The Young and Once Good Pundit

2009-11-06T22:02:00.004-05:00

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 - Leslie'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.

Our professor explained that by comedy, Dante meant his protagonist went from a bad situation to a good one, and hence the piece's title.

2009-11-04T12:15:00.002-05:00

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!!]

2009-10-31T16:57:00.002-04:00

A Happy Halloween to all! I have often thought on what a unique holiday Halloween is: in modern times, it is the only day of the year a person may arrive at a stranger's door and expect hospitality- what would the ancient Greeks think? Consider it fortunate that confectioners took charge of Halloween festivities instead of Mattel. Our Pundit, in case you should wonder, dressed up for the occasion on Thursday (Taylor Dining Hall had their festivities early). Donning a scary skull mask, I bore a tray I found in a lounge (it's mine!) and taped a paper reading: "Bring trays back... from the DEAD" on the front. A hit, as expected.

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

Though I've been a bit down since the hate crimes bill, the news from New York's 23rd congressional district has me excited. Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman is in a dead heat with the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens. A third party candidate actually has a chance of winning against a liberal Democrat and a liberal Republican! Even should he lose, it will teach the New York Republican party to avoid liberals if they don't want to end up in 3rd place. And Republicans are in place to pick up the governorship of Virginia, and there's another tie in New Jersey. Dare I hope that, for the first time since 2004, it will actually be a Republican year? Naturally, I don't have any Republicans to vote for in Northampton. Sigh.

2009-10-20T21:04:00.002-04:00

Too much Ralph Waldo Emerson can be a good thing. Last night I was trying to finish his "Nature" (1836) essay, but wanted to turn in for the night instead. Emerson is not a difficult writer- his writing is colorful and imagerial, though at the cost of consistency, which he openly spurns and disregards- but he grew redundant fast. Bored, though not beyond my wits I hope, I wrote a poem as an intellectual compromise between monotony and sleep.

Sonnet CXXXI

The light, the shine, the residue of God
Peeks out at me as I'm returning to
The dorm. I have a lot of work to do,
But I look up, and almost see Him nod
Me on my way. I want to touch Him, like
The shiny dimes in public fountains that
Are tempting when my wallet's feeling flat,
But lo and, halfway on my homeward hike,
His hand is messing up my hair, like rain.
The sky is covered, but I follow whim
And linger, so to spend some time with Him.
Though coming out to walk must be a pain,
His seeing stars and moon are gonna try
Since God (I know Him) isn't very shy.

Beauty in Nature is elusive when we hunt it out, saith Emerson, but I'm usually able to experience it just as well on my planned excursions and outings. Hence the sonnet, with all of the inspiration and none of the pantheism.

2009-10-13T01:44:00.003-04:00

Work, work, work. I would have blogged sooner had I the time- for once my deficit was of time only and not of ideas- but the last two weeks were piled ceiling high, since I now need to read augment the normal work for my six classes with research for my Honors Thesis, the preliminary to my Honors Capstone project. The first draft of the thesis proposal is due in less than three weeks. My subject is to be man under democracy according to de Tocqueville and Nietzsche. Many and interesting are the reflections I have had on the two, especially de Tocqueville, whose attempts to legitimize modern democracy for the faithful, and his belief that religion and piety can be relied upon to moderate modern egalitarianism in the long run, leave much to be desired (looks pretty suave though; Nietzsche not so much). Nietzsche, a half century later, got it right in Twilight of the Idols when, in a "whisper to conservatives", he explains that [within the dialectics of a modern democracy] man cannot be stopped where he is, but- one can almost hear his voice turn from snickering to gentle sympathy- is doomed to become weaker and weaker, to devolve unto the last man. Elsewhere, he contends that Darwin misunderstood evolution- it is the weaker and more numerous members of the species, not the superior few, who prevail. Though Nietzsche's vision is much more hostile to the Faith than de Tocqueville's, those of Catholic sensibilities are unlikely to find Nietzsche's condemnations of "pity" as he finds it in the Christian religion damning. De Tocqueville, however, offers what I see as a false remedy to the degradations democracy affects on the human spirit, a problem Nietzsche addresses with the utmost zeal. Though he was, as one of his works is entitled, an Antichrist, his wisdom is the refutation of the divers Antichrists of our own day (John Rawls, Fareed Zakaria, I could go on and on...)

Okay, maybe I've had some free time. But I tell you, if I couldn't keep up with Ryoma Echizen, The Prince of Tennis, and the rest of the Seigaku Tennis Club as they try to become prefectural champs, my life would simply be over. Yes, anime has managed to get me, that most un-sportive of men, into a tennis show! On a more typical note, I've also gotten into Rosario + Vampire. The series is, by way of understatement, risque, so there are few excuses to promote it on a Catholic blog. Excepting that one of the protagonists, Akashiya Moka, is a vampire whose powers are hidden unless the cross on the "rosario" on her chest is removed by her friend Aono Tsukune, the main character. Not much like an actual rosary, but I find these vacuous usages of popish things, especially when they involve a cute and innocent damsel like Moka, irresistible.

One final thing. Today I was reading through the Hobbes chapter of Pierre Manent's An Intellectual History of Liberalism. Hobbes being so evil, I desired to make light of his thoughts with some humor. Then I thought back to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which I read just before the semester began. Pondered I, wouldn't it be cool if instead of the Leviathan ruling,

The Cheshire Cat was LARGE and IN CHARGE!!!

2009-10-01T19:57:00.007-04:00

Some things are to funny for words. Sadly, save the ever-helpful Google Image Search, words are all I have. Yesterday Assumption College held a colloquium to remember Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the first anniversary of his death. Ignat Solzhenitsyn, his son and a renowned musician in his own right, was a special guest (we've got connections. The other week I found an autographed copy of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind-great book- in the library). However, nearly everyone at the college has a cold, and I was very far from the exception. Tissueless, throat sore, nose running, I could barely pay attention to a lecture on The Red Wheel. And I didn't want to be rude by wiping my nose or sniffling. SO... fate had it that I had a dozen fortune cookies in my pockets from Taylor Dining Hall (to replace vending machine snacks for my late night studying). I figured, correctly, that eating would soothe my throat and alleviate the on symptoms, so I began discreetly chowing down. Or so I hoped. In the front row, I couldn't help but be heard, and in a while a professor gave me a genuine Poke of Death on the shoulder, so I stopped. The next day I brought up the incident while talking with a professor of mine who'd been on the colloquium panel. "Yeah," he replied, "Ignat told me, 'There was this one guy in front who just ate fortune cookie after fortune cookie the whole time.'" How embarrassing! I fear he would recall, "Oh, you're the guy who ate all the fortune cookies!" should our paths ever cross again, so it's a good thing I'm not a piano aficionado.

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

Meanwhile Leisure, the Basis of Culture has inspired another delightful sonnet. A girl in my class has a name which reminds me of a bad old 1960s song, so I jokingly proposed she change it to Maybell, so she could say Maybelline was named for her and that, as Justin Timberlake says in "Damn Girl," she

Don't need no Maybelline,
Cause you a beauty queen.

I have always loathed makeup after all. Women: save the money and save the freckles. Back to the point. Inaugurating such a fine new name demands a festival. In part V of the lecture eponymous with the book, Josef Pieper notes that, without grounding in religious cult, which takes root in leisure and time spared from servile work, celebrations are always artificial rather than organic. Though Pieper bemoans the phony celebrations so rampant in our the modern world, I decided to organize an artificial event myself.

Sonnet CXXVIII

The maybells rang, songs singing from the lips
As breezes swashed the strands from every bough
To other, slumping inbetween, like how
The ribbons hang at auto dealerships.
A maypole, hoisted like a fasces, bound
Atop with ribbons on an iron hook,
Is slidden to the ground. The pagans look
For explanation, none is to be found.
They reveled still, and round the maypole ran,
So consecrating that October 1,
A day within the year that wasn't worst
For artificial feasting as began
To bring the maybells out of moths, as due,
And holiday for them— I mean, for you!

A little pre-Christian, but it sounds a lot more fun than Presidents' Day. I have, come to think of it, concocted a lot of cool ideas regarding the proper appropriation of less-than-popish culture. Recently I saw a well-cut, hilarious video of Lou Bega's "Mambo #5," the quintessential 90s song, set to the anime Love Hina. Back in 5th grade (ahh, the Elder Days!!), the school bused kids to the bowling alley to play two games each Friday. The second game was Disco Bowl, and aside from "YMCA" and Backstreet Boys hits, "Mambo #5" was a staple, assuring the melody personal legend status. Lately it occurred to me, "Hey! 'Mambo #5' is King Solomon Catholicism!" Should I become SGA President next year, I'll have to blast the Bega classic from my cubicle as often as possible.

2009-09-29T15:21:00.002-04:00

Last week, we were arguing about the nature of experiences of the intellectus, or in layman's terms those timess when we feel a connection with the Beyond, such as we may receive when watching a sunrise or looking into the night sky (or my favorite, patrolling the parking lot of a mall!). The discussion soon darted to an important consideration: are these experiences the highest point of human life? One among us objected that man is a social animal, and hence it cannot be so since these are individual experiences. I posited that the best of these experiences is communion with God in the Eucharist, and mention was made of lovers gazing into each-other's eyes, an example from Leisure, the Basis of Culture, the book we were discussing. Still, we did not reach a satisfactory conclusion. Two days ago, though, the objection was set aside forevermore: I had one of those experiences as I listened to another's words.

Some individuals are saints. Some people are such saints that they walk the world like immutable suns. During the usual late night in the lounge (2 AM), I heard out one such soul. A self-described go-to person, she has saved lives by hearing stories and, like a priest bound by the seal of confession, securing them unconditionally. A consolation in dire moments, great-souled for her boundless compassion, she professes the helping of others- unto the saving of the world even, and I believe her- as her vocation. And almost one of necessity. As she said it, she lives with a severe insomnia and a tendency toward immoderate lengths of sleep- the only time she ever got to sleep as long as she wanted and wake up naturally, she slept 18 hours! For that reason, she invariably remains awake late into the night, awakening after only the briefest rest. Understandably the condition frustrates her, but as I pointed out, if she weren't up so late, she couldn't be the go-to girl. Ergo, the condition points to the authenticity of her vocation. Only in death will she be a beauty who has (having heard those in need out unto her last breath) fallen asleep, as we Christians say it.

Inspired, I wrote her a sonnet, which she simply adored. The title is a play on her name and a variation of a joke I made off of it: "You're pretty in lieu of... getting any sleep!"

Sonnet CXXVII- Bellelieu

Her soul is pretty in the lieu of sleep.
A two s'd Ulysses, she hears sweet songs,
Enticing stories of dramatic wrongs.
No hours close her eyes, no ropes can keep
Her from the sides of those who have a thing
To say, or still her lust to do the good.
The tempest sprays on every side, and would
Subsume her, and some others, were the swing
Of captainacy missing at the wheel.
Told everything, and trusted not to tell,
The secrets given this artesian well,
In time, are pacified by Jesus' heal.
His Blood absolves them, readying the balm,
That she may slumber, ocean dead, and calm.

She especially enjoyed the presence of Jesus, which I thought a stock reference, since she was working on a Bible paper! Moral of the story: if you are trustworthy to man, God will trust you with His goods as well.

2009-09-17T20:33:00.013-04:00

In sad news, I learn that Taro Aso, formerly admired on this blog, is no longer the Prime Minister of Japan. I know little very little about his successor, Yukio Hatoyama, save that he's a member of the center-left Democratic Party, may not be so easygoing as his Liberal Democratic Party predecessor was. At least, according to Wikipedia, he comes from a family engaged in politics since the Meiji Era; ironically, his grandfather was a co-founder and the first PM of the LDP his party just threw out of power. Alas, the Catholic light of the East, everyone's favorite manga otaku, passes into political history. May he be sweetly remembered in the histories yet to be written! Shown below is one of a dozen gorgeous photos I found of him in an audience with our beloved Supreme Pontiff.

A few other interesting bits of data. The new Newman Guide is out. Once again, Assumption College hasn't made the list, but this place has only gotten better since I arrived in the late summer of 2007 (coincidence?), so maybe by senior year the Newman Guide pride will finally be ours. At least, unlike our rival Holy Cross, we are a Catholic and not a "Catholic" college.

Back in Paradise City, much has happened during the short time I've been away. In the mayoral primary, Northampton's longtime mayor, who shares my last name, came in a far second after city councillor and challenger Michael Bardsley. A change-up will be refreshing- our lackluster Mary Clare Higgins has been in office since I was still in elementary school- though I expect rather little from Bardsley should he go on to victory in November. Much more distressingly, though rather old news by now, three of Northampton's five parishes are to be closed, and one of the remaining is to be degraded to a chapel of my own St. Mary of the Assumption, the only one to be left intact. I knew our pagan city of lukewarm faith could not cling to all five forever, the heroic efforts of devoted church ladies and gents notwithstanding. But five to one in a clean sweep is awful! Gone will be the historic French and Polish parishes, their stained glass inscriptions a testament to the faith of the immigrants who built them. Ah, but for the days (basically until the post-Vatican II reforms from what I gather) when St. Mary's alone was so overflowing that a second Mass needed to be held in the parish hall below to squeeze in the overflow crowd. Back then St. Mary's had five priests all to herself, and Northampton had a Catholic high school; many of the pious elderly I mentioned above fondly remember graduating from St. Michael's School, whose attractive building still exists, in the late 1950s. What Northampton might have been, had it been taken over by Roman Catholics rather than lesbians and Castro sympathizers!

Finally, I can't resist posting the following image, an example of Platonism in manga! I showed it to one of my professors, and he thought it was neat too.

Hmm, MangaFox stole back the image, so just go here :

http://img03.dc.us.mangafox.com/store/manga/1194/05-026.0/compressed/0045.jpg

2009-09-16T22:18:00.004-04:00

Though the Great Tray Revolt failed to materialize (we did not seize the day as we might have- though a good article by a pro-tray SGA colleague should be out as of today), the Student Government Association is off to a very good start this year. Besides that my committee, Policy Review, is forging ahead with its initiatives at an impressive pace, the element of whimsy, rare but necessary to every truly happy and harmonious body politic, is not absent. Most notably, we have arranged for a dancing-procession into Taylor Dining Hall tomorrow, based on a popular You Tube video, to encourage freshmen to run for SGA. Rich existence verily, though I loathe the idea of the original. As I tried to explain to the organizer of the event why pop music, no matter how fun and proper to one's frivolous moments, has no place in the celebration of sublime and sacred matrimony, I came up with an aphorism which expressed the general principle at hand:

The lights are good, except when they obscure the stars.

Restoring the holy to itself is a labor and a full time job; hoisting the worldly to the level and the improving light of the heavens is a still harder task still. Aside from the writing of a few poems which I do not feel like posting, I have been keeping at it by virtue of those constant insights which impregnate existence with meaning, and more still laughter. For the most part, these arrive in my mind as fanciful ideas or associations. Two of the best (since I
am not in the mood to reflect on today's lecture on John Rawls, and I fear the political science and philosophy I am engaged with are somewhat above the rabble) are:

The Society of Future Church Ladies: Aware of the "need" for a female counterpart to the Pickwick Club in the realm of ideas, and inspired by the piety of several young women on campus, I "founded" the society for a few lady friends who, I reasoned, are the future of that breed of church ladies who are the backbone of every parish. [Though probably older, whoever this example of femininity is she fits the bill quite nicely. One of the "members" resembles, maybe more in manners than in appearance, Rozen Maiden's Suiseiseki, above.] They were rather fond of the idea when I informed them of their membership (all that's required is being seen at daily Mass, by me, at least once, and being of course a Catholic in good standing). However, besides the activities they could organize in a Catholic community with a Dickensian imagination- frequent homely crafts events, young womens' book clubs, and dance-offs upon the sending-off or returning of the Pickwick (or dare I dream Higgins) Club from its adventuring, which in a Catholic context would include advertising for traditional Catholicism and promotion of the home community- they haven't much to do right now. Obsessed as I am with it, a few days ago I "presented" their honorary leader with their official theme song- what else- Ali Project's "Seishoujo Ryouiki", or "Domain of the Holy Girl", though the lyrics are perhaps not a discourse on Christian holiness.

Back to Taylor Dining Hall. I am sure Taylor made an important contribution to Assumption College, the facility is due for a timely rename. I was thinking: in light of Socrates' proposed alternative "punishment" to drinking hemlock- getting free meals for life in the Prytaneum- we should rechristen Taylor the Prytaneum, since, like students basically get fed for free by their parents as a reward for pursuing the life of the mind. At right is not the (old) Prytaneum, but what Wikipedia says was the site of Plato's Academy. I'm glad AC's classrooms aren't so cramped. Not as impressive as the School of Athens, but just as satisfying.

2009-09-08T21:17:00.002-04:00

At last I have a few minutes to write... something, that it may be known, especially by my parents, that I live still. This semester is busy beyond belief; the weekend waits before me like a mirage,

during which time, I can only hope, there will be time for those precious comics which read right to left (oh, can't wait to read Rozen Maiden volume 6!). I am, I find, such a jovial and laughloving person that, to fully savor my classes, I must always preserve a delightful moment or two from an anime or a good joke or anecdote in the back of my head to prevent boredom. Last semester it worked marvelously- may this year prove the same!

Not to say my courses were absent amusing moments in their own rights. Of all places, my Biomedical Ethics class has been witness to some big laughs of late. And we are discussing arguments on abortion! Somehow, extraterrestrials keep finding their way into our conundrums on the worth or expendability of children in the womb. Writes one supporter of legal abortion:

In searching for such criteria [for the definition of personhood or what makes one morally human], it is useful to look beyond the set of people with whom we are acquainted, and ask how we would decide whether a totally alien being was a person or not. (For we have no right to assume that genetic humanity is necessary to personhood). Imagine a space traveller who lands on an unknown planet and encounters a race of beings utterly unlike any he has ever seen or heard of. If he wants to behave morally toward these beings, he has to somehow decide whether they are people, and hence have full moral rights, or whether they are the sorts of things which he need not feel guilty about treating as, for example, a source of food.

She goes on to concoct arbitrary criteria to determine whether an individual is morally human. Yes, there would be something wrong about killing other intelligent life (though still not so wrong as killing members of one's own species, whom we must naturally give first priority). However, the writer later "highly advanced, self-aware robots or computers, should such be developed [God forbid]" to her list of the morally human, and I would never accept them. The pure artifice of man or a hypothetical other intelligent race can never rival the works of our Creator has made. Sorry IG-88.

As I noted in class, the introduction of aliens into the argument when we don't even know that other intelligent life exists tends to reduce the sense of humanity's sacredness as a species and his special place in creation. Furthermore, she does not even consider that, supposing there were another race she would consider persons, that fact does not immediately devalue human or alien fetuses. Since writers who like this type of argument always come up with their own criteria for personhood, virtually all of which would exclude those in comas or even the sleeping from the college of persons, if we abstracted from the immediate issue of the morality of abortion, the logical conclusion would not be a clean division into persons and non-persons, but a graduated scale of moral worth. There would be some we could kill in good conscience, some we need merely not kill, and some (ethicists chief among them) so important they'd deserve their own body guards or security detail. If either we or ET desire a sensible standard for the "morally human" (hate that phrase) without loopholes, the best option remains "from conception to natural death".

2009-08-29T14:30:00.003-04:00

Since it is Saturday and there are yet no buses to the Blackstone Valley Shoppes there is little to do, so in my boredom I began Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a text for the upcoming semester. I rather like it (maybe I have finally grown used to 18th Century texts), but now need a break.

I might attempt to recount the many happenings of the last week of student leader training, but even the most cursory account would span too great a space to make for pleasurable reading. Suffice it to say: SGA training was productive, and helped us develop our agendas for the just-opened session of the student government more fully. This year's camping experience, at Connecticut's Camp Woodstock, though burdened with a few politically correct games, and too many exercises purportedly teaching us a sort of teamwork we could better master by getting a head start on the year's bills, was buttressed by enough BB gunnery, archery, swimming, comraderie, and midnight tomfoolery (pranking) to make the two days and a night well worth the 40 grand price tag. Nonetheless the whole silly sojourn does make a person realize that, however easy pessimism is, the well over 200 students who embark on the trip are all just as seriously concerned for the good of Assumption College and her student body as this Pundit, and one is reminded of the good element in human nature they exemplify- rather like the scene in the Apology where Socrates was astounded that so many of the jurors had voted for his innocence.

Meanwhile, sonnets were distributed, and sonnets were requested in turn. To my great and total surprise, one recipient, Miss Laura Hall, our Senate Speaker in SGA, became Miss Vermont over the summer (in the traditional Miss America competition, not to be confused with Donald Trump's Miss USA). Ah, how pretty she is, and how proud we are of her! Supposedly I would have found it out sooner if I had Face Book, BUT, since I knew it not as I wrote her poem, I can now say I was one of her groupies before she became Miss Vermont (and long before she does, we all hope, become Miss America in January). Here is her admiring poem, crowning her just as she also received her tiara as the preeminent Green Mountain girl, which she rather enjoyed and desired published as below:

Sonnet CXXII- A Fluff and Bubbles Queen

It came to me one night: Miss Laura Hall,
Our Speaker, is a Fluff and Bubbles Queen.
You're asking what exactly does that mean.
Well when I wrote it, I knew not at all,
But when I put these sentences to ink
The meaning of my intuition cleared,
And as it dried I closer closer neared.
The meanings in the titles are, I think:
-That Laura likes her conversation plush.
Her words are rarely tough, like salted meat,
A malleable fluff, or something sweet.
-A good director'd place her, all ablush,
At bath, relaxing, bubbles over breast,
Because, when happy she will smile best.

And, you see, I can't remember her ever being unhappy. I, too, have continued living the good life of late, and look forward to the beginning of classes on Monday the 31st.

2009-08-21T11:03:00.004-04:00

Today, after an about perfectly-lived summer, I return to Assumption College for SGA training. Please expect no new blog posts for a week and a few days, or for comments to be posted within that time. Though I am apprehensive about my demanding course schedule, generally I am quite happy about the whole affair. Plus, I am bringing along a nice new volume of manga- Neon Genesis Evangelion 1- to read inbetween SGA activities. Indeed, after the academic year begins, I may be in the mood to speak of something else for once!

2009-08-18T18:41:00.005-04:00

Anime can sometimes sidetrack a person. Yesterday, in George B. Sansom's A History of Japan to 1334, which I have almost finished, I read that Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun, appointed constables to keep order in the provinces. Parenthetically, he noted that the original word for the officers is shugo. Instantly I lapsed into a daydream, thinking of how nice it was of Yoritomo to dispatch cute little shugo charas to provinces near and remote. Shugo charas, or guardian characters, figure prominently in the excellent Peach-Pit anime Shugo Chara!, of which I cannot get enough. Luckily I still have time for reading, however difficult it remains to pay attention.

Aside from my serious readings and delightful animes, little time is left for much else. Our Lady's Feast of the Assumption has already transpired and been duly celebrated, but, whether due to a deficit of time or of good ideas, I didn't finish my celebratory sonnet until yesterday:

Sonnet CXXIII- Mary's Assumption

A Woman perished out of charity,
Her body healthy, free of sin, with grace,
Perfections hidden by a boastless face.
The wide, magnificent disparity
Between the homely, hearthly goodness of
That Mother, sewer, psalmist for her Son,
And fallen man, who does do good, but none
So humbly as this Lady in her love,
Became apparent only after life.
She left for Heaven's houses, where she could
Rejoin her Child, Jesus. Though she would
Have merited a passage that was safe
And deathless, always following His ways,
She had Him leave her body three more days.

The songwriting details are from The Mystical City of God. In Sr. Mary Agreda's account the Mother of the Church composed and sang so many original pieces for the glory of God that I determined, if she had lived her earthly life in more recent times, her biographers would've put her career as composer/ songwriter in addition to stay-at-home mom. Of her death, Agreda was told that Mary perished instantly when the Lord ceased to supernaturally preserve her from dying on account of love. Given that normal human beings can get strokes after a shock or surprise which overwhelms their capacity, the explanation is not at all outlandish. Afterwards, the traditions say, she rose bodily in much the same manner as Christ.

And now, back to anime. Verily, except for The Journey Home on EWTN, Red Eye late, late night on Fox News, and often some network news throughout the day, I really don't watch TV. I would almost certainly nix the TV altogether if it wasn't a necessity to other Higginses. Indeed, my newest slogan is:

Kill Your TV...

Anime is Online!!!

2009-08-12T22:44:00.007-04:00

Rushing as I am (if sluggishly) to finish my summer reading before the return to college, I should take a few moments to note the virtues in The Way of Divine Love, a life and account of the private revelations given to Sister Josefa Menéndez (1890-1923), a Spanish-born nun who resided in France while living her vocation. From a literary standpoint, I confess, the book is one of the most redundant I have ever read- the apparitions and interactions Josefa was so blessed to receive were, apart from the message to the world, meant more as everyday reminders than material of hagiography. The repetition does, for those who persevere in the read, more chances for the saving message to sink in. Near the end of her life on earth, Jesus said, as part of a refresher he gave her before she was to report the message to the bishop:

Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome. Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just.

This is what I wish all to know. I will teach sinners that the mercy of My Heart is inexhaustible. Let the callous and indifferent know that My Heart is a fire which will enkindle them, because I love them. To devout and saintly souls I would be the Way, that making great strides in perfection, they may safely reach the harbour of eternal beatitude.

Bear with me now. While, of course, Our Lord's message of Divine Mercy and His love for us is fully communicated in the gospels, the above is a favorite of mine in the book, striking powerfully in my heart. Private revelations, as it is often said, are not necessary in themselves, but they serve as reminders in forgetting ages.

A person might imagine, though, that God's mercy and love for us, so comforting (and perhaps "affirming" in the modern's lexicon), would be easily remembered, and that reminders chiefly concerned with the need for moral reformation and penitence, or else (La Salette, Fatima) are most needed in an age which holds itself in too great esteem. Though I have seen that this is not the case, the reality still astounds me. I recently took a rather broad course which basically surveyed the universal catechism. When we were discussing the sacrament of Penance, how I was amazed when not one but several kids, raised Catholic for the most part, believed mortal are called mortal because they cannot be forgiven. Luckily, our professor frantically but most ably set straight their misconceptions, no fault of their own. For non-Catholics out of the loop, mortal are so called because 1. they are of grave matter, 2. fully willed, and 3. done by one conscious of their evil; they alienate man from God (but not His overtures), and can lead to damnation if not forgiven. Enough has been said of the unarguable worthlessness of CCD already, so I need say nothing myself. Rather, what to do?

In modern times, it seems especially hard to render believable the idea that the Creator of the Universe so loves us, that he would sacrifice His Son for our eternal happiness, and forgive, over and over and over again, our sins and indifferences against Him. Bewildered by the idea that God the First Cause really loves to His death a seemingly insignificant race inhabiting just one planet in all the expanse of space, we forget that He, who made us in His image, also sees in perspective. The geocentric model, though scientifically mistaken, is a truer map of the heart, both human and divine, than a proportional map placing the solar system and Milky Way in their astronomical niches. Observe:

How, still, to communicate this to make it understandable? As I said, we are fortunate to have all the resources needed in the gospel, so all that must be done is a little explication. The Parable of the Lost Coin would be especially helpful here. Usually overshadowed by the Parable of the Lost Sheep, remember, the old widow finds a lost coin, and is so excited, she invites over the neighbors to celebrate. A priest-professor had fun pointing out the absurdity in an Early Church course I once took. Sometimes the only way to communicate God's love is by a nonsensical anecdote. To put it in terms of Assumption College terms, that would be like finding a quarter in the sofa, and throwing a kegger for all your friends to celebrate. Verily, this is perhaps the easiest of Jesus parables to render intelligible to Assumption College spirituality ^

2009-08-07T17:59:00.004-04:00

Foiled again, I said to myself as I read Product of Japan on the back of the box of Pocky I had purchased. Manga, like most books, is generally printed domestically, allowing one to feel good about their buy as they peruse foreign literature. However, after seeing the Rozen Maidens crunch down some Pocky in the eponymous manga, I needed a pack of my own. At the time, though, it never occurred to me that I might needlessly be buying a foreign product when an equivalent American snack would be cheaper. It was, though, delicious, but made me wonder how the Japanese are so healthy. The stuff is sold by the vending machine, and has to be the most unhealthy snack I have ever seen. There are two servings per little box, each under two ounces, and each has about a quarter of the daily value of saturated fat. Ironically, the logo of Glico, the manufacturer, says "A WHOLESOME LIFE IN THE BEST OF TASTE". How innocent; the packaging design looks like something from the 1950s or early 1960s.

After that, I was determined not to bungle the next opportunity at supporting this Nation's pallid manufacturing body. It was a sad parting, but for the first time since elementary school I selected a new pair of shoes that aren't Chuck Taylors. Though Converse All Stars have the classic style I have come to expect from Chinese sweat shops, I opted for a pair of New Balance 993s. Hailing from one of their five New England factories, I decided upon black since it tends to negate their flashiness.

2009-07-29T18:36:00.003-04:00

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).

2009-07-25T19:50:00.003-04:00

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.)

2009-07-18T00:12:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-07-10T19:41:00.003-04:00

[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!!!

2009-07-03T12:30:00.007-04:00

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.

2009-06-27T22:22:00.005-04:00

Although school's out, I have not been free from worries about college. Specifically, how to best make use of one's academic abilities to work toward an actual career. Admitting career concerns to academic decisions has always irked me, though. To be sure, I have an interest in fetching a respectable job- then I could finally give big checks to the good guys whenever election season rolls around- but my material ambitions have never been too great. Armed to the crooked teeth with the philosophy necessary to live the good life, acquired political texts only I could find engrossing, a small but growing collection of mangas, and a few soda pops courtesy of the parents, I have need of little more. And the best men to emulate were happy with equally little. Socrates, remember, could barely afford to offer a one mina fine as an alternative punishment to execution. And Our Lord and Savior lived in His Mother's basement for thirty years.

While I have chosen to develop my talents- I expect I would've done so even without my parents' encouragement, but as for filling out all the loan info without Mom's help, that's another story- there remains an undue amount of pressure on high school graduates to shoot for a high-earning job, any high-earning job, even if they couldn't care less about it or the incumbent higher education. In true Lockean spirit, the greatest sin is no longer to put one's talents to ill use, but to leave them idle (Locke, in his Second Treatise, goes on and on about how developed land is ten, and later a hundred times more productive than undeveloped land. This reasoning, which leaves aesthetics and any intrinsic worth to nature aside, was often used to justify the white occupation of Indian lands, which had not been so optimally appropriated by their former owners). While there truly are goods forfeited when a person doesn't aim as "high" as they could given their abilities, we tend to forget the alternative goods to be had when an intelligent, able, moral, logical person takes on a career of a lower order, which they love and in which their good influence will be experienced by others. A job, after all, is like a vocation: choosing the right one is not a science; a lot of it is simply the choice to which a person can give their happiest volition. A dear friend of mine from high school, for instance, chose to work at a local restaurant for at least a few years before doing anything else; now she brightens my day whenever I drop by, a rose in just the right vase. For her and all the other underachieving non-careerists out there, I have penned

Sonnet CXXI

I am entrusted with a flame, by God,
To lighten the consented wont my feet
Are swinging toward to make my times complete.
He gave autonomy His honest nod,
But prods- the talents, small things handled well-
So I might liberally feed the flame,
That it should glow the fiercer, till the same
Lights everyone their way, a helpful Hell.
The compromise will have to be a pale
Rendition of the possible, to send
My feet to any happy, chosen end.
All those, the fewer, who will find my trail,
Encounter truer hopes for they who might
Be navigating with a lesser light.

If I were to give it a title, it would probably be "A Defense of Willful Mediocrity," but that would be too jovial for the tone, minus line 8. I should disclaim that I do not believe such "mediocrity" really requires a "compromise" of God's desires, but nonetheless living well a lesser life is a concept counterintuitive enough to be considered an "unorthodox" way of following the message of the Parable of the Talents. One must always do their best, never letting the Lord's blessings languish wastefully, but on the other hand God can hardly desire these talents be used in making our lives little Hells unto ourselves.

2009-06-26T19:13:00.002-04:00

The Ultimate Irony. Last night a mouse somehow infiltrated our home, and scurried into a closet. When we heard Mom's scream, the rest of us put off watching Rocky and prepared to clobber the rodent if it tried to escape as we cleaned the closet out. The task almost complete, but still no sign of him, we came to an old brown bag containing the implements of my dad's childhood Mouse Trap game. "That would've come in handy," I said to a few chuckles, but no sooner had they laughed than my mother shrieked again. The mouse had climbed into the bag of its ow free will, thereby allowing us to trap it in a larger bag and free it outside. The game has been missing several pieces for as long as I've been alive, so I was quite happy to learn that it nonetheless still worked.

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

In other news, it appears that that sweetest of victories is again coming under assault. The enraged self-pitying hedonists of San Francisco just can't let this one go, albeit this time they have the support of a former member of the Bush administration. Their futile fury, which could have been used almost anywhere else to greater ill effect, brings me the highest joy.

2009-06-22T20:35:00.004-04:00

For the longest time I could not think up a sonnet for my friend Jen Gonet. Though we hung out almost daily in the SGA office last school year, I never had an ounce of inspiration. And since I've made it my policy to write at least one poem for each (lady) exec, I owed her one. Then just a few days ago, a memory of a picture on her office computer, of her three dogs in St. Patrick's getup, inspired the below. Unfortunately here it's a bit garbled, but you get the idea. As you may have guessed, a second source of inspiration was The Rockford Files:

Sonnet CXX On Jen Gonet's Answering Machine

Dear Jen, the Dáil called about the dogs.
In these days, Irish culture's hit a low.
They need a patriotic icon, so
They had their Dublin office search the blogs,
And from Assumption's, mention came across
Of three stout hounds dressed for St. Patrick's day.
When I described them, never was 'HOORAY'
So well annunciated. At a loss,
They saw it's not in the public domain,
But for that lofty-hatted pooch, they'll pay
€10,000,000 cash, but first, they say,
They're gonna need- they know this is a pain-
Ten thousand right up front (for payments, ease),
So send the money (and the picture) please.

Actually, I haven't seen The Rockford Files since I was little, and those Nigerian prince con artists also deserve some credit. Only problem was, after I gave the sonnet, I learned that the dogs (Henry, Fiona, and Nellie from left to right) actually belong to Meghan Donague, the exec who shared the computer with her. Oh well. Henry still looks dressed to sit in the Dáil, though!

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

Also, I express my happiness at the ordination of thirteen new traditional Catholic priests by His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais at the SSPX seminary in Winona. While I necessarily missed out on the festivities, Catholic Family News compiled a video with interviews of some of the young people present (incentive to watch- the first young lady interviewed is completely gorgeous). In light of which, a fitting slogan for the traditionalist movement as a whole might just be

The Traditional Latin Mass:
The choice of a new generation

Except that I'm more of a Coke man, and apparently we're supposed to be boycotting Pepsi.

2009-06-20T22:17:00.001-04:00

A few readings I have done recently have me thinking about that gloomiest of ideas, determinism. A three-in-one book review in Modern Age quarterly encouraged conservatives to grant more significance to economic and social changes in charting the course of political history, as opposed to giving almost exclusive import to the parallel history of ideas. He argues the point well in his limited space, but he still rejects genuine determinism to a degree that could comfort the worst pessimist. Meanwhile, in one of the books I am presently reading, Raymond Aron's The Dawn of Universal History, a collection of his mostly 1950s essays on total war, the totalitarian state, and ideology (I originally purchased this one as a college text, but in my effort to get the full money's worth out of it, it's proven a fascinating leisure text), Aron repeats, again and again, that we must beware the temptation to believe that everything which has happened, had to happen, and that the future is predetermined by some factor x.

A great temptation indeed, in an age where widespread a knowledge of mathematics and physics leads some to begrudge mankind recognition of his free will! The news media, for its part, simply revels in the changes to come due to technology and too easy communication. The coverage of the ongoing rioting and protests in response to the Iranian elections credits Twitter and other technologies with making government suppression almost impossible. There are clearly bad things about the Iranian regime (the present cause of discontent, a possibly stolen election, makes one wonder: why didn't the clerical leaders just reject the unacceptable Mousavi in the candidate approval process? For that matter, how came it about that no one did their homework back in 1979, and realized that the creation of a faithful Islamic society, like any political project striving for some higher goal, is hindered and helped by allowing people to elect their leaders?). However, I do not share the reporters' giddiness at the prospect of mass political movements driven by messages of up to 140 characters. At least on blogs such as my own, one has the option of laying out one's reasoning at length; with Twitter, communication without resorting to soundbites and ideological cliches is not even possible. This may perfect the art of speaking in abstract ideology (what the Modern Age reviewer cautioned us to avoid); such a Twitter-powered political order would be a lexocracy, or rule by just a few words. Or in other words, the world as a whole would come to resemble the interior of your local Urban Outfitters. That possibility has to be the ultimate low in the realm of the political.

Are we all doomed to inhabit a society where meaningful communication is stifled by the very ease of interaction, and the prevalence of new technologies favors ever more dubious ideas? Perhaps. At least that seems to be happening with the unrest in Iran. The libertarian, anti-intellectual property Pirate Bay has launched a project to aid the opposition. In such a world, of course, a person could still live the good life, and nurture their mind with worthy letters. I, for one, often gain solace by reading Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The monthly, written from a paleoconservative and usually Catholic perspective (the column by Aaron T. Wolf, a Protestant, is jokingly entitled "Heresies"), is everything the weekly National Review should be but isn't. Heavily philosophical, its articles always serve to lift one's head out of the proverbial clouds of Breaking News, celebrity stories, and other varied flashing lights. [Whether one actually agrees with everything or not. How I was irked when editor Thomas Fleming's recent column, "The Good Life," specifically excluded "Rihanna" and "graphic novels," which I assume includes manga, from such a life. I cannot say I never listen to Rihanna, and certainly see nothing wrong with "graphic novels," so long as they are not all one reads. If there is on excellence I have developed, it is the ability to switch from following up on the struggle among the Rozen Maidens at they try to become Alice, the perfect girl and daughter, to the speeches of Zarathustra or the sober observations of Aron, and vice versa. They can all be part of the complete, good life, which Shinku, the fifth doll, exemplifies, since she reads extensively in her spare time. Like most of the Maidens, she uses French phrases on occasion: who knows, maybe she has read Aron as well.)] But such a life, like the Christian life in general, has to be lived in opposition to the world, out of necessity rather than contrarian's preference. And its difficulty can ward off many who might otherwise follow such a life.

Yet, the history of conservatism points to a possible reassurance that all change will not be for the worse. Actually, my happy meditation began a few days ago, when I was standing downtown in the rain for a few minutes. Water is often connected with death and rebirth, sweeping away the present and christening in a baptismal renewal. I thought of how even the decay of organic matter, often sped up by moisture, occurs because of the flourishing of microorganisms. Water universally vivifies, and torrents of revolution and technology seem to be equally indiscriminate in their effects, even if the most obvious consequences benefit the advance of liberalism. I mean, though industrialization and the French Revolution sped the decline of the old order in the West, it also spurred the birth of conservatism as a reaction. Edmund Burke, the first modern conservative, could never have written his Reflections without a Revolution to think over (happily, Reflections is on the required readings list for one of my classes in the Fall, assigned by the same great prof who selected Aron). The upheaval, destructive and undesirable as it was, made reactionaries aware of the patrimony they were defending, allowing them to understand, and therefore combat effectively, the revolutionary forces and innovations threatening the traditional order. This may be a briefly elaborated reassurance after my reasonable griping, but I can't predict what form such a new awareness would take. Maybe (to speak of society more broadly and not merely the political order) the ever growing disregard for grammar and spelling, not to mention the bubonic plethora of smiley faces used in lieu of words to express one's mood, will lead some to a greater appreciation of syntax, diction, and other elements important to a language. The future of will probably not be quite so glorious as the correspondents at CNN imagine, nor should we expect so a dark night as monochrome as good Thomas Fleming awaits.

2009-06-13T18:44:00.003-04:00

A silly, if still good, idea I gave expression to a few days ago has brought to the fore, once again, modern man's misapprehensions about government. The news was on, coverage of the latest in the Carrie Prejean saga. Bored by the rank partisanship, my mind wandered a bit, and I said dreamily, "She should run for some office; it would be a waste for the conservative movement if she didn't take advantage of her celebrity." The thought did not go over well; my critic at hand noted her lack of political experience, and apparent unfitness for public office. I stood stone still for a long while and thought over my intuition.

The objection to my playful idea is rooted in the belief that government is no more than an efficient means to ends that individuals and interests cannot so easily get alone. To be sure, the efficient part of government is its Reason for Being; as Aristotle says, political organization began for the sake of mere life. But to say that government's only role is go-getting is a pertinent modern error. The 19th Century thinker Walter Bagehot, in his The English Constitution, speaks of government as having both efficient and dignified parts. In Great Britain, the efficient part is manifested by Parliament, and the dignified by the Monarchy (some republics, such as Germany, also cleanly separate these parts of government by having a figurehead president and a powerful chancellor or prime minister), while in America the distinction is not incorporated into our political forms. Not that it needs to be, but the invisibility of the dignified part tends to leave it unappreciated; many view it as simple showiness or nonsense, and not as integral to government itself. Bagehot excoriates republicans who would abolish the monarchy at length, for forgetting that government is not exclusively about policy and action. Our modern emphasis on business, however, abhors seemingly illogical and needless grandeur and dignity in government.

That's not all immediately relevant, of course, but it does strike at my conviction that something, something good and human, is missing if government is no more than legislation and the enforcement thereof. Even Machiavelli, the first modern political scientist and the mastermind of the modern, commercial state, admits of a deficiency in a regime which merely fosters prosperity. In The Prince, he enjoins the ruler to

at suitable periods amuse his people with festivities and spectacles.

Given Machiavelli's pragmatic motivations, this implies that his commercialistic regime will, if it does not entertain its people, find them restless and dissatisfied. In spite of the emphasis on wealth and moneymaking!

Taken together, these insights from two of modernity's greatest political minds give a taste of what my intuition was aiming for. [At this juncture I am reminded of the greatest weakness of conservatism: the difficulty of communicating the rationale for even the most commonsense of its convictions. Unlike liberalism, which seeks to engineer society according to a rational plan, conservatism relies heavily upon traditional wisdom and the authority of our forefathers; even though the objective health of society is the end of conservatism, the way a given conservative idea contributes to that health is discoverable only after a much more difficult investigation than the liberal needs to argue the superiority of his ideas. The intuition comes first, the rationale second if ever, since those most attuned to a healthy, good society tend to be rural and less educated in letters. As the present difficulty suggests, I consider my Prejean idea, funny as it is, to be seriously conservative.] How, you might wonder, are bread and circus connected with the reverence and respect due a good politician? Here it might be helpful to use the old likening of the city to the family, and the government to parents and elders, a favorite analogy of mine and one suggested by government's origins. Think of the comedian/grandfather archetype. Our elders do, and should, command respect by their very wisdom and demeanor. Often, this respect is increased and not diminished by the rich sense of humor they have gained over a long life, where a happy survival is often incumbent upon not taking things too seriously. They joke like the class clown, and are revered like the professor.

That sort of disposition is a great virtue in individuals; should not our politicians have the same qualities? Remember, in the Medieval/premodern view of politics, rulers were not merely expected to represent their subjects- they were supposed to embody them. This is close to the sense in which Louis XIV famously said, "L'etat, c'est moi". Additionally, it is also related to the phrase "the body politic;" in a sense, the king's corporeal body was the embodiment of his people. If our aim is to be rule by the best (in Greek aristoi, from which comes the word aristocracy, means "the best"), should not we seek out politicians who have a comic side to them, those whom we might find pleasant and amusing? True, I haven't investigated whether Miss Prejean has that Coulterian sense of humor with which socialites make good use of at cocktail parties- mine was an intuition as I've said- but there just seems to be something funny about her person, after these late weeks of amusing political wrangling under the guise of beauty pageantry, which has itself made her fit for a visible role in our politics.

To the objection that she has no experience with the gruntwork of writing legislation and so on, I answer that making new laws is only a secondary duty of politicians, especially in this day and age. If the end of politicking is a just, stable regime which has no grave deficiencies needing to be addressed- it would be absurd if the aim of political efforts were any regime but a basically good one not requiring frequent tailoring and attention- then the most important job of a politician is the simpler one, voting down bad legislation which will make the regime worse. The requirement for fulfilling that duty well is simply a good moral formation to guide one's votes. Miss Prejean has amply demonstrated her possession of just such a sound conscience. While our regime is anything but moral, actually encouraging vice all too often, and thus is in want of some good laws, the dialectic of democratic republics tends toward ever greater corruption and evil; I would be well satisfied with a politician who placed an emphasis on resisting every new bad idea. One is reminded of how Ron Paul earned the moniker "Dr. No" from his voting record.

My intuition would perhaps have a better place in a monarchial system, where our dear Carrie could simply marry a prince, and delight us with her good looks and virtuously simple manners for years to come, without entering the somewhat dirty realm of practical leadership. But since we don't have a royal family, she should consider running for Senate. As former Miss California and a resident of the same state, she could try her hand at winning either Sen. Boxer's or Sen. Feinstein's seat. With her good looks and radiance (I wouldn't put it past her to win 2/3 of the male vote), she may, when she's old enough, be the Golden State's best hope of unseating one of the just mentioned incumbent undesirables.