Though not without regrets and lesser goods selected above the better, this weekend has been truly restful; how nice it was to sleep sufficiently for once, to have time to allot to a Dickens short story, to reread a manga, and to meander around the Blackstone Valley mall. A Saturday evening hobby of mine, detailed once or twice before herein, suffice it to say I get my thrills from promenading the Target back parking lot in its abject peace, projecting my vision over the aforementioned valley situate below that acropolis of accumulation, the steady white-red arteries of cars and trucks the modern superstructure, a graveyard and John Deere dealership the ironic, earthy counterpoints, the black sky, outline mountains, and spotlighted American flag godly. Pondering everything which happened to fall into my perspective- reason tells me the mind should never drift too far from those things- I discovered a few cicadas, which smile-inducingly large insects I don't remember seeing since I was about seven.

The other highlight of the week which I will tell you about is finishing Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. The month's selection for the SGA Book Club, I picked up a nicely bound paperback from a Northampton book seller right before returning to Assumption from spring break. Initially, though, I predicted the reading itself would be a chore- a red flag went up when I saw the recommendation from Isabel Allende on the inside cover (some spoilers may follow). And the novel began much like Allende's The House of the Spirits, both an elegant work of magical realism and an wrenchingly disgusting socialist diatribe and attack on all things beautiful. Both protagonists grew up in privileged families of irreligious elites in predominantly pious nations, and were initially overshadowed by atheistic fathers involved in politics. The goods of childhood and social life are distinct from the religious practice, in Sunni Islam and Roman Catholicism respectively. But early in, it became apparent that The Kite Runner was a very different novel. Whatever The House of the Spirits' theme was, or if it even had one (I rather doubt it), The Kite Runner was to be a story of redemption, a redemption so failingly though sorely sought that the protagonist can't quite be called the good guy. Even so, he wasn't nearly the villain of some of the unrepentant del Valles and Truebas in Allende's work. Failings aside (Amir has a few huge if little reflected upon sins he seeks atonement for), Amir is quite the exemplar of responsible living. Inexplicably for a book all the Amnesty International/UN flag-waving liberals who made the book a best seller, he respects tradition and social custom even when he doesn't care for it, and he properly courts his love, waiting for marriage to have relations with her. Amir ends up rejecting his father's witty irreligiosity, and becomes a devout Muslim, praying the namāz five times a day. The only weakness is Assef, the paragon of stock villains, a Nazi-sympathizing "sociopath" who magically reappears at the end for a confrontation. While it remains uncanny that the people who later purchased The God Delusion made this a best seller, as Ann Coulter has said, since 9/11 Muslims have been largely exempt from the secular liberal attacks so often levelled against Christians, as a function of multiculturalism, and so as to give no effective aid to conservative proposals for racial profiling or limiting Muslim immigration. But that is all unimportant speculation: if you are a conservative who (like I had been) is wary of Hosseini's popular work because of its fans, be assured that The Kite Runner ably lives up to its reputation, and in a better way than you'd expect.

According to the inside cover, The Kite Runner is the first Afghani novel written in English. Unlike the USA, which had bestowed upon the community of nations McDonaldses at best and MTV at the most odious, the young Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, by proxy of an emigrant living in California no less (the book is overwhelmingly pro-American), has succeeded to bestow a benefit on the rest of humanity.

Yesterday, the Assumption Advocates for Life held a showing of 22 Weeks, the short movie about a mother who tries to abort in the second trimester, but the child is born alive. At twenty-eight minutes, its power on screen is unparalleled. Much to my surprise (but little to my credit), we ran the film for a packed house, eighty when we had expected thirty-five or forty. Some of the guests may be attributed to the magic of extra credit, but that still doesn't account for our astounding success. We quickly ran out of pizza, and the showing had many of the trappings of typical Assumption gatherings, including the staple guests who show up at every big event. Happily do I report that there is more interest in the pro-life movement on campus than expected.

And lately, I felt it appropriate to honor one of the firebrands gallantly leading the movement, and selflessly bestowing her abilities at the disposal of the AA4L. I speak of Nicole Macioci. In the Italian, that last name is Match-e-o-chi, on her lips Mass-e-o-see, and I enjoy pronouncing it Mace-e-o-chi: each way, the beat is the same. She doesn't liek, the name; I do, and make sure to tell her so regularly. She was honored with

Sonnet CXII

Miss Macioci needs no megaphone,
But neither too a signer for the deaf
(Who miss her talking to the trèble clef),
Communicating her falsetto tone
By gesturing and raising of the hands
(Expressing as her sleeves are falling low),
So lips and arms and eyebrow furrows sew
A meaning everybody understands.
A friend of children in the womb, she boasts
That she would protest, bound in chains, until
She goes to prison, carried from the mill.
A still-light spirit, happily she coasts
To John, her love, conspicuously pierced,
The true Adonis of this Venus fierce.

One time before Adoration I saw her with her beloved, and during our conversation, I compared them to Venus and Adonis, a likening she appreciated. It is hard, if not impossible to find an attractive yet proper for displaying representative image of the mythological pair, so I hope the above is a good mean.

I have learned that on Tuesday, some 100 guidance councilors from Jesuit schools are visiting Assumption as part of a New England tour inclusive of AC, Boston College, and our cross town rival Holy Cross. Therefore, it is imperative that everyone dresses their best, and fill the hallways with sophisticated discussions of the finer points of Liberation Theology. Compared to the aforementioned pseudo-Catholic schools (although BC does deserve credit for their recent decision to put up more crucifixes; we've always had them- besides reminding us of our Savior, they are great discussion points in classes concerned with philosophy, theology, and political science, my three favorite disciplines) Assumption is très orthodox. What greater charity can there be than rescuing impressionable young minds from the clutches of a modern Jesuit education by garnering the Jesuits' own esteem?

The class of 2011 put on a trip to New York last Saturday, and I was in attendance. At day's end I was shocked when a few friends said they had spent most of the day relaxing in some restaurant or other: Manhattan is readily walkable, and by my calculations I had moseyed some eight to ten miles when I got back on the bus. Among the highlights was going to the Traditional Latin Mass at Holy Innocents- I had not been to a 1962 Mass in months, and really needed it, but I must admit it was somewhat of a disappointment. I expected it to be as packed as the services at churches serving traditionalist communities, but only thirty or thirty-five people were there, somewhat of a Daily Mass crowd without the impeccable knowledge of the liturgy common to many trads (and helpful to me, much more used to the New Mass). I also got to visit St. Patrick's again, do some window shopping at a fine arts gallery (I wasn't in the mood for the Metropolitan Museum again), visit the lobby of the Empire State Building (I SO was no going to pay $6 to visit the observatory level... maybe I should've asked where the stairwell was and hiked the 102 floors), tried to visit Rocco's on Thompson Avenue (where Dr. John Rao of The Remnant writes his column "A View From Rocco's"; now that I've checked online, I think I went to the wrong Rocco's- the one I was looking for is nearby on Bleeker Street!), I stopped by the building the SSPX rents out for their mission chapel, and of course I checked out one of the local comic/manga shoppes. But unlike everyone else, New York left me with a bad second impression. I usually see more street musicians on Main Street in Northampton on a given day than I saw in Manhattan. And at night, when everything closed up, the place was downright eery, and the ceaseless concrete really gets to you despite the occasional park. Yet, I must be something of a gothamist, since I have already signed up for a third New York trip two weeks from now, so the Big Apple gets another chance. Pray that this time I will find the real Rocco's, and get to meet trad icon Dr. Rao.

Their view...

My thoughts...

Now that I am back at Assumption, I reflect on some of the more telling happenings in Northampton over the past week. Far and above all, Northampton experienced a virtual riot. For months there have been protests against plans to create a Business Improvement District. While I'm not familiar with all the details, some of the objections raised are rather stupid. The plan will allegedly "gentrify" Northampton, which according to a poster means more whites and less minorities. I ask, More white? According to the last census, Northampton is already 90% white, and while there has been a noticeable change over the last several years, the proportion of non-whites to whites can't be more than than one to four. Any "gentrification" could hardly be anything besides assuring that Northampton doesn't turn into Holyoke or Springfield- and believe me, nobody wants that! However, another objection, against broad regulations of panhandling (apart from stopping fraud) seems more reasonable, and I am even inclined to agree with the coalition of homeless and socialists at the protests, given the diversity among panhandlers, and that for all the bums and phoneys there is genuine need. However, their sorry display (I wasn't at the recent one, but I did see them stampede down the sidewalk a few other times; if anything 22 News probably downplayed their disorder) worries me; even if they're right about some things, would giving into their demands be a concession to the communistic mob (some of them have hammers and sickles on their outfits) that has adores to rattle cages, and for the good and order of the city shouldn't be encouraged, or worse yet made into a respectable interest?

And yet, as Northampton is up to her old tricks, she is losing another habit. Since 1997 there has been a demonstration each Saturday against first the sanctions against Iraq, and then the war in Iraq. Usually there are at least a dozen people there, holding signs and beating bongos, horns honking as drivers pass by. But yesterday, only four or five people showed; they didn't even have any signs, so I could only tell it was the protest because they were standing still. Oh well! Now that they needn't hold Impeach Bush/Cheney signs, and the wars are in President Barack H. Obama's hands (not to mention the PATRIOT Act they used to revile so), everything is hunky dory.

*************

I have to read James Joyce's Ulysses for one of my classes. Not my kind of book. After an hour or two of reading it, I needed a break and wrote this poem in my boredom as an excuse. A friend recently wrote a poem where each line begins with where, so I thought I could combine that form with my fourteen lined specialty.

Sonnet CXI

Where blood dots line the page, in lieu of gold.
Where burgund leather, guilded, covers spine.
Where cover words are big, and print is fine.
Where under This belongs to, name in bold.
Where English doctors' essays introduce.
Where body's subtly pried by black-nailed tab,
Where air would seem to turn a filmy flab:
Where hard, the turner softens to seduce
Where meaning's hidden in the tissue fat,
Where words are explicated, as the seekers need.
Where sections lie, apart for finding speed
Where people, places, people's titles that
Where the occasion calls, are rightly used
Where speakers wish the honored not abused.

Minus that there are twelve syllables in line 10, I think it's a pretty good combo. The subject is the Merriam-Webster dictionary, 10th Ed., which I received when I graduated elementary school, and has since come in much handy. Now this is just something ridiculous I thought up when I remembered an assignment from high school journalism- write a bizarre headline and story about a mythical or cartoon character-and one kid's comical Winnie the Pooh story. Given the number of people I know who just have to acquire the newest hits whether they're good or bad, the question is quite relevant to a multitude of people. Note: The Young and Once Good Pundit does not endorse the behavior of Pooh in lines 4-5. Enjoy!


What would you do?

What would you do
If Winnie the Pooh
Released a rap CD,
Was hustlin' crack
And talkin' some smack-
Wouldja buy it, or download it free?

This would actually be a great business venture for Disney. Unlike Hannah Montana, who is tied to Miley Cyrus no matter how annoying or demanding she gets, the rapper behind Winnie the Pooh could be easily replaced if needed. In that way the endeavor would be sort of like outsourcing.

A few days ago some interesting news rolled by the bottom of the screen on a Fox News show- skepticism about the concern about climate change has reached a record high. While I didn't expect the news, I can't say I wasn't forewarned. The DeWeese Report, a conservative newsletter I receive, recently predicted the collapse of the global warming façade, and the prediction could not have been more punctual. After years of talk about CO2 and being green, I was rather glad and expressed my half-vengeful jubilation- as my mother reminded me that I too had been brainwashed about the whole climate change thing until a few years ago.

Despite my contrary dispositions, all the years I spent marching to the leftist tune in the Northampton Public School system couldn't help but rub off in my gait. [When An Inconvenient Truth, which I saw when it came to Northampton's Academy of Music theater, environmentalists handed out "what you can do to help" sheets, while outside hard communists protested, arguing that until the capitalist system, which Gore allegedly supports, is overthrown, the environment will not be safeguarded]. One of those things was accepting, more or less, the whole package about man-made, potentially irreversible global warming (or as they say now climate change), to the point that I insisted upon getting those fluorescent light bulbs for our home. I had been somewhat undecided about it until I read The Heat is On by Ross Gelbspan, a rather alarmist book which one of my high school teachers had spoken well of. Naturally, I never supported any of the globalist "solutions" to the problem, and figured I would just do my part as an individual, and that peak oil (which I am tentatively inclined to believe) would lower emissions in the future whether we (or China and India) wanted to or not.

I have become much more skeptical about climate change in the last few years. Not that I have done any great amount of research. Even if I had, it would perhaps have still been best to give the scientific establishment the benefit of the doubt, since one's views can be affected poorly by too narrow a scope of readings. Otherwise, a selective series of chimney shadow readings could land one in the same sad boat as the good Bishop Williamson. For what I expect is the same case for many of the new doubters, the climate change people have simply been careless, and contradictions in their work have become obvious to everyone. One of the key things I've noticed contradicts one of Gelbspan's most convincing arguments: that hotter, dryer summers will be accompanied by colder, harsher winters. Not too complex a point, intended to explain away the evidenced jokes of many that they could use some "global warming" during some present blizzard which apparently defied global warming. That would have worked for the green lobby, minus that, whenever winter is mild, they automatically switch to the more intuitive assertion that climate change means warming the year round. I find this everywhere, but has anyone ever seen scientists running around to set the politicos and Hollywood actors straight one way or the other? I have not: do they even care, or are they ignoring it because they don't care so long as they're allocated money to study it? Another of Gelbspan's arguments, that those scientists outside the "consensus" were few and often connected to oil, has become much less tenable of late. I don't even hear the consensus argument much anymore. A recent, good speech by Senator James Inhofe makes clear that too many scientists are themselves skeptical to simply write them off, as the climate change people obviously want to.

Either way, the green people can't blame me for anything. Although I now regret that we'll all need to use those mercury-laden bulbs in our homes, I don't drive, try to walk rather downtown rather than get a ride, use public transportation, and don't even drink bottled water (when I did like the fluorescent lights, though, I did come up with a good propaganda idea to make people use them: bring back the old, beautiful Educational Series $5 note, but with a fluorescent and not an incandescent light bulb). If everyone were like me, the environment would be so clean that snow would stay white even after days on the ground. Even if climate change is cyclical and natural rather than caused by man, we have certainly failed to be good stewards of nature in other ways, almost universally as a result of our devotion to consumerism. If we made use of fewer gadgets manufactured in the Far East, drive places we could walk (ahem, suburbanites), take the bus to (ahem, my fellow Assumption greyhounds), or avoid altogether, and were happy with more balanced lives, there wouldn't be so many unintended consequences- that's my inconvenient truth.

One of my favorite things about being back in Northampton is staying up as late as I desire, as opposed to just until 2 or 3 AM back in Worcester. And yet I've always thought of myself as a morning person: perhaps I am both, wishing I could avoid sleeping through night and morning. Yet despite my intention to stay up, yesterday I found that there was little to occupy my time with, and got around to checking my emails. Lo, and glory to God in the highest, for one of them read

The Spring Concert is

SARA BAREILLES with MATT KEARNEY

...

$15 a ticket for AC students
$20 for Consortium
$25 for General Public

There are few times in a man's life when he gets his first choice on something he has to share with everyone else, and this is one of them. When the annual Campus Activities Board (CAB) survey on the Spring Concert went

out, I circled pop- a foregone conclusion at a school overflowing with females who grew up with *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys- but unhappy with a few "for example," artists in the category. I promptly walked down to the CAB office, right across the room from (and often in a happy rivalry with) the SGA office, and registered my complaints with two of the girls who virtually live there. "How about someone a little lighter, more fun, well-known and liked but not out of our range- like Sara Bareilles." Now, although SGA election season begins on Monday, and I would like to proclaim 

Leslie Higgins:
He Brought SB to AC

that would be taking credit where credit isn't due, though I expect there's a kernel of truth in it at least. Ah, I can hear "Love on the Rocks", "Love Song", "Bottle it Up", "One Sweet Love", "Vegas", and "City" right now (note to AC friends less familiar with her: don't come unless you like generic love-themed songs by commercial pop female vocalists). The one song of hers I'm not crazy about is "Many the Miles", which happens to be one of her biggest hits. In any case, it's rather curious, since she's been around for several years,  but has only issued three CDs with almost the same list of songs. Now, I'm a fan of "Magaritaville", but usually it's nice when the artist has a fresh crop of hits every few years, so I hope some are forthcoming.

My week off has been quite restful. And Sunday was a real treat. There was a great harmony of birds in the trees as I walked down to St. Mary's for the morning Mass.

[Someone's photo of the high altar in Advent]

The return to beautiful St. Mary of the Assumption church was relief enough after weeks of services at the below tool shed. But a beautiful church needs a good priest to conduct a beautiful Mass. Fittingly, our parish priest, Father William J. Hamilton, long absent for one reason of health or another, finally returned. Although there tends to be murmuring about the pastor at any parish, rarely have I had cause for complaint myself. Liturgical abuse, heresy, calling God "mother"- I have seen and heard it all in my brief life, but none from Father Hamilton. While he can appear unduly exhausted, his energy never falters in his prayers and singing, and for Novus Ordo sermons his are very nice. This week he gave somewhat of an omnibus sermon- the gospel [the Transfiguration, a favorite since his saint's name sake, Peter, "puts his foot in his mouth" yet again), the need for penance and fasting, correcting the misconception that Friday abstinence from meat has been eliminated (he asked how many could remember when it "changed"- about half the hands shot up, although I did notice a few [eye-turningly attractive] Smith girls in the proximity), and he finished off with a passionate discourse on FOCA. Ever the bureaucratic do-gooder, where many read from a sheet of paper, or even disobey the USCCB, he carried out the obligatory task with gusto. The only problem- he told us to mail postcards to our representative and senators- a task whose futility he fully acknowledged- were in fact NOT in our pews. We have been having an organization problem of late, but things might get better once Father and his parish team get back in the swing of things.

True to Northampton's Calvinist roots (Jonathan Edwards preached here long, long ago, but our next door neighbor Edward's church, named for him, is now an "open and affirming" congregation of the UCC), the organ was silent throughout. We have been without an organist for some time. Luckily Father Hamilton, always the Elvis, carried the tunes of our hymns flawlessly, making up for our stereotypical Catholic timidity.

If all priests were like Father Hamilton, the New Mass wouldn't be so bad. However, judging from the examples of others, and the number of vacant pews, even in this Northampton parish a return to tradition is needed more than ever.

*************

I came across this a few days ago, but had no time to post on it. Newt Gingrich is to become Catholic. Although there are but scant details, it appears that he will be within the Church by Easter. This really surprised me: I have heard often that the most common reason for falling away from the practice of Catholicism is an immoral lifestyle, and when I think of Gingrich the first thing which comes to mind is a Remnant article from the last election season, when Rudy Giuliani was the heir presumptive to the Republican nomination for the presidency. Given the joyous occasion and warm welcome Gingrich deserves for his decision to cleave to the one Fold of Christ, it would be improper to repeat some of its words on Giuliani here, but suffice it to say the author, one Mr. Kirkwood, ranked him as a lower moral example than the former mayor of New York. However, God seems to have brought him to the Faith through his third wife, and those who seek forgiveness in Christ will be given it, so he (and we) can put his past behind him. Although I would prefer if he weren't a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, maybe he will become a great saint in his later life. We should pray for him in this wonderful time in his life.

A well-deserved snow day, and much enjoyed, is just wrapping up. While I still got a lot done, completing another sonnet that I will perhaps post later, and also finishing Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth wherein I had long been bogged down, the general attitude on campus reminds me of the guy on the Milligan's Island ginger ale logo. Except it's a bit colder here.

What to do on a lazy snow day? Chronicle liturgical abuse, of course. It is the traditionalist's surest reflex. Although we are much indebted to the thorough work of Chris Gillibrand of Catholic Church Conservation, his content seems to be off for now, and he usually reports the goings-on in Germany and the rest of the Continent. But there has been liturgical abuse in our own back yard. Good intentions aside, whenever I walk into the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, I cannot help but get this feeling.

I have seen many sanctuaries in my time. As the name implies, they are sacred, and should look like this (at the minimum)


























not like this














It's hard to see, but the display is made from some of the debris from the Great Ice Storm of 2008. At first edging arithmetically upwards, at the end a here barely perceptable branch shoots up, sort of like in Al Gore's hockeystick CO2 graph in An Inconvenient Truth.


True, the sanctuary looks like a stage, and was just asking for this, but all of these types of displays are so... formless. As such, they do not direct our minds upward by their beauty. You may say, To each his own; to me this is beautiful. I say: the sanctuary is where the consecration happens, where bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the King of kings, and where He should be permanently enthroned in the tabernacle (that Christ is cordoned off to the side is another offense to His dignity): anything in the sanctuary should have a clear purpose in or in inspiring worship, and should be at least worthy of a monarch's throne room. This seasonal display fits neither criterion.

And if you still don't think that's bad, every Lent they take away our Holy Water (even if it's become a common practice, they shouldn't) and instead give us
















if you can't see them from there,












sea glass. We are supposed to take a piece with us, and place it in a jar when we have done some sort of good work, et cetera. What ever happened to recalling our baptismal vows, and purifying ourselves as we enter the house of the Lord? However, I think I will save mine: that way, I can have it as a memento of the Age of Liturgical Abuse once it is long past. Better yet, some Catholic publisher should make a coffee table book chock full of images of the liturgical (and visual) abuse now so common, but which will largely disappear once the Traditional Latin Mass becomes standard issue again (as is inevitable considering the growth of traditionalist orders and the decline of everyone else). A CD of Dan Shutte tunes could accompany the tome, that future generations could also know the auditory abuse we must suffer through.