Seven Quick Takes (v 41): Seven Passages from "The Lord of the World"

I recently finished reading Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's "The Lord of the World." Here are seven passages from that book, which was written in 1908. And yes, I'm hoping that this book is not too prophetic, since it seems to take place around the year 2008-2012, possibly a little later. This seems like a good guess as to when the "Lord of the World" takes power.

--1--

"Until our Lord comes back," he thought to himself; and for an instant the old misery stabbed at his heart. How difficult it was to hold the eyes focused on that distant horizon when this world lay in the foreground so compelling in its splendour and its strength! Oh, he had argued with Father Francis an hour ago that size was not the same as greatness, and that an insistent external could not exclude the subtle internal; and he had believed what he had then said; but the doubt yet remained till he silenced it by fierce effort, crying in his heart to the Poor Man of Nazareth to keep his heart as the heart of a little child.

Faith sometimes requires an effort of the will. It is not a matter of "once and done" by accepting Christ into one's heart at one moment, but rather an ongoing battle--an acceptance, yes, of Christ and His grace, and a  trust in Him not only in the distant far-off, but in the here and now.

--2--

Scene: Fr Franklin Percy counsels Fr John Francis, who in this scene makes official his abandonment of the Faith:

"I suppose you will cast me off," said [Francis].
"It is you who are leaving me," said Percy. "I cannot follow, if you mean that."
"But--but cannot we be friends?"...
""Friends?" [Percy] said. "Is sentimentality all you mean by friendship? What kind of friends can we be?"
The other's face became suddenly heavy.
"I thought so."
"John!" cried Percy. "You see that, d you not? How can we pretend anything when you do not believe in God? For I do you the honor f thinking that you do not."
Francis sprang up.
"Well--" he snapped. "I could not have believed--I am going."
He wheeled towards the door.
"John!" said Percy again. "Are you going like this? Can you not shake hands?"
The other wheeled again, with heavy anger in his face.
"Why, you said you could not be friends with me!"
Percy's mouth opened. Then he understood, and smiled. "Oh! that is all you mean by friendship is it?--I beg your pardon. Oh! we can be polite to one another, if you like."
He still stood holding out his hand. Father Francis looked at it a moment, his lips shook: then once more he turned, and went out without a word.

What is friendship? Does it mean merely being polite, or showing mutual toleration or even respect? No, these are sorts of civil virtues (if virtue is the right word); friendship is a deeper bond than any of these things. It is weakened to the extent that the two friends are hostile towards one or another of each others' beliefs (for example). A rejection like this is a wound in the side of the friendship, though not necessarily an irreparable wound, let alone a mortal one. The friendship does end, ultimately, if one friend insistingly goes where the other cannot follow, and then insists that the other must follow.

--3--

She glanced down the verses, that from the [secular] Humanitarian point of view had been composed with both skill and ardour. They had a religious ring; the unintelligent Christian could sing them without a qualm; yet their sense was plain enough--the old human creed that man was all. Even Christ's words themselves were quoted. The kingdom of God, it was said, lay within the human heart, and the greatest of all graces was Charity.

Bad worship music wasn't invented in the 1960's and 1970's--though it is arguable that it was then perfected--even if this passage does seem to be describing Anthem.

--4--

The newspaper account of Felsenburgh's appearance in London:

The organist aloft at first did not seem to understand, and continued playing, but a sound broke out from the crowd resembling a kind of groan, and instantly he ceased. But no cheering followed. Instead a profound silence dominated in an instant the huge throng; this, by some magnetism, communicated itself to those without the building, and when Mr FELSENBURG uttered his first words, it was in a stillness that was like a living thing. We leave the explanation of this phenomenon to the expert in psychology.
Of his actual words we have nothing to say. So far as we are aware no reporter made notes at the moment; but the speech, delivered in Esperanto, was a very simple one, and very short. It consisted of a brief announcement of Universal Brotherhood, a congratulation to all who were yet alive to witness this consummation of history;and, at the end, an ascription of praise to that Spirit of the World whose incarnation was now accomplished."

To summarize, "We are the generation we have been waiting for."

--5--

During the ceremony instituted to worship "Maternity" in humanism a ceremony required of all people (including Catholics, against their consciences) on pain of legal penalties:

And then, to those who heard Him, the supreme miracle took place.... For it seemed now in an instant that it was no longer man who spoke, but One who stood upon the stage of the superhuman. The curtain ripped back, as one who stood by it tore, panting, at the strings; and there, it seemed, face to face stood the Mother above the altar, huge, white and protective, and the Child, one passionate incarnation of love, crying to her from the tribune....

It was a new tale [Felsenburg] was telling now, and all to her [the shrouded image of a mother] glory. He was from the East, now they knew, come from some triumph. He had been hailed as King, adored as Divine, as was meet and right--He, the humble superhuman son of a Human Mother--who bore not a sword but peace, not a cross but a crown. So it seemed He was saying; yet no man there knew whether He said it or not--whether the voice proclaimed it, or their hearts asserted it.

We might almost say that he is a

"Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul."

--6--

"'If they hand offend thee, cut it off,' said Jesus Christ. Well, that is what we [the government under Felensburg] say... Now, for any one to say that they believe in God--I doubt very much whether there is anyone who really does believe, or understand what it means--but for any one even to say so is the very worst crime conceivable: it is high treason. But there is going to be no violence; it will all be quite  quiet and merciful. Why, you [the speaker's young wife] have always approved of Euthanasia, as do we all."

Two comments. One, the devil knows Scripture, but his interpretation is (deliberately?) wrong. He insists that his interpretation is right, and that no other authority might correct him, but he interprets literally where allegory is meant, or allegorically where literal meanings are correct. Second is that this is where an embrace of euthanasia will almost certainly lead--if not as a means of persecuting Christians per se, then some other element of society which is disfavored by the ruling classes.

--7--

While the world had moved on, Rome had stood still; she had other affairs to think of than physical improvements, now that the spiritual weight of the earth rested entirely on her shoulders. All had seemed unchanged--or rather, it reverted to the condition of nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

This was in some ways the strangest and in some ways the most challenging passage I found in the whole book. It was perhaps a reference to the state of Europe in the middle ages, though of course much of the problem of the "dark" ages during which improvements were few and far between came from the fact that countless numbers of barbarians invaded Europe during these times. It is certainly true that spiritual matters away material ones, but still, there is something to be said for the variety of improvements to life which were made thanks to the Church--hospitals, hotels, the preservation of texts by monasteries, the development of philosophy, the laying of the foundations of modern science--and that (contra such men as Marx) there is no dichotomy between improving the world in this life, and yet living for the next.The late Fr Jaki, for example, noted that one of the greatest difficulties faced by Otto von Bismarck during his kulturkampf was the simple fact that the heavily Catholic Rhineland was the most wealthy and technologically advanced part of Germany.

On the other hand, during a time of widespread spiritual crisis (as was developing in the book), technological advances would certainly be viewed by the Pope, cardinals, and bishops with lesser importance than the spiritual well-being of their flocks. Nevertheless, it does seem a bit far-fetched to imagine these prelates not only allow the infrastructure of their country decay, but going so far as to deliberately have the technological developments removed. I suppose, though, that there have been some great thinkers (among them, Kirk, Tolkien, and apparently Monsignor Benson) who despised certain technological innovations (e.g. Kirk's referral to automobiles as "mechanical Jacobins").

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Seven Quick Takes Friday is hosted by Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler at her Conversion Diary blog.

Nicene Guys Feed: Observations, Causes, and the Higgs Boson

Note: I have already written a longer post for IGNITUM TODAY about the discovery (or potential discovery) of the Higgs Boson and what it means for the Faith. This wasn't going to fit with the rest of that post, so I've expanded on it and made it into its own post.
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The discovery—or potential discovery—of the Higss Boson has fueled much excitement, some speculation, and a large number of columns and blog posts. Of these by people whose interest is everything from the political (or financial) side of things to its impact (or lack thereof) on science and future technologies to the potential impact of this discovery on religion. Among other reflections sparked by this discovery comes this passage from Mr Mathew Sullivan, a fellow Austin diocese Catholic:

'One of the primary fruits of these efforts was a better understanding of causality.  When something happens, people tend to wonder why and how.  “Why A?”  “Because B.”  “Well why B?”  “Because C.”  Eventually one comes upon what’s known as a self-evident truth, one or more truths that cannot be rationally proven but must be believed for all other knowledge to stand.  This applies not only to religion, but also to science, politics, and all other types of knowledge [1]. The truth that proceeded from the scholastics and formed the foundation of modern science is that the universe contains an intelligible order – it can be understood through the faculty of reason.'

 -----
[1] Which is a nice paraphrase of Jaki's statement in Miracles and Physics that

"Immediate and direct observation of things and the certainty of that observation (or at least the certainty with which it can be corrected or improved) is the rock bottom basis of not only philosophy but also of science as well....if it is impossible to start a march with the second step, concern about the laws of nature should give second place to concern man’s ability to register things and events with certainty....Courts of all levels, governments of all jurisdiction, depend on witnesses and their plain witnessing, and so do laboratories. In none of these forums can a discrimination against plain witnessing of unusual facts be condoned or else the most important cases may be prejudged and the only avenues for progress be blocked. Had Oersted refused to believe his eyes when they noted that the magnetic needle which he placed under a live wire turned in a direction which he believed to be impossible, the discoveries of Faraday and Maxwell might not have followed as they did. The discovery of the world of atoms depended on Roentgen’s chance witnessing of the formation, that was not expected to happen, of the negative image of a key on a photographic plate. Far more importantly, would Newtonian science have happened at all if Kepler had not unconditionally trusted in Tycho Brahe’s eyes in making countless naked-eye observations about the position of the planet Mars?"  

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Read the rest on the Nicene Guys site.

IT: Faith, Final Theories, and the Higgs Boson

“In my time, I have heard two quite different arguments against my religion put forth in the name of science. When I was a youngster, people used to say that the universe was not only not friendly to life but positively hostile to it. Life had appeared on this planet by a millionth chance, as if at one point there had been a breakdown of the elaborate defenses generally enforced against it. We should be rash to assume that such a leak had occured more than once. Probably life was a purely terrestrial abnormality. We were alone in an infinite desert. Which just showed the absurdity of the Christian idea that there was a Creator who was interested in living creatures.
But then came Professor F. B. Hoyle, the Cambridge cosmologist, and in a fortnight or so everybody I met seemed to have decided that the universe was probably quite well provided with inhabitable globes and with livestock to inhabit them. Which just showed (equally well) the absurdity of Christianity with its parochial idea that Man could be important to God”
C.S. Lewis, “Religion and Rocketry,” printed in The World’s Last Night and Other Essays)

I was en route to see family in the Amarillo area when I heard the news that scientists at the LHC had detected a particle with the characteristics of the elusive Higgs Boson. That is to say, they may have detected the elusive particle predicted by that part of the Standard Model which allows for other particles to have mass [2]. Along with that news came our editor’s comment that there were atheists doing their endzone dance over this. I guess you have to celebrate something—in the case of the scientists who made this discovery, I suppose the celebration may be either a new Nobel prize or that their multi-billion dollar science project will almost certainly continue to be funded. And while I may not go quite so far as Mr Scott Locklin when he says that his general reaction is to shrug off this discovery as interesting but useless, I also don’t think that it is quite so earth-shattering (let-alone faith-shattering) as some people would have us believe [2].

I suppose before going into why the Higgs-Boson is so exciting to the high-energy physicists—to say nothing of hotheaded atheists and equally excitable Christians—it is worth taking a moment to consider what the Higgs Boson is. Yes, it is often popularly referred to as the “God particle” [3], though most actual physicists (including Higgs himself) do not use that particular term. Actually, a good and somewhat brief explanation of what the Higgs Boson is and why it is important to high-energy scientists [3] is written by Professor Steven Weinberg, himself a Nobel laureate. How Stuff Works also has a solid short entry on this.

Read the rest on the IGNITUM TODAY site.

Seven Quick Takes Friday (v 40)

--1--

My supervisor has *strongly recommended* that each instructor for the physical sciences create a course web page. I have been spending lots of my precious free time (and this week, it is quite dear, as it is quite scarce) trying to do that. Since I'm not going to be using it in any meaningful way, this is essentially busy work for the sake of busy work, especially given that most of the kinds of things which I would use a course website for are already available on Blackboard (much as I hate their interface), which is about the only site students seem to be interested in visiting for course-related stuff anyway (I know this from experience, as the last time I tried to have a site other than blackboard, the entire class complained that they wanted me to just use Blackboard). Round and round it goes.

--2--

 I've been reading Fr Robert Hugh Benson's The Lord of the World. The in-story newspaper's coverage of Julian Felsenburgh's speech at the beginning of the first part sounds ominously similar to the actual media's coverage of a certain President. It would make for a rather eerie coincidence.

--3--

On to lighter (?) things: I found this roadkill experiment to be pretty entertaining.

--4--

This last weekend was a time of reunions. First with friends: I grabbed a few pints with some of the other bloggers at IGNITUM TODAY. Then there was family: my brother came to visit me.

--5--

 Pray for the repose of the soul of Fr Bob Scott OSP. His "Good Stop" homily was heard by quite probably tens of thousands of college students over the years, many of whom remember it in some form as one of their favorite homilies. My own favorite memory is of reciting the act of contrition in Latin after confession, only to have him ask if I knew what those words mean. I translated them to English, which satisfied him, but the deeper meaning of the question is still with me. Do any of us really know what those words mean? R.I.P., Fr Bob.

--6--

Speaking of prayers, I've been thinking about a particular type of prayer often offered, the petition for _______ [insert gift or fruit of the Holy spirit, virtue, or other related thing here]. For example, "I pray for patience." Perhaps we should spend more time praying that we will properly practice or wisely use those gifts/skills/virtues/etc, as in "I pray that I will practice what patience I have."

--7--

 On a related note, patience is an excellent virtue to have (and to practice) when dealing with a large and complex laser system. Six hours later, and I am still aligning the front-end; how patiently I am doing so, I cannot say. It is pretty frustrating, though.


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Seven Quick Takes Friday is hosted by Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler at her Conversion Diary blog.

Nicene Guys: Catholics and Gays Part 4

Now that I have considered a pair of objections to the (brief) natural law argument for the Church's proscription against romantic homosexual relationships (RHR), it is worth now considering what sex reveals symbolically. These are signs and symbols, which will largely be theological in nature. They are therefore what might be called more reasons why the Church teaches that RHR are wrong, from a mostly theological point of view.

First, there is the somewhat literal part. Those with weak stomachs or strong imaginations should pass over the next two paragraphs to the second part. (Denoted by skipping between the lines)
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This applies more to specifically homosexual relationships, that is, a romantic relationship between two males. The male member—also known as a penis—is for lack f a better word the male procreative organ. It is from this organ that life pours forth; indeed, Aristotle argued that in the procreation of a new person, the form was contributed by the man (via his sperm) and the matter from a woman (via her eggs). We might take issue with Aristotle for this—indeed, if the soul comes from God, then we have taken theological issue with Aristotle. But nonetheless, life does come from both the male and the female, and so we might say that the penis is the organ by which a man transmits life....
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If the foregoing discussion seems a bit prurient, I am sorry. On the other hand, part of the point of Catholic morality in general, and the Theology of the Body as well, is that our bodies matter. What we do with our bodies matter, because our bodies are the matter of which our souls are the form. Moreover, the sacramental nature of Catholic theology means that the physical world is important has meaning, both in itself and beyond itself. 

Read the rest on the Nicene Guys site.

Three Links Wednesday (vol. XXV)

Sometimes, good things come in pairs.

--I--

Professor Edward Feser has not one, but two round-ups: the first concerns Classical Theism and the second Cosmological Arguments.

--II--

And now for two posts by Mr John C Wright: one about a breakthrough in neuroscience which has implications concerning supposedly "braindead" patients (people in a "vegetative" state, formerly known as a coma), the other about theology and whether it should be viewed as a science, or as a law.

--III--

To round out the links, here are a pair from Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler: "open-mindedness" concerning religion, and a conversation she had with a gay friend.

--Bonuses--

 

Seven Quick Takes (v. 39)

--1--

I went to Canyon last week for the fourth. I did make it there and back safely, and the trip back was much smoother than the trip up. The high point was seeing my friends Mr David Connolly and Mr Nathan Kennedy (also, my wife's side of the family, plus her friend Miss Amy Thompson). The low point was a tie between the trip up and going to the Cathedral in Amarillo including the selections for "hymns"/settings for the liturgy (the sole bright spot: "Hymn to Joy"). That has got to be the most ugly Cathedral I have ever seen in person (to be rivaled by a few other newer monstrosities; their website doesn't do justice to the situation). As for the liturgy, well, the Mass is supposed to be like heaven on earth, but some parishes manage to make it feel a lot more like purgatory. On the other hand, I made it to the Palo Duro Canyon.

--2--

 I recently received a comment (via email) that St Thomas Aquinas did not write very well--his writings are dry and lack stylistic beauty. This person has obviously not read much beyond St Thomas textbooks/manuals (e.g. the Summa Theologica, considerable as that work is, it is still essentially a textbook for "beginning"/"Masters" theology students). Aquinas' prayers are quite beautiful; as far as the material's being "dry," well, I suppose that Chesterton said it best when he said that there are no boring topics, only uninterested people.

--3--

An apparently aggrieved atheist is suing a supposedly church-promoting Cajun kitchen. His complaint is that they are intolerant because they are promoting Christianity, which cannot be tolerated. The deal is that the Cajun kitchen offers a discount to customers who bring in a bulletin from church on Sundays, which are slow days for the restaurant. There is little difference between what the kitchen is doing and what many other restaurants do, that is, purchasing an ad in a bulletin (or a newspaper) which says "Bring this ad (or coupon and receive a 20% discount this Sunday!" I suppose that the difference is that the Cajun kitchen is not having to pay for advertisement space--which I would think would actually make the atheists happy, since she is not therefore giving money to any of the local churches by making this special offer. The owner of the kitchen in question does not attend church services.

--4--

While we were in Canyon, I noticed that my sister-in-law and her husband would take turns reading childrens' books to my niece and nephews (aged 4 and under). One of these was "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake," which reminded me of a book my youngest brother had, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." Actually, I'm pretty sure it was the same story with different characters and props. It turns out that there is a whole line-up of these from Harpers-Collins: "If you Give a Moose a Muffin," "If You give a Pig a Pancake," "If You Give a Dog a Donut." I wonder if this is to prepare children for a lifetime of movie re-boots and television re-runs. *Groan.* My response was to think of the least politically correct story in that vein, possibly the kind which would get to the core meaning of how you life will be ruined by the demands of and cleaning up after the title character of each of these stories. The titles I came up with were "If You Give a Bum a Buck," "If You Give a Pauper a Pizza," and "If You Give a Homeless Guy a Hamburger."

--5--

The Republicans in Congress are taking some flak from the Democrats for spending time voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act rather than spending time trying to pass a comprehensive jobs bill:

While the lack of a clear an consistent Republican plan for job creation is problematic, repealing the ACA is not necessarily a bad thing (economically, it is actually a good thing, especially if if is replaced by some actually needed reform). However, the Republicans are failing to articulate this. They are also failing to clearly articulate a good strong case against Keynesian economics (sometimes doing nothing is best, other times reform means repealing bad laws or policies). Of course, it's also possible that they are not failing to do so, but that the message isn't getting across. I wonder what could cause that?

--6--

The retirement age at which social security kicks in should be adjusted according to life-expectancy. This may need to wait until after the recession ends. There should also be more incentives for families to remain together and to have more children (2.1/family is the replacement fertility rate). Some incentives to go to trade schools rather than universities would also be helpful--the piles of debt accrued at univeristies apparently aren't enough--the former tend to train people for careers, the latter would then be free to provide education and not merely "job training," and people in general would be left with a choice to pursue one or the other and not a mediocre conflation of both.

--7--

Concerning which I trust more with economics--Republicans or Democrats--I think that both are flawed, but it's worth noting that the Republicans* have been running Texas' economy and the Democrats** have been running California's, not to mention Oregon's.

*Although their party platform is a bit scary in Texas; well, parts of it are. Their principles are all pretty solid--as are many of their general policy positions--and even some of the "craziest" policies aren't that bad. Still, I'm not sure what they were thinking on the whole "no critical thinking" thing. There may be something more than meets the eye (for example, actually critical thinking may not mean the same things as HOTS), but they didn't do a very good job of articulating their position in this case. All of which brings me back to take 5.
**Their party platform is scary--no, appalling, horrifying--just about anywhere.
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Seven Quick Takes Friday is hosted by Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler at her Conversion Diary blog.

Healthcare, Jobs, and Politics, Oh My!

To the left you see the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee's reaction to the Congressional Republicans' [1] attempt to repeal Obamacare. Although it's a bit of a tu quoque [2], I also note that the Democrats haven't exactly had any good ideas for comprehensive job creation, either. This includes the President and the Senate, but also those Democrats in the House (you don't need a majority to come up with a plan, after all). Sure, there's a proposed tax cut--which Republicans mightnormally favor--but this strikes me as little different than the various tax-rebates and tax-cuts which we've seen under the Bush and Obama administrations. And I forget how many "Comprehensive Jobs Bills" have been passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate, or for that matter, how many budgets they have passed/approved in the last 3 years.

President Obama, for his part, has spent plenty of time, energy, and political capital on such policies as his tyrannical HHS mandate, which accomplishes nothing to help the economy while chipping away at religious freedoms (meaning everybody's freedoms), and probably will end up hurting the economy to boot, even if it doesn't mean the closure of Catholic hospitals, schools, etc. If the Democrats want the Republicans to focus on job creation, perhaps they should put their own money where their collective mouths are, in particular President Obama, and start by not creating unnecessary distractions; there are, after all, some things more important than job creation, inflation, and high gasoline prices.

On the other hand, it does seem like that is the President's strategy: so long as the Republicans appear to be "distracted" from the economy, he can get away with blaming these things on them, without owning up to his own responsibility for the economic conditions which have only grown worse under his watch. The economy is bad (which helps Mitt Romney), and the President's strategy for getting re-elected (his top priority) is to either distract us from it, or pin the blame on someone else. That some of these distractions are also economic in nature is conveniently (one might say studiously) ignored by those same "jobs first" Democrats. I am thinking again of the ruinous religious penalty tax levied by the tyrannical HHS mandate [3] against any employers who would dare to oppose the HHS mandate: shutting down all of the Catholic employers will cost the country millions of needed jobs, and all that because (at best) Obama and Sebelius wanted to do a little social engineering.

So what do I think that Congress should be doing? This includes Republicans and Democrats, though thanks to the partisanship of politics, it may ultimately mean Republicans and any Democrats of good will. Well, repealing Obamacare would be good in general, but at the very least they should put in place some conscience protection, ratify the Hyde Amendment as a more permanent piece of legislation, and do away with the individual mandate and the HHS mandate. The costs of healthcare are a problem, but Obamacare is a poor solution (and one which still hasn't really been totally unveiled). A little bit of tort reform would go a long way, but since many people in the governing class are themselves lawyers and not doctors--including the majority of Senators and the President himself--I see this one as a long battle. We need fewer frivolous lawsuits, which ultimately probably means fewer lawyers. There is an overabundance of lawyers in the country (and they are furthermore quite over-represented in Congress), and too many of these are attorneys whose livelihood is tied to winning court cases (lawsuits), meaning there are more lawyers than actually necessary lawsuits, including medical lawsuits. The result is an abundance of frivolous lawsuits, which end up costing their victims (e.g. doctors and ultimately patients) in lost income and higher malpractice insurance--and that's if the doctor in question wins the case!

Concerning "job creation" in general, there are basically three direct possibilities: do nothing and let the economy sort itself out, create jobs via government intervention (e.g. Keynesian economics, the government will pay for some project to be accomplished whose main purpose is to generate jobs but which may be beneficial in some other way), or create/repeal regulations on industry. There are also a host of indirect possibilities: lower taxes (and then, whose taxes will we lower?), create (or remove, or increase/decrease) subsidies, change the interest rates, develop an short-term and a long-term energy plan... Obviously I am not going to cover all of this in a single *rant* of a blog post. I may not return to it.

Let's just say that not all solutions are equal: I would prefer letting the economy sort itself out to Keynesian "active" solutions which look good in the short term (or in the area where they are focused) but which often do damage in the long term (or elsewhere). Unfortunately, we've more-or-less committed ourselves to a Keynesian solution of some sort (that is what a "comprehensive job bill" ultimately hints at), because we are more concerned with the things which we see (e.g. a new bridge) than the things we don't see (what might the people have done with the money needed to build that bridge). Put another way, we see the jobs created (or sometimes, saved) by government intervention, but not the ones which are lost or destroyed or never created--which may mean a net loss of jobs. Sometimes the best way to create jobs is to get out of the private sector's way. On the other hand, I do think that some incentives for sustainable energy (which includes nuclear, and also funding for energy research, including fusion research) would be a boon for our economy in the long term. We don't necessarily need to wait for the crisis to come to us. Passing a balanced budget (or even just simply a sensible one) would help, too.


---Footnotes---

[1] House Republicans: but a few Democrats joined in this vote, making it ironically more bipartisan than the original vote to pass Obamacare.
[2] Of course, it's a tu quoque in response to a tu quoque of sorts.

[3] And since when does the executive branch have the authority to levy taxes? See Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Three Links Wednesday (vol. XXIV)

"[The Catholic Church is] An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight."
Hillaire Belloc (and here is Mr Mark Shea's take on all this)

--I--

"Doctor shopping" will be "forbidden" under Obamacare. Rationing, on the other hand, will be necessary.

--II--

Another advance for "gay marriage" is reported by Mr Mike Flynn.

--III--

In the US, the cradle-to-grave retention rate of Catholicism is higher than any other Christian church, denomination, or community save for the Eastern Orthodox; on the other hand, it is lower than any other of the "Great" religions (Hinduism, Islam, Judaism) save for Buddhism. On the other hand, the lowest retention rate of all is for (drumroll please) atheism; and only 1/5 of those atheists change to being either agnostic or "none" (no religious affiliation). However, because there are far more theists than non-theists to begin with, the total number of atheists is on the incline, and the total number of Christians (or theists in general) is declining.

--Bonus--

.

Three Links Wednesday (vol. XXIII)

I've been told a few times that I will be on the wrong side of history. This is usually by people who are proud to be on the wrong side of eternity.

--I--

This post is somewhat amusing and somewhat informative: meaning, Mr Mike Flynn wrote it.

--II--

The former prefect of the CDF--Cardinal Levada (formerly an archbishop of the Portland archdiocese)--has retired, and now we have a new prefect.

--III--

In some western countries, the royalty (and/or aristocracy) actually govern, if only via veto. In Liechtenstein--"the smallest yet the richest (by measure of GDP per capita) German-speaking country in the world"--that veto is used to uphold the moral order, and in turn to keep the most basic of all liberties intact. Of course, in that country the populace also recognizes and supports this right.

--Bonus--

Happy Independence Day.

Trip to Canyon Journal

Day 1 (July 3):
11:30 AM--Finished administering my class's exam. Time to catch the bus home and begin the long dreaded drive to Canyon. It's te drive itself I dread, just to clarify.  Eight plus hours of driving with an easily car-sick wife (poor gal), plus her dog with horrid breath. It's going to be roll the window dup, I'm hot, then ok,  roll the window down, the dog's breath stinks and I can't breathe!
1:00 PM--Finally home from UT. Wife's car is still at the mechanic. I guess we're driving late tonight.
3:00 PM--Ok, car is finally loaded, and given our average driving time to Canyon 9with stops and all), I guess we'll get there around, um, 1:00 AM?
9:55 PM--Car is awfully wobbkly/bouncy. I wonder if the tire is going flat? Well, we'll be in Lubbock soon, and then maybe I can stop somewher safe (e.g. a gas station) and check the tires...
10:00 PM--Tire blows out ~10 miles from Lubbock. Managed to steer car to side of road. Put on spare without incident (or light). Limped into Lubbock, found hotel. Good luck finding some place open on July 4. Walmart?
11:30 PM Cut finger open on razor when reaching into bag. Hopefully this won't need stitches, but man is it bleeding.
Day 2:
1:00 AM--Ok, those loud fireworks can stop any time now. Shouldn't we be shooting those off at the end of today (July 4)? And not right outside of hotel window.
9:00 AM--Good thing we brought that dog along so that it could get scared of the fireworks and leave fear scent inside its kennel, which rides in the car with us. Suddenly I find myself sympathizing with Mitt Romney.

Hopefully the rest of the trip will be smooth and uneventful?


P.S. No, I was not typing all of this as I was driving.


Update: Yes, I eventually made it to Canyon.
Second Update: Also, the trip back to Austin was uneventful.

Manic Monday Madness: The Philosoraptor on Recent Rulings

The philosoraptor poses another question:

The answer is either "yes" or there will be no such thing as a "tax-exempt" organization. The latter possibility is not a good thing, since the power to tax is ultimately the power to destroy.