All hail banana pudding

The comments on this post in The Atlantic about "what to serve black people for dessert" are better than the post itself.

The question itself could only be asked by an insecure Northeastern liberal with too much college under her belt.

I laughed at JamieMc's comment about how banana pudding is different if you've spent any time in the South, because "that stuff doesn't play." Absolutely right! Banana pudding is serious around here.

Philosophy and culture with Mr. Wright

That would be John C. Wright, who works the high wire as well as anyone blogging the occasional deep thought. Here, he starts and finishes by talking about whether appetites can be properly ordered, because he's arguing at length against the (hard libertarian?) position that informed consent is sufficient warrant for any action. Along the way, without getting into theology, Wright proves why "the postmodern messiah does not make for good drama" -- and it's not even a political statement he's making, although the point would stand in that arena, too:

"Modern thinkers of many schools of thought seem unable or unwilling to draw a distinction between empiricism being silent on an issue outside its jurisdiction, and empiricism being condemnatory of an issue within its jurisdiction. They think that if science cannot prove or disprove that Marc Anthony or Hamlet or even Mrs. Muir saw a ghost, that ergo science proves beyond doubt that ghosts do not exist.

But the silence of Empiricism is overwhelming. The assumptions or axioms upon which the theory of Empiricism rest are not themselves open to empirical proof."

I love this:

"As a science-fictional aside, let me mention that in the third MATRIX movie (I forget the name. MATRIX REHASHED? MATRIX REVISITED? MATRIX RETARDED? Something like that) when our hero, Neo, the thinly-disguised messianic figure in shades and black leather is facing the Evil Secret Agent of Evil (who is dressed like a Republican, I suppose) the Evil Guy of Evil sneeringly demands that Neo justify why he fights?

Neo, being a hepcat postmodern figure, cannot say he fights for truth, justice and the American Way, as the superheroes of an earlier and healthier period could say (despite that Neo is quite obviously fighting for these things); he cannot say he is fighting for the woman he loves (despite that he obviously is, both during her life and in her memory); he cannot say, like an earlier Messiah, but one who did not use so much slick wirework Kung Fu, that he is fighting to bring the bread of heaven to men, to free the captive, to heal the sick and restore the dead to life (even though Neo has been freeing, healing and resurrecting like gangbusters during all three movies). No, his only answer, his sad and pathetic only answer, is to announce (amid a flourish of trumpets meant to sound inspiring) “BECAUSE I CHOOSE TO!” It is enough to make you spit your popcorn onto the floor in a flood of salty, butter-substitute dripping laughter."

FWIW, I've never even seen the Matrix movies. The "Neo" whom I'm far more likely to agree with is this one (and it's impossible to blame her for being jaded -- what does our president have against the people of Honduras, anyway?).

Chump change

From the Weekly Standard:

"This year, the deficit will come to 11.2 percent of GDP, and by 2019 the debt will be equal to 76 percent of the value of the nation's output of goods and services, almost double the 41 percent when Obama took control of the nation's finances. No problem, say White House economists. Unsustainable, says Warren Buffett, among others."

Is that a rather chilling forecast? I'd say so. But then I'm what the humor-impaired people might call "radical." And I'm in good company, living through times that demand perspective and make "surgical snark" weirdly necessary as a defensive measure.

A good man gone to glory

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Neil Henry Miller, and the comfort of his wife Carol. Neil died of brain cancer earlier this week. He was 62.

Mr. Miller had been our son's first piano teacher. He and his equally-creative wife always made our family feel welcome in their home. Carol often played games with Jane while her husband was helping Thomas at the keyboard.

Although he posed wry questions about the craftsmanship of some of the bands whose work defines the "classic rock" genre, Neil appreciated all kinds of music. The thought of J.S. Bach played on a marimba, for example, would have made him smile. He was a patient, honest man, and his emphasis on the fundamentals of theory served his students well. When he sent email in the last two years -- i.e., between bouts of chemotherapy -- he invariably signed it with wishes for "health and love."

Thank you, Cassandra

Frederic Yonnet certainly does play a great harmonica. Nice find!

Recommending a film

Quiet movies are sometimes the most memorable ones, but until now, the only obvious support for that assertion that I could have offered off the top of my head would have been The Straight Story (1999) or, to a lesser degree, Fly Away Home (1996).

Taking Chance (2009) has now displaced those films. It's a beautifully-executed and meticulously-faithful HBO drama based on a true story. It follows a Marine lieutenant colonel as he escorts the remains of a PFC (Chance Phelps) back to Wyoming, but it is not a "war movie."

Thanks to the skill of everyone involved, the movie becomes an honest and emotionally gripping meditation on mercy and grace.

The DVD notes by David Cornelius are worth reading if you want an actual review (which is not what I'm writing here).

I knew that actor Kevin Bacon had dramatic range -- Footloose aside, he's done everything from Tremors to Mystic River -- but what Bacon does in Taking Chance is as good or better than anything he's ever done (and as Richard Jameson notes backhandedly, he's "an actor who couldn't hit a false note if his life depended on it.") Everything about the film is top notch.

The long reach of that island sound

For Mary Beth Sua (now with what we Catholics sometimes call "the church triumphant") and everybody else in the crew from St. Joseph's School in Waipahu, Hawaii, here's Mr. Keali'i Reichel:

Frankfurt School follies

Bill Whittle lays a 13-minute smackdown on the Frankfurt School while discussing the origins of political correctness and "the lie that the Left has been telling for almost 100 years."

It's better than most semester-length courses, and after viewing it, you'll never give a pass to "critical theory" again.

Philosophy and theology for lunch?

The Deeps of Time posts a good refresher:

"Catholic thought has distinguished between two kinds of beings: necessary and contingent. A necessary being is one which cannot not exist, or in other words, one which is the fundamental ground of all being. Any other existing things which exist depend on that necessary being for their existence. Without it, they could not be. They are considered contingent beings, or beings which may or may not exist and which depend on the ultimate necessary being in order for their own existence. Whatever that necessary being is, there can only be one. God is necessary; everything else is contingent, including the universe.

This radical separation is the basis of the Catholic understanding of science. It means that when we consider God, we do not think of Him as something existing within the realm of all else we know by scientific observation. God is not part of the universe, He is its Master and Maker. He is not subject to time, space, evolution, or any other material paradigm, but rather provides for all of those things’ ability to be.

In short, in the Catholic view, God does not “exist” like the universe exists, He is rather existence itself. We are, and all is, because He Is. "

Good stuff. And it fits with this YouTube video to which Julie linked.

The problematic analogy

Senator Edward Kennedy, late of Massachusetts, is everywhere (even in Christianity Today) being described as "a lion of the Senate."

I do not think that analogy fits him or the deliberative body of which he was too long part. When headline writers call Kennedy a "lion," they mean only he was experienced, competent, and -- with the important exception of abortion, where he flipped when it seemed politically expedient to do so -- ideologically consistent.

Some goof will probaby describe Robert Byrd as another "lion" of the Senate, and I don't think the term fits him, either.

The U.S. Senate has no lions, and does not deserve to be associated withn animals whose names still have noble connotations. The Senate is a collection of rats, snakes, skunks, weasels, jackals, vultures, and hyenas. Its collective regard for the Constitution isn't half of what it should be. Ted Kennedy -- may be rest in peace -- was more of a wildebeest than a lion.

See also: Carl Cannon on Chappaquiddick, Mark Steyn on our complicity in the Kennedy family myth-making, Ace on the little-known meddling that Kennedy tried in foreign policy while hoping to undermine President Reagan, and Fr. Z's debunking of the assertion that the late Senator's record on life issues should be airbrushed in some kind of misguided deference to his having shuffled off this mortal coil.

UPDATE: Peter Sean Bradley also excerpted from Carl Cannon's essay, but he adds some cogent thought from Pope Benedict and Catholic teaching to the mix. Good on him for making that link. Gary Bourque is not to be missed, either. Russell Moore explained what was missing from the funeral. And Sister Toldjah offers a great roundup of the shamelessness with which the Left is pimping Kennedy's death, starting at his funeral -- and never mind the "Kennedy-Andropov Gambit."

Fr. Robert Sirico's recollection is also worth reading; it caps the whole subject well.

This cannot bode well

Both O'Hannigan children seem to think the Queen album A Night at the Opera makes for suitable "lullaby listening," and the "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a particular favorite with them.

No, they have never seen Wayne's World.

Spiritual high

Jennifer's confession story is awesome, and Joel's anecdote is funny.

Zeitgeist-shaping is messy work

Quentin Tarantino has a WWII revenge movie out now, but as Neo-Neocon points out, he didn't give his script the thought that it deserved, even by the flexible standards of entertainment.

Vogue magazine isn't known for doing its homework, either, which is a shame, because (per Doug LeBlanc, with whom I agree) its recent profile of Jenny Sanford would have been much better had it been written by a reporter less discomfited by religious faith (apropos of nothing, if the two of them were running in the same election, I'd vote for Sanford rather than Elizabeth Edwards any day of the week).

LeBlanc makes a good point about irreligion among mainstream journalists. I'm guessing most Vogue staffers think Sarah Palin belongs to a snake-handling sect, and don't know anything about Pope John Paul II's "theology of the body." Atheism and agnosticism have consequences, as Spengler recently noted while addressing "the Jewish split over Obama."

UPDATE: Everything old is new again, or so it seems when the subject is a big one like culture. The Brothers Judd reminded me of this book review in my own archives (Orrin Judd thought the covers on George Lakoff's book were too far apart, and I concurred).

While we're on the subject of reframing thought, how's this: intensive farming might be good for forests.

Fouad for two

He shoots! He scores!

"American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics."

Like ninja throwing stars

"Doctor Zero" just got a new truckload of metaphors, and he or she is not afraid to use them while defending Sarah Palin, chastising Charles Krauthammer, and explaining the health care debate. A sample:

"Those Facebook pages she’s tossing around like ninja throwing stars are eloquent proof that no one has the right to pat Sarah Palin on the head and send her out of the room, while the grown-ups settle down to serious talk. She isn’t just writing snarky rants. She’s providing both devastatingly effective criticism, and substantial policy alternatives."

I like this, too (I added the link to the YouTube video of a John Stossel report):

"A health-insurance industry dominated by a tax-subsidized public option, whose vampiric “providers” can re-write the laws of the industry to destroy their nominal competitors, will inevitably collapse… leaving only the government. Tossing a shark into your aquarium is not a good way to enhance “competition” among the fish. When America inevitably loses enough blood to lapse into a single-payer coma, there will be rationing, and that means government functionaries will decide how the limited pool of medical resources is allocated. I don’t think “death panel” is an unfair metaphor for the resulting system, and the sense of dread it provokes in the listener is entirely appropriate."

UPDATE: Nice Deb has more, and the president's "bearing false witness" crack may yet boomerang back on him (as it should).

That sounds about right

Instapundit linked to this essay by Matt Welch. Both of those guys have been around the Internet block; between them they make a pretty good neighborhood watch:

This isn't about liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. A majority oppose Obama's policies because they fly in the face of this country's bedrock values of personal liberty and limited government. Robbing Peter to pay Goldman Sachs does violence to that fundamentally American ethos.

And increasingly, Obama administration policy does violence to European values, as well. The continent has for the last two decades been systematically disengaging national governments from domestic industries. Top officials from Sweden, of all places, complained about Washington's auto bailout, tersely announcing that "The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories."

Asking the wrong question about Holy Communion?

Rick at Brutally Honest is one of those bloggers whom I know by reputation (his reputation is good), but seldom read. He recently mentioned that he and his wife have decided to take holy communion at Mass, although neither of them actually self-identifies as Catholic.

Rick asked a question that provoked a thoughtful (albeit, to him, frustrating and unsatisfying) response from The Anchoress. What he wanted to know was, "Would Jesus turn my wife away?"

Except that I don't think Rick really wanted an answer to that. He already knows the answer: Jesus welcomes all who seek Him with a sincere heart. Rick's question was a rhetorical gambit and -- this is no time to mince words -- a thinly-disguised challenge to Catholic practice.

What Rick should instead have asked is why he doesn't want "all in" where Catholicism is concerned, and whether he and his wife could learn from the example of the centurion in Matthew 8:8 -- he who said "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; speak but the word and my servant shall be healed."

How can you read that verse and not be astonished that a ranking first-century officer in service to what was then the world's only superpower would say such a thing to an itinerant rabbi with a small following among a subjugated people? Surely the centurion has much to teach us even today.

Another way to look at this is if Rick and his wife were to ask themselves questions along the lines of, "Are there different degrees of solidarity? (and if there are, is it presumptuous to go straight for the sine qua none?) Does Jesus really want us to pass ourselves off as something we are not? Dare we justify deceit on the probably specious and certainly self-serving grounds that it advances the kingdom of God? Are we just like the nuns who stole a distributor cap from a Nazi staff car so that the von Trapp family could hike to safety, or is something orders of magnitude more profound involved here?"

On what might be a related note, I'm intrigued by the scientific finding that "People cannot walk in a straight line if they do not have [an] absolute reference such as a tower or a mountain in the distance, or the Sun or Moon, and often end up walking in circles." I do not understand the interplay between the order of nature and the order of grace. Fortunately, Jesus -- the perfection of both -- does.

The Sunday funnies

Brought to you by the New York Times.

(if it's informative reading you want, try Nice Deb or Palm Tree Pundit)

A teachable moment

Sometimes I read Cassandra just to learn from the wonderful way she wraps language and pixels around those honest thoughts of hers. Sometimes I pray for her. Today there is reason to do both.

Flornyce Kennedy was so wrong

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament" was just one of the many vapid but bumper-sticker-friendly quips for which Flornyce Kennedy was known back in the day, before she died and was lionized by the likes of Erica Jong.

Let's put aside for a minute Kennedy's abysmal ignorance of what sacraments actually are, and how any legitimate sacrament is inherently life-giving rather than life-taking.

Even from the point of view of cultural commentary, she was wrong in the way peculiar to feminist activists of a self-consciously progressive stripe.

Here's why: Male pregnancy is not required and never will be. The left already considers abortion a sacrament, because it enables an ersatz but seductive notion of sexual freedom. Thinking there is support for abortion in the Constitution (per the ludicrous majority argument in Roe v. Wade) is entirely consistent with thinking of the government as church -- with its own clergy and its own dispensations, as even secularists and semi-secularists have started to notice.

(Separation of church and state? Establishment Clause? For some people, often "public servants," church is state -- and of course they mean well, so things like the establishment clause just provide local color rather than binding force. Constitutional safeguards get a tip of the chapeau from progressives, but they're analagous to the ringing of the mission bell in the song "Hotel California," in that the only thing they do is explore the studio space, sometimes with bipartisan support. Come time to cudgel the staffers into writing bad legislation or stocking a townhall meeting with "randomly-selected" plants, and it's still true that the oligarchy wants to put the Bozo shoes on everybody else. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave).

Fortunately, people are beginning to realize that charges of heresy or recism are not the argument-enders they once were, because they've been diluted by overuse. Even more to the point, there are several ways out of this fire swamp infested by rodents of unusual size, and one of the best is through the Tenth Amendment.

Also worth reading: Victor Davis Hanson

A different take on Sixteen Candles

I think the late filmmaker John Hughes would have enjoyed the conversation that Jane and I had earlier today.

Her: "Daddy, what is the movie Sixteen Candles about?"

Me: "It's about a girl whose parents forget her birthday, and how she ends up celebrating it with her friends."

Her: "Oh. I thought it was a religious movie."

Me: "Why would you think that?"

Her: "Well, you know how a lot of churches have candles? Sixteen candles isn't that many. A rich church would have way more than that, so I figured it must be a movie about a poor church, with nuns in rags, and hobos. It sounded kind of boring."

When one Methodist adopted the Benedictine motto

"Pray and work (ora et labora)" -- Dr. Paul Kangor remembers how President George W. Bush saved at least a million African lives.

This look back, BTW, is not to be confused with so-called "benchmarks of shalom." Homey don't talk like that.

InsideCatholic has a pair of unrelated blog posts up that are also stories of hope. One of them is about adoption, and the other about the power of research as applied to an open mind (and more importantly, an open heart).

What's black and white and red all over?

Bookworm is back from vacation, and administering a well-deserved thwap to the editorial page of the New York Times. Run by doofuses, she says it is. Or maybe that's doofi.

The bottom line: she's apparently read too much Thomas Sowell and P.J. O'Rourke to fold like a cheap suit in the face of anything less than weapons-grade argumentation, and lately the New York Times hasn't been able to muster anything that good.

Just for fun

Original Chincoteague Pony photo taken on Assateague Beach by Barry D. Jones. I added the squirrel with The Squirrelizer. Ace has the back story. That squirrel gets around.

Remembering Bob Novak

The long-time reporter who just died gets nice tributes from admiring colleagues in print (or pixel) and on video.

Elsewhere in the same publication as two of the links above, the letters column and the "Man Bites Dog" essay from Lisa Fabrizio are both strong today.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds doesn't look to AmSpec for book reviews (pity, that -- I wonder why?), but he does keep tabs on almost everything else, some of which is hilariously presumptuous.

And The Anchoress has assigned "mandatory" reading, which she rarely does. It's on health care reform, apparently (ugh!), but she raves about the essay (as does friend Brigitte), so it sounds like "best of breed," and worth a good long look-- The kind of look that Robert Novak always gave a nuggest of new information while chasing a story.

A book review yonder

Some thoughts on John Birmingham's apocalyptic novel, Without Warning, over at American Spectator Online.

Make that a triple facepalm

Nice Deb has details of scurvy writing in the Arizona Republic.

Where are Edward Abbey, Doug Peacock, and Ansel Adams when you need them?

Even Bill Travers and Virgina McKenna would be agog at the implication that the Grand Canyon just isn't grand enough if you-know-who drops in.

The secrecy of Matthew 6:6

"God calls us to private prayer in order that we may practice at being Persons, that in our public practice of the Faith, we may share that gift of personhood with others."

(That's part of an insightful essay on the Lord's Prayer by Mark Shea)

Empirically knowable

Bill Kammerer christens a new blog with his refreshing take on how to argue for the pro-life cause with people who do not share your religious convictions.

Bill doesn't say so, but his point fits neatly with some others. It's all about "human fluorishing in its totality."

On animosity and sneaking regard

David Warren writes about candor, thuggery, and Sarah Palin. Ace likes Warren's column, too.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn adds helpful clarity while also supporting Palin.

It's too bad sometime contributors to National Review think better than its editors do.

Piscine away goodwill

When the feds try to get San Joaquin Valley farmers to sleep with the fishes.

From the essay:

In 2003, a fish-versus-families debate erupted in New Mexico after water deliveries to Albuquerque from the Rio Grande River were cut off to protect habitat for the silvery minnow—another three-inch bait fish. Congress temporarily suspended portions of the Endangered Species Act and guaranteed that water would be provided to Albuquerque. The situation in California is virtually identical and repeating what was done in New Mexico would do wonders for San Joaquin Valley farmers.

Perspective is all

I call it gluten-free macaroni with peas and melted cheese. It would have been tuna pasta if I'd been able to find the can of tuna that Cathleen claims we have in the pantry someplace.

Thomas and Jane called it "prison slop."

But Thomas, at least, had seconds.

Reasonable men

Andrew McCarthy defends Rush Limbaugh:

"...you take things such as health care, things that are traditionally understood as within the ambit of individual liberty and free choice; you move such things into the ambit of state responsibility as the welfare state emerges and grows, on the theory that it is government’s responsibility to provide for everyone’s needs (by redistributing resources); as more things are moved from private to public control, the state by definition becomes totalitarian; and, inexorably, the totalitarian state gets bad leaders and the society comes to reflect the policy choices of those leaders.

Now, we can argue until the end of time about whether that trajectory really exists and whether it is inevitable. But however you come out, it is an argument very much worth having. It goes to what kind of society we are going to be, to what the proper relationship between the citizen and the state is.

Nazi Germany is a useful historical example of socialism run amok. The genocide and terrorism ultimately practiced by the Nazis were horrible — that goes without saying. But National Socialism went on for a dozen years, it was the last stage in a progressive nationalization of German society, and there was a lot more to it than genocide and terrorism. It cannot be that because there was genocide and terrorism, the socialist aspects of National Socialism are outside the lines of acceptable political discourse. "

Then there's Mark Steyn, with a quote to sum up the debate:

"The problem with government health systems is not that they pull the plug on Grandma. It’s that Grandma has a hell of a time getting plugged in in the first place. The only way to “control costs” is to restrict access to treatment, and the easiest people to deny treatment to are the oldsters. Don’t worry, it’s all very scientific."

Last but not least: The American College of Surgeons.

Quelle dommage?

In Latin, in English, in French -- Cassandra might pinball all over the place, but goodness gracious, she's almost always worth reading, and her ode to existentialist funk is no exception.

Nobody else does the slightly curled lip and the raised eyebrow like Cassandra does.

If it's context you want more than wordplay, then read Neo-Neocon and Sister Toldjah before reading Cassandra.

Perhaps the theme song for the day is Stevie Wonder's great "Superstition." I can hear that dancing bass line in my head already.

Neo knows a little something about how to keep the beat, by the way (and Neo, if you see this, did you ever read Suzanne Farrell's autobiography, Holding On to the Air? It's good stuff).

Light and heat

Philip Klein outlines the health care plan controversy, Fortune magazine simplifies, Congressman Cao takes a principled stand against funding abortions, and John Stossel questions the axiomatic belief that prevention saves money.

UPDATE: See also this bit of easy detective work from Tom Maguire.

Neurology, Caffeine, and Beer

The Anchoress loves her "Mystic Monk" coffee, which I've never tried, although just recently I heard an unexpected plug for caffeine in general when a pediatric neurologist described it as a useful thing to have with ibuprofen because it makes the ibuprofen take effect more quickly.

We'd gone to see the neurologist asking about the frequent headaches that Jane has complained of having. He said "post-concussive headaches" are normal and -- fortunately for all concerned -- treatable.

Jane went to school today with a note from that doctor and a six-pack of miniature Coke cans, just in case she needed to wash down a chewable ibuprofen with some caffeine at the onset of a headache. Regulations being what they are, she could not keep any of those things on her person, but her teacher and the school nurse are both good people whom I apprised of the situation.

I'm not much of a soda drinker myself. I do like coffee, and have been blessed to befriend two fine baristas along the way. But if I'm going to part with hard-earned money for a beverage that is not a root beer float or a banana shake, well, I think Franziskaner Weissbier just displaced Harp Lager as my beer of choice. Mazel tov!

Missed the Perseid Meteor Shower

We had heavy cloud cover and a moon last night, not to mention homework and such to tend to with the children, so we did no meteor watching. But Fr. Z. found a nice graphic. His post title ties the whole thing to yesterday's Feast of St. Lawrence, which was also remembered by Amy Welborn via Augustine of Hippo.

Aha! A Catholic triple play!

Memo to Katie Couric and other Palin critics

Hey, Katie: You busy cheerleading for Obama-style health-care reform (about which more here and here), or do you still want to know what newspapers Sarah Palin reads?

Given the uproar over her recent remarks (on Twitter, of all places) about "death panels" likely to decide questions of medical ethics and treatment under Obamacare, maybe one such newspaper is the (United Kingdom) Mail Online (hat tip to Wesley J. Smith).

If so, there are good reasons for that, not least among them the fact that the New York Times -- undone by the usual biases-- has been singularly unhelpful, as well as blind to economics, in its coverage of all things health care.

Fortunately, there are alternative information streams out there, and champions for life, too.

What it might help to remember is that even if you think Palin is guilty of hyperbole, her comments were not made in a vacuum. It wasn't long ago that a Supreme Court Justice sometimes cited by progressives as "a last bastion of enlightened thinking in federal law" was touting Roe v. Wade for its usefulness as a eugenics tool. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had the same views, though they're not often mentioned in polite company. And now we hear of a Catholic college in federal trouble because it won't pay for oral contraceptives. It's never pretty when an administration is so obviously and shamelessly beholden to the abortion lobby.

In short, these are hard times for what Pope John Paul II used to call the "culture of life," and President Obama's choices in policy and personnel aren't helping. He and his amen chorus of Democrats want the rest of us to give their proposed health care reforms the benefit of doubt, but that's a courtesy that can only be extended to the trustworthy and the competent, and they've yet to demonstrate significant measures of either virtue (as an aside, the "astroturfing" that senior Obama aide David Axelrod loves so much isn't helping, either).

You may perhaps assert that this is not about Obama, it's about Palin. I beg to differ. Whether you think she's ready for prime time is irrelevant. If you're tempted to dismiss the mother of a Down Syndrome child as paranoid or pandering reflexively to the "wing nuts" in her base, think first about what she has to contend with in our culture. She is not alone, not by a long shot.

UPDATE: Camille Paglia doesn't want Obamacare, either. And Sarah Palin has "doubled down," as they say.

Checking your mind at the door

Linguist George Lakoff made some money as a consultant for Democrats a few years ago. It appears he still has more disciples than his pedestrian ideas deserve (thanks to Dr. Helen for the link)

Go sell crazy someplace else

At least part of my interest in apologetics is probably reactionary. Dad has been trying to turn me onto "A Course in Miracles" for several years. That's not a switch I intend to throw-- not out of any disrespect to him or the occasional profundities he shares with my children, but because I've seen what the study of texts like that and Neale Donald Walsch's "Conversations with God" has done to his thinking.

My critique of the Course in Miracles ultimately rests on what police procedural novels call the chain of custody, because I have not studied the source material. What I know of the Course, I know only from conversations with Dad, and a smattering of online research. But one need not cash checks from the National Transportation Safety Board to recognize a train wreck for what it is.

When conversations with Dad segue into the history of religion, I've learned to enjoy the ride, if only because we're both stubborn. Per the "experts" whom Dad re-reads these days, Jesus (Yeshua) is not the only-begotten Son of God; He is merely the first of several "ascended masters." Dad also believes that Jesus's disciple Thomas was another "ascended master," one whose writing was "suppressed for hundreds of years by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox authorities." He told me yesterday that " a surviving copy of the so-called Gospel of Thomas contains 66 sayings of Jesus," and "some interesting Gnostic stuff that was unfortunately added to the original text."

"The Gospel of Thomas" I had heard of, but usually as an aside from people talking about how the canon of scripture was ratified, rather than as a document that allegedly makes liars out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and (to a lesser extent) John. But although he is rightly critical of some of the gnostic elements in that "gospel," Dad's enthusiasm's are like Mr. Toad's: they brook no compromise.

Echoing people like Dan Brown, Dad says we don't get a true picture of what happened from the canonical scriptures, because scheming priests at the time of Constantine "added all that shit about 'doubting Thomas' to discredit him." Not long afterward, the defamation campaign against Thomas was helped along by "world-class book-burners like Augustine of Hippo."

In that conspiratorial reading of history, Thomas stands as the one apostle who tried to set the others straight about the nature of the rabbi whom they followed. For example, says Dad, "even the utter destruction of his body did not hurt Jesus, in spite of what Catholic priests and some filmmakers want you to believe."

The biggest problem with this kind of thinking is that it denies the full humanity of Jesus. The Course in Miracles people and their acolytes think of ascended masters with respect, but even from a purely grammatical point of view, any positive connotation that a label like that has going for it depends on an assumed contrast between mud-bound novices and sky kings: it's Jonathan Livingston Seagull with a theological gloss, and from the same era (A Course in Miracles was first published in 1975).

Beyond giving Jesus a pat on the head for having become a spiritual adept at a young age, the "ascended master" label says nothing about His cross, His glory, or His unique place in salvation history.

As various Christian apologists have noted, one of the things said repeatedly in the Course is that "sacrifice has nothing to do with love." In other words, atonement doesn't live here anymore.

The end result of thinking like that is right out of Don McLean's signature song, because "the three men I admire most -- The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- they caught the last train for the coast / the day the music died."

And McLean actually comes nearer the truth than the depressed Columbia University psychologist credited with assembling the Course in Miracles does, because for McLean, death is real.

You can arrive at the same objection from another angle if you remember scripture as George Frederic Handel used it in his famous "Messiah" oratorio: "Emmanuel" means "God with us," and while the Course in Miracles plays lip service to that by acknowledging Jesus as a historical figure, it also reduces His crucifixion to the level of a "wardrobe malfunction."

How is it that Jesus could be "like us in all things but sin" (per the Letter to the Hebrews) if spiritual mastery made His suffering and death something less than real suffering and death? (Friend Loy reached back into the compendium of useful quotes from church fathers after reading the first draft of this post, and reminded me of the useful dictum that "what is not assumed is not healed." That, by the way, is an insight with which the incarnational emphasis in this tow truck story from Jennifer fits beautifully. Fourth-century Christology still comes in handy sometimes). Let's not forget that the Course undercuts Jewish theology, too: Jesus spoke at his last supper of establishing "a new covenant in my blood," and as I was reminded by the Amazon preview of a book by Fr. Peter Stravinskas, "In order to seal a Semitic covenant, a real victim was required (Gen. 15:7-18; Ex 24:5f), not a symbolic representation."

The Course in Miracles apparently suggests that the church fathers got Jesus and a few other things wrong, and not just by a little bit. Impressed by its alleged pedigree and its funhouse mirror relationship to orthodox belief as redacted to within an inch of its life by Gnostic all-star teams, Dad agrees. But there, he and I part company, at least when it comes to theology, because as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the foreward to his book, Jesus of Nazareth, "I trust the gospels."

One the one hand, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the unbroken testimony of Christian history. On the other hand, a Columbia University psychologist whose allegedly divine insights have been retailed by Marianne Williamson and Oprah Winfrey. Picking sides was easy. I just wish Dad were a little less stubborn.

The disagreement between me and Dad could be paraphrased with lines made famous by Jack Nicholson in different movies. From Dad's point of view, my demurral is probably a case of "You can't handle the truth." From my point of view, it's a case of "Go sell crazy someplace else."

We have a similar disagreement over the Crusades, where he reads Evan S. Connell while I read Rodney Stark and Thomas Madden. I guess that means that all we can do now is pray for each other.

Small beer as if from the Bard himself

I like the Shakespearean gloss that Alex Beam of the Boston Globe gave to the Gates arrest and ensuing "beer summit." Here's a taste:

BARACK: Who is the man, and what is his crime?

AXELROD: ’Tis the Most Exalted University tutor Gates. Back has he spoken to the Sheriff, unbidden.

BARACK: Gates? I know this man. We have supped together on the enchanted Isle of Martha’s Vineland. I have seen him with Lady Oprah, prating about his ancestry.

AXELROD: Perhaps a photo op, my lord? We invite Gates and the Sheriff here, quaff ale in the summer heat, and proclaim peace and brotherhood among all men.

BARACK: And savor tobacco from the Duke of Marlboro?

AXELROD: Not with the people watching, sire.

Castaway Day?

Jane and Thomas started back at school on Wednesday. Both children seem to like their teachers this year.

Jane did well that first day, but had to leave early yesterday because head pain was making it difficult for her to concentrate, especially on reading assignments. Later, she forgot her ABCs a few times while doing homework.

We'll be asking her neurologist about both of those items next week. Short-term memory issues seem to be transient and improving but still very real.

Jane also mentioned pain in her right (casted) wrist yesterday, but that may have been because she was trying to write with that hand. If all goes well, her cast will be taken off later today.

Time to get St. Luke (patron of doctors) on her case, as well as St. Raphael the Archangel and the twin brothers Cosmas and Damian. Now there's a medical team for the ages!

UPDATE: The cast was taken off. Now Jane has a removable splint that she wears when playing. At other times, she has her arm unemcumbered. She's proud of her "cast tan."

The paper trail

Thomas Lifson and Andrew McCarthy on why it matters when a president's most obvious rhetorical skill is serial evasion.

It's not about Kenya, or even Indonesia. It's about integrity and constitutionality.

It's also about math, or more specifically, innumeracy and laziness.

Chincoteague Diary

"What we did on our summer vacation," now posted over at American Spectator Online.

Looking in a mirror or beyond it

Christopher Johnson has some useful words on the difference between thinking about heaven and making a liturgical fashion statement. This is just a snippet of the goodness at the link (and he's got positive and negative visuals, too):

During public worship, what is the duty of the Christian minister? Whether he wears vestments or whether he doesn’t, his duty is to direct attention toward God and away from himself. He can accomplish this in any number of ways.

If he’s a Reformed Protestant, he can preach a sermon which illuminates the Word of God for his audience. If he’s Roman Catholic, Orthodox or classical Anglican, he can perform his tradition’s liturgies. Either way, attention is directed toward heaven.

C-sections and Century notes

William Tucker explains the current state of politics, with illuminating asides about cerebral palsy, Obamacare, and wind energy.

What I read in July

Part of the book tracking series of posts I'm doing this year, and inspired by the list-making of my friend Anne, the Palm Tree Pundit:

• Thank God Ahead of Time: The Life and Spirituality of Solanus Casey, by Michael Crosby, OFM Cap
• West Oversea, by Lars Walker
• Introduction to Christianity, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XIV)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

So far this year: 22 books

Back from Pony Penning Day

We drove to Chincoteague Island, VA, for the annual Pony Penning Day (and Swim), made famous in Marguerite Henry's Misty of Chincoteague. It was a great vacation, albeit a short one.

I'll add Chincoteague impressions to this post or a subsequent one as they occur to me.