Liberty in our Lifetime May 30, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Life in America, Politics.add a comment
I wrote about the Free State Project several years ago but, alas, the post was lost during one of my numerous blog migrations.
Here’s the concept in a nutshell: Sign up a bunch of cranky Libertarians, move them all to a small state (in this case, New Hampshire ), take over the government and… Well, I dunno, I guess just disband it. (These are Libertarians after all!)
I’m all for it but I don’t want to move to New Hampshire. Fellow New Englanders though they may be, Granite Staters regularly endure the coldest winters in America and their twelve feet of coastline just won’t cut it for this ocean loving blogger.
But I digress, here’s the Free State Project’s take on the Free State Project (redundancy is not always a bad thing…)
Are you frustrated at the loss of freedom and responsibility in America, while the growth of government and taxes continues unabated? Do you want to live in strong communities where your rights are respected, and people exercise responsibility for themselves and in their dealings with each other?
If you answered “yes” to those questions, then the Free State Project has a solution for you.
What the Free State Project is… The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire. We are looking for neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life, of all ages, creeds, and colors who agree to the political philosophy expressed in our Statement of Intent, that government exists at most to protect people’s rights, and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.
I answered yes to the question but as I explained above, I just can’t move to New Hampshire. The scenery is breathtaking, all the men are strong and the women are, without exception, beautiful. (Except for the Massachusetts tax refugees holed up in the southeast portion of the state…) The air is clean, the water is pure, the children are well mannered, and everyone goes to church on Sunday. It’s Shangri-La, my friends.
All of you should move there without delay and I shall visit frequently and support them spiritually to the end of my days.
___________________
Also worth a read:
Is Bush Becoming Irrelevant? Pat Buchanan on the Boy Emperor’s numerous faults, numberless failings, and bottomless decline. (BTW the short answer to the question is YES! YES HE IS!)
I’ll be boycotting NBC during the Beijing Olympics May 27, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Politics, Religion, The Whole Wide World.add a comment
And it’s not going to be easy because I am absolutely addicted to MSNBC (an NBC affiliate) for political coverage. But so help me God, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, and any other part of that Beijing Olympics broadcasting coven will not play in my home during the games.
In addition to its myriad and well publicized human rights abuses, there’s this allegation of pure, unadulterated evil:
Book Reveals Fetal Soup Served in Chinese Restaurants
[..] “New macabre manifestations of this conscienceless abortion mentality include the recent opening of five restaurants in the region of X, which began serving ‘fetal soup’ at the price of 300 Yuan (approximately $40) a bowl! Recent medical publications have praised the exceptional health benefits for the consuming of ‘fetal remains’ (this jargon allows them to overlook what this really is-unborn baby bodies). Therefore, local entrepreneurs jumped on the opportunity to distribute this new health breakthrough to the chosen few who could afford the price. So evil and scandalous is this fetal soup trade that the Government shut down the Web sites advertising the restaurants, in fear that they would scandalize the reputation of the People’s Republic to outside countries and businesses.
The book is The Seven Sorrows of China by Dr. Mark Miravalle (Professor of Mariology at Franciscan University). You can read the entire article (excerpted above) here.
Popes say the darndest things May 23, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Religion.add a comment
Pope Pius XII considered himself an expert on, well…, everything. He was just as much in his element addressing Nuclear Physicists as he was holding forth to a group of French sanitation workers.
Pope John Paul II, it seemed, never had an unpublished thought. He wrote prolifically and spoke (literally) until his voice failed him at the end of his life.
But in this blogger’s humble opinion none of the great pontiffs of the last century said or wrote anything as succinct and profound as Pope Pope Benedict XVI when he addressed the seminarians of the Archdiocese of New York last month:
Truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
There’s the Gospel and catechism in a nutshell.
Viva il Papa!
Sports Illustrated – May 26 May 22, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Baseball.add a comment
Buy it!
This is the first time that DC Comics has scored the front page of SI and it gets the hearty Imprimatur of this Red Sox fan! Any depiction of a publicly humiliated Derek Jeter — and therefore a humiliated Yankees franchise — makes me happier than Christmas morning. (I know I should be concerned about that…)
Here’s the full story
Germans burn hundreds of Talmuds May 21, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Religion, The Whole Wide World.add a comment
Rioting German Christians confiscate and burn hundreds of Jewish holy books. Deputy Mayor leads the mob.
Bavaria
BAVARIA – German Christians have burned hundreds of Talmuds in the latest act of violence against Jews in Europe.
Rolf Mueller, the deputy mayor of the southern German town of Josefsbad, says he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and urged people to turn over hundreds of Talmuds and Jewish religious tracts.
The books were dumped into a pile and seminarians set them afire in a lot near a church, he said.
The Munich newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students and seminarians took part in the book-burning.
But Mueller told The AP on Tuesday that only a few students were present and he was not there when the books were torched. Hundreds of Talmuds were burned, he said.
Jewish religious literature is frowned upon in Germany but is not illegal in most cases.
So are you shocked and outraged? You should be..but, to be honest, I played with the facts a bit. Here’s what really happened:
JERUSALEM — Orthodox Jews have burned hundreds of New Testaments in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in Israel.
Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of the central Israeli town of Or Yehuda, says he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and urged people to turn over hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material recently distributed by missionaries.
The books were dumped into a pile and religious students set them afire in a lot near a synagogue, he said.
The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students took part in the book-burning.
But Aharon told The AP on Tuesday that only a few students were present and he was not there when the books were torched. Hundreds of New Testaments were burned, he said.
Proselytizing is frowned upon in Israel but is not illegal in most cases.
Source: Fox News
______________________________
UPDATE: The International Herald Tribune has a much more substantive article re: the above.
The last gasps of a dying culture May 21, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Life in America.add a comment
I’m the first to defend free markets and a personal autonomy approaching the radical but when I read about the $175 (gold-topped) hamburger being served up in a Manhattan restaurant, I wanted to puke.
It’s not the idea of eating gold that makes me sick – it’s the very idea that any human being would engage in such a profoundly (and grotesquely) self-indulgent exercise. This is hyper-consumerism and limitless selfishness writ large. (Very, VERY large).
Here’s the deal:
Momentarily the city’s most expensive burger, the Richard Nouveau consists of 10 ounces of Kobe-raised beef crowned with a thick “lobe” of seared foie gras, 25 grams of shaved black truffles, and aged gruyere cheese. It comes enthroned on a brioche bun anointed with a homemade truffled mayonnaise and garnished with more shaved truffles. Oh, and gold leaf flakes from Japan, which has the yummiest gold.
Oil tops $130 a barrel; the dollar is in a free fall; the housing market is in the toilet; recession looms; and families are struggling with rising food prices – but the well heeled on Wall Street are literally eating gold for lunch.
Hey, it’s America, do whatever you want with your money. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a bit more merit in scarfing down a Big Mac for lunch and donating the other, oh I dunno, 170 bucks to a relief agency.
Here are your options, folks: You can shit gold or you can be a human being.
How’s your Latin? May 19, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Uncategorized.add a comment
Yesterday I went to Divine Liturgy and as the priest was censing the congregation and proclaiming “Christ Is Risen!” in English and Slavonic he noticed me off in the corner and shouted, “Christus Resurrexit!”
It took me a second to get my bearings — because I wasn’t expecting Latin in a Byzantine church — but eventually I was able to croak out a self-conscious, “Vere Resurrexit!” in response.
For those of us with a Latin fetish, the once dying language seems to be breathing on her own. You can go to Latin Masses, read the news in the old tongue, and even catch the weather report in Linguam Latinam. (BTW, in Boston right now it’s Partialiter Nubila)
Which reminds me of a song poem…
Several years ago, a friend sent me the following and, in my opinion, its clever construction makes it worthy of a Nobel Prize. You can probably decipher it if you (barely) passed Latin I in high school.
Have at it:
Carmen Possum
The Nox was lit by lux of Luna
And ’twas a nox most opportuna
To catch a possum or a coona;
For nix was scattered o’er this mundus,
A shallow nix, et non profundus.
On sic a nox with canis unus
Two boys went out to hunt for coonus.
The corpus of this bonus canis
Was full as long as octo span is
But brevior legs had canis never
Quam bad hic dog; et bonus clever.
Some used to say, in stultum jocum
Quod a field was too small locum
For sic a dog to make a turnus
Circum self from stem to sternus*
Unis canis, duo puer,
Nunquam braver, nunquam truer
Quam hoc trio nunquam fuit
If there was I never knew it.
This bonus dog had one bad habit.
Amabat much to tree a rabbit,
Amabat plus to chase a rattus,
Amabat bene tree a cattus.
But on this nixy moonlight night
This old canus did just right.
Nunquam treed a starving rattus,
Nunquam chased a starving cattus,
But succurrit on intentus
On the track and on the scentum
Till he trees a possum strongum
In a hollow trunkum longum.
Loud he barked an horrid bellum
Seemed on terra vehit pellum
Quickly ran the duo puer
Mors of possum to secure.
Quam venerit, one began
To chop away like quisque man
Soon the axe went through the truncum
Soon he hit it all kerchunkum
Combat deepens, on ye braves!
Canis, pueri et staves
As his powers non longius carry
Possum potest, non pugnare
On the nix his corpus lieth
Down to Hades spirit flieth.
Joyful pueri, canis bonus,
Think him dead as any stonus
Now they seek their pater’s domo
Feeling proud as any homo
Knowing, certe, they will blossom
Into heroes, when with possum
They arrive, narrabunt story
Plenus blood et plenior glory.
Pompey, David, Samson, Caesar
Cyrus, Black Hawk, Shalmanezer!
Tell me where est now the gloria
Where the honors of victoria?
Nunc a domum narrent story
Plenus sanguine, tragic, gory.
Pater praiseth, likewise mater
Wonders greatly younger frater
Possum leave they on the mundus
Go themselves to sleep profundus
Somniunt possums slain in battle
Strong as ursae, large as cattle.
When nox gives way to lux of morning
Albam terram much adorning
Up they jump to see the varmen
Of the which this is the carmen.
Lo! possum est resurrectum
Ecce pueri dejectum
Ne relinquit back behind him
Et the pueri never find him
Cruel possum! bestia vilest
How the pueros thou beguiles
Pueri think non plus of Caesar
Go ad Orcum, Shalmanezer
Take your laurels, cum the honor
Since ista possum is a goner!
– Anonymous
What passes for an apology these days May 15, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Politics, Religion.1 comment so far
Like the term “tolerance” the word “apology” has undergone a subtle transformation in understanding (if not in definition) over the past decade. Tolerance once meant something akin to respect for differing opinions. Now its usage suggests (or demands) agreement or submission to opinions differing from one’s own.
An apology was always understood to be sincere regret for words or actions that caused harm to another; now it’s morphed into some vague remorse that one’s words or actions have been misunderstood.
Enter John Hagee – the virulently anti-Catholic fundamentalist preacher who is pulling out all stops in his support of John McCain’s presidential bid. Hagee, a long time Catholic basher (You can read some of his choicer quotes here) recently offered a politically timed apology to Catholics:
“Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.”
Did you catch it? He didn’t say “I was wrong” or “I repudiate my anti-Catholic screeds” he just expresses general regret for whatever Catholics may have found “hurtful”.
It’s as if I purposely ran over your dog and then said “I’m sorry if you were hurt by my actions” (no personal responsibility) but not “I’m sorry FOR my actions.” (Clear personal responsibility)
It’s not an apology.
In any case the media will accept it as a done deal and anti-Catholicism will continue apace without so much as a tsk-tsk from our friends in the press. (See my earlier entry: Pat Buchanan and the Jews for proof of that…)
Remember when… May 11, 2008
Posted by Brendan in Politics.add a comment
I lived through all this but , for one reason or another, it disappeared down my own personal memory hole. Thanks to Bob Herbert’s excellent column in today’s NYT, I’m reminded why I was a Clinton Hater in the first place:
Hugh Rodham [Hil's brother] was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.
Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.
Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: “People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.”
It wasn’t just the pardons that sullied the Clintons’ exit from the White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts during the president’s last year in office, including clothing (a pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on. In response to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.
So class is not a Clinton forte.
But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee — and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years.
The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame. [Emphases mine]
Yep, that last line pretty much sums it up.
I’d sooner see the Red Sox endure another 86 year drought than vote for Obama or McCain this Fall but — and I never thought I’d say this — thanks to the wisdom of the Democratic rank and file at least I won’t be assulted by the sight of Hil’s name on the General Election ballot.
For that, I am truly and forever in their debt…
Begin. Commence. Start. May 9, 2008
Posted by Brendan in &c., Uncategorized.add a comment
It’s not my first blog; it’s just my latest blog.
Back in the days when spare time was an abundant commodity , I was able to blog several times daily and hold forth on every conceivable subject. Now spare time is a luxury and, accordingly, I’ll have to choose my subject matter with more discretion and aim for a higher degree of quality rather than mass quantity.
The topics are unchanged – all the major obsessions and fetishes will be touched upon: Religion, Politics, Baseball, and American History.
I haven’t decided if I’ll transfer the archives from the old site or just start from scratch. I’m leaning towards importing a few selected posts and making the rest up as I go along.
It’s going to take a few days to input the links in the blogroll and tweak the design to my (ever elusive) satisfaction but, hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
All that said, welcome to my new blog.
EDIT 5/14/08: I decided to import a few ancient posts after all. They’re from 2006 or earlier and many are still subject to deletion.
