"Trotskycons" In Their Own Words

The New Oxford Review's Dale Vree provides a superb treatment of the subject in this 1995 essay: What Is a Neoconservative? -- & Does It Matter? Indeed it does matter. Let us let the neocons speak for themselves.

First, Jonah Goldberg:

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business.

Second, Christopher Hitchens:

George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but he -- and the US armed forces -- have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled.

[Explains the author, "Smashing Islam paves the way for democracy, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, etc."]

Third, Michael Ledeen:

We tear down the old order.... Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions, whatever they may be.... We must destroy them to advance our historic mission... It is time once again to export the democratic revolution.

Fourth, Stephen Schwartz:

[T]hose who are fighting for global democracy should view Leon Trotsky as a worthy forerunner.

Finally, that "worthy forerunner" himself:

We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life.

The Lies of James Cameron

In anticipation of the Canadian director's upcoming mockumentary, let us recall how he distorted history in his most popular film. From this First-Class Tribute to Men of Titanic, a reflection on "the sort of manhood Alan Alda wouldn't recognize:"

There were only 16 lifeboats. Three hundred sixteen women were saved, with 57 children. More than 1,300 men -- passengers and crew -- went down with the ship after a relatively orderly evacuation of "women and children first."

[For a detailed analysis, see Titanic Disaster: Official Casualty Figures and Commentary. Learn, among other things, the wrongness of "Leonardo DiCaprio as one of those heroic third class passengers who were, as we know from the casualty figures, less heroic than the bourgeois passengers in second class."]

"Chivalry, gallantry, bravery and grace" still meant something in 1912. Father Thomas Byles of the Titanic, defamed by Mr. Cameron, was but one of those fine men who went down with the ship, serving his flock in steerage.

Of course had Mr. Cameron told the true story of those fine men, he might have edified a generation of young males the world over, but he would not have garnered this endorsement, quoted from China Paints Titanic Red:

Suggesting that the movie... evinces Communist values, providing "vivid descriptions of the relationship between money and love, rich and poor," China's president Jiang Zemin has given his unqualified backing to the film...

Turning our attention to the upcoming media event, coinciding neatly as it does with the Lenten season, Mr. Stephen Hand offers this refutation, unfortunately quite needed in these times of historical and cultural illiteracy: Bible Scholars: Ten Reasons Why Jesus Tomb Claim is Bogus.

Cheap Shots in the Defense of Liberty Are No Vice

Prof. Clyde Wilson's latest, In Defense of Cheap Shots, is one of his best. The first paragraph follows:

Some good readers of this site have complained that some of us—Paul Craig Roberts, Dr. Fleming, and even the mild-mannered and ever temperate Yours Truly—are guilty of taking “cheap shots,” of making over-heated accusations and using exaggerated language to describe the transgressions of George Bush and his regime. I reply that tyranny is usually incremental and always presents itself as necessary and for the public good. Thus, it should always be guarded against and opposed at the threshhold. If our forefathers had not observed this rule, there would have been no American War of Independence.

The "cheap shots" taken by the Old Rightists at www.ChroniclesMagazine.org, where Prof. Wilson writes, and at Antiwar.com, LewRockwell.com, and Sobran's, are not really "cheap shots" at all. Rather, they are spirited arguments in the best of the American political tradition. Reaction is no dinner party.

A Patron Saint for the Second Amendment

Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, whose feast was yesterday, is the topic of this article by Peter Vere: A Saint for the Church Militant. More on the "Gun Saint" from the article:

Two incidents in St. Gabriel Possenti's life are particularly notable for their evidence of manly virtue. The first took place when the saint was still young. He had been traveling through the woods to visit his uncle when a man approached him along the path.

The man proposed that the two travel together for companionship. St. Gabriel Possenti agreed. As they passed an abandoned shack, the stranger accosted the saint, suggesting actions for which God obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah.

"You fiend," St. Gabriel cried as he brandished his hunting knife. "If you touch me I'll stick you through."

The assailant fled without further prompting.

There are times when a Catholic must turn the other cheek. Yet St. Gabriel shows us there are other times when a Catholic must stand and fight. How many of our young people could be saved from sexual predators by being armed with the example of Saint Gabriel?

Which brings up the second incident in which St. Gabriel Possenti demonstrated the virtues of Catholic manhood. Again it involved a potential rape, but this time the victims were a couple of young virgins. The perpetrators were two soldiers-turned-brigands who were part of a larger gang pillaging the village.

Rather than hide in the monastery like the rest of the clergy, St. Gabriel Possenti approached the rapists and grabbed their revolvers. With a pistol in each hand, he ordered the brutes to unhand the crying maidens.

The bandits laughed. The rest of their gang came over and mocked St. Gabriel's cassock bearing our Lord's Sacred Heart. They pointed out that a single seminarian was no match for over a dozen battle-hardened soldiers.

Just then a small lizard dashed between the saint and the brigands. With a pinch of the trigger, the seminarian shot the lizard dead. "The next one will be through your heart," he told the gang's leader.

The soldiers let go of the young ladies, returned the stolen loot and extinguished the fires they had lit, then fled the village. They knew better than to test the manly virtue of this man of God. For St. Gabriel Possenti did not abuse his strength, but rather he used it to defend the weak against unjust threats of violence.

Interesting that the "Gun Saint" should hail from Assisi, home to a more well-known saint. There is no contradiction between these two saints; they simply illustrate the breadth and scope of the Catholic Faith.

More can be learned from the St. Gabriel Possenti Society.

Cui bono?

Antonia Juhasz and Raed Jarrar answer in Big Oil in, stability out under new Iraqi law.

The Emasculation of Nature

This could potentially explain a lot: Pollutants change 'he' frogs into 'she' frogs.

Self-Esteem Run Amok

Words of wisdom, from Study: College students more narcissistic:

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

Prof. Twenge's book is entitled Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--And More Miserable Than Ever Before.

Korean Soldier Among Those Killed in Cheney Assassination Attempt

May Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, 27, and the others who lost their lives, rest in peace: South Korean Soldier Killed in Afghanistan. The article notes that he was "the first South Korean solider killed in a terrorist attack abroad since the country dispatched thousands of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002." To the best of my knowledge, the South Koreans have performed an exclusively non-combat role in both countries, making Sgt. Yoon the first to die at the hands of the enemy.

A Coherent Foreign Policy

The next President of the United States on Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, and the Mideast: With Friends Like These… by Rep. Ron Paul. The nutshell version: disengage.

The End of the American Narrative

"Has the American narrative authored its own undoing?" asks Prof. Michael Vlahos, writing for The American Conservative, in The Fall of Modernity, one of the best reads you're likely to come across in a while. Here's the first paragraph to whet your appetite:

We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a well-established condition of successful societies, a condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with time and continuing success. In fact, what empires have most in common is how their sacred narratives come to rule their strategic behavior—and rule it badly. In America’s case, our war narrative works against us to promote our deepest fear: the end of modernity.

If only our policy-makers had glanced at The End of the Modern World by Father Romano Guardini, written in 1956.

The Consequences of Globalism

For all those Left-liberals who look back fondly on the Clinton years, a reality check from Prof. Paul Buchheit in The Income Gap:

Between 1990 and 2000 in the U.S. worker pay and inflation remained approximately equal, while corporate profits rose 93% and CEO pay rose 571%.

Of course, this is not to say that things have gotten any better during the Bush years.

What's needed is a move away from this neoliberal ideology, embraced also as it is by neocons, and move toward the principles of Distributivism, which holds that "[t]he means of production should be distributed as widely as possible among the populace; they should neither be hoarded by a oligarchy, nor controlled by the government."

For the Separation of Family and State

Free and compulsory education: Authorities Ask German Homeschooling Family to Give up Custody of Other 5 Children. "Home schooling is illegal in Germany under a law dating back to Adolf Hitler," notes the article's author. This is paricularly ominous:

An appeal to the European Court of Human Rights failed last year when the court ruled Germany’s enforcement of the law did not violate the rights of parents to educate their own children, saying the interests of the state in educating children took precedence over the views of the parents. [emphasis mine]

Readers may want to respectfully let their concerns for the Busekros family be known:

The Minister of Justice in Bavaria:
Beate Merk
Prielmayerstr. 7
80335 Munchen
Tel. +49 89 5597 1799
Fax +49 89 5597 3580
Email: beate.merk@stmj.bayern.de

Against Chronocentric Modernist Ideologues

Prof. Mitchell Kalpakgian gives us an excellent essay detailing the differences between The Classical & Modern Habits of Mind. We might say the classical mind was generalist, the modern specialist. The latter's self-limitation to it's narrow field, Prof. Kalpakgian argues, leads to "modern thoughts such as preventive war, same-sex 'marriage,' human cloning, politically correct education, legalized abortion, and no-fault divorce [that] originate in man-made ideologies that do not correspond to real facts or objective truths based on authority, experience, or reason."

On a simlar theme, Mr. Tracy Fennel, "vowing to combat the myth of progressive history," takes on his fellow professional historians in The Cro-Magnons of the 16th Century. Says Mr. Fennell of his colleagues' thinking, "Somehow man only became fully human with the arrival of the automobile, or the printing press, or electricity or the computer, whatever the yardstick of modernity may be."

Mr. Bush's High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Mr. Jodin Morey gives us a detailed account:

Bush's Impeachable Offenses, Part 1: "How president misled public into an illegal war"
Bush's Impeachable Offenses, Part 2: "The President ordered the NSA to spy on citizens without a warrant"
Bush's Impeachable Offenses, Part 3: "The illegal leaking of 'cherry picked' info from a classified NIE"
Bush's Impeachable Offenses, Part 4: "War Crimes/Geneva Violations"

Ralph Nader Calls for Impeachment and/or Resignation

From Asymmetrical Warfare in Iraq:

Hold Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to the rule of the U.S. Constitution. Commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. In the meantime, the public should demand their resignation. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew resigned for far less "high crimes and misdemeanors." What is at stake here is the global position of the U.S.A. and its own national security.

My Cup o' Tea

Tea at Trianon is a very learnèd blog brought to us by Elena Maria Vidal, "[w]ife, mother, historian, etiquette instructor, and wedding planner." She is the author of two historical novels, Trianon, a Novel of Royal France and Madame Royale (the sequel to Trianon), which she discusses in this interview:

Part 1: Marie Antoinette Elena Maria Vidal Interview on EWTN
Part 2: Marie Antoinette Elena Maria Vidal Interview on EWTN
Part 3: Marie Antoinette Elena Maria Vidal Interview on EWTN

Two recent posts give a hint of what you can expect from her fine blog. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges introduces us Joseph Boulogne (1745-1799), ... known as "le Mozart noir" or "the black Mozart." In Skellig Michael, we learn about a rock in the middle of the sea inhabited by Irish monastics and "the 'green martyrdom' sought by the monks, the penitential life of strict fasting, solitude, silence, poverty, chastity and obedience."

A Lenten Miracle in Naples

"Brother Elia, whose face, hands and feet appear covered in blood each Lent is revered by fans from the country's poorest to World Cup-winning footballer Francesco Totti:" New "Padre Pio" awaits his Lenten torment. "Doctor Carlo Marcelletti, one of Italy's foremost heart surgeons who witnessed his suffering last year, said the phenomenon was 'scientifically inexplicable'."

From Deindustrialized Italy to the Factory of the World

From a kind reader comes news of a film she describes as an "Italian morality tale about trade with China,"Stella che non c'è, La (2006). A plot summary, from Mr. Bruno Giussani's review, Don't miss "The Missing Star":

The story in short: Vincenzo Buonavolontà (literally "Vincent Goodwill", played by a perfect Sergio Castellitto, picture below) is the maintenance manager at an Italian steel mill that has been shut down. In an old-vs-new-industrial-country theme, the furnace is being sold to China. Vincenzo knows of a potentially dangerous structural flaw in a control unit, tries to alert the Chinese, but can't get their attention and the furnace is shipped. Vincenzo is a worker who cherishes values that seem today regrettably out of fashion: loyalty, a job well done. He decides to travel to Shanghai, where he discovers that the furnace has already been resold by brokers who have little interest in what he has to say. With the help of a translator, Liu Hua (convincingly played by newcomer Tai Ling), he travels through the cityscapes and landscapes and industry-scapes of contemporary China searching for the furnace. Amelio clearly uses Vincenzo's quest (for the furnace as well as for himself, mirrored in Liu Hua's own tribulations) as an excuse for a quasi-documentary about today's China and its extreme paradoxes, immense scale, absurd contrasts and engaging growth. If you've never been to China, that's a reason by itself to see this movie.

A Peculiar Legacy of the Peculiar Institution

"He's in a mighty good family," said Doris Strom Costner, a cousin of the late senator, upon learning this news: Sharpton's Ancestor Was Owned by Thurmond's*. The reverend's assessment, quoted in the story, was not incorrect: "In the story of the Thurmonds and the Sharptons is the story of the shame and the glory of America." He also spoke of "healing" and "com[ing] together on some genuine level."

But I'm particularly struck my Mrs. Strom Costner's words: "He's in a mighty good family." What a beautifully aristocratic sentiment! Of course, I do not deny the abuses that took place under slavery or aristocracy, but history is much more complex than the simplistic Marxist charicature we've all been force-fed. The reality is that many, perhaps most, slave-holders and aristocrats were God-fearing people whose sense of paternalism and duty led them to sustain, protect, and defend their slaves, serfs, or servants and even treat them as members of an extended family.

When it comes to blame, let us remember these words from that great lover of Liberty, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805?1859), from Democracy in America:

When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our own time who are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.

If we are not to blame "men of [Tocqueville's] time," much less should be blame their descendants.

*Use BugMeNot.com to bypass registration.

Shilling for the Antichrist

This sounds just a tad familiar, from Film-Maker: 'I Have Christ's Coffin':

Titanic director James Cameron believes he may have discovered Jesus's lost tomb. He said DNA evidence and statistical analysis of a set of 2,000-year-old stone coffins found in Jerusalem in 1980 suggest they once held the remains of Christ and his family. Cameron said tests on human residue taken from the ossuaries believed to be those of Jesus and Mary Magdalene indicates they might have been a couple.

A century ago, the standard line was that Christ never existed. His existence could not be proven; therefore, He didn't exist. When it was shown that the same methodology could also "prove" that Napoleon never existed, it was dropped. Now, all of a sudden, not only can we "prove" that Christ did indeed exist, we can also "prove" that everything orthodox Christians have believed about Him for two millenia is false.

The James Cameron Conspiracy Theory is starting to sound a little bit less crazy; a "documentary" aimed at fomenting doubt about Christ is just what you might expect from a 33° Mason.

Iran─We're Already There

Two stories on "clandestine operations in Iran... 'guided by Vice President Dick Cheney:'" Foreign devils in the Iranian mountains and US covert operations helping Muslim radicals. Perhaps we can make an educated guess as to whose hand was behind this act of terrorism: 18 reported dead in Iran bus bombing.

Let me see if I can get this straight. We're backing one Shi'a government against a Sunni insurgency, fomenting another Sunni insurgency against a different Shi'a government, and at the same time fighting both the Shi'a Madhi Army and Sunni Al-Qaeda. In the long run, who will be playing whom? The Founding Fathers, who warned us to Beware of Foreign Entanglements, are rolling over in the graves.

But what more could we expect under the "leadership" of a "decider" who exclaimed, "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”?

UPDATE: "We're playing the Sunni card in the Middle East – and that means playing footsie with al-Qaeda:" America's Alliance With bin Laden- Justin Raimondo.

The New Eugenics

"In developed countries, there is a growing interest for the most sophisticated biotechnological research to introduce subtle and extensive eugenics methods in the obsessive search for the 'perfect child'," said the Holy Father, quoted in Pope speaks out against "designer babies".

It's the Jews!

They're keeping Americans of Korean descent down. At least that's the theory of Prof. Lee Won-bok, a Korean cartoonist who's work is reported on in this story: Anti-Semitic cartoons spur outrage. The outrage spoken of has come from Americans of Jewish and Korean extraction; I haven't heard a peep of outrage over here in Korea.

A few years ago, I was lent Prof. Lee's book on Korea, translated into English. It was a huge waste the hour or so it took to flip through it. His essential thesis, that Korea is the Italy of Asia because both countries are peninsulas, was laughable. He ignores, for example, the fact that Italy is shaped like a boot and Korea a "lumpy phallus," in the immortal words of General Douglas MacArthur.

Prof. Lee's ideas have a lot of currency, though, as I've heard them regurgitated by university students and others on numerous occasions. People these days don't seem to have the time, inclination, or even ability to read books without pictures, and they like their ideas simplistic.

Baby Boxes

An idea from India comes to Japan: Public cradles against abortion. From the article:

Following India, which last week launched a "cradles scheme" against abortions and foeticide of girls, the Japanese Health Minister approved a decision taken by a hospital in Kumamoto to have a "baby box" for the public.

Hospital officials said the box was intended to ensure absolute privacy for those parents who wanted to abandon their newly born babies. The "box" is an incubator which is always working and monitored by a nurse of the hospital. Babies can be put there through an opening in the hospital wall.

The Israel Lobby Ratchets Up the Pressure

For Mr. Bush to expand his war: AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran. Author Gary Leupp quotes Israeli Defense Force chief artillery officer Gen. Oded Tira as saying, "[A]n American strike in Iran is essential for [Israel's] existence."

The Korean Wave Returns to Kiribati

After Korean fishing boats were banned twice from docking there, On South Pacific island, Korean fishermen again looking to buy sex. Here's how the second ban came about:

In 2005, the problematic behavior of Korean fishermen became so serious that Kiribati authorities decided to prohibit Korean ships from docking there. The decision came after the head of Kiribati's Roman Catholic Church urged the government of President Anote Tong to step down if it could not solve the prostitution issue in the country. [emphasis mine]

Those of us in Korea remember this from when the story broke two years ago: "Prostitutes in Kiribati are referred to as "korakorea" because of the nationality of their most frequent clients."

The High Cost of Rapid Industrialization

The Hankyoreh, South Korea's main Leftist organ, reports: High levels of uranium, radon found in water supply. How high? "1,640㎍/ℓ uranium, 54.6 times the U.S. standard."

A related story from the same source: S. Korean children have higher toxic metal levels in blood and urine. From the article:

According to the survey by the Ministry of Environment last year, South Korean children aged 8-13 have a mercury level of around 2.42 parts per billion (ppb) in their blood.

Comparable figures in other countries are 1.0 ppb in Germany, 0.34 ppb in the United States, 17.6 ppb in China and 6.6 ppb in Japan, the survey showed.

Mary and Mohammedom

New Oxford Review's Jim Coop gives us much food for thought in this article: In 1531, Mary Intervened to Prevent a Clash of Civilizations. He is of course looking back to "the prevention of an armed revolt of the Mexican Indian population" and "the greatest mass conversion to Christianity in the history of the Church," both of which were brought about by Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Mr. Coop is also looking at the contemporary situation with what Hilaire Belloc termed The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed. These two paragraphs of Mr. Coop's article stand out:

Therefore, might Mary serve as the bridge between the Western and Islamic worlds? Actually, many Moslem women not only resemble our Lady in their style of dress but also in the practice of a virtue that Western women must once again embrace if Western civilization is going to endure, let alone expand. That virtue is chastity.

Many years ago, Archbishop Fulton Sheen noted the difficulties Christian missionaries were having in converting Moslems to the Faith. He proposed a solution to the problem: Fostering devotion to the Virgin Mary. In his book The World's First Love, he wrote, "It is our firm belief that the fears some entertain concerning the Moslems are not to be realized, but that Islam will eventually be converted to Christianity. This will not happen through the direct teaching of Christianity but through the summoning of the Moslems to a veneration of the Mother of God.... Because Moslems have a devotion to Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and develop that devotion with full realization that Our Lady will carry the Moslems the rest of the way to her Divine Son."

Read also this classic by Fr. Ladis J. Cizik: Our Lady And Islam: Heaven's Peace Plan.

Feeding Confucian Scholars

The New Beginning links to this review of a book by Prof. Ahn Dae-hoe of Myongji University in Seoul: Leisure in Lives of Choson Scholars. This passage stood out:

In the writings of Yi-ik (1629-90), a renowned Confucian scholar and upright civil minister who published work under the penname Songho, Ahn finds lessons about abstinence from food.

"I like books by nature and do not produce a single strand of cloth or a grain of rice on my own, trying just to read books every day. Am I not just a tick in this world?" Yi wrote. He found the best way to soothe his conscience was to eat less.

Observing the contemporary Korean aversion to getting one's hands dirty with work deemed menial, I imagine the Christian solution to such scrupulous thoughts never crossed Yi-ik's learned mind: plant a garden.

I recently came across a scholarly observation that one of Christianity's greatest contributions to the West it formed was the dignification of physical labor, especially agricultural labor. Indeed, when the great monastic orders of Europe were not busying themselves with the preservation and advancement of civilization, they were growing food and, perhaps more importantly, making beer! America's own Confucian scholars, the Founding Fathers, were, by and large, gentlemen farmers. The great American Taoist, Henry David Thoreau, went even further.

For Liberty and Against the Welfare/Warfare State

The Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Exploratory Commitee video:

[link via A conservative blog for peace]

The Ben Franklin Code

National Treasure (2004) is a movie with as many plot holes, inaccuracies, and absurdities as The Da Vinci Code (2006). A willing suspension of belief for either of these films will not suffice; to make them believable for the half of the population with triple digit IQs would require a lobotomy. All that makes "Treasure" a slightly more watchable film than "Code" is that the former doesn't take itself so seriously, and the fact that it showcases the Germanic beauty of Diane Kruger.

The film's greatest slander is portraying Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832), the sole Catholic signer of The Declaration of Independence, as one of the nine Freemasons who signed the document. The movie was, in reality, little more than a Masonic propganda piece─I'd like to see who bankrolled it. In the end, the cop with the Masonic ring saves the day for our heroes.

The goals of the secret society are shown to be nothing more than the establishment of a limited─not world─government and the guarding of the world's art and historical treasures from the evil British in order to share them with all of humanity. In fact, the film is unabashedly Anglophobic; villians have English accents and sinister sounding names like "Ian."

Don't waste your time with this poison. A better use of your time would be to read this entry from The Catholic Encyclopedia: Masonry (Freemasonry).

Leftist Post-millennialism

Two from the archives of one of our favorite atheists, the late Murray N. Rothbard: The Menace of the Religious Left and Saint Hillary and the Religious Left.

Like other leftists, religious leftists attempt to Immanentize the eschaton, i.e., establish heaven on earth. Attempts to do so generally end in hell on earth, like the the second bloodiest conflict in history, the Taiping Rebellion, an attempt by a self-styled "younger brother of Christ" to establish the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace" [太平天國].

Relics

I was struck by this bit of La Chanson de Roland (1090), quoted in Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres by Henry B. Adams, in which the hero sings to his sword:

"E! Durendal cum ies bele e saintisme!
En l'oret punt asez i ad reliques.
La dent saint Pierre e del sanc seint Basilie
E des chevels mun seignur seint Denisie
Del vestment i ad seinte Marie."

"Ah, Durendal, how fair you are and sacred!
In your golden guard are many relics,
The tooth of Saint Peter and blood of Saint Basil,
And hair of my seigneur Saint-Denis,
Of the garment too of Saint Mary."

This explanation from the author:

To the warriors, the sword itself was the religion, and the relics were details of ornament or strength. To the priest, the list of relics was more eloquent than the Regent diamond on the hilt and the Kohinoor on the scabbard. Even to us it is interesting if it is understood. Roland had gone on pilgrimage to he Holy Land. He had stopped at Rome and won the friendship of Saint Peter, as the tooth proved; he had passed through Constantinople and secured the help of Saint Basil; he had reached Jerusalem and gained the affection of the Virgin; he had come home to France and secured the support of his "seigneur" Saint Denis; for Roland, like Hugh Capet, was a liege-man of Saint Denis and French to the heart. France, to him, was Saint Denis, and at most the Ile de France, but not Anjou or even Maine.

Here's an article on the topic that appeared today: Relic Fascination

Finally, here's a second-hand relic I could see myself tooling around in, Saint Padre Pio's car:


[image from Web, Su Ebay Auto Benedetta Da Padre Pio A 950.000 Euro]

Professor Clyde Wilson on the American Leadership

From There He Goes Again—More of the Way We Are Now:

Ortega y Gasset described the creeping malady of the modern West as “the sovereignty of the unqualified.” Could there possibly be a better description of American leadership?

Downwind from the Factory of the World

It's Yellow Dust season in Korea again: 12-day toxic sandstorm the price of Chinese growth for South Korea.

Customs, Traditions, and Habits vs. Ideology

Echoing Edmund Burke (1729–1797) and Russell Kirk (1918–1994) , this excerpt from The Next Conservatism by Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind :

Ideology, a child of the French Revolution, says that according to thus-and-such set of abstract principles, reality must be thus-and-so. Inevitably, reality is too complex to fit the ideological Procrustean bed. When that happens, the ideology in question decrees that certain aspects of reality, those that conflict with its precepts, must be ignored. If the ideology, through politics, achieves control of a state, it uses the power of the state to enforce its decree. Anyone who dares doubt that all of history is a factor of the ownership of the means of production or of the superiority of Aryan blood or of the inherent evil of white men and Western civilization is penalized by the state. If the ideology gains sufficient power, the penalty becomes the concentration camp, the Gulag, or the bullet into the back of the neck in the basement of the Lubyanka.

Real conservatism rejects all ideologies, recognizing them as armed cant. In their place, it offers a way of life built upon customs, traditions, and habits—themselves the products of the experiences of many generations. Because people are capable of learning over time, when they may do so in a specific, continuous cultural setting, the conservative way of life comes to reflect the prudential virtues: modesty, the dignity of labor, conservation and saving, the importance of family and community, personal duties and obligations, and caution in innovation. While these virtues tend to manifest themselves in most traditional societies, with variations conservatives usually value, they have had their happiest outcome in the traditional culture of the Christian West.

Winning Little Hearts and Minds

US Soldiers Taunting Iraqi Children With Water Bottles

"I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink..."

"Lord, when did we see thee... thirsty...?"

"Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me."

─Douay-Rheims Bible Online, Gospel According to Saint Matthew Chapter 25

Sea Monsters Are Real

As big as was the half-ton creature recently caught by the Kiwis─New Zealand fishermen catch massive squid on Yahoo! Photos─it was likely a puny lightweight in comparison to what lurks in the deep sea. Take, for example, this 2003 account, from Squid attacks and a mast failure: a Jules Verne saga:

“I saw a tentacle through a porthole,” said Olivier de Kersauson, skipper of the 34-meter (112-foot) tri Geronimo, via email from his boat a day after the incident. “It was thicker than my leg and it was really pulling the boat hard.” The squid locked onto one of the tri’s hulls and rudder, slowing the boat down and making steering all but impossible, according to the speed-crazed Frenchmen onboard. After rounding the boat into the wind, the squid apparently dropped off and swam away, no doubt casting a look askance at the crew with one of its dinner-plate eyes. “We didn’t have anything to scare off this beast, so I don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t let go,” de Kersauson said. “We weren’t going to attack it with our penknives.”

Didier Ragot, a crewmember who witnessed the attack, reported how the squid glommed on: “The tentacles were as thick as my arms plus the waterproofs. Amazing! To begin with it was jammed between the top of the rudder blade and the hull and then it sent two of its tentacles down to the base of the rudder blade and grasped it right the way around at fence level. I saw it astern after it had let go, and I reckon it was about 10 metres long: absolutely enormous. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one so big: it shook the whole boat and it was rather worrying at the time.”

[image from The Illustrators of Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires]

Ethicists Be Damned!

Ominous news today: Korea Reignites Stem Cell Engine. From the article:

"Some express concerns that stem cell research is stagnant here. But we are still committed to it," Park said in a press conference.

"Regarding human embryonic stem cells, we are seeking to conclude to what extent we will allow that form of research by next month. We also plan to finish revisions of the Bioethics Law later this year," Park [ Jong-koo, vice minister for science and technology innovation,] said.

[....]

"If we have to decide things by a majority vote early next month, cloning research will be resumed since two-thirds of the members support it,’" said Prof. Cho Han-ik of Seoul National University.

Cho leads the 20-member bioethics committee consisting of six ethicists, seven scientists and seven government officials. Only the ethicists are against cloning research. [emphasis mine]

I repeat, "Only the ethicists are against cloning research." The seven scientists and seven government officials, predictably, have no qualms. What's the point of having ethicists on the committee in the first place, if they are only going to be trumped by a majority vote. Life and death issues arising from innovations should be decided by consensus, as juries do. If there is no consensus, stay put.

[This puts me in a bit of a professional pickle. One of the hats I wear at my university is that of the English tutor for the Graduate School of Life Science. I help students prepare presentations of their research to be given at international conferences. Should my university initiate ESCR, I will refuse to offer any assistance to students involved in this research. So far, I have had no ethical concerns whatsoever with the scores of students and researchers, many of them committed Christians, I've met. Quite the contrary; they are involved in wonderful and exciting projects that could mean better lives for millions of suffering people.]

First War and Death, Then Famine and Pestilence

Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily report that Iraqis Are Running Out of Food; Dan Bergin reports that a UN report shows nearly half of Palestinians now suffer from malnutrition.

God's Rottweiler on Factory Farming

Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.

─then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the Vicar of Christ, quoted in Trappists can't swallow Eggs Benedict

Here are four of my previous posts on the topic, in reverse chronilogical order: Against Factory Farming, Dog Meat, Factory Farming, and Animal Welfare (Not Rights), On Factory Farming, and Animal Welfare.

Three Left Hooks from CounterPunch

"From the Gulf of Tonkin to the Persian Gulf," historian Robert Fantina suggests we are forgetting Santayana's sagely warning: Repeating History. Pray for our boys─and, to our shame, our girls─sitting on those ships over there. Remember the Maine! Remember the Lusitania!

Kevin Zeese on a real antiwar Democrat, the Honorable Senator Mike Gravel: Finally, a Populist Antiwar Candidate. I'm still backing Dr. Ron Paul, but the more good men─and, to our credit, women─ in the running, the better.

The Illinois Students Against the War on a fake antiwar Democrat: Why We Protested at Obama's Speech.

Axis of Torture

We knew damn well if Maher Arar went to Syria, he'd be tortured. It's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured . . . Let us not create more terrorism around the world by telling the world we cannot keep up to our basic standards and beliefs.

─The Honorable Senator Patrick Leahy, questioning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the CIA's kidnapping of Maher Arar

"Is This America?" asks the pro-life, atheist, civil libertarian, Jazz critic Nat Hentoff, beginning his article with the above quote.

Aside from being revolted by the anti-American Bush Administration, I'm perplexed at how it can cooperate with this junior member of the Axis of Evil when it comes to torture, but not when it comes to providing stability in Iraq.

[link via Catholic and Enjoying It!]

Against False Mathematical Certitude

Prof. Sam Crane of The Useless Tree posts today on Useless Arithmetic, the title of a book by a father-daughter team of geologists who "are pointing out the limits of scientific thinking and proposing other observation-intensive methods for discerning natural patterns and processes." An excerpt from a review of the book:

When coastal engineers decide whether to dredge sand and pump it onto an eroded beach, they use mathematical models to predict how much sand they will need, when and where they must apply it, the rate it will move and how long the project will survive in the face of coastal storms and erosion.

Orrin H. Pilkey, a coastal geologist and emeritus professor at Duke, recommends another approach: just dredge up a lot of sand and dump it on the beach willy-nilly. This “kamikaze engineering” might not last very long, he says, but projects built according to models do not usually last very long either, and at least his approach would not lull anyone into false mathematical certitude.

Now Dr. Pilkey and his daughter Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, a geologist in the Washington State Department of Geology, have expanded this view into an overall attack on the use of computer programs to model nature. Nature is too complex, they say, and depends on too many processes that are poorly understood or little monitored — whether the process is the feedback effects of cloud cover on global warming or the movement of grains of sand on a beach.

We might call the Pilkeys scientists against Scientism.

The "false mathematical certitude" spoken of reminds me of the first episode of the great Krzysztof Kieślowski's made-for-TV series "Dekalog" (1989). A young boy is taught two very diferent worldviews: one from atheistic, rationlist father, the other from his devout Catholic aunt. The father uses official temperature readings over a series of winter nights to calculate that the ice will be thick enough for his young son to safely skate on a nearby pond. The father, lulled into false mathematical certitude, sends his son off to skate unaccompanied... Cut to the end and the father is kneeling before The Black Madonna of Czestochowa in an empty church that is still under construction before he starts tearing the place up.


[As an aside, my field, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, is rife with what Prof. Wolfgang Smith called The plague of scientistic belief. Glance at the charts in half the papers in the field and you'd think you were looking at theoretical physics! In the first year of my master's program, I was awestuck. But I soon realized that most of it was hogwash. What is needed to be a good language teacher? (1) A solid knowlegde of the grammar, phonology, and history of the target language, (2) as much as possible, the same for the learners' first language, (3) some basic teaching techniques, and (4) most importantly, a good personality. ]

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission

Already down the Orwellian "memory hole" is this two-week-old story: Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission hears nine charges against Bush, Blair, Howard.

Say what you will will about the country─I spent more than a year there and would say it's a fine, tolerant, prosperous, dynamic society─Malaysia is no third-world backwater to be lightly dismissed. Surely this is more newsworthy than that playmate who died or that singer who shaved her head and went into rehab.

The commission is chaired by former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, more affectionately known as Dr. M, and prosecuted by Matthias Chang, a Chinese-Malaysian Catholic. Here are the details of the nine counts against the indicted:

Chang said Bush, Blair and Howard, through a deliberate plan of deception, falsehood, forgery and outright lies, misled their respective Congress and Parliament to wage war against Iraq which was a "crime against peace."

The trio were also being charged for embarking on a systematic campaign to destroy Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine economically and militarily, he said.

He said the third charge against them was for ordering the destruction of vital facilities essential to civilian lives in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine while the fourth was for the bombing of schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, residential areas and historical sites and conveniently labelling the destruction as "collateral damage".

The three leaders were also charged with allowing the use of weapons of mass destruction that inflicted indiscriminate death and suffering against civilian targets such as the cluster bomb, napalm bomb, phosporous bomb and depleted uranium ammunition, said Chang.

The sixth charge said that Bush, Blair and Howard have fraudulently manipulated the United Nations and the Security Council as well as corrupting its members to commit crimes against peace and war times, he said.

Through the aforesaid conduct, Chang said the three had destroyed the environment of Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

The eighth charge was that Bush, Blair and Howard ordered and condoned the violation of human rights, specifically the civilians in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as well as other prisons known and unknown in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and anywhere else in the world.

The last charge spelled out that Bush, Blair and Howard systematically controlled and manipulated, directed and misinformed the mass media so as to incite war to achieve their military objectives in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

Here is some more background on the story: "Natural Law" Allows For Setting Up Of KL War Crimes Tribunal and Former U.N. envoy says war tribunal by Malaysia's Mahathir is a farce.

The Greens Say Impeach

A statement quoted from the party's press release, Iraq War is Impeachable, Not Just a 'Strategic Blunder':

The Iraq War didn't fail because the White House and Pentagon botched it strategically, although it's evident that the invasion was undertaken without regard for the protection of many U.S. service personnel (e.g., inadequate body armor; illegal use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus, which also harm civilians), the need to secure Iraq's borders, and other basic military necessities. The Iraq War was an inevitable disaster, said Green Party leaders, because it was a preemptive invasion of one nation by another, justified before the public by manipulated intelligence estimates and a disinformation campaign (false claims about WMDs; Saddam Hussein's collusion with al-Qaeda; Saddam's purported threat to neighboring countries and the U.S.), with minimal consideration of the outcome (mass Iraqi civilian deaths; probably civil war; international outrage, especially among Muslim and Arab nations; empowerment of radical religious and terrorist groups in the region).

"Preemptive invasion is illegal under international law. Congress must treat the Iraq invasion as a criminal atrocity, requiring impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and investigation and criminal prosecution of those responsible for the war," said Rebecca Rotzler, co-chair of the Green Party and Deputy Mayor of New Paltz, New York.

NY Times Article on the Globalization of Korean Marriage

The Grey Lady* discovers a decade-old story: Korean Men Use Brokers to Find Brides in Vietnam. The most ubiqutous roadside signs, expecially in rural areas, are those advertising brides from Vietnam. Why? Market forces:

More and more South Korean men are finding wives outside of South Korea, where a surplus of bachelors, a lack of marriageable Korean partners and the rising social status of women have combined to shrink the domestic market for the marriage-minded male. Bachelors in China, India and other Asian nations, where the traditional preference for sons has created a disproportionate number of men now fighting over a smaller pool of women, are facing the same problem.

How did this problem come about?

The widespread availability of sex-screening technology for pregnant women since the 1980s has resulted in the birth of a disproportionate number of South Korean males. What is more, South Korea’s growing wealth has increased women’s educational and employment opportunities, even as it has led to rising divorce rates and plummeting birthrates.

I guess the Grey Lady has no need to mention the phrase "sex-selective abortion." I suspect that most pro-aborts, being feminists, would be rightly disgusted by the idea of aborting a baby solely because it's a girl. But really, if it's wrong to kill a baby because it's female, why is it wrong to kill a baby because it's inconvenient, doesn't have blue eyes, or for any other reason? What makes some "choices" in this matter more acceptable than others?

*Use BugMeNot.com to bypass registration.

Mother Jones' Iraq Study Group

From Antiwar.com comes a link to this crash course with everything you wanted to know but were too disaffected or apathetic to ask: Iraq 101. Here's the intro:

All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it’s time to get serious. We’ve spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won’t get asked a stumper like, “What’s the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” Okay, even the head of the House intelligence committee doesn’t know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we—and our leaders—should have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And while we’re at it, let’s do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It’s time for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can’t afford to fail.

NFP in the News─So What?

I'm not one of these Catholics who harp day and night about Natural Family Planning (NFP), although I admit that there is no legitimate alternative for those who need─need, not "want"─to limit their number of children. I'm a bit creeped out by those in what might be called the "NFP Ministry," as if this were the Catholic answer to the sexual revolution and everything were finally "groovy." Let the women of the parish discuss this stuff after Mass behind close doors, I say, while their husbands are at the neighborhood pub.

NFP is roughly analogous to Annulments; both are legitimate but, I suspect, also grossly overused. Perhaps we could say that NFP should be "safe, legal, and rare," or at least "rarer" than it is. You could say I'm a fan of the "natural" part but not the "family planning" part. More Natalism, less NFP!

That said, I could not help but notice this story from Auntie Beeb, which cites a German study concluding that "[a] natural family planning method is as effective as the contraceptive pill:" Natural contraception 'effective'*. "[A] nd infinitely safer," notes LewRockwell.com in linking to the story. [Of course, it goes without saying that NFP's effectiveness or lack thereof has nothing to do with it being the only legitimate form of limiting family size.]

I can already hear the reaction from the Sex Jacobins: "But this violates inalienable human rights by forcing women to abstain on certain days of the month!"

*"Natural contraception" is an oxymoron since nothing is used or placed in contra conception. That would be like calling abstenance a "safe sex" method, or calling the avoidance of people with the flu an innoculation.

Strange But True

In addition to being Paleolibertarianism's premier site, LewRockwell.com links to unique stories from other news sources. Here are three from today.

First, a strange variation of The Cargo Cults in Vanuatu: South Sea tribe prepares birthday feast for their favourite god, Prince Philip.

Second, made of gold and believed to have been worn by a strikingly tall female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia: 5,000-year-old artificial eyeball found.

Third, another reason why I try to get eight hours a day (but seldom do): No sleep means no new brain cells.

Korean Beauty

The above set of images, from ‘팔도미인도’ 뜯어보니…“평양=최지우形, 장성=송혜교形”, show the ideal beauty of the past from, clockwise from the upper left, Chinju, Seoul, P'yŏngyang, Kangnŭng, and Changsŏn. The headline compares P'yŏngyang and Changsŏng to contemporary beauties Choi Ji-woo (최지우) and Song Hye-kyo (송혜교) respectively, pictured below:

The Lord of Heaven Teaching (天主教) in the Middle Kingdom (中國)

The beautiful image above comes from an excellent article by Tom Pauken II, Perhaps Catholics Can Succeed in China, which provides a comprehensive picture of the complex situation of the Church in China as well as of Sino-Vatican relations.

He begins with the premise that "[i]t's safe to assume that Catholicism and Communism don't mix." We might think of the former as an irrestible force and the latter as a unmovable object. But that would be to forget Poland and the the Church's role in the fall of Communism, made all the more ironic by the monster Stalin's famous quip asking how many divisions the Pope had.

For a more inside account of the situation of Catholics in China, visit the The Cardinal Kung Foundation.

The Homelessness Industry

Seoul Times' U.S. columnist Thomas Emmon Pisano, a victim of the gloablist neoliberal de-industrialization of Amerca, finds himself yet another homeless veteran in America. It is not often we get to hear a first-hand account of homelessness from a talented writer, and he shares his thoughts in The Anatomy of Homelessness. Some of his observations:

Here is what I see; Los Angeles Family Housing is a "Bum Factory" crudely put they take the homeless and process their numbers and who cares about the end result, in other words, they would rather put me back in their system and get the revenue for a failed attempt at rehabilitation (of which I have no need of rehabilitation, because I have no addiction, medical or mental problems). I guess you could say that I am a victim of circumstance. Still I am another number in which the Fat Cats can claim to line their pockets.

[....]

To prevent homelessness is far from the minds of the individuals who work there. It even seems that they encourage homelessness and want the clients who falter in the program to re-enter their facility, as I was encouraged to do, I guess; in order to get their grant numbers up and keep the funding flowing.

[....]

It is in this reporter's opinion that Los Angeles Family Housing cares only for the funding it attracts and the people that they are suppose to help are irrelevant as far as the results are concerned.

This blogger has worked in community organizations both as a volunteer and as a full-time paid employee. Observing myself and others, I believe that it is hard if not impossible not to become cynical and jaded while making a living off the misery of others.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once said that she wouldn't do what she did for a million dollars. Charity can only be freely given. Servant of God Dorothy Day insisted that charity was a call "[n]ot just for impersonal 'poverty programs,' government-funded agencies, but help given from the heart at a personal sacrifice." Local governments might have some limited role to carry out in the endeavor to alleviate misery, but the bulk of the effort should be carried out by volunteers. That's the American way.

Let us also not forget to pray for Mr. Pisano and others in his circumstances and remember There But for the Grace of God go I, or, for our secularist friends, There but for Fortune...

Hard Times Ahead

"This week's data on the sagging real estate market leaves no doubt that the housing bubble is quickly crashing to earth and that hard times are on the way," begins Mike Whitney in The Second Great Depression. The author goes on to present a litany of dismal economic data showing that we are, indeed, doomed.

If Mr. Whitney's article does not convince you, perhaps the fact that "[f]ormer World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months" will: Former World Bank Chief Economist Predicts Global Crash. Mr. Stiglitz also "drew ominous parallels to the development of the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union."

How to proceed? First, we need to remember that Small is Still Beautiful. We need to work toward Distributivism guided by The Principle of Subsidiarity. Above all, we need to counter the Threat of Globalization. Rather, Global Relocalisation is what we need to strive for. Peak Oil is but one scenario that could bring this about; a global great depression could do the same.

In the meantime, we might find inspiration from Charles Dickens' Hard Times or this classic of New York hardcore:

Cro Mags - Hard Times

"Never surrender. Never go down."

Lenten Readings

The Holy Father delivers a counter-cultural message for the faithful: Lent for conversion not self-fulfilment, Benedict says. here's the full text: Pope's message for Lent 2007

The New Oxford Review's Noel J. Augustyn notes that the season for penance ain't what it used to be: Lent: Time for Another Parish Party?

The Catholic Exchange's Mark Shea notes that our "Protestant friends have nothing to worry about" with the season: The Gift of Lent.

Klinton's Amerika

From the Left, Alan Maass and Jeffrey St. Clair take a look back "at the scene of eight years of crime" in Talking About the Clintons. Here's a taste:

The Clinton administration opened the doors for Bush Junior in ways that Junior's father never did. Aside from the obvious Oedipal things going on with Bush Junior, his father hasn't been a big help to him. But Clinton certainly has. When Bush talks about his "other father," people are assuming that he's talking to the supreme deity. But I think that maybe it's Clinton who's on the speed dial.

Because in so many ways, Clinton provided the final transition between decaying old-style liberalism and the new neoliberalism and neoconservatism--which are kind of incestuous first cousins.

Also from the Left, Robert Scheer looks at the "unrepentant hawk" and front-runner for the Democratic nomination: Hillary’s Calculations Add Up to War.

William Wilberforce, Evangelical Politician

Secularists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris describe the beliefs of the faithful as a "delusion" and akin to "insanity." Wilberforce endured similar scorn. He was lampooned for his "damnable doctrine" and dismissed as a "treacherous fanatic."

Modern skeptics should remember that the great campaign against the international slave trade was not led by atheists. It was fought by people with deep Christian convictions about the dignity and freedom of every person made in the image of God.

─Joseph Laconte, from British abolition's faith-based roots

William Wilberforce (1759–1833), and other Classical liberals like Edmund Burke (1729–1797) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), understood the importance of religious values for free societies, something modern American Left-liberals disingenuously reject. I say disingenuously because they only raise a stink about "legislating religion" when it comes to policies they disagree with. Revs. Jackson and Sharpton are above the fray, either because their ideas are politically correct or because leftist white supremacy only allows for religious belief among races deemed "less progressive."

Also, none of these folks─not Wilberforce, Jackson, Sharpton, the Pope, not even Falwell or Robertson─was or is taking about "legislating religion." They are not suggesting laws that mandate belief in The Divinity of Christ or The Trinity, for example. At worst─really at best─religious people in politics are using their religious principles and traditions to inform them on social issues. If abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and same-sex marriage are solely religious issues, than so are slavery, murder, and rape.

These are not religious issues, of course, which is why an atheist like Nat Hentoff can arrive at the same position on most issues that a Catholic like me does.

Here's the trailer of the film opening this Friday, on the 200th anniversary of the end of Britain's slave trade:

Amazing Grace Movie Trailer

Dies Cinerum

Today is Ash Wednesday for those of us in the West, the first day of Lent. While not one of the Holy Days of Obligation, why not consider paying a visit to your local parish to receive the blessèd ashes? At the very least, keep the following in mind:

Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.

Ron, Ron, Run!

The Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Exploratoy Committee website is up and running online. Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX), a pro-life obstetrician, leans towards Paleolibertarianism on most issues and Paleoconservatism on others.

He would have America return to Non-interventionism, the Gold standard, and States' rights. He would have America Abolish the Federal Reserve, Abolish the Income Tax, and Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

The good doctor is a prolific writer as well. Collections of his articles can be found at Antiwar.com's Ron Paul Archives and LewRockwell.com's Congressman Ron Paul Archives.

Anti-Abortion Photo of the Day

A photo of miracle baby Amillia Sonja Taylor, born at 21 weeks and six days gestation, weighing less than 10 oz. and just nine ½ inches long, from World's most premature baby thrives:


If the person holding little Amillia proceeded to chop her up into little pieces, we would call her a murderer. Yet, if she did the same act in an abortion "clinic," we would call her a doctor, despite her violation of the The Hippocratic Oath to "perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life."

Here's more on the story: “Non-viable” Baby Girl Survives Birth at 21 Weeks, Weighing Under 10oz.

Indian Christian Hospital Feticide Story

Some clarification, perhaps, from Fundamentalists accuse Christian hospital of illegal abortions:

The Anglican Bishop of the Church of North India, Laxman L Maida, said the episode was a “false scandal blown out of proportion by the media and extremists”. He told AsiaNews: “The Mission Hospital in Ratlam has honestly served the neediest people irrespective of creed for 100 years.” Maida claimed that the polythene bag with the remains was due to “negligence of the sweeper and not illegal procedures of the hospital”. This was, he said, an “anti-Christian conspiracy against missionaries and their services”.

According to another version, the Bajrang Dal movement – the youth wing of the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – accused the Mission Hospital of illegal abortions and of hiding the foetuses.

The hospital denied this and explained that the bones belonged to some stillborn babies whose bodies were abandoned by their parents. The Bajrang Dal activists started shouting provocative slogans against the hospital and some exaggerated the number of bones found to cause more commotion and to strengthen their accusations.

A Reformed Christian on Just War

A Presbyterian professor of history offers a long and detailed chronicle of American militarism in America and the Christian Theory of Just War by John J. Dwyer.

The author also offers the history and a description of the Just War Doctrine. As a Catholic, I rejoice at reading these words from a Reformed Christian:

Honorable men and women hold to both Pacifism and Christian Realism, but it is the theory of Just War that I believe has most scripturally animated the Church’s approach in the nearly two millennia since its first advocacy. So whence the concept of Just War? One of its earliest known advocates was Ambrose, the noble Fourth Century Bishop of Milan. Now here was a man. He stood up to the Empress Justina, threatened to excommunicate Emperor Theodosius I if he did not repent of his wickedness in massacring a townful of people, and was the mentor and guiding light of Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the greatest thinker the Church has ever produced. If you have ever read any portions of Augustine’s City of God, you understand.

Indeed, Ambrose played the man till the end of his life. As the German tribes closed in on a Rome governed in its final days by Christian emperors, those emperors realized they needed to know when they could justly wage war. And the Christian soldiers who now filled many of the Roman ranks sought to know if and when they could honorably serve as warriors. Ambrose and other leading thinkers of the Church put much thought to the subject. So did Augustine as he witnessed the Empire crumble. Others did too, including Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica and elsewhere as he exhorted the feudal lords of the Middle Ages toward justice and charity in war and admonished them against waging war for ungodly reasons or in ungodly ways. For instance, the Church-approved "Peace of God" codified the protection of non-combatants in war, and its "Truce of God" outlawed the waging of war on the Lord’s Sabbath Day of rest.

The author also offers this " consensus catalog of guidelines" based on the summation of "conservative evangelical Presbyterian minister and economist Ron McKenzie of Christchurch, New Zealand:"

First, a Just War must be waged by a legitimate government authority. That is, not by private citizens, pirates, or usurpers. Also, its cause must be justifiable self-defense – as opposed to seeking the territory or property of others or furthering one’s own economic, social or political interests – and its intent to restore a just peace, fair to all. And it must have a reasonable expectation of success in accomplishing that goal.

A Just War must only be fought as a last resort, when every conceivable alternative has been exhausted. Its use of force must be proportionate in response to the wrongs committed. For example, burning every home within a five-mile radius of a partisan ranger ambush of uniformed regular soldiers would not be a proportionate response. Or bombing those homes from 15,000 feet in the air when they contain no soldiers.

Other tenets of Just War with solid Biblical basis include not having a large standing army (Deuteronomy 17:16, 1 Kings 10:26-29, Isaiah 31:1) and not possessing offensive weapons (Deuteronomy 17:16), Just War does not allow for the attacking and damaging of the land that is God’s creation (Deuteronomy 20:19), for "the tree of the field is man’s life," and "the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof." This item alone precludes the use of nuclear weapons, which by nature harm both the land and non-combatants. And, the defensive military alliances so common in recent generations – and so loathsome to America’s Founding Fathers – are decried in Isaiah 31:1–3 and elsewhere.

Rev. McKenzie, the New Zealand minister, further illumines the Just War philosophy when he writes how "God determines the appointed times of the nations and the timing of their rule. (Acts 17:26). No nation has the authority to invade another nation to change its government (even if it is evil). A nation cannot even be invaded to establish democracy. "Democracy," McKenzie continues, "must come from the hearts of the people, it cannot be enforced from the outside." Most attempts by great powers to establish ‘better’ government by force in other nations have failed, because the spiritual forces that control the nation have not been defeated (Daniel 10:13)."

And finally, non-combatants must be preserved from harm. That is, "collateral damage" is not allowed for, nor acceptable, however "regrettably." The first Geneva Convention on War in 1863, and others since, have minced no words: attacking defenseless cities and towns, as well as plundering and wantonly destroying civilian property, are war crimes, performed by war criminals.

What does the above say about Mr. Bush's "preeemptive" war against a nation that neither threatened us nor had the means to do so?

What We Hope for from Ron Paul

Let us hope and pray that Rep. Paul’s candidacy... embarrasses some "conservatives" into re-adopting the limits contained in a document their stated guiding philosophy used to consider more than a rhetorical flourish.

─ from Will vs. Paul on the Constitutional Limits of Government by Dan Phillips

The media would not let Dr. Ron Paul win the election in a million years. But if he decides to run and the buzz gets loud enough, the media will have to take notice, and then maybe some of his ideas will get across to a larger audience.

Why do the Neocons Rage?

About the North Korean nuclear deal? The answer is found in The Dear Leader Plays Bluff Poker by Eric Margolis:

American neoconservatives are furious at President George Bush for what they claim is pandering to "axis of evil" North Korea in order to achieve a desperately needed foreign policy success after so many gross failures.

What really worries them, of course, is that direct talks with North Korea raise the obvious question: why not direct talks with Iran over its so far peaceful nuclear program? The neocons want war with Iran, not talks, so the example of North Korea is undermining their carefully developed strategy.

The correct approach to North Korea would have been to let the Chinese deal with the issue. Now we face the sickening reality of spending more American taxpayer money to prop up the Dear Leader's gulag archipelago.

"Christian" Hospital in Molech's Service?

The "Christian Medical Hospital" in central Madhya Pradesh, it seems, has been committing mass murder in the form of "feticide or infanticide" on girls: Police unearth over 400 baby bones in India.

Veni, Domine Jesu.

UPDATE: From Fundamentalists accuse Christian hospital of illegal abortions:

The Anglican Bishop of the Church of North India, Laxman L Maida, said the episode was a “false scandal blown out of proportion by the media and extremists”. He told AsiaNews: “The Mission Hospital in Ratlam has honestly served the neediest people irrespective of creed for 100 years.” Maida claimed that the polythene bag with the remains was due to “negligence of the sweeper and not illegal procedures of the hospital”. This was, he said, an “anti-Christian conspiracy against missionaries and their services”.

According to another version, the Bajrang Dal movement – the youth wing of the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – accused the Mission Hospital of illegal abortions and of hiding the foetuses.

The hospital denied this and explained that the bones belonged to some stillborn babies whose bodies were abandoned by their parents. The Bajrang Dal activists started shouting provocative slogans against the hospital and some exaggerated the number of bones found to cause more commotion and to strengthen their accusations.

Bad News for the Neocons

People aren't buying their narrative: Worldwide Poll Finds Most Reject Clash of Civilizations Outlook.

This blogger believes in a very different clash of civilizations, or rather, a clash of civilization vs. anti-civilization. In the former camp, we have people of different cultures and religions who want to maintain their own ways. In the latter camp, we have gloablist secularists who would erase the cultural and religious differences in the name of "multiculturalism," which, paradoxically, will only serve to produce a monoculture. Of course, this is not meant to ignore the very real differences among the world's civilizations, only to point out the common enemy we face.

Turn Off the Lights

"I think most of us ought to be preparing for a life without electricity, regardless of whether we believe that peak oil may cause disruptions in the electrical grid," says Sharon Astyk in her latest offering, It isn't gridcrash that makes the lights go out. Notes she, "Electricity for private homes is something that was not necessary through most of human history, and is not truly essential today."

Papal Message to the Orient

Many countries of the Orient today celebrate the new lunar year in the joy and intimacy of the family... To all these great peoples, I wish them serenity and prosperity with all my heart.

─ from Pope sends new year greetings to Asian countries.

Here in Korea, most folks celebrate, as we did, "in the joy and intimacy of the family." Perhaps what I enjoy most about the holiday is that it affords one the opportunity to drink alcohol at 8:00 AM.

Prof. Chalmers Johnson on the Empire

In 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire, we are offered an expert from Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson. I found this tidbit interesting:

Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 -- mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets -- almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia. Perhaps the optimum number of major citadels and fortresses for an imperialist aspiring to dominate the world is somewhere between thirty-five and forty.

Of course, that could be dismissed as a mere coincidence. Most of the article is devoted to a cataloguing of the staggering scope of the Empire. For example, the author notes that with 29,819,492 acres worldwide, "the Pentagon [is] easily one of the world's largest landlords."

"Blind to the Consequences of Offshoring"

The patriot Dr. Paul Craig Roberts turns his sights from the "war criminal in the Whitehouse" to his fellow economists in his latest offering, Economists in Denial.

In his article, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration suggests that his colleagues "long ago ceased to think objectively about free trade[, which] has become an unexamined article of faith." He cites a study that "shows that the case for free trade has been incorrect since the day David Ricardo made it," and suggests that if this is the case, "America's free trade policy rests in fantastic error."

The Mediæval Mind

The holiday afforded me the opportunity to catch on some much neglected reading, and I was finally able to finish The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd.

The author does a fine job of bringing to life not only the man but also his times, and he makes it clear that the tale ends not only with the beheading of the martyr but also the end of Catholic England. In fact, it becomes apparent that Saint Thomas More's execution is one of many nails in the coffin of the Mediæval World and the ordo et traditio it embodied.

Ironically, More was, in his time, a humanist and a reformer. He was a pioneer in the edcuation of children and women. But when it came to the Faith and other essentials, he could never be the "newe man" that his contemporaries strived to be.

On page 400 is found this very Catholic, constitutionalist, and traditionalist appraisal:

It has often been surmised that the trial of More represents the defeat of the individual conscience by the forces of the emerging nation-state, but that is profoundly to misunderstand his position. Conscience was not for More simply or necessarily an indvidual matter; as Lord Chancellor he had been charged with the application of conscience to law, but upon general and traditional principles. At his trial he was affirming the primacy of law itself, as it had always been understood. He asserted the laws of God and of reason, as they had been inherited, and he simply did not believe that the English parliament could repeal the ordinances of a thousand years.

Politicians have been placed under his patronage. In these times, which seem a lot like those of More, it would be wise for them to read of his life.

Next, I'll turn my attentions to a book by a man who merits a chapter in Russell Kirk's Conservative Mind, Mont Saint Michel And Chartres by Henry Adams.

The following statement by the self-described "conservative Chrsiyian anarchist" makes it clear that he knew which to be the Greatest of Centuries, and it was neither the 19th or 20th in which he lived. In it, he contrasts the Virgin, or spiritual power, with the Dynamo, or physical power: "All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartes."

I start this book shortly after having finished another book in which another famous Adams, his grandfather, who also appears in Kirk's tome, was the protagonist: Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship 'Amistad'.

새해 福 많이 받으세요!

Have a Very Happy Lunar New Year!
[Bloggging to resume Monday]

Three O'Clock Links

Another Republican dissents: No Blank Check for the Pentagon - by Rep. John J. Duncan Jr.

"More proof the Israelis were shadowing the 9/11 hijackers:" The High-Fivers- by Justin Raimondo.

The next war: Scrambling to Frame Iran - by Stephen Zunes

A republic can stop it: Can a U.S. War With Iran Be Prevented? by Karen Kwiatkowski.

Conspiracy Theorist/Realist Videos

While I'm not ready to endorse every claim in this video, I'm also not one to dismiss the nefarious nature of Masonry (Freemasonry). Whatever the case, what in God's name are murals so creepy and sinister─not to mention of such questionable artistic merit─doing in a major American airport? Take a look:


Denver Airport Conspiracy

[For fear of bearing false witness against certain powerful people, I have removed two videos covering the New world order, 9/11 conspiracy theories, the Illuminati, the Bohemian Grove, the Skull and Bones Society, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Carlyle Group, AIDS dissent, and other issues. Let it suffice to focus discussion on their substantiated high crimes and misdemeaners, chief among them the shaming of America with an illegal war of aggression against a country that neither attacked nor threatened her.]

My thoughts on all this? Is is that implausible that neo-pagan, occultist, humanists are trying to establish a world government, or, if you will, neo-gnostics to Immanentize the eschaton? I might not sign off on all the details, but from the occasional glimpse through the cracks, what goes on behind the closed doors of power looks pretty sinister.

One thing that this could explain is why such discord is being sowed in the Muslim world, which now seems on the brink of a Sunni-Shi'a civil war. We must ask ourselves, who would be more likely to stand up to the NWO, a citizen of what some call the post-Christian West or the man on the Arab Street? What better way to eliminate an enemy than by making him kill himself? Chickens will, of course, come home to roost in the West, which will just cause us to clamor for more "protection" from the authorities.

The New America

"The American swagger has become bombast, the cocky GI a bully," begins Englishwoman Jan Morris, author Coast to Coast: A Journey Across 1950s America, in Once the Most Beloved Country in the World, the US is Now the Most Hated.

Making a Killing in Iraq

Your tax dollars at work: Auditors: Billions squandered in Iraq. Cui bono? Need you ask? "Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney."

The In Utero Final Solution for Downs

In American Genocide, Charles & Donna James ask, "Why do we murder Down Syndrome babies?"

My answer is that "God's People"─as my mother, who worked with them, called folks with Downs─make us uncomfortable. They interfere with our lifestyle choices. And as we know, "The American way of life is not negotiable."

How more efficient would have been the "Life Unworthy of Life" Killing Programmes had the Nazis had amniocentesis! It makes one wonder; our leaders parade before us new Hitlers in distant lands yet nothing is said as we become a nation of little Eichmanns.

A Lapsed Catholic Greets the Holy Father

President Roh Moo-hyun, left, shakes hands with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the Vatican, Thursday:


In an article about the meeting, Pope shares Korean concerns about peace and reconciliation, The Holy Father's message to the Korean people is excerpted:

In his letter to the Korean people, Benedict XVI wrote: “For over 50 years, the Korean people have suffered the consequences of division. Families have been split, close relatives have been separated from one another.” The pope said he was “spiritually close to those who were suffering” and that he prayed “for a speedy solution to the problem which impedes so many from communicating with one another.”

Benedict XVI continued: “The modern world is marked by an increasing number of threats to the dignity of human life. I wish therefore to commend all those in your country who work to uphold and defend the sanctity of life, marriage and the family, areas in which, as you know, the Catholic Church in Korea is particularly active.”

“The risk of a nuclear arms race in the region is a further source of concern, fully shared by the Holy See. I urge all interested parties to make every effort to resolve the present tensions through peaceful means and to refrain from any gesture or initiative that might endanger the negotiations, while ensuring that the must vulnerable part of the North Korean population has access to humanitarian aid.”

Coup d'État in America?

Perhaps America could regain its reputation if General Pace would send a division of US Marines to arrest Bush, Cheney, the entire civilian contingent in the Pentagon, the neoconservative nazis, and the complicit members of Congress and send them off to The Hague to be tried for war crimes.

The above is from Is the Military Our Last Hope? by Paul Craig Roberts. The author, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Admintration, notes that "Patriotism is loyalty to country and to the US Constitution, not loyalty to a criminal regime."

Ronus Paulus Contra Mundum

The antiwar-from-long-before-day-one Texas Republican on the johnny-come-lately Democrats: In Congress, Opposing the War but Doing Nothing to Stop It- by Rep. Ron Paul.

The Pretext for War in Iran

Contra this unsubstantiated allegation, Bush: Iran Supplying Weapons in Iraq, in which the president admits "he can't prove the orders came from the highest levels in Tehran," I present two voices of reason.

First, citing the lack of evidence for the claim, investigative historian Gareth Porter writes this article: US's smoking gun on Iran misfires.

Second, jounalist William Pfaff cites the above as evidence that this is all part of the neocon "mythical historical narrative:" Bush still fomenting clash of civilizations.

Sadly, that the Iran weapons story is false makes little difference. The headlines have been out there for everybody to read. The corrections will be reported on page 14, if at all. When the upcoming "Gulf of Tonkin" incident occurs, there will be enough people to say, "Yeah, and the Eye-ranians smuggled weapons to the bad guys, too; Let's roll!"

The Return of the Father

A South Korean article on how to go from "being a faceless money-making machine [to] a devoted father:" In the name of fathers and children.

South Korea's case is quite different from that of the West, where a sexual revolution, radical feminism, the media, and the Welfare State fueled the crisis in fatherhood. Here in Korea, the cause was rapid modernization. Fathers didn't abandon their families; they just never saw them because they were at work all day and asleep on Sunday, their only day off.

Mother, Father, and Child(ren) Constitute a Natural Family

There. I said it. Now fire me: Use of the Words 'Natural Family' Ruled Hate Speech, Appeal Hearing Underway.

But remember these words attributed to Confucius: "When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty."

It's Still Valentine's Day in America

Here's their story: Love During a Time of War.

Saint Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles

I was struck by these words from yesterday's papal audience on Women of the Early Church:

There are, moreover, several women who in different ways gravitated around the figure of Jesus with functions of responsibility. The women who followed Jesus to serve him with their properties are an eloquent example of this. Luke gives us some names: Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Susanna "and many others" (cf. Luke 8:2-3). Later, the Gospels tell us that the women, unlike the Twelve, did not abandon Jesus in the hour of his passion (cf. Matthew 27:56.61; Mark 15:40).

Outstanding among these women, in particular, is the Magdalene, who not only was present at the Passion, but also became the first witness and herald of the Risen One (cf. John 20:1,11-18). To Mary of Magdala, in fact, St. Thomas Aquinas dedicates the singular description "apostle of the apostles" ("apostolorum apostola"), dedicating a beautiful commentary to her: "Just as a woman had announced to the first man the words of death, so also a woman was the first to announce to the apostles the words of life" ("Super Ioannem," CAI publishers, Paragraph 2519).

Da Vinci Code, da schminci Code!

Police Action, Not War

Mr. Stephan Hand's latest post: Treat Acts of Terror as Crimes Not As the Boogie Man. I couldn't agree more.

As I've said before, the Korean War was a war passed off as a "police action." The response to 9/11 was two wars when it should have been a police action. Who knows, maybe instead of creating a Sunni martyr in the form of the hanged Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Ladin might have already been strapped down to a lethal injection table, not that I'd necessarily support or oppose that conclusion to his case, given my ambivilence toward the dath penalty.

20,000 Seasons

"Korea has 5000 years of history." "Korea has four seasons."

As any expat in Korea can attest, these two claims are repeated both ad infinitum and ad nauseum here. No one rejects the latter claim, although as a Western New Yorker I hardly call this winter. Sometimes it is purported that this claim is that Korea is the "only country" with four seasons, but I cannot honestly say I've ever heard a Korean claim that in ten years of living here.

I've heard it said that this latter claim came about during the time when South Koreans were not permitted to travel abroad. "Don't feel sad about being stuck here; we have four seasons to enjoy." At the time, Koreans were only permitted to go to Vietnam, courtesy of the ROK Army's augmentation of the US war effort. To be fair, the last time I heard the "four seasons" claim was a few years ago, from a student at one of Korea's top science and technology universities. Maybe the textbooks have been changed now that Koreans can and do travel overseas and might dedude that the entire temperate world has four seasons. Then again, I don't get out much; maybe they're still saying it.

In 5000 Years, Prof. Sam Crane of The Useless Tree addresses the same historical claim made by Chinese nationalists. The sinologist suggests a more accurate figure might be 3000 years, which is nothing at which to sneeze. Here are the comments I made to his post:

Koreans also claim 5000 years, even though their creation myth gives 2333 BC as the year Old Joseon was founded. They simply round-up from 4310 to 5000.

That the first written documentation of that creation myth comes from the 13th Century AD doesn't seem to matter to anyone.

Chinese sources indicate a state named Joseon around the 7th Century BC. So echoing you, I'd have to say that although it may not be polite to say in the presence of Korean nationalists--and what Korean isn't a nationalist?--2600 years is more like it.

Two-thousand six-hundred years is also nothing at which to sneeze.

As an aside, although the concept of tribe goes back to prehistory, the concept of nation-state is modern. I have little time for this concept or any other modern notion. Being the subject of a kingdom or the citizen of a rebublic are concrete ideas. Devotion to patria, culture, custom, and langage are also things I can understand. But I have no time for the self-worship that is nationalism and racialism.

Islam and Me

Mr. M.Z. Forrest's latest post, Dealing With Islam, is, as I posted in his combox, "one of the best posts [he's] ever written and one of the best posts ever written by anyone on this topic."

Like most posts from The Discalced Yooper, this one is long and involved and has no "money quote." Rather, it requires the reader to screw on his thinking cap and engage the text.

This observation, however, demands to be repeated: "For whatever reason, no one really wants to believe Osama Bin Laden's stated reason for attacking the U.S., the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia." No, it's much easier to have us repeat that they hate us for our freedoms than to risk engendering dangerous questions about the "special relationship" with the House of Saud that goes back to before the State of Israel even existed.

The post got me to examine my thoughts about my own relationship with the religion, which I posted in his combox and from which I will quote myself here:

I was a long-time admirer of Islam as a nominal Christian in the '90s. Then, I lived in Malaysia for a year and was quite impressed with the sincere Muslims I met: Malays, Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians, and others.

All of them were fine, hospitable people, especially the four Iraqi contractors in my building, who invited me over for tea and called me "Joshua, the friendly enemy." When I left for Korea one early morning in 1997, they were the only of my many friends to make sure to send me off, and they did so with Arabic hugs and kisses on each cheek. It's one of my fondest cross-cultural memories. I've lost touch with them and pray they are safe.

All these fine men talked openly and honestly about God in ways I had never known, even among Pentecostals.

Years later, in 2002, I had a falling out with my Anglican parish that in my weak faith led me question Christianity. I considered Islam for a time, but fortunately found my way to Rome.

9/11 didn't change my favorable impression of Islam, but Beslan did, perhaps because I was a first-time father at the time. I gave myself over to some pretty anti-Islamic feelings.

Then, events in Europe turned me around. After the Mohammed cartoon controversy, I was ready to post a "Buy Danish" sign on my blog, but soon realized these same Danes would just as soon denigrate my religion. The same French secularists who would ban the headscarf would ban the cassock. Theo van Gogh was no hero of mine. Did I want Muslims to become secularists or to continue worshipping the Creator, however imperfectly?

I agree that economic disengagement is the best policy, and that we should follow the Pope's philosophical engagement. There is much room for cooperation. Google the "world abortion laws map" and you'll find that Muslim countries have the strictest laws.

When it comes to the issue of immigration, I agree with you. In a worst case scenario, we Christians would all be happier and freer living in Eurabia than in a Brave New World.

Who knows? Maybe in the End it will come down to a battle between Islam and Christianity, but I'm no dispentationalist wanting to usher in the End of the World. Right now, we should cooperate against common enemies.

Taegu '54

Do yourself a favor and pay a visit to le Marmot and follow his links to some (Absolutely MUST SEE) Color photos of Daegu, 1954.

The links lead to a Korean blogger in Texas who has posted beautiful color─yes, color!─photographs taken by an American doctor who lived in the city in 1954 and '55. They show a Korea emerging from the war, still mired in poverty, but before the Modern wiped out just about any and all vestiges of the Traditional. Also noteworthy is the clearly apparent absolute superiority of 1950s color photography to the digital junk passed off as "state of the art" to clueless consumers today.

"Dr. No" Says, "No!"

Congressmen Ron Paul (R-Tx), a medical doctor nicknamed "Dr. No" for frequently being the dissenter in 434 to 1 votes, gave the following short speech before the House on February 6, 2007. Readers in Korea should read it to the end. Here's the speech, Don't Do It, Mr. President:

It's a bad idea.

There's no need for it.

There's great danger in doing it.

America is against it, and Congress should be.

The United Nations is against it.

The Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Pakistanis are against it.

The whole world is against it.

Our allies are against it.

Our enemies are against it.

The Arabs are against it.

The Europeans are against it.

The Muslims are against it.

We don't need to do this.

The threat is overblown.

The plan is an hysterical reaction to a problem that does not yet exist.

Hysteria is never a good basis for foreign policy.

Don't we ever learn?

Have we already forgotten Iraq?

The plan defies common sense.

If it's carried out, the Middle East, and possibly the world, will explode.

Oil will soar to over $100 a barrel, and gasoline will be over $5 a gallon.

Despite what some think, it won't serve the interests of Israel.

Besides – it's illegal.

It's unconstitutional.

And you have no moral authority to do it.

We don't need it.

We don't want it.

So, Mr. President, don't do it.

Don't bomb Iran!

The moral of the story, Mr. Speaker, is this: if you don't have a nuke, we'll threaten to attack you. If you do have a nuke, we'll leave you alone. In fact, we'll probably subsidize you. What makes us think Iran does not understand this?

If you like what you read, visit the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee and help return America to its Constitutional roots. Of course, he'll never win─"What? He voted to leave the children behind? The cold-hearted monster!"─but he just might be able to get a few important ideas across in an otherwise utterly meaningless exercise.

The Message of a Mother and Grandmother

Stephany Kerns, mother of LCPL Nickolas Schiavoni, killed by an IED on November 15, 2005 in Karmah Iraq: Please Don't Make My Grandchildren Pay for the War That Killed Their Father.

Whither Conservatism?

Where but to The American Conservative could one turn to find an answer to that question? The latest on-line installmet gives us one vision of the future and three critiques.

"By rejecting ideology and embracing 'retroculture,' the Right can recover itself and perhaps reverse America’s decline," suggest Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind The Next Conservatism. How true! When conservatism embrases ideology is ceases to be conservative.

In contrast─remember what was said about ideology; dissenting opinions are welcome─James P. Pinkerton rejects the idea of "retroculture" and says we should instead look to Utah and megachurches for the way forward: Future Cons. Readers of this blog need not be reminded of where I stand on this.

John Derbyshire loses this blogger with his rejection of the Weyrich-Lind vision as "lefty-völkisch 'communitarianism'” or "Geezer conservatism" in Not Your Father’s Conservatism. Nope. Count me among the geezers.

David Franke offers a "a religious agnostic and, in political terms, a libertarian, classical liberal, individualist, or radical—anything but conservative" perspective on the Weyrich-Lind vision: Won By One. One question I have for the author is, "What was wrong with the 12th century?" Other than that, he makes some good points about "a multi-ethnic America with Latinos and Asians sharing my neighborhood, workplace, and social life."

At the end of the day, I accept the Weyrich-Lind vision with a bit of Frankean contrarianism thrown in for good measure.

Another Premeditaded and Preemptive War

Larisa Alexandrovna documents the history of the build-up to the War in Iran: For Neocons, an Attack on Iran Has Been a Six-Year Project.

"The Resurrection of Korean Roman Catholicism"

While I'd prefer discussion of the Faith not be degraded by the language of crass consumerism, this article is nonetheless one of the best I've read on Holy Mother Church in the Land of the Morning Calm: Ritual and robes make a good brand. Be sure to read it in its entirety, but below I will excerpt a few passages and make some comments.

The article begings with a typical conversion story, which results not from some fellow on the street shouting "Jesus or Hell" through a megaphone at passersby, but from the powerful witness of one of the Corporal Acts of Mercy, the burying the dead:

A housewife in Ilsan identified as “Kim,” 43, was recently baptized as a Roman Catholic. When her father- in-law passed away early last year, she was deeply moved by the support the church provided.

“Our mother-in-law, who is a Roman Catholic, called up the church’s aides at 3 a.m. and asked for help,” she says. “An hour later they picked up my father in-law from the hospital and moved him to the church mortuary. They literally did everything for him from beginning to end.”

Ms. Kim was moved when members of the church spent the next two nights at the mortuary in prayer. No extra fee was charged, she says, aside from the cost of materials, and the ceremonies were all conducted in Korean.
Later, Ms. Kim’s entire family converted. After six months of Bible study, Ms. Kim was baptized.

“One of the youngest women in the group shrouded my father in-law for burial like he was a member of her own family,” she says. “I was shocked when she cleansed his body thoroughly with her own hands.”

The remarkable growth of the Church compared to Korea's other main religions, Buddhism and Protestantism, is illustrated with statistics:

A revealing figure appeared in a recent census by the government. It showed that there are now 5.1 million Roman Catholics in Korea, an increase of 74.4 percent over the last 10 years. That’s in sharp contrast to the 3.9 per cent increase in Buddhists, to 11 million, and the 1.6 per cent decline in Protestants to 8.6 million.

In the past 20 years the number of Roman Catholics has increased by 175.9 percent, Buddhists by 33.1 percent and Protestants by 32.3 percent. The phenomenon has been called the resurrection of Korean Roman Catholicism.

Even more remarkably, the Church reports far fewer believers than the government statistics do. Here's why:

“After the government’s survey was announced, the Roman Catholic Bishops Conference of Korea conducted research among registered followers,” says Bae Young-ho, the group’s secretary. “We found there were actually fewer than 4.7 million Roman Catholics, about 480,000 less than the government’s survey. It’s likely that people who hadn’t even registered their names at the church told the survey that they were Roman Catholics.” His analysis is simple ― the government’s figure is a distortion.

“If you think of why they gave their answers, it’s very likely that they are emotionally drawn to the religious image of the Roman Catholic Church even when they are not Roman Catholics,” he says. “You could safely interpret that as a sign that Koreans have a favorable image of Roman Catholicism.”

The Korean Church's unique history of being the only case of self-evangelization is then recounted, along with the severe persecutions that followed:

Others point to the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Korea, which naturally grew within local communities, and was able to approach followers more easily by embracing local traditions even while it stressed Biblical teachings. Roman Catholicism is one of the few religions in Korea that began without assistance from foreign missionaries. Roman Catholicism initially spread via Koreans who went to Beijing in the late 16th century to be baptized. Another factor was the installation of a second Korean cardinal by the Vatican.

Roman Catholicism had its hard times. When it was first introduced to Korea during the 17th century it was considered to be a form of Western learning, and the church suffered severe persecution. Its religious ideals were seen as a revolt against Confucianism, which puts its emphasis on the worship of ancestors. Any contact with Roman Catholics was regarded as a criminal act. An estimated 10,000 Roman Catholics died through persecution during this period, of whom 103 were later designated as martyrs by the Vatican.

The church finally obtained formal permission to operate in 1882 when, during the Joseon dynasty, Korea signed a friendship treaty with the United States.

Once the persecutions had ended, our seperated brethren from America came on the scene, with works of mercy of their own, but also with the ideals of egalitarianism and nationalism that have poisoned the Korean people ever since:

But then Roman Catholicism faced another barrier, namely the strong influence of the Protestant church. When Christian missionaries settled on the peninsula in 1885, the Protestants quickly attracted a large following among working and middle-class Koreans by providing education and medical services. They also stressed human equality, an idea that later became a major source of inspiration for Korea’s independence movement during Japan’s colonial rule.

As for the resurrection of the Church, holy poverty is cited as one of the reasons:

The resurrection of the Roman Catholic Church in Korea since the ‘90s means it has begun to emerge from a long period in the shadows.
Oh Gyeong-hwan, an honorary professor at Incheon Roman Catholic University, explains that the biggest strength of the Roman Catholic Church in Korea is its spirituality.

“That’s not to say the Roman Catholics are more spiritual than other religions,” he says. “It’s just that Roman Catholics have a better chance of appearing more spiritual to the eyes of outsiders, because Korean Roman Catholic priests have shown integrity and their lives have been free from corruption. The church regards poverty as vital for priests and nuns. Their spiritual training is all about stressing that lifestyle.”

Roman Catholic priests in Korea are prohibited from possessing any property. The parish takes strict measures if problems occur. Priests are not allowed to be involved in any matter regarding the church member’s offerings.

Finally, a religious socialist offers a consumerist analysis that also stresses the importance of tradition:

Jeong Jae-young, a religious socialist, recently offered a compelling analysis of the strength of today’s Roman Catholic church.
“People no longer seek out religion with the same determination as they did when there was religious persecution,” he says. “These days you don’t have to risk your life when you choose a religion. People simply want some spiritual comfort and satisfaction in their lives. They ‘consume’ religion. In doing so, they aim for a luxury or designer religion, one that looks like it is the most religious of all religions. People see Roman Catholicism as a religion that pursues tradition and ritual.” He points to aesthetic advantages of the Roman Catholic Church ― the costumes worn by the nuns and priests, the solemn atmosphere of the cathedral, the mass and Roman Catholic traditions, which all help to package its image.

Two photos from the article:

The Dictionary Definition of Entanglement

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily explain How the US is doing Iran's killing in Iraq.

So, we're backing a Shi'a-led government against Shi'a insurgents who are attacking the same Sunnis we ousted while at the same time fighting these same Sunnis and also confronting Shi'a neighbor Iran and 20,000 troops are all that is needed to transform Mesopotamia into a Jeffersonian democracy.

Now, try explaining that to the parents of the next kid torn apart by an IED in Baghdad.

We should turn─rather, we should have turned─to our elders for advice:

Here is one of many George Washington Quotes to guide us: "It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

And one of many John Quincy Adams Quotes: "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy."

No Nork Nukes

His Eminence, it would seem, is a little less cynical about this affair than I am: Card. Cheong: “Joy and satisfaction about nuclear disarmament”.

Four Shots from the Old Right

Following are four articles from Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com, which, along with The American Conservative and www.ChroniclesMagazine.org, are the only online publications that consistently make any political sense any more.

The man who, in a just world, would have been the president of the United States back in 1992 and who would have done his darndest to avoid this rotten mess, on the man whose soul was once seen by our current president: Does Putin Not Have a Point? - by Pat Buchanan.

The man who, in a just world, would be the next president of the United States of America and who would do his darndest to get us out of this rotten mess, on the cost of our current president's fiasco: Congress Racing to Spend $1 Trillion on Iraq - by Ron Paul.

In other words, $10,000 per American family: The 2nd Most Expensive War in American History by Eric Margolis.

Which means, you and I had better "[p]repare now for the US government's bankruptcy:" Avoid the Rush by Chris Leithner.

Empire vs. Country

The Old Tôde quotes Uncle Gilbert in Chesterton for "Little England":

THE British Empire may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even discovered the island, let alone conquered it.

I'm afraid the same does not hold true for the American Empire vis-à-vis Little America. We seem a conquered people.

Peace in Our Time!

Yeah! Here's ₩100; call somebody who cares: N. Korea Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament. This means nothing, except that the Dear Leader will be able to drink Hennessy again. I wasn't even going to post a link to this story; that's how little I care.

The "Flipsyde" of Filicide ─ The Damage Abortion Does to Fathers

It has been said that there are two victims to every abortion. That is wrong. There are three.


There's more truth in these rap lyrics─save for the two words "her body"─than I've seen anywhere in a long time, Flipsyde - Happy Birthday:

Happy Birthday. So make a wish.

Please accept my apologies, I wonder what would have been.
Would you have been a little angel or an angel of sin?
Tom-boy running around, hanging with all the guys.
Or a little tough boy with beautiful brown eyes.
I paid for the murder before they determined the sex,
choosing our life over your life meant your death.
And you never got a chance to even open your eyes,
sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you fought for your life.
Would you have been a little genius? In love with math?
Would you have played in your school clothes and made me mad?
Would you have been a little rapper like your poppa The Piper?
Would you have made me quit smoking by finding one of my lighters?
I wonder about your skin tone and shape of your nose,
and the way you would've laughed and talked fast or slow.
I think about it every year, so I picked up a pen.
Happy birthday, I love you whoever you would've been.

Happy Birthday
What I thought was a dream
Make a wish
Was as real as it seemed

I made a mistake

I got a million excuses, as to why you died.
And other people got their own reasons for homicide.
Who's to say it would've worked and who's to say it wouldn't have
I was young and struggling, but old enough to be a dad.
The fear of being my father has never disappeared,
I ponder it frequently while I'm sippin' on my beer.
My vision of a family was artificial and fake
so when it came time to create, I made a mistake.
But now you got a little brother, maybe it's really you.
Maybe you really forgave us knowing we were confused.
Maybe, every time that he smiles it's you proudly knowing
that your father's doing the right thing now.
I'll never tell a woman what to do with her body,
but if she don't love children, then we can't party.
I think about it every year, so I picked up a pen.
Happy birthday, I love you whoever you would've been.

Happy Birthday
What I thought was a dream
Make a wish
Was as real as it seemed

I made a mistake

And from the Heavens to the womb to the Heavens again.
From the ending to the ending, never got to begin.
Maybe one day we can meet face to face,
in a place without time and space. Happy birthday.

What I thought was a dream
Make a wish
Was as real as it seemed

I made a mistake

That hits home in ways I wish it didn't.

Jesu, mercy; Mary, pray.

Here's the article from which the above link and picture come: Hip Hop Singer Regrets Abortion - Calls It "Homicide" and "Murder".

Here's the haunting video:


Flipsyde - Happy Birthday
For more on the abortion industry and the population it most aims to exterminate, visit BlackGenocide.org.

Soprano du Jour

Pictured above is Anna Netrebko, soprano, from a Dong-A Ilbo article entitled Opera Revoultion. Some videos:


Anna Netrebko - O Mio Babbino Caro


Anna Netrebko-Musetta's Waltz


Anna Netrebko - Dvorak - Song To The Moon

The South Will Rise Again!

"Who doesn't prefer Southern culture to that of the Yankees?" When a fellow surnamed Chan living in Beantown asks that question and posts the above standard in a post entitled League of the South, y'all know the Southern Cause─this link an absolute must read, by the way─isn't lost. Click on the post to find many excellent links, as can always be expected at The New Beginning. I especially urge any Southern patriots reading this to pay a visit.

Having grown up in the North, I appreciate the "Yankee Localism" of Russell Kirk (1918–1994) and Bill Kauffman, but, like Patrick J. Buchanan, I'm a Northerner by birth with much of my ancestry lying in Dixie, three-quaters to be precise. [The remaning quarter is from Ohio─pronounced "oh-HIGH-yuh" and called "God's Country" by my mother.]

I grew up in Western New York in a three-generational household with my Mississippi grandmother and her tales of killing Water Moccasins with hoes and playing in poverty with little black kids, something that would have been impossible in the much more racist and segregated North.

From a site about Brothers of Colour*, this Southern gentleman by the name of H. K. Edgerton has a simple reminder:


*No, I'm not Canadian; that is the Southern way of spelling the word, as I learned from this link from Mr. Chan's post: A Word About Traditional Southern Orthography.]

Foul-mouthed Bigots for Edwards!

The Daily Estimate has the scoop: Newsweek lies about John Edwards and bloggers and A list of anti-Catholic posts by Edwards' bloggers.

Reader discretion is advised for that latter link. I wanted to vomit reading the first part of it. Had those bloggers said similar things about Islam while working for a Republican candidate, the left-liberal blogosphere would have called for their heads, and justifiably so. Criticizing certain religious beliefs and stances is one thing; use of offensive, obscene, and blasphemous language is another. As a Confucian, my question for these foul-mouthed girls is, "Don't you have parents?" I don't believe in prosecuting people for hate speech; firing them is enough.

The Prophet M.Z. Forrest in the Book of The Discalced Yooper has this headline from the future, Edwards Drops Out of Race, and this "very quick primer on Iowa politics:"

There is a city called Dubuque. It is an old union town home to one of the largest manufacturing facilities in the world, the John Deere plant. For advanced readers, you may have noticed that Dubuque is of French origin. From that you would surmise correctly that Dubuque is a very Catholic city. Catholics make up between 65-85% of city residents, with even higher percentages in the surrounding rural areas. This contrasts with the state of Iowa, which is only 23% Catholic. For those keeping score at home, this means that one targeted advertisement could pretty much wreck Edwards's chances in the straw poll. Don't worry, it won't be a Republican to offer that ad. It will be a 503(c) with an obscure name that you will never have heard of before the incident and will never hear of after the incident. To the extent knowledge will be known, the group will be described generically as having democratic activists behind it.

Good-night, Johnboy. Vaya con dios, Juanito. See you in Hell, Johnny Reb. You sure do have nice hair, though. Perhaps you could consider a run for the Know-Nothing Party.

No Dollar, No War

Paul Craig Roberts , the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, speaks: The World Can Halt Bush’s Crimes by Dumping the Dollar.

Before Mr. Bush's disaster in Iraq, there was some hope of America extending her influence into the new century. No longer. The dollar will be dumped and it be be simply a case of the chickens coming home to roost.

After their neo-liberal allies presided over the deindustrialization of America─I'm from the Rust Belt; I know from whence I speak─the neocons concluded that the only way to extend American influence into the Chinese Century would be militarily. We were unrivaled, after all, and all that Iraqi oil was just waiting there.

Having forgotten the lessons of Vietnam, and perhaps imagining the world to be a Grenada, the neocon "cakewalk" ran into Fourth Generation Warfare. The rest is history.

"Nader and Libertarians Not Welcome"

John Walsh laments: A Splintered Antiwar Movement. On the antiwar demonstration in Washington D.C. on January 27, he says:

There was not a single Libertarian speaker even though the Libertarians and Old Right have been far more outspoken in opposing the war than the liberal "Left." Compare the pages of The American Conservative or Antiwar.com with the editorials of The Nation, which endorsed the pro-war Kerry candidacy in 2004.

The Greens, for crying out loud, weren't even allowed to speak!

Kids These Days!

South Korean kids between the ages of 8 and 13 are an imaginative bunch: Young students busted for online S&M ring. Kiddie porn made by and for kiddies!

O Tempora! O Mores!

I'm not surprised by this in the least. What else could be expected from a society in which kids are raised not by their parents but by institutions and peers? Brave New World, anyone? In their zeal for "education," Korean parents see it as good parenting to keep their kids at schools all day and send them to private cram schools in the evenings and weekends. Even on Sundays, there are kids' Catholic masses and Protestant services, insuring that parents never have to spend any considerable time with their kids.

It is a recipe for disaster when added to this gross renunciation of parental responsibilty are the facts that:

a.) the country is the most wired in the world for the Internet,

b.) soft-core porn can be seen on cable movie channels at any hour of the day,

c.) the kids' channels show cartoons with lesbian and bondage themes made by Japanese perverts, and

d.) Koreans continue to delude themselves with the myth that theirs is a "conservative" country.

Early Music on Korean Public Television

Hespèrion XXI, which specializes in the music of 16th and 17th century Spain, was featured on Arirang TV's Curtain Call today at 18:00 KST. For those interested in music from a more civilized era, part two will be aired tomorrow at the same time. If you choose to watch, pay attention to the fine playing of The Viola da Gamba, the loveliest of instruments.

As much as I am for limited government, I have to admit that the programming offered by public television and radio is usually far superior to that offered by their private counterparts.

Socrates No Socrates

"The Prime Minister of Portugal, Jose Socrates, has said abortion will be legalised, despite the turnout for a referendum being too low for it to be legally binding:" Portugal to go ahead with abortion legislation.

Perhaps the Portuguese PM should consider changing his surname to Moloch. But before doing so, he should read this book: The Unaborted Socrates: A Modern Day Discussion with Socrates.

Joseph Sobran on Ron Paul

"The Reactionary Utopian" ponders, "President Paul?" From the article:

[Congressman Ron] Paul, a pro-life medical doctor, is a genuine political maverick. When the House votes for something 434 to 1, you can safely bet that Paul is the 1. He really fights for the principles other Republicans only pretend to stand for, and does so with carefully reasoned explanations of his positions.

In essence, Paul appeals to that subversive document, the U.S. Constitution, long since abandoned by both major parties, not to mention the U.S. Supreme Court. He tests every proposed law by asking whether it exercises a power authorized by the Constitution. The answer is seldom yes.

[....]

He is what liberals used to call a conscience-raiser. He makes people reflect. After six years of supporting George W. Bush, conservatives should be in a reflective mood. American democracy has come down to an unappetizing choice between the War Party and the Abortion Party. Paul could offer an alternative to this bitter dilemma.

Pay a visit to the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Anchors Away! Bombs Away?

"USS Ronald Reagan Headed Where?," asks Palaeoconservative milblogger "El Cid" of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Rumors have it, the Persian Gulf is one possible destination, where "it might find the waters pretty full there with the John C. Stennis and Dwight D. Eisenhower battle groups already on station." Ponders our milblogger, "Three carrier battle groups in one little pond…wonder what that could be about?"

Me, too. It's getting clearer that Iran will be the next stop for Democracy on the March™, as evidenced by stories like these two today: U.S. accuses Iran of arming Iraqi Shiites and Pentagon blames Iran for 170 US deaths. Aren't these the same people who were talking about "mushroom clouds" over America in the days leading up to the invasion of WMD-less Iraq?

CounterPunch's Cockburn Brothers weigh in on the matter. Patrick notes the following in Now It's War on the Shia:

Bizarrely, US policy in Iraq is now very similar to that of the Baath party whom President Bush used to denounce so fervently. The US and the Baath both see the not-so-hidden hand of Iran as being behind the Shia militias and political parties. The Baath is by far the most anti-Iranian party in Iraq.

Alexander contemplates the following in Will They Nuke Iran?:

Can we hope for prudence from the White House? Who knows? Bush is a nutty guy. It was his insistence on democratic elections in Iraq that put the Shi'a in control. Now he's blaming Iran for trying to capitalize on the consequences. This is not a regime that thinks things through very sensibly.

Mencius Calls for the Tyrannicide of Kim Jong-il

"[South Korean] Liberals say North must be judged from a 'specific viewpoint:' North human rights: Mum's the left's word.

To a certain extent, the South Korean Left is right; there are no universal "rights" of man. There are, rather, particular rights that develop over long periods of time in specific cultural contexts. We English-speaking peoples, for example, have won more rights over the centuries than any other people that come to mind.

The point here is not to justify the North Korean régime, but to note that talk of abstract "rights" only serves to obfuscate the issue. Koreans need not to resort to empty phraseology from the European Enlightment, but rather to their own Confucian traditions, focusing on duties. Take, for example, this passage from Mencius Chapter 1:

1. King Hûi of Liang said, 'I wish quietly to receive your instructions.'

2. Mencius replied, 'Is there any difference between killing a man with a stick and with a sword ?' The king said, 'There is no difference!

3. 'Is there any difference between doing it with a sword and with the style of government? 'There is no difference,' was the reply.

4. Mencius then said, 'In your kitchen there is fat meat; in your stables there are fat horses. But your people have the look of hunger, and on the wilds there are those who have died of famine. This is leading on beasts to devour men.

5. 'Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for doing so. When a prince, being the parent of his people, administers his government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men, where is his parental relation to the people?

Or take this passge, quoted in Chinese Cultural Studies: Mengzi Meng-tse [Mencius]: Selections from the Mencius (c.300 BCE):

King Xuan of Qi asked, "Is it true that Tang banished Jie and King Wu took up arms against Zhou?"

Mencius replied, "That is what the records say."

"Then is it permissible for a subject to assassinate his lord?"

Mencius said, ''Someone who does violence to the good we call a villain; someone who does violence to the right we call a criminal. A person who is both a villain and a criminal we call a scoundrel. I have heard that the scoundrel Zhou was killed, but have not heard that a lord was killed."

Kim Jong-il, by Confucian standards, has clearly violated his "parental relation to the people" and "is both a villain and a criminal." Rather than prop up Kim Jong-il as they have for the past decade, the South Koreans should be actively working with North Korean dissidents to bring about the tyrannicide of this "scoundrel" in accordance with Confucian principles.

Leftist Allies Against the Pornography Industry

"The fear of anything resembling censorship prevents us from confronting what pornography tells us about the cruelty of our culture, and the white supremacy and misogyny that abounds in America," begins Robert Jensen in A Call for an Open Discussion of Mass-Marketed Pornography.

Although I wouldn't word it that way, I agree. This is not a free speech issue but a public health issue. I'm all for local solutions; let the Bible Belt be the Bible Belt and the Porn Belt the Porn Belt.

Thank God I'm a Permanent Resident

A tragedy in Yeosu: Nine Die, 18 Hurt in Immigration Jail Blaze. South Korean immigration officials, criminally negligent it seems, left the doors locked. You wouldn't want people to succeed in escaping under such circumstances, would you?

World Day of the Sick Follow-up

Part of the Holy Father's message, quoted in Pope: From Lourdes to Seoul, I entrust the world’s sick and suffering to Mary:

With this Angelus prayer, I would like to entrust to the maternal protection of the Immaculate Virgin all those in the world who are sick and suffering in body and spirit.

[If you feel so inclined, please consider saying a prayer for my little daughter Joy, the apple of my eye, hospitalized far away from her daddy near Seoul for intensive physical therapy.]

In further news, a possible miracle has been reported in longsuffering Sri Lanka: Statue of Our Lady of Lourdes sheds tears of blood in Jaffna.

Anarcho-Catholic Dorothy Day

Mr. Stephen Hand ably answers the question, Why Dorothy Day? My own less able thoughts follow.

She combined religious orthodoxy with political heterodoxy. She was a reactionary on issues of morality and piety, and radical─from the Latin radix, "root"─on economic and political issues. Indeed, this Servant of God is the patroness of all of us who consider ourselves Reactionary Radicals and who oppose American─more correctly anti-American─militarism and imperialism.

The Catholic Faith is inculturated in whatever society it finds itself, bringing out the best in that culture, and what could be more American than Christian anarchism? I can think of no one more English than Venerable John Henry Newman, more Korean than Saint Paul Chong Hasang, or more Ameican than Dorothy Day.

Tener vn hixo — Plantar vn árbol — Eſcribir vn libro

Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) described the above Spanish saying as "the perfect 'reactionary' pattern; a synthesis of patriarchalism, agriculture and artistry." Reactionary that I am, I've both had a son and planted a tree, and need to do much more of both. And while I haven't yet written a book, last year I "adapted" three into easier English for a Korean audience:


Clicking on the images above will lead to ordering information in Korea.

Gabriel García Márquez once said that the English translation of his masterpiece Cien años de soledad was superior to the original. I've read the work in both languages, but I can't really say. I'm tempted to say that my adapatations, especially the latter two, are superior to the originals, but humility prevents from stating so publicly. I'll let the reader decide.

[post title text from The Old Tôde]

Impeach the Bush Régime!

The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration has been saying the same thing for some time now, but no one says it better: Criminals Control the Executive Branch - by Paul Craig Roberts. An excerpt:

The reasons for impeaching Bush and Cheney exceed by many multiples all the reasons for impeaching every president combined in US history. The reasons have been enumerated many times and do not need repeating. If members of Congress were faithful to their oaths of office to uphold the Constitution, Bush and Cheney would already have been impeached and convicted.

The very least Congress can do at this very late stage is to make it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that any attack on Iran under any pretext without the authorization of Congress after a careful examination of the pretext will lead to the immediate removal of Bush and Cheney from power, as will any escalation of the war in Iraq without explicit authorization by Congress.

Having delivered this ultimatum, Congress must immediately begin investigations of the Bush Regime's attack on civil liberties and the separation of powers, on the Bush Regime's use of lies and deception to lead America into a war with Iraq, on the Bush Regime's violation of the Geneva Conventions, and on the Bush Regime's plans to attack Iran.

Of course, the cowardly Democrats will do none of this. Why would they suddenly find some new respect for the Constitution when it means sticking their political necks out? They will simply utter some empty phrases and try not to rock the boat for the next eighteen months in hopes of reinstalling Hillary the Hawk in the Whitehouse.

One of Mr. Bush's Torturers Confesses

I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

─ Mr. Eric Fair, from An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare

[link via Antiwar.com]

Another Korean Celebrity Suicide

Actress Jeong Da-bin (정다빈) took her own life this past Saturday: Actress Jeong Da-bin Dead in Suspected Suicide.


[image from 정다빈 사망, 새로운 국면 맞이하나]
Like actress Lee Eun-joo (이은주) and singer U;Nee (유니), both of whom also hanged themselves, Miss Jeong was young, pretty, and at least nominally Christian. May God have mercy on their souls.

In an effort to de-romanticize the topic, and as someone who suffered the suicide of a friend, I present this passage from Orthodoxy by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Chapter 5:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes -- for it makes even crimes impossible.

Here also is A Ballade of Suicide - a poem by G.K.Chesterton.

In Honor of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Today, we commemorate the 1858 apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes to Saint Bernadette, a poor, sickly, unlettered fourteen-year-old peasant girl. Below is a selection of scenes from The Song of Bernadette (1943), one of the finest films ever made, set to Perry Como's fine rendition of the lovely Ave Maria by Franz Schubert:


Nope. They don't make movies or voices like that anymore. The Blessed Virgin Mary still makes apparitions, though, like when she appeared between 1981 to 1988 to sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Alphonsine Mumureka and others as Our Lady of Kibeho, Rwanda.

Of course, we Catholics are not required to believe in any personal revelations, not even approved ones. But as far as I see it, we suffer today from a scarcity of belief, not too much of it. For that reason and others, count me among the believers.

XVth World Day of the Sick in Seoul

In an age when euthanasia is widely accepted and misguided people clamor for the imaginary "right" to die, which quickly becomes a Benthamite duty to die, a very countercultural gathering is taking place in the Korean capital:


[image from Science and faith meeting in Seoul for the 15th World Day of the Sick]
The inculturated image of Our Lord wearing a hanbok amidst cherry blossoms is quite extraordinary, is it not?

From the Holy See, the MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR THE FIFTEENTH WORLD DAY OF THE SICK.

Here are the requirements for the Plenary indulgence offered for World Day of the Sick.

Remembering Najaf

Remember the battle two weeks ago against the "Soldiers of Heaven" who were hellbent on starting a civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites to usher in the end of the world? Well, the story was all part of a disinformation campaign, mentioned earlier on this blog.

Conn Hallinan is trying─probably in vain─to keep this story from going down the "memory hole" Orwell spoke of: The Najaf Massacre: an Annotated Fable.

Modernization and Suicide

South Korea is first in the world in suicide, and it is "the leading cause of death for South Koreans in their 20s and 30s, and the No. 4 cause overall" according to this article: Suicides surge in South Korea. The article consults Dr. Lee Hong-shick, founder of the Korean Association for Suicide Prevention, for some of the factors behind this ignoble distinction:

"Rapid change is the biggest problem in all areas -- the economy and family system," he said. "At the same time the support system is getting weaker."

South Korea is regularly hailed as a success story that has built a robust high-tech economy from the ashes of the Korean War.

But growth has also brought increased pressures. Families spend heavily to get children ahead with endless private after-school lessons, competition for jobs is fierce, and housing prices have soared, weighing on youths and young adults.

Suicides also are rising among people in their 60s who don't want to burden to their families.

Progress.

A Legacy from Schindlerian Shanghai

A story on the Ohel Moishe Synagogue: Shanghai Restores Historic Synagogue. When I visited the city in 1998, I met a young lady whose family had sheltered European Jews during World War II, and who, as a result of that connection, had visited Israel by invitation.

"Brewed in Buffalo"

This short video has filled me with more hometown pride than anything since learning about The Wisdom of Grover Cleveland:


BUFFALO BREWERY HISTORY -Trailer
The video mentions that Buffalo was "Saloon Capital of the World," with a "tavern on every corner." The video promises to "take you back to a simpler time, a time of neighborhood corner bars and not so small family breweries." When The Last Good Democrat was in office, only Buffalo beer was served in the White House. During Prohibition, Buffalo boasted 8,000 speakeasies and a bootlegging mayor.

Fedearlly mandated deindustrialization culminated in the death of the last local brewery in 1972, and "Buffalonians were forced to drink beer made in other cities." However, in the mid-1980s, local breweries were reestablished "making the same real beer Buffalonians drank over a century before." From that era, I remember the fine beers of the Buffalo Brewpub.

Interestingly for this Western New Yorker who has planted a few roots in Northern California, there was a Buffalo Brewing Company which operated in Sacramento from 1889 to 1942.

Taoist Libertarian Non-Interventionist Traditionalist Localism

Prof. Sam Crane quotes passage 80 from the Tao Te Ching in his latest post, Idaho Taoists:

You want a small state with a minimal population.

Have ready to hand weaponry for a sufficient number of military units
Yet have no recourse to use them.

Make sure that the common people take dying seriously
So that they have no taste for venturing far from home.

Though you have ships and chariots enough
Have no reason to man them;
Though you have armor and weapons enough
Have no reason to parade them.

Bring the common people back to keeping their records with knotted string,
To relish their food,
To finding beauty in their garments,
To enjoying their customs,
And finding security in their homes.

Although your neighboring states are within eyesight
And the sounds of their dogs and cocks are within earshot,
Your people will grow old and die without having anything to do with them.

Wow! That short passage could be a political manifesto for this blogger and his heroes and fellow travelers: the libertarian non-interventionism of Justin Raimondo, Lew Rockwell, and Ron Paul, the traditionalism of Russell Kirk, the localism of Bill Kauffman.

Small states govern better. The Republic of San Marino or the Second Vermont Republic should be our models, not the Roman, Chinese, British, or American Empires. We should maintain a strong military, for defense. We need to cultivate the Burkean "moral imagination" and Kirkian "prejudice, tradition, and customary morality." In the end, we should strive, in the words of the Sage of Batavia, to Think Locally, Act Locally, Live Locally.

The Anti-American President

"Given enough rope, Bush may hang not only himself, but American influence and credibility, and the global economy," suggests Prof. Robert Buzzanco in Is George Bush "The Manchurian Candidate?" Notes Prof. Buzzanco, "George W. Bush, the ultimate insider, is doing more to damage America than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Hassan Nasrallah, the Syrians, the Iranians, or any other enemy du jour, ever could."

This is perhaps more easily seen abroad than at home, and is something neocons, Catholics and other Christians among them, fail to see. Why should a people as benevolent as the Americans be so despised across the globe? Our misguided Wilsonian foreign policy is the answer.

America has not been loved for some time, but she has never been so hated or so alone. How ironic it is that folks like Pat Buchanan who advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy are derided as "isolationists" by the very folks who have isolated America from her allies and from neutral nations.

And what about Israel, America's staunchest ally? "President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are unwittingly playing Dr. Jack Kevorkian in helping the state of Israel commit suicide," suggests former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in Helping Israel Die.

Body Parts for Vanity

Amanda Euringer writes of a disturbing trend: Foreskin Face Cream and Other Beauty Products of the Future. That is, of course, not the worst of it:

Dr. Mehta was asked how much tissue Neocutis would need to "harvest" from a two-month-old fetus in order to develop a cell culture, since this kind of skin can grow for years. "You don't need very much. Think of how small a baby foreskin is. Maybe the amount of skin that is on the tip of a finger."

This didn’t sound so bad, until I went with my six-year-old daughter to Body Worlds 3, an anatomy exhibition with approximately 200 real human specimens, in the hope of giving her an interesting medical lesson. I found myself standing in front of some plastinated fetuses, and their tiny features were drawn into expressions one might imagine on a puppy having a bad dream. The two-month-old fetus is perfectly formed; a small spine curves its back. Tiny fingers curl. It is barely an inch long. Neocutis would have to use the whole thing.

In a moment of panic, I wondered if I had deeply scarred my six-year-old by bringing her to the exhibit. In this world where doctors can make art shows out of human flesh -- ostensibly in the name of science -- how can we judge pharmaceutical companies who chop up unwanted fetuses, or grow cells from foreskins, to put on our faces? [emphasis mine]

The above comes from a Leftist site, and I have no idea of the author's position on abortion. It seems that seeing a fetus convinced her of its humanity. Also, her panic and her ultimate judgement about the "art exhibit" were absolutely correct.

The Remarkable Expansion of Korean Protestantism

A reprint of a November 23, 1973 Christianity Today article: What Makes the Korean Church Grow? Perhaps the article was reprinted in celebration of the centennary of Korea Protestantism's great revival of 1907.

The article was written by Samuel H. Moffett, a child of one of the great American Protestant missionary families in Korea. At the time of writing, Christians, both Protestants and Catholics, accounted for some 10 to 13 percent of the population. Today, the number is somewhere between 35 and 50 percent.

The article ignores, as one might suspect, the blood of the 10,000 Korean Catholic martyrs of the 19th Century. Korean Protestantism has declined in the past ten years, while Catholicism has grown a remarkable 744.4 percent: The Catholicization of Korea.

Sayyid Qutb Was a Paleoconservative

"El Cid" has come to that conclusion after reading a few books about the Egyptian, and notes that the man's thinking went astray when it turned From Philosophy to Ideology. He even brings up an old post of mine on the subject.

William Pfaff on the Failure to Learn from History

Some excerpts from Failure in Saigon, Baghdad and Kabul:

The three cases are alike in the following respect: The intervention has been launched against a phenomenon of local political and social origin, misidentified out of ideological bias and political ignorance as a threat to the United States and the West.

[....]

In all three cases, the U.S. objective was not simple military victory but to change the political nature of the society so as to make it a liberal democracy. A cynical observer would say that Washington wanted to turn each into a client state, but this was not entirely true. The United States wanted, as it always wants, a conversion of hearts.

It nonetheless has become a profoundly militaristic nation, which it never was before 1941. It now conceives of international relations primarily in terms of military coercion and war. The Bush administration budget that has just gone to Congress would devote a higher percentage of national expenditure to war and war preparations than in any year since the Korean War 55 years ago: higher than during the Vietnam war or the Cold War.

You might think the American political class and public is convinced that war is the road to national success, whereas the American experience of war, from the Korean cease-fire to the present day, proves the opposite.

Vietnam was a decade of disaster, leaving the United States divided and weakened. U.S. Caribbean and Central American interventions (the Dominican Republic, the Bay of Pigs, Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua) made the country look overwrought and ridiculous. The Iraq intervention now is collapsing into horror. Is it necessary to repeat this in Afghanistan?

Or Iran?

What do Neocons and Left-Liberals have in common?

In addition to being deluded by grand ideals and abstractions, both camps believe a problem can be solved if enough money is thrown at it: U.S. sent pallets of cash to Baghdad.

The Imminent Fall of the DPRK

A report on a mass defection of a platoon of border guards: Hoiryeong Incident: Next Phase of Regime Collapse?

A Righteous IDF Commander

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," said an anonymous IDF commander speaking of last summer's war on Lebanon, quoted in The Vishnu strategy.

The article notes that "[s]ince 1991, according to Handicap International, the United States and Britain have dropped over 13 million cluster munitions on Iraq and strewn the countryside with more than 500 tons of toxic depleted uranium ammunition."

The Future of Religious Liberty

A generation ago, who would have thought that this might be the hammer the State would use to crush the Church: Vatican expert warns against "criminalisation of religious opposition" to gays. Some excerpts from the article:

Noted US Vaticanologist John L Allen has warned against a trend towards "criminalisation of religious opposition to homosexuality" following a UK Government decision to refuse to allow Catholic adoption agencies to bar services to gay couples.

[....]

"Not only in terms of legal exposure, but its capacity to articulate a positive message on sexuality and the family," he said.

[....]

Mr Allen characterises the story as part of a "cultural 'mega-trend' in the affluent North" involving "a collision between the irresistible force of the gay rights movement, and the immovable object of religious commitment to traditional 'family values'".

Citing recent court battles in Sweden, Canada, France and the US, Allen warns that courts may increasingly be asked to hear appeals from Christians who believe they're being discriminated against for their views on gay rights.

"It's not much of a stretch", Mr Allen continues, "to imagine pastors being fined or even imprisoned for statements opposing the rights of homosexuals to marry or adopt."

Recognising Pope Benedict's efforts to present Catholic teaching on sexual morality in a positive, non-confrontational manner, Mr Allen asks whether "the train-wreck of a church/state crisis be avoided".

"Benedict XVI is, among other things, a musician, and he has tried to strike the right tone; the question is whether he or anyone else can complete the score, while also managing to stay out of jail," Mr Allen concludes.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at Work

Sandro Magister reports on the continuation of the "Ratzinger style" in Two New Documents in the Works: On Bioethics, and on Natural Law.

This Sunday's World Day of the Sick in Seoul

Plenary Indulgences are available to the faithful the world over: Holy See offers special indulgence for World Day of the Sick. "[The] Vatican decree emphasizes [the] need to reflect on [the] ultimate realities of life, death, and suffering."

The Dear Leaders

The scions of two dynasties compared: Bush and Kim: Brothers under the skin?

The Grey Lady and Saint Flannery

The NY Times* makes a literary pilgrimage to Andalusia in Milledgeville with an article, In Search of Flannery O'Connor, and an audio slide show, Flannery O'Connor's Georgia.

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