed to do!"
"I didn't get married to have licit sex," he insists. "I didn't get
married because I'd starve without a wife."
Um, duh. Nobody, I repeat, frickin' nobody has ever told me, "See-Dub, me and Elvira are really hittin' it off good. And me and her would like to have us some sex, but the Bible says we gotta get hitched first. So for that reason and that reason alone, we are going to the drive-through chapel this evening and then we will spend the rest of our lives together. But whatever, we got to go have that sex right now."
Doesn't happen. And if it ever does happen, it happens to people with such amazingly constricted time horizons that they must be mental children.
Oh, people do dumb things for sex, all right. People in the Middle East explode in crowded pizzerias and buses for a shot at their 72 virgins. But even they won't get married for it.
Maybe people are getting married too young, but I think this is caused more by economics and culture than religion. On the other hand, enjoying the "free milk" for too long has led many people to start planning for marriage too late. I'd be interested in hearing more of Schwyzer's argument on this, but only if he were to represent more seriously the traditional Christian view of chastity.
Hat tip to XRLQ.
I've already blocked out the memory of the tiny headline I wrote last night about small towns in the Carolinas evacuating in anticipation of a hurricane. I fear it was something like, "Hamlets warned of Ophelia."
No, the above isn't the title of the day. This is, from the teenage twins at The Rebelution: "Ruining Our Lives with Fun."
I think we all know the answer.
A friend writes:
Last week, I said it wouldn't be long before someone offered free abortions to hurricane victims. Well—National Abortion Federation to the "rescue."
And, oh yeah—send us money to pay for the freebies!
My "Blog On!" column yesterday spotlighted the blog world's efforts to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims.
A couple of links for you this Monday morning:
Some things I left out of my account of my conversation with Frank Silecchia, the guy who found the cross:
He had a can of orange spray paint. He was alone going from room to room looking for survivors or bodies and marking them as he completed the search. After he finally got up off his knees after seeing the cross, he went to the nearest pillar and painted: "God's House." In the days that followed it became a place of quiet refuge for the workers, and visiting dignitaries were brought in to see it.
When they received permission to remove the cross from the soon-to-be-demolished building, Frankie invited all his fellow-laborers to inscribe a sentiment on it, including names of friends who had died there.
One man hesitated.
"I don't know if I should," he said. "I'm Jewish."
Frankie hugged him. "It's for everyone."
Which is how the Star of David came to be carved into that rusty crossbeam.
"He pointed out of the window of the room in which we stood, saying that he 'remembered seeing that cross' out there—pointing to the steel girder cross that somehow emerged from the collapse of the towers."
— James Kushiner in Touchstone's Mere Comments, on Rudy Giuliani's speech at a press conference that he and I attended two days ago.
On this day of remembrance, please pray for those who did rescue and recovery at Ground Zero. They have seen unthinkable carnage and destruction—and delved into it so that people might have their loved ones' remains or an item to remember them by. One of those workers was Robert N. Going, who describes his experiences in his Ground Zero Diary.
Don't follow this link unless you want those nearby to hear you laugh out loud.
My favorite captions are 6 and 7.
A few posts down, Dawn asked the following question:
"Specifically, I would like to know, if a woman feels no instinctive maternal love towards her child, can she be called psychologically healthy? Or is the complete lack of instinctive maternal love a sign of mental illness?"
I'd like to expand that question. Why? Too often—in fact, almost completely—we focus on the woman considering abortion as if she somehow got into that situation alone, or as if she would be alone in dealing with the consequences. Thus, we say that whatever she decides to do about her pregnancy is solely her choice, or solely her problem. But she didn't get pregnant alone. There was a man involved, somehow. The two of them had parents, teachers, friends, siblings, etc, all of whom contributed to the couple's understanding of sex, reproduction, birth control, and responsibility, and all of whom will still be around after the pregnancy ends, however that happens. One could even say that the couple in question are, together, the baby of an enormous extended family. We—the society that formed that couple—are its family. We gave birth to them.
Nonetheless, we continue to talk about the issues surrounding abortion as issues of the pregnant woman's personal choice. When we do this, we separate ourselves from the consequences of her choice, and also from our own responsibility in influencing her choices. The line between respect and abandonment, between "It's her choice, not mine," and "It's her problem, not mine," is spider-silk thin, if it exists at all.
So I would like to expand Dawn's question. Are we, as homo sapiens, instinctually communal, or must it be learned? And if a society—at the cultural and political levels, as well as at the levels of neighborhoods, churches, and families of which societies are made—feels no instinctive love, or at least an urge to protect, its children, can it be considered sane?
In other words, can a respect of humans that seems based solely on individual autonomy be considered sane?
If it can't, the typical pro-choice, "It's her problem, not mine" line of reasoning needs to be re-examined. As does the (I hope) atypical pro-life stance "It's her problem (because she shouldn't have gotten pregnant/had sex/gone to public school/etc.), not mine."
We need to decide if the hands-off approach is sane, in light of our nature and instincts. If it isn't, we need to come up with hands-on approaches for the couple in question and their children.
Because it can't only be about the woman—she didn't get here alone.
Planned Parenthood yesterday demanded that the Bush administration release records from Judge John Roberts's career as Solicitor General.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood went to Kansas's high court in an effort to block Attorney General Phill Kline's request for records of late-term abortions and abortions performed on minors. Kline argues that the records are necessary because there is probable cause that Planned Parenthood and late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller covered up statutory rapes and illegal late-term abortions.
I see an obvious solution.
The Bush administration should tell Planned Parenthood, "We'll show you ours—if you show us yours."
Records, that is.
Joel Helbling observes that both the Associated Press and Reuters (the news organization that refuses to call the 9/11 attackers terrorists) are resolutely calling hurricane evacuees "refugees"—despite criticism from President Bush and Jesse Jackson.
Tom Petty could not be reached for comment.
Please pray for the victims of Katrina, as well as those in the relief and recovery efforts. One organization that is helping and deserves your donation is Catholic Charities.
If you're wondering what I'd rather tipsy twentysomethings listen to than Coldplay, Joe Mannix—whom I followed when I was a rock journalist—has a new CD out, which you can hear on his Web site. (Make sure you turn off the automatic player in the top frame before clicking on the MP3 links, or you'll hear two songs at once.) Mannix's music in recent years has been too mainstream for my taste, but he's still got a fine Irish tenor, and I'd take his arpeggiated acousticisms over Chris Martin's grievous grammaticisms any day.
Some Christians find the Harry Potter books morally objectionable because they treat witchcraft sympathetically, and supposedly encourage young people to explore the occult.
Some critics go on to claim the books are morally objectionable because they have a bad message, that evil is rewarded and good thwarted, etc., but those critics appear to me not to have read the books, because they're just plain wrong about that.
I'm willing to discuss the issue of whether the books have a bad message, but what I'm more interested in is the claim that the books are objectionable simply because they treat witchcraft sympathetically.
There is a strong anti-witchcraft tradition in Christianity, but I think the word "witchcraft" is being used to denote two different things, and the critics don't appreciate the distinction.
The traditional Christian view is that witchcraft involves trafficking with demons, evil spirits, and that is obviously sinful. Anti-witchcraft hysteria was highest in the late middle ages, after modern science had begun, and this is not surprising as it may seem. Once the explanatory power of science was appreciated, and the universe came to be seen as a lawful place, violations of those scientific "laws" (which were really just observed regularities) could only arise through supernatural agency -- heavenly miracle, or evil spirit. With the decline of the alchemists, the attitude was that "magic doesn't work", and if it did work, that must be evidence of use of demons.
In the Harry Potter books, magic is natural, and it follows its own laws and restrictions, and does not involve the agency of supernatural beings. It is like a technology -- morally neutral. The critics contrast the Potter series with C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, and Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, but in all three fictional worlds there are good and bad magicians, and good and bad magic.
There is a whole area of culture which can be denoted "the occult", which I won't attempt to define here. But granting that it is an unhealthy area, and that young people should not be encouraged to explore it, I don't see that the Harry Potter books do encourage this. The "magic" in the books is morally neutral, publicly taught, and forbidden to underage or insufficiently trained wizards. The only parts that resemble "the occult" are explicitly condemned as "Dark Arts" and practitioners, if caught, are punished.
I'm sure some Christian critics of the Harry Potter books are genuinely concerned that young people will "play at" magic and then get somehow sucked in to an unhealthy obsession with evil things. But really, "magic doesn't work". (If it does work in the sense that they were afraid of in 1692, the deal-with-the-devil kind of magic rather than the alchemical kind, there's no hint of that in the Potter books.)
The Potter books are fantasy, and in my opinion they are most excellent examples of that genre.
In the comments, I'd especially like to hear from people who think the Potter books are morally objectionable but recommend the Narnia books. One rule: Anyone who has not read at least one of the books in the Harry Potter series may comment, but should disclose that.
[Note that the above views are those of guest blogger Joseph S. I myself gave up on Potter about halfway through the first chapter of Book One. Narnia rules — Dawn]
This is for Saint Kansas, who I know will appreciate it:
As I was riding the PATH train home last night, reading an advance copy of the latest book by the man a friend of mine affectionately calls "Joey Ratz," I was distracted by the man next to me a and his girlfriend, who was lounging with her head on his chest.
The couple were in their 20s, smelling of sweat and beer. The man was a Cockney stringbean who probably does a decent Jude Law impression. The woman was a slightly zaftig New Yorker with long brown hair. From their conversation, I gathered that they had just seen Coldplay at the Garden.
The woman lifted her head at intervals to exclaim some variation of,
"That was so f---ing awesome!"
After a couple of those, she got specific:
"Chris Martin was f---ing amazing."
This was followed by another brief interval. Then she said, with due gravity, in a dramatically low tone:
"Gwyneth Paltrow is a lucky woman."
You don't need to leave an e-mail address or Web site to comment. If you've done so before and don't want to do so again, type "xxxxxxx" or some such in the e-mail and Web site spaces, to keep your computer's cookie from automatically inserting the information.
I would like to set up a Typekey system or some such for requiring valid e-mail addresses with comments, but am not sure if this is possible with Blogger. I'd welcome advice on this from those in the know.
When I ban commenters, the imperfect system is liable to ban innocents as well. If you find yourself banned from commenting and aren't certain why, please drop me a line (dawn at dawneden.com). If it's a mistake, I'll remedy the situation.
I've recently banned a few commenters for reasons other than the usual ones (profanity and ad hominem attacks). One commenter had been banned earlier, then wrote me a rather nasty e-mail. This commenter was able to come back because my bans rotate. (Haloscan only allows me 20 at a time.) I've rebanned the commenter because the commenter never apologized for the nasty e-mail. I don't feel any obligation to give a platform to people who openly bear personal animosity towards me.
Likewise with the other bans, which were of people who've written blog entries about me that were not merely critical, but malicious personal attacks. Disagree with me all you want, but if you write, "Dawn Eden smells like a zoo and robs children of their candy money," don't expect a soapbox on my dime. This holds even on those rare days when I do smell like a zoo.
Many thanks, as always, to those who comment politely and make the comment threads enlightening.
The most frustrating thing for an atheist is to debate a believer who refuses to answer the question, “What is God?” It’s the threshold issue in any theological argument. The discussion can’t get started unless the parties address it.
My assumption about people who won’t discuss it is that they have absolutely no argument to make.
Religions with respectable intellectual traditions such as Catholicism, however, do eagerly offer their definitions and the conversation eventually turns to the question of God’s existence. I concede that is not an easy question for unbelievers. Even the hardcore atheist David Hume admitted that "the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence." It is hard to fathom why there is anything at all in the universe, much less so much stuff. Nor is it apparent why everything everywhere, even in the most remote recess, follows the same rules.
I have my answers but they are not the point of this post. Suffice it say that science has not let me see God, and I know that I am not God. On the questions of my own existence I am more certain. I know that I exist and can trace my existence to its beginnings. Science has let me see an embryo, and I know that I was one. Had I been aborted at conception or thereafter I simply would not be. Modern embryology admits of no other answer. The abortionist would have known where to find me, and would have destroyed me, and not a kidney, precisely because he knew exactly what I was. What everyone was.
So the abortion debate is substantially simpler for me. It is rare that you can point to your adversary as a refutation of his own argument. Not surprising then, that the pro-choice side frequently attempts to frustrate the debate by refusing to address the threshold question. Despite all the talk about importance of treating abortion as a scientific rather than religious issue – not to mention the supposed reverence for a fully informed choice -- this is the advice one chapter of Planned Parenthood gives for "Expressing Your Pro-Choice Position":
"Don’t engage in 'when is it a baby' conversations."
Scour the national Web sites for Planned Parenthood or NARAL Pro-Choice for any meaningful discussion of when life begins and I guarantee you will come up empty. Isn't it astonishing that the organizations which pretend to be clearinghouses of information for women facing the most "tragic" and "difficult" choice offer no virtually no discussion of the question that makes it so?
As I said, my assumption about people who won’t discuss it is that they have absolutely no argument to make.
Congratulations to Dawn Patrol reader Stephen Sparrow for his excellent article in Ignatius Insight, "Eugenio Zolli's Path to Rome."
Rabbi Zolli is also mentioned in an older article by another reader, Dimitri Cavalli, on Jewish praise for Pope Pius XII.
My Daily News "Blog On!" column featuring the blog world's chicest geeks is now on stands as well as the News' Web site. Many thanks to those who recommended bloggers for inclusion. Due to limitations of space, I was unable to include two additional superb square hipsters: Christopher Johnson and Joe Manzari.
From a commenter arguing in favor of abortion rights:
"Maternal love is not instinctive. It's learned and chosen."
I would like to ask two groups of people to comment on this:
1. Mothers
2. Licensed psychotherapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists
Specifically, I would like to know, if a woman feels no instinctive maternal love towards her child, can she be called psychologically healthy? Or is the complete lack of instinctive maternal love a sign of mental illness?
When you give your answer, please explain on what evidence it's based, e.g. personal experience, professional experience, studies, or any combination of those things.
Please note: To keep this comments thread relevant to the post, only commenters who fit into the above two categories—either mothers or psychology professionals (or both)—should comment. Others will be deleted. Also, please stay on topic, answering the questions above. I'd like this particular thread to be a vacation from outright prolife-vs.-prochoice arguments. Thanks in advance, very much, for your participation
For my birthday, I've asked Alex and Brett Harris of The Rebelution to be comments monitors. Be good!
[Updated, 4:46 p.m., with link at bottom to crisis-pregnancy centers that need your help.]
It's official.
Planned Parenthood, the government-subsidized so-called nonprofit that made a $35.2 million profit last year, is shamelessly milking Americans' compassion for Katrina victims—by using the disaster as an excuse to raise money.
Is Planned Parenthood offering evacuees food? No! Water? No! Shelter? No! First aid? No!
The front page of Planned Parenthood's Web site features a heart-tugging photograph of hurricane victims lining up on a New Orleans sidewalk. The victims in the foreground are black. The text reads:
Help Those Affected by HurricaneClicking the "more" link leads to an page that reads:
Planned Parenthood staff are on the frontlines aiding patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. You can help. 100% of your tax-deductible contribution will go directly to supporting our efforts.
Help Those Affected by HurricaneNote it says "women and families." Not just "victims," or "women, men and children." Women first, then families—men and children nowhere in sight. It's like that famous New York Times headline parody: "World Ends; Women, Minorities Hit Hardest."
Planned Parenthood clinics in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas are doing everything possible to attend to the needs of patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Women and families escaped the storm with their lives,
leaving behind birth control and other items critical to their well-being.It's really all about birth control. If Planned Parenthood were providing "other items critical to their well-being," they'd say what those items were.
Those desperate for care are rushing to their nearest health center to get the care and treatment they need. Despite the horrific events of the past few days, affiliates and health centers in this region are determined to serve all those that come through the door.If those refugees have nowhere else to turn but Planned Parenthood, they're really in trouble.
Support Planned Parenthood and their patients during this time of great need. 100% of your tax-deductible contribution will go directly to helping Planned Parenthood affiliates and health centers in this region serve women and families who have nowhere else to turn.
Robert N. Going, who volunteered at Ground Zero for several months following 9/11, believes that what the Gulf Coast needs is another Rudy Guiliani:
All hell broke loose [in New York on 9/11]. They had emergency plans and equipment, but those got wiped out, too. What did it take, one maybe two seconds for him to improvise? By giving orders, he created order out of chaos.Read the whole thing. If you haven't donated already, or if you want to donate more, Instapundit has a list of links to charities.
One just can't imagine the NYPD driving past thousands of dehydrating people and giving them no help, no information, no instructions, no water.
How hard would it be for SOMEONE to tell the dispatchers to put out an APB saying "Five hundred buses will be arriving in twelve hours to bring you to safety at such and such an intersection." It doesn't even have to be a great plan or a good plan for that matter. ANY plan would do to restore order and give hope.
How long should it take to say, "We need the National Guard and we need them NOW!" I know the Governor of Louisiana's heart is bleeding over all the suffering, but how about shutting down the tears and DOING SOMETHING.
In New York it seemed like every piece of construction equipment in the northeast was mobilized and in place in the first 24 hours. In New Orleans days have gone by and they still have not made any concerted effort to stop the leak. It seems that even though they had a plan to drop 3,000 pound sand bags into the hole, the straps they needed to carry the bags were still in Baton Rouge....
On the fringes, things seem to be under control. The Red Cross has huge contingency plans and a nation-wide network of experienced people who can set up shelters everywhere on a moment's notice. Ditto the Salvation Army and the Southern Baptists whose portable kitchens for thousands pop up wherever needed. The manner in which the City of Houston has opened its doors is heartwarming.
But the governments of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans? Pathetic.
UPDATE: Irma Thomas is OK, thank God. Thanks to Charles G. Hill for the tip.
Irma Thomas, the great soul singer whose version of "Time Is on My Side" moved the Rolling Stones to record the song that would be their first U.S. Top Ten hit, is among the missing in New Orleans.
Other music legends missing include Fats Domino. [UPDATE, 7:29 p.m.: He's alive.] Allen Toussaint is holed up in the Superdome.
I interviewed Thomas, the "Soul Queen of New Orleans," by phone in 1992 for her EMI best-of CD. (A fellow fan's online bio of her starts with a quote from those notes.) She was exceedingly kind and gracious to me. Please, keep praying for all the storm's victims.
Today is a day when blogs around the world are soliciting donations for relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One organization that is doing good work is Catholic Charities. If you would like to recommend another charity, please do so in the comments. Don't forget to pray for the victims and their families as well.
Here is a prayer I found on the Internet by Renée Miller:
A Prayer for the Victims of Hurricane Katrina
O God, we remember when the disciples of Jesus were terrified after a long night on a turbulent sea. When they cried to you for help, you stilled the sea and brought them to safety. We ask now that you comfort and still the hearts of those suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. We pray for those who have been displaced and who now must return to homes destroyed or damaged by the storm. We pray for those whose lives were lost and for those who now must grieve the loss of a loved one. We pray for those who are attempting to offer help and relief to victims. While we wonder why such devastation can occur, where lives and property can seem held so capriciously in the hand of what is uncontrollable, we know, O God, that you count every hair on our head and that our names are written on the palm of your hand. Let your loving grace wash over those who must now face damaged lives, homes, and possessions. Hold them close to yourself until they are sure of the security of your loving embrace. Calm their hearts and still their souls, O Lord. We ask this for the sake of your love. AMEN.