Thanksgiving wasn't all that great (none of the extended family came over), but there is much I am belatedly thankful for. The Swiss have voted to ban the construction of minarets. The joyous news, as I read it in the New York Times this morning, took me by surprise- the prospects of victory had looked quite grim in the pre-referendum polling. I suppose that, as with gay "marriage" votes, some are simply too squeamish to give their real opinions to pollsters. Sadly, Rome was no help at all, with both the Swiss bishops and Vatican officials criticizing the vote. Gone are the days when the Church launched the crusades and promoted the Holy League to prevent the Muslim conquest of Europe. The defense of Christendom is indeed a thankless task. As the Conference of Swiss Bishops said, the ban "heightens the problems of cohabitation between religions". That is the point exactly. Apart from protecting their skyline from Islamic defacement is, the Swiss have sent a message that they won't allow Islamification without a fight. There is room for only one Faith in Europe (thankfully, Switzerland isn't in the EU; if it were a court would toss out this praiseworthy referendum in a second).

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Also of interest, just as I finished up Marmalade Boy, I was happy to discover that rarity of rarities, pro-life manga! A bit earlier, there was a nice appearance of the picturesque Oura Catholic Church in the protagonists' walk though Nagasaki. Manga characters frequently wear crosses, and even treat Christianity as a native religion in some circumstances; were it not for the obligatory attendance at Shinto temples around New Year's, they would be indistinguishable from genuine Christians. Despite their purely cultural interest in Christian iconography, I expect that, were the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty written by an assembly of non-believing manga-ka, it would have mentioned Europe's roots in the Faith.

East indeed. Weekends are my prime opportunity to read manga. Since a kind, kind friend gave our Pundit all eight volumes of Marmalade Boy a month ago, this week #5 was up (but I find the cover on #4 too amusing to pass up). Notwithstanding, I have as little good to say about the East Side (of the USA) as usual. The weekend is just half over, and I've already come into contact with enough anti-social poets and heathen WPI students to leave my mind feeling unclean (I will spare the details, but I swear, whenever those WPI kids board the bus to the mall, the mean IQ drops 20 points). For those interested in the real East Side and whatnot, I found this funny hand sign guide for y'all to enjoy. And, to my fellow Yankees, be happy you weren't raised in LA; just look at the illiterate Myspace I got the East Side from!

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As bad as poets and students might be, we did have a few fine student poets at an Assumption poetry event yesterday. I read "Sonnet CXXXI", but would have read the newer poem below were it not for the circumstances. Penned for one Miss Taylor Nunez, it's entitled

Sonnet CXXXIII~ the Tudor Cherryblossom

A wholesome girl arises from the ground.
Belonging so much that she stands apart,
I learned her character is in the art
Incorporated with her when I found
A Tudor cherryblossom or a rose
Or an azalea tattoo she put,
Like a convenient cinque'foil, on her foot.
It's visible whenever Taylor goes
To find a dance at night, or saunters through
The pale and early morning, so to eat,
Abloom below black tights that never meet,
Her ankles. My advice is that, should you
Encounter Taylor, try to get to know
Her well, so friendship flower's roots will grow.

Hers is the first tattoo I have seen that is an addition to rather than a mutilation of a woman's beauty (and probably the last, as I tried to argue her out of plans to submit to the needle in the future). Taylor was actually present to cover the event for the Provoc, but sadly her cherry blossom tattoo (which looks more like a Tudor rose) was obscured, so she could not indeed be my Exhibit A; apparently her leggings do sometimes "meet her ankles".

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For the first time, I think, I have a favorite painting. Yester evening, I was milling through the Kevin Alfred Strom Art Gallery, the site of the renowned white nationalist. His taste is impeccable, and my, some of the works simply make one's heart melt. Witness the sweetness of Morgan Weistling's "Emerald Dreams", left. Weistling, apparently, is a contemporary American artist who adores to paint rustic images of this sort, as well as some Christian images. His website is here. However, the favorite I spoke of is John Everett Millais's "Apple Blossoms", below. It rather reminds me of the Campus Ministry office, where Assumption's ladies of beauty and virtue are often gathered in wholesome company. If young women were like that, it would be my utopia. Not that men too haven't strayed from their proper occupations, manners of conversation, and dress, but I have a feeling we are more hopeless, so 50% will just have to cut it.



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Finally, as I was browsing the 2010 Senate races on Wikipedia, I was surprised to learn of Rand Paul's good fortunes. I knew one of Ron Paul's sons was planning to run for Senate in Kentucky, but I hadn't heard of how well his campaign's taken off. In the polls, he's caught up to the other Republican, and he's within a few points of potential Democrats for the November election; he can easily catch up in the meantime. The younger Dr. Paul, website here, is the real deal- proudly pro-life, wants out of the UN, and against the Iraq war ... yeah, remember that? Obama has been Nixonianly slow with his withdrawal.

This morning I picked up a copy of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, a respectable local newspaper of a centrist orientation. The above-the-fold article reports that Martha Coakley, the front runner for the Democratic primary ahead of the election to replace Senator Kennedy, would vote against the health care reform bill because the anti-abortion Stupak amendment passed. My my, Democrats are always trying to outdo themselves in devilishness, but this is ridiculous. Even the far-left Boston Globe thinks she's gone too far (naturally, the Globe treats abortion as an obligation recipients of government subsidized health care would be "forced" to pay for). The other three contenders for the nomination, despite their pro-choice position, would still have voted for the bill, so perhaps it would be worth the time of registered Democrats to vote for one of the either Capuano, Khazei, or Pagliuca as they see fit (I recommend Capuano- if he won there'd be an opening for a Republican challenger in his district). Neither of the Republican candidates- moderate Scott Brown and liberal Jack E. Robinson III- for the seat are stellar, but I suppose expecting there to be one pro-life candidate among the six is rather too much in the Bay State.

[UPDATE: Rep. Capuano performed a singularly royal flip-flop on the issue in just one day, so that leaves just two somewhat more pragmatic pro-choicers to choose from.]

However, my own representative, Richard Neal, deserves a shout out- he voted for the Stupak amendment (he even gets flowers in his picture). He deserves our thanks for that- Northampton's congressional district does not deserve a Democrat of his decency. Still, he's far from ideal, so imagine my pleasure when I learned that, after twelve years of running unopposed, he has not one, but two Republican challengers lined up for November 2010! Tom Wesley (right) is a Navy veteran, while Dr. Jay Fleitman (left) has a special place in my heart- like Our Pundit, he's a Republican from Northampton! His campaign has apparently been active since April, so he apparently missed me during the summer. But he has- brave, brave soul!- been campaigning in the streets of Gomorrah Northampton. The following passage and picture are taken from a July post on his blog chronicling these ventures; I reproduce them for their sheer charm:

The first foray into a public venue that is not already political, and the sidewalk sale in Northampton does just fine. A warm, sunny day, the sidewalks are full. It seemed like it would be a good idea to find out who is from my district, so I approached folks by asking if they were from Northampton or Hadley. It shouldn't have surprised my that 9 in 10 were not. There were a large percentage from Connecticut, and NY, with a smattering from Florida as well as a Hawaiian.

I expected to get assaulted by the locals, as Northampton is a very Democratic town, but only one of the natives absolutely refused to even look at a Republican. He needs a sense of humor...

Having one of their local physicians running for congress is clearly a curiosity.

He may not be Dr. Paul, but he may yet prove to be just the prescription for the Springfield district's woes. Their issues pages aren't much different, but Mr. Wesley is reputed to be more conservative by the bloggers I've surveyed, while Fleitman is more a one issue (health care) man. Naturally, neither of them is bragging about their pro-life or pro-family credentials, if they have any. Otherwise, Dr. Fleitman seems to be Jewish, whilst Wesley makes note of his involvement in the West Avon Congregational Church. It's nice that he's a Christian (Rep. Neal is Catholic), but in Northampton the Congregational Church is best known for abetting the heathens, colluding with the atheist Left, and making obnoxiously un-patriotic displays around Independence Day. But he doesn't seem to be of that mold (maybe in West Avon Congregationalists are still Christians)- might he be, rather, the next Calvin Coolidge? That exemplar of all that was best in the New England Protestant spirit would be ashamed of the UCC today. May Wesley impress the schismatics of the commonwealth with his fine example.

One sonnet is never enough. Some months ago my friend Christina Graziano, an SGA executive and the recipient of "Sonnet XC", politely requested another poem. I protested- What if all the ladies demanded additional poetry? There'd be no end to it!- but since she'd become an exec in the meantime, it did fit with my tradition of writing sonnets for all the female execs. But for months and months not one inspiration came to me, until last night when I went to the lounge to do my homework. Christina and I are in the same Dante's Comedy class, and I realized that, reading at the rate of one canto a day, Friday the 6th is the day Dante enters Paradise: the perfect occasion for a sonnet. It describes a sweethearted habit of staring-unto-smiling we've developed:

Sonnet CXXXII - ~'s Comedy

I leave my Hell and Purgatory in
The Comedy; my heaven walks with me
To Charlie's. As she starts typing, we
Discuss our classes. Often, I begin
To stare. Christina answers me. Although
Her eyes of cocoa liquor, bright but flat
Will hardly shift, I start to notice that
She's trying to manipulate me so
That I will smile. Dante cannot hold
His breath for long when wise Matilda dips
Him in the Lethé; neither can our lips
Refrain from looking quite the same. I fold
My arms around her smaller body, say
Some things to make my gentile lady's day.

Professor explained that by comedy, Dante meant being brought from a bad situation to a good, the opposite of tragedy. Hence the title.

All I can say, folks, is YES!1!1! 53/47 again, baby! Had you asked me the day before, I never would've guessed Maine had it in herb to stand up to the gay "marriage" mob. A friend with whom I was sharing the good news this morning was wearing a black-and-white striped shirt; as I told him, it would've been more appropriate attire had we lost. Unlike Bay Staters, Mainers needn't worry about getting fired for their belief in marriage according to nature. This is as close as traditional marriage can get to a positive victory; as the northernmost state of New England, I expected, and have a feeling most others did too, that once Maine went to the heathens we weren't getting it back. But Fortress New England has been stormed, and Question 1 has earned its place alongside Proposition 8. I suppose something of the Christian knight remains in the New England minuteman yet.

And if that isn't good enough, the Republicans swept the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. The governor-elect of Virginia, Robert F. McConnell, is a good Catholic who really excites me. Apparently, in his younger years, he resembled yours truly. As you may read in the linked article (keep in mind it's in AP idiom),

At age 34, he wrote a 93-page thesis for his graduate degree that called working women a detriment to society and argued that government was justified in discriminating against gays and unmarried "cohabitators" to shield traditional families.

Naturally, he went on to say his views have changed. My hope-against-hope is that they haven't. Either way, good for him. Meanwhile Christopher J. Christie, a less socially conservative Catholic, won in New Jersey, which really surprised me. While I wish he were more pro-life, I consider him the political equivalent of a Christmas and Easter Catholic, since he's promised to at least veto any gay marriage bills, and is a huge supporter of parochial schooling. However much traditionalists may rightly criticize Christie, and however watered down Catholic schooling has become, keeping more kids out of public schooling could save hundreds, even thousands of souls over the years when you think about it.

On the subject of oversized politicians, things didn't turn out so well in Northampton. How, how did Mary Clare Higgins win a sixth term!! She's been mayor since I was in elementary school, and as I said a few posts ago, she came in second in the primary, but no such luck in the general election. And yes, the Conservative lost in New York's 23rd district, but you can't win 'em all.

Giddy as I am, I am celebrating by sporting my Republican National Committee pin for the day. When I stopped by the Campus Ministry office, a friend and I jacked up some Frank Sinatra- I'm talking "New York, New York". Quite a nice contrast to last year, when Mozart's "Requiem" was more appropriate fare.

[Ah, gotta love it when stars SMOKE!!]