Sometimes I wonder whether I have ever been a pawn in God's Providence. Certainly, there is little of the mystic in me, other than the sober hobby of walking about under starry skies. However, I am tempted to think God has advanced me a few spaces, so that He might bring out the heavy artillery later. At least that is the plan, if I'm not just imagining it (or He isn't playing a trick on me and a certain someone)!

See, a few nights ago, I had a dream, in which I drew an illustration called "The Tree of Heaven" while I was on the phone with a cute Protestant fundamentalist. She had almost convinced me to spend a semester or two at a college of the same confession in Appalachia (I think it was based off the premise of The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at the Holiest University in America, which I've heard about but haven't read, but from a traditional Catholic perspective). I had an inkling that I should tell her what the drawing looked like (I didn't know why I drew it: I never draw anything; for that matter I don't like speaking on the phone either), but there was too much background noise (part of the roof and exterior wall had collapsed, and there was great commotion), and I could not. Hence, As soon as I woke up, so as not to commit a crime against art, I redrew The Tree of Heaven. Intuition told me I should give the drawing to a fundamentalist hottie since I couldn't describe it in the dream, in the hope that it will prove a physical manifestation of grace, sort of like a holy relic, bringing her closer to Catholic orthodoxy and unity; not knowing any a mainstream Protestant will have to do. If it turns out the image really has no purpose, no harm done. What does it look like? I wrote an explanatory poem:

The Tree of Heaven, for Miss ??? and other young Protestant Women

The Tree of Heaven was a gift to me,
Come on the coattails of a happy dream.
I sketched it with a telephone in hand,
Pinocchio entrapped, appendaged to
A trunk, as just another branching limb,
Felt baseball cap and gloves still dangling.
"The Tree": because, by what he had become,
And by his shape, he represents the "T"
In "Tree". Below, and rather larger, is
The proper "Tree of Heaven", not the "T".
Enmisted by the sparkle of the sun
On fog, and flying fairy lights, the roots
Stretch far, like woven vines upon the earth.
A not-too-massive trunk shoots straight up, like
A nail that's resting on its head. Atop,
The branches reach, and parallel the roots
With horizontal striving into sticks.
I drew it like an "I": but it's an "H"
As well. A row of Red Deliciouses
Around the trunk, beads strung upon its sides,
Become an "H", the confluence of earth
And Heaven in a corporeal form.

I think it's Heaven's graces reaching down,
For in the now-vague dream, I nearly spent
A year or one semester at a school
In Appalachia, fundamentalist
In bent, because a pretty Protestant
Encouraged me to join her there. I drew
The Tree of Heaven, speaking on the phone,
For her, and tried describing it, because
The fruits resembled graces that could change
Her heart, and bring her over to the Faith.
(But there was too much background noise to tell
Her what it looked like; she hung up on me).
Reminding me that ancient Paris gave
A golden apple "for the fairest" (though
There's more of these, and they are red), I thought,
"The Tree of Heaven should be given to
A fundamentalist: that's what I'll do!"
But knowing none, instead I've chosen you.

Chosen who, you ask? Well, even my fellow Assumption greyhounds will have to wait till we return for junior year to figure out who's getting this mediocre drawing and mercenary poem! (Here's the lower part; I wanted you to use your imaginations before showing you this rudimentary-if-faithful sketch. Note the unnatural belt of apples at the center).

I recently began Hilaire Belloc's Napoleon, a 1932 life of the Emperor of the French borrowed from Forbes Library, which for a secular library has a great number of works by the Catholic historian. Belloc is surprisingly sympathetic to his subject, considering his rôle (one of the book's anachronisms) he played in spreading the Revolution to every corner of Europe, but given the time in which Belloc wrote, his desire to see Christendom again united under one political regime (if not necessarily one authority) is understandable. A pleasure to read, it is full of all the rustic and antique color I remember from his Louis XIV. Here is just one charming passage, on a Corsican tax insurrection his parents took part in shortly before his birth:

The gnarled hardness of the Corsican marked all this warfare of the rocks and torrents, and there is record of a brief interchange of words which is significant. After a retirement of the rebels, when the French were advancing, one of their officers came upon a Corsican lying wounded, and lifting him up to attend to him asked, "Where are your doctors?" To which the mountaineer replied, "We have none."
"The what do you do?"
"We die."

Genuine grit. It rather reminds me of Republican Senator Jim De Mint's recent rallying cry in opposition to President Obama's health care initiatives. "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." One can only hope.

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

Recently the New Oxford Review, the Catholic monthly, has angered many readers by siding against many traditionalist positions, though while maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy. This uncanny left-traditionalism, favorable to the Traditional Latin Mass but hostile to many of the opinions of that liturgy's adherents, was most apparent in an inflammatory editorial entitled "Pope Benedict's Tightrope Act," which proceeded to bash Bishop Richard Williamson of the SSPX shortly after the lifting of his excommunication, in unison with the secular media. A flurry of angry resignation letters, followed by inflexibility on the NOR's part, ensued. Though I thought the magazine was in the wrong, for once swept up in the current of media-fed rage, I never cancelled since the last thing the traditionalist movement needs is a purge as it waxes triumphant. A book review by one Arthur C. Sippo, and the following polemics, was largely a repeat of the same struggle, this time in the field of the creationism/evolution debate.

Though I have been a fairly confident creationist for some years now, I have largely avoided the topic. The origins debate simply makes me uncomfortable; the exchange in the letters section of the July/August NOR demonstrates why this is so. The book reviewed, a hyperbolical criticism of Darwinism by two Protestant fundamentalists, was an easy target for Sippo in his struggle to discredit the creationists. Though as the end of his response Sippo admits of the need for "tolerance" by both sides in the debate, his manners, and those of his critics, remind me of nothing more than the mutual excommunications of Pope and Patriarch in 1054.

Sippo offers a useful criticism by noting that creationists and their Intelligent Design counterparts tend to fall back on a few standard arguments, for instance "inadequacy of the fossil record, the claim that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the supposed impossibility of macro-evolution." I must hand it to him, he actually makes a credible argument that evolution is favored by the Second Law (entropy).

Multicellular life is actually favored by 2LT. The individual cell living on its own must do everything for itself. In a multicellular organism, each cell needs to do only certain tasks. Such a cell has an easier lifestyle and can function more simply than a unicellular creature.

One could draw an analogy to sociology, and the movement of human society toward sophisticated separations, if indeed higher life crystallized in this way. He does not go into detail in his other responses. Unfortunately, he does not even consider many of the objections to evolution presented by one critic of his review, Carl Gethmann, who recommended to readers a couple of anti-evolution books by credentialed scientists. Sippo discounts them, placing quotations around "scientists," for being published by religious presses and outside the "scientific mainstream." Given the matter at hand, the demand that only criticism published in mainstream journals is unreasonable, since the possibility for bias is so strong. Whether or not, or to what degree, creationists and Intelligent Design supporters would be discriminated against by reviewers, he should at least realize that the attitude of evolutionist scientists is bound to engender suspicion. Even responding to his co-religionists, Sippo found it necessary to repeat the old canard that "the scientific case for evolution is solid and unassailable." If most scientists really believe it to be "unassailable," what chance would a dissenter from the common view have of a fair hearing?

Another attitude problem arises in Sippo's opening line. "Carl Gethmann seems to have a problem accepting that evolution does not necessarily imply atheism [he cited the affection for evolution shown by several prominent infidels]. This is sad because every pope since Pius XII has affirmed the exact opposite." If one is Catholic, Sippo believes, they cannot hold that evolution goes hand in hand with unbelief. A middle path between the two seems most reasonable. I have never thought, and from the content of their letters I doubt Sippo's critics have thought belief in theistic evolution made a person a bad Catholic. On the other hand, the connection between evolution and the modern ease of disbelief cannot be denied. Like a creation myth, evolution provides an explanation of the universe supportive of secular materialism; had Darwinism never been propagated, the question of origins could never have been answered with such ease by the irreligious. Further, regardless of whether evolution contradicts the Christian belief in biblical inerrancy, it is clearly at odds with the most obvious reading of Genesis. Belief in evolution does not guarantee atheism, but it does open the door to intellectually-fulfilled disbelief.

What we have here is, to quote Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, a failure to communicate. On that point, I will say no more of my own thoughts than that I find it telling that the advocates of ID and creationism sound as sensible and plausible as they do even though they, like Newman's Luke Jackson character, get shot down by the entire establishment for speaking their minds. (On a sillier note, the "man-from-monkey" idea reminds me of Goldar from the 1990s childhood classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.)

I have just finished a surprisingly good read, courtesy of my father. After my brother gave him Promises to Keep, Joseph Biden's autobiography, for Christmas on my suggestion, he recommended it to me in turn. The senator had always been a favorite of his, and now that he is America's vice president, all the more timely.

First, Biden is an amazingly good writer- his narrative holds one's attention from childhood on. Peppering his narrative with humor, lightening many of the dryer disappointments, and has a knack for imagery when appropriate. I am no less impressed by his attitude toward the political life. He argues, contra Jesse Helms when he was making an anti-government ruckus about a congressional pay raise Biden was also unenthusiastic about, that if we desire good politicians, they should have good pay. A very reasonable argument, especially during a time in his life when, so he reports, he had to really stretch his pay as a senator to raise his family. It is natural that most Democrats will hold government in a higher esteem than their counterparts on the Right, but he nonetheless deserves credit for pointing out the absurd disdain many Republicans hold for politicians regardless of circumstances.

Biden irritated me at times. When it was not for his beliefs, as was to be expected, for his failure to explain how he adopted them. Now, he mentions his stance on abortion, a moderate version of the "personally opposed but" position staked out by most Catholic Democrats, several times, briefly noting that he held it as a personal conviction he could not enforce on others. He is likely aware that the Church grounds its defense of the lives of the unborn chiefly in reason and science, with no more divisive pious motivation than Thou shalt not kill, but fine. However, given the detail he gives about, for instance, how lovely the architecture on his high school was, he could have included something about what inclined him to take the liberal view. He grew up in a staunchly Catholic, Irish family, and only has good to say regarding his religious and ethical instruction (pictured is his current church). I would be interested to know why he decided to follow the Democratic party leftward on these moral issues, when many other Catholics, from families which had been Democratic since their immigration, deserted the party for the socially conservative wing emerging in the Grand Old Party. Naturally, a liberal Catholic would not denegrate their upbringing, but was he raised brought up to care only for the social justice aspects of Catholic teaching, or did his beliefs crystallize solely because of his political views, without any input from his Catholic faith?

Another aspect which turned me off was his general attitude toward foreign policy. Though, in the chapters on foreign policy during the presidency of George W. Bush [whom I now miss, thanks to Obama, more than his actions would independently merit], he displays ever more disdain for the neoconservatives. He sometimes calls them "neo-isolationists" for their unilateralism, to which association I take great offence. By contrast, though I can't remember if he ever identifies himself an internationalist, he lumps enough praise on Averell Harriman (pictured) and Colin Powell that he probably would not object to the label. Often, though, despite the marked disagreements about specific issues of policy, the then senator ultimately endorses an outlook similar to the neocon paradigm. For Biden, too, the United States of America fulfills her mission- or her "promise"- by policing the world. Besides that he never questions the neocons' good motives- an admirable practice- he never draws out the similarities in their perspective and his own. In all the chapters on his advocacy of US intervention in Yugoslavia, he never bases his arguments for why his country should get involved on anything but our role as a superpower. While he never dabbles in the democratic messianism the neocons are infamous for, he has a strong sense of American mission, of a course our Nation must take due to its highest ideals and the hopes others place in us. While he certainly displays greater prudence than Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et al, his beliefs are similar to theirs in that, within their framework, there is no part of the world in which America has no business interfering if its intervention will likely have a positive outcome.

On a separate foreign policy note, his penchant for pragmatism sometimes gets excessive. Though he spend an entire chapter explaining how foolish was our invasion of Iraq, and detailing his efforts to bring Bush to reason, he ultimately voted FOR empowering the president to use force in Iraq, justifying it by saying a strong vote in the affirmative would make assistance by the United Nations Security Council more likely. He even criticizes liberal Democrats who refused to support a more restricted version of the bill as purists, even though he too believed we had no reason to go to war. Is he really proud of this level of crass compromising he attempted? A lot of good all his careful calculations did us in the end!

If a colorful, insightful account of the political life, as experienced by a man who has held elective office since 1973 and who is now second in line for the presidency, interests you, Promises to Keep may also be to your tastes. In the end, Biden interests me despite his liberal internationalism. Indeed, he is not my type of politician. When he contrasts himself to Jesse Helms (as much my type as can be found in America), he gives his initial impression of Helms as his opposite. Whereas Biden concerns himself with expanding freedoms and civil rights, furthering the lofty ideals of the founding, he can only characterize Helms as a demagogue to the white, native Christians, as a man concerned only for his own kind. Perhaps if Biden recognized that Senator Helms, and those like him, can hardly be blamed for defending the communities they love, with all its particularities, from the multiculturalism which threatens them, he would not have been so puzzled when that same love manifested itself by adopting a child with cerebral palsy.

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

A cool thing happened on Thursday. After two weeks of holding my breath, expecting a Rozen Maiden poster in the mail, the order arrived, but it was the wrong thing. I had accidently put the wrong number, and ended up with this cute Fruits Basket poster. I have heard much good about that manga, but as of yet haven't read any of it. I don't even know who the characters are, but it's cute, so it stays!

[Courtesy some website. don't know the intended message, but displays G.O.P.'s refusal to enbrace strong pro-lifers effectively.]

Eight-and-a-half months after the Grand Old Party's crushing defeat at the hands of our present president, I had expected it would finally wise up and renew its commitment to the issues most important to its base. However, if the G.O.P. and other conservative mailings I receive, the editorial slant on Fox News, and the continued mistreatment of pro-lifers are any indication, the party still has a ways to go. Of course, I am not saying the Republican establishment is completely devoid of sense and principle- there's been a slight improvement in that department ever since John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the opportunity to oppose President Obama's socialistic agenda has not been missed. Unfortunately, Republicans haven't distanced themselves from the hawkishness of the Bush years, and have little to organize around except their opposition to the President and the Democratic Left. While I am certainly glad they are against Obama's vision, rather than cozyng up to it, what are they for?

The failure to energize the party really baffles me; many more Americans still identify as conservative than liberal; the components for a successful and much-needed Right-wing coalition exist. The Democrats had the smoothest transition imaginable from their old, antagonistic "STOP Bush" mentality to their current Obamarama. In other words, their unofficial theme song changed from Green Day's "American Idiot" to Makadem's "Obama be Thy Name" without a hitch. My own party, however, continues to marginalize and ignore those luminaries who, like Pat Buchanan, advocate populistic economic policies, and give social conservatism a strong priority. I know this is a broad generalization, but Wall Street Journal conservatism and the concern for material wealth and "profit over people" mentality, to refer to last Friday's post, still predominate in many quarters. To be more concrete, the Tea Party movement which has made such news of late, and which has gotten support from many in the Republican party, seems excessively focused on financial issues; to be sure, I agree with the Tea Partiers in almost every particular, but what could be worse for the party than expressing its ideals through what are really little more than tax protests? The exclusive focus they've been given does little to shake off the association so many have of the party with greed and corporatism, and of the very worst elements of capitalism. Indeed, it seems to me the G.O.P.'s unofficial theme song is Wesley Willis' "Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds". (Me? My official theme song is that exercise in pop elegance, The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony").

As you might expect, the Massachusetts Republican Party is faring worse still. As of Wednesday, the race for the party's gubernatorial nomination is between Christy Mihos, convenience store mogul and former independent in the 2006 race, and Charles D. Baker, Jr., who is retiring from his position as CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Both are socially liberal, pro-choice and for gay marriage. Sigh. There remain some potential, as yet unannounced candidates more amenable to Christian beliefs and the natural law, but these two are likely to be the big contenders. As it is I'm a bit inclined to Baker, as Mihos said he's "more a populist", and more traditional, whatever that means. And as my fellow Bay Staters will remember, Mihos' ads in 2006 bordered on the obscene.

At the local level, politics are not, and could not be partisan, since the Republican party doesn't exist in Northampton. This year's mayoral race is becoming a caricature of liberal local politics. Mayor Mary Clare Higgins (no relation, though I was friends with her niece in high school) and the challenger, At-Large City Councillor Michael Bardsley, are gay. This would not be so bad in itself, even from my perspective (homosexuals can always choose to defend marriage, and with those who don't, local politics rarely involves such moral issues anyway), except that the pair use their elective soap boxes to advance their cause. In a comic moment, the pair, who were formerly political allies but have lately become estranged as the race nears, walked in separate sections of Paradise City's gay pride parade, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Though I have a feeling bardsley may be an improvement, since he has criticized Higgins' pandering to developers and the chamber of commerce, neither prospect excites me. Fortunately, perennial candidate Roy C. Martin, the personable perennial candidate, decided to jump in. Martin, for whom I voted in 2007, actually has a streak of conservatism in him, though when I saw him on the street one time, decked out in a three-piece suit and toting a sign for his 2005 campaign, he said he was a Democrat. He may be seen as an oddball (anyone who would run- this will make it- eight campaigns for the same office is a little abnormal), but in this town he definitely merits a primary vote. In the spirit of my home city, I too am coming out:

Roy C. Martin for Mayor 2009!!!

True Beauty came to me in a new manifestation two days ago. Promenading this way and that through You Tube, I stumbled across Atsuko's Ishizuka's "Waltz of the Moon". If only we Americans had our own Everyone's Song program, as well as such stunning music videos, rather than or at least in addition to MTV (even good American songs have music videos that are so bad they ruin the music). To be fair, now that there's c. 500 channels, there must be some good content once in a while under the moon, which

brings about such wonderful things
On a blue night...

The junk, however, tends to rise to the top, refuting the claim made in a Michael Novak article recently discussed at the Fish Eaters forum. Besides the typical insistence that Catholics should place a higher worth on the wealth of this world, he absurdly asserts, "In actual capitalist practice, the love of creativity, invention, and groundbreaking enterprise are far more powerful than motives of greed." Try telling that to any music fan. Even I, as great a lover of mainstream popular music as can be found, tire of the volume of bland, unexciting songs which perennially arise. How is it that, for instance, much of the music blasted at supermarkets is so lame that even I consider it an addition rather than a salve to my consumerist misery?

Just a few days back, I was waiting in an office during a thunderstorm, meanwhile enduring a torturous pop station from Springfield. As the storm intensified, I jokingly yearned for a blackout caused by a chance lightningstrike. As I stared at a piece of abstract art hanging on the wall, it seemed to me that a sort of Gresham's Law unconsciously orders the public square concerning art. The abstract art (or in other cases, uncannily uninteresting nature scenes) has the least substance and meaning to it, and therefore will be of nearly equal interest to everyone. It may offend aesthetic sensibilities, but there is nothing about which could be concretely objectionable. Formless visual art and pop songs so generic and undynamic they bore me out of my wits end up the first choice of supermarkets and doctors' offices.

This all reminds me, in turn, of a mock pro-capitalist movement I came across once. Though the silly, fake protesters pictured have a somewhat distorted, Marxist conception of capitalism (for example, undue connections between capitalism and military aggression), many of the amusing signs carry a real message:




































"More cars less trees." "Money is my life." "Profit before people." Even if one believes in capitalism out of devotion to individual rights, these are what it effectively leads to. Later, in the above mentioned debate, a Catholic defended capitalism by saying the free market merely refers to the situation wherein "government has no place in a business transaction". This general principle is absurd on its face. If government's concern is in bettering the community, and in encouraging the people to live the good life, then the government must intervene sometimes to regulate or prohibit potentially harmful transactions. Without government intervention, who would prevent private developers from clearing forests without taking the good of the community or the intrinsic worth of nature into account? Without government intervention, anything, no matter how harmful to the body or soul, can succeed on the market so long as it is popular. Our bad experiences with the socialism of progressive regimes, seeking to control every part of the economy in the service of green ideology or redistribution of income (both of which are misguided but understandable reactions against real problems caused by industrial capitalism), should not blind us to these truths. Who, the protesters seem to suggest we ask, would actually protest for capitalism? Given what man has sacrificed for his wealth, it would almost be a protest against Beauty.