Books Read, 2011

Nothing to see here, move right along. This is purely for external hard drive purposes, not to make points. I think actually posting this Jan 3rd makes it safe from most eyes, and therefore slightly less self-indulgent.  

Scripture
Psalms, Proverbs, The Gospels, Pauline Epistles

Ratzingers
Jesus of Nazareth 2
Light of the World

Devotional & Professional
Charles de Foucauld
In Tune with the World
Living the Catholic Faith
Lost Art of Disciple Making
Lying (well...to be honest, not quite finished yet, but mostly)
Morality The Catholic View
Weeds Among the Wheat

Women in the Days of the Cathedrals

Book Club
A Right to Be Merry
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
My Antonia
The Privilege of Being A Woman
Vanity Fair (well...2/3 of it; couldn't bear it, ought to count double)


Just Felt Like It
1776
The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
John Adams
The Code of the Woosters
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
The Full Cupboard of Life
The Kalahari Typing School For Men
La's Orchestra Saves the World
Morality for Beautiful Girls


Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Tears of the Giraffe

With the Kids
Harry Potter, vols 1-7
Much Ado About Nothing

Merry Christmas! (Day 7)

Franz Ittenbach, The Holy Family

Christmas in Baltimore, 1867

Christmas festivities had begun; every ten minutes or oftener a gun or a squib was fired off, giving one the idea that the war had not ended yet at Ellicott's Mills. Christmas is not properly observed unless you brew "egg-nog" for all comers; everybody calls upon everybody else; and each call is celebrated by a solemn egg-nogging. Egg-nog is made in this wise: our egg-nog was made so, and was decided after a good deal of nogging around, to be the brew in Ellicott's Mills: "Beat up the yolks of twelve eggs with powdered sugar, then beat up with them a pint of brandy, a quart of cream, and a quart of milk; lastly beat up the whites of your twelve eggs, and add them as a head and crown to your syllabub." It is made cold, and is drunk cold, and is to be commended. We had brought a store of sugar-plums, as the children all expect presents at this time. They hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve, and in the morning find them filled with goodies. At New York this is done by Criskindle (Christ kinde) and at Baltimore by Santa Claus (San Nicolas).

Henry Latham, Black & White: A Journal of Three Months' Tour in the United States 

Merry Christmas! (Day 6)

The Sacred Family, Pompeo Batoni

He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell upon the fireplace–one of those vast tavern chimneys where there is always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger’s gaze, nevertheless. It was two tiny children’s shoes, coquettish in shape and unequal in size. 

The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling gift from their good fairy. Eponine and Azelma had taken care not to omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth.


The traveller bent over them.

The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit, and in each he saw a brand-new and shining ten-sou piece.

The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette’s sabot. Cosette, with that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet never discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearth-stone also.

Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and touching thing.

There was nothing in this wooden shoe.

The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis d’or in Cosette’s shoe.
Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf

--Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Swings Both Ways

Shamelessly pinched from Brutally Honest

I can't tell which side of the gay marriage controversy this poster is on. The slogan is clearly pro; the illustration? Not so much. Which makes it the first "bi" poster, perhaps. 

Anyway, a message I think is absolutely brilliant, though probably not in the manner intended. Assertions to the contrary have no bearing on the actual transmission of life, light, power, spark and bond.

Merry Christmas! (Day 5)

Our Lady of the Philippines, shamelessly pinched from here.

In A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote relates the story of a kid, Buddy, and his friend, a grandmother figure, the only person in his life who knows a little boy should get a kite and not underwear and prayer books for Christmas.

The wind is blowing, and nothing will do till we've run to a Pasture below the house where Queenie has scooted to bury her bone (and where, a winter hence, Queenie will be buried, too). There, plunging through the healthy waist-high grass, we unreel our kites, feel them twitching at the string like sky fish as they swim into the wind. Satisfied, sun-warmed, we sprawl in the grass and peel Satsumas and watch our kites cavort. Soon I forget the socks and hand-me-down sweater. I'm as happy as if we'd already won the fifty-thousand-dollar Grand Prize in that coffee-naming contest.

"My, how foolish I am!" my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the oven. "You know what I've always thought?" she asks in a tone of discovery and not smiling at me but a point beyond. "I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when he came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I'11 wager it never happens. I'11 wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are"—her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone—"just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."

Merry Christmas! (Day 4)

William Holman Hunt, Triumph of the Innocents

I don't know that I like this painting so much as I like the fact that it shows Christ accompanying the Holy Innocents and the end of their suffering, as opposed to the usual depictions of the bloody babes and agonized mothers.

As the feast of the Holy Innocents is a day for jokes and pranks in many other countries, may I recommend this short, short story from O. Henry?  Christmas by Injunction.  It's about a miner who strikes it rich and gets it into his head to play Santa Claus to all the kids in his adopted home town. He hires a sleigh, spends his fortune on toys, gets an elaborate costume together.

He overlooks one minor detail, however: being filled with bachelor prospectors and a mere five women, the town has no children, and their efforts to borrow a few just for the day are fruitless:

Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list before twilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a stage road hostelry, and set out again early the next morning. The wagon had not acquired a single passenger.

"It's creepin' upon my faculties," remarked Trinidad, "that borrowin' kids at Christmas is somethin' like tryin' to steal butter from a man that's got hot pancakes a-comin'."

"It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact," said the Judge, "that the-- ah--family ties seem to be more coherent and assertive at that period of the year."

And later:

This parental business is one that I haven't no chance to comprehend. It seems that fathers and mothers are willin' for their offsprings to be drownded, stole, fed on poison oak, and et by catamounts 364 days in the year; but on Christmas Day they insists on enjoyin' the exclusive mortification of their company.

Merry Christmas! (Day 3)

Nativity, Lorenzo Costa

Sherlock Holmes solves a minor mystery on the third day of Christmas in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Geese and the eating thereof figure prominently in the story. Excerpts:

Watson finds Holmes contemplating a battered felt hat, which a neighbor found in the streets together with a goose, and brought to Holmes thinking he might find the rightful owner.

It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose."

There's a jewel that's been force-fed a certain goose (a rich foie gras indeed), but as it turns out the thief has foiled himself and gains nothing from his crime but ruin, Holmes takes pity in light of the season and turns to his own Christmas feast (spoiler):

I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to jail now, and you make him a jail-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief feature."

Merry Christmas! (Day 2)

Russian nativity

On Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just coming in from their morning chores --the horses and pigs always had their breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted, "Merry Christmas!" to me, and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove. 

Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something that had happened lately, and near at hand. 

In his prayer he thanked the Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the poor and destitute in great cities, where te struggle for life was harder than it was here for us.

--from the beginning of the wonderful Christmas chapter in My Ántonia.

Merry Christmas!

"Angel Announcing the Birth of Christ to Shepherds," Robert Leinweber

Apparently I Have A Lot of Psychic Rage

Pulled the last pie for this evening's festivities from the oven about midnight, then fell into heavy sleep.

I am not conscious of being exceptionally worried about my kids losing their faith and purity in high school, but last night I dreamed my daughter came home with a free sample of contraceptive foam (in a vivid pink box) distributed by a manufacturer's rep who visited the school.

Immediately I went to Mr. Weed, waving the pink box, to inquire if he'd seen this outrage. The remainder of the scene consisted of my literally dreaming up the precise way to convey to the no-account principal the degree of my indignation about and contempt for a Catholic school foisting this poison on my innocent child --and on my dime!

I woke still shaken and a little sick the way giving vent to temper makes you, and it took 3-5 seconds before I realized Girl Weed isn't even in high school yet, and it was Christmas Eve, and I'm not angry, I'm joyful, and all that energy would be better spent finishing putting up the nativity scenes before the 27 guests arrive.

Eldest Weed, whose bed is separated from ours by a wall, also had a vivid dream -- that I bashed his head in with a sledgehammer.

In the context of the dream it was clear I did this "jokingly," and he not only survived but wasn't much hurt. However, clearly the rage emanating from my dream drifted through the plaster and found its way into his, no?

Meanwhile: should I consider myself to have been warned against the school in question in a dream?

Scorn & Disdain in Iraq

Part 1 of an interview with John McCain on our withdrawal from Iraq. What caught my attention was this remark, which McCain actually made last week, and is included in this piece as part of a question:

I believe that history will judge this president's leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves. 

Strong words. McCain's objection is not to withdrawal per se, but to the President's refusal to push for a residual American force. I'd assumed that was an Iraqi political decision --which it was-- but we made it difficult for them to decide otherwise. RTWT.

Have LA Educators Ever Met Any Children?

LA Times is reporting the 1st Lady-inspired healthy school lunch program is a massive flop.

According to a weekend report by the Los Angeles Times, the city’s “trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop.” In response to the public hectoring and financial inducement of Mrs. Obama’s federally subsidized anti-obesity campaign, the district dropped chicken nuggets, corn dogs and flavored milk from the menu for “beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads.”

Unsurprisingly, faced with this exotic fare, the kids are throwing it out rather than eating it and, equally unsurprising,

A forbidden-food black market — stoked not just by students, but also by teachers — is now thriving.

There's nothing wrong with serving kids healthier food, but it doesn't take a genius to know most kids aren't going to try spicy and exotic fare. How about some simple and inexpensive carrot sticks and fruit slices and tossed salads with a little ranch dressing? Kids will eat those things.

That program clearly has nothing whatever to do with kids, and is aimed instead at providing contracts for vendors.

Govt Takes On The Really Big Issues

Like preventing a local postman from wearing a Santa costume as he has each Christmas for 10 years.

Conservative of the Year

Paul Ryan, obviously, but read Kudlow in Human Events on why, and watch the interview.

Merry Christmas, You Disgusting Tub O' Lard

"Health experts" tell the Beeb that Christmas

is an opportunity that should not be missed.

An opportunity for what, you ask? To tell your loved ones they are fat.

Prof David Haslam, chair of the National Obesity Forum, said: "Suggesting to someone that they should consider losing a few pounds may not be a comfortable conversation to have.

"But if someone close to you has a large waistline then as long as you do it sensitively, discussing it with them now could help them avoid critical health risks later down the line and could even save their life."

Never let a good Christ-mas go to waist?

Mucho Jaleo Sobre Nada*

Shakespeare Theatre/Scott Suchman

For Girl Weed's birthday, we splurged and took the entire family to see the Shakespeare Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing, and I want to put in a little plug for it in case anyone local is of a mind to buy theater tickets as a Christmas gift.

The kids were well prepared to enjoy it, since we read it together last year (and the little boys learned they can get away with saying the word "ass" with great gusto if they are reading Shakespeare) and saw the Branagh film. Middle Weed in particular is completely taken with Dogberry.

I think I liked it least of everyone in my family, but that shouldn't put you off. My complaints are minor. The lead roles of Benedick and Beatrice are well-cast and wonderfully-observed, and ensemble regulars Ted Van Griethuysen and Floyd King wring every possible guffaw out of the clownish Dogberry and Verges.

My objection is that the production's conceit of placing the action in pre-revolutionary Cuba is somewhat distracting. The set -- a gorgeous Cuban villa complete with fountains and bougainvillea-- is splendid, as are the costumes, but it all feels ever-so-slightly forced. Insofar as the play needs to take place on an island and the Spanish culture helps make sense of the attitudes towards women's purity, it works.

But the director is more interested in the Cubanismo of the production than the text of the play, and pushes the issue somewhat. When the army arrives to be quartered at Leonato's (they march in singing "Guantanamera"), everyone goes into dinner and we're treated to a wild santería-influenced masque, with no purpose other than scene-setting. It goes on and on as if to say, "Look, isn't Cuban culture wild? And we know so much about it!" 

Not that the Cuban music and dancing isn't great in itself, but it can be obtrusive. We saw it in preview, and a few of the opening scenes didn't seem to me to have quite gelled yet, and the first act pacing dragged. There was even a dropped line and an awkward "save," --something I've never seen at the Shakespeare Theatre before. All of that added to my overall impression that the director had pushed the Cuban updating harder than text and staging. 

An occasional dropped line happens eventually to every actor, and at the time we attended, the cast was recovering from the sudden departure (a week before opening) of the actress slotted to play Beatrice, which could certainly have thrown off the pace, so I imagine those things are rectified by now. They were only minor annoyances even the night we watched.

A fun production, and Mr. W. and all the Weedlets gave it high ratings.

*In case anyone cares, the traditional Spanish title for "Much Ado" is actually "Mucho Ruido y Pocas Nueces," or lots of noise, few nuts. Must be an idiom.

Would These Guys Vote For Newt or Romney?

Shamelessly pinched from Bad Rachel

Bad Rachel posted this last Saturday, but I decided not to pinch it then, convinced it would be shown to be a photoshop. However, check out the sign in English at this demonstration in Kafranbel (which is in Northern Syria, and filled with Turks and Kurds, I read). It's about 15 seconds in. Same style and all...now I believe.

Magneto for President

Newt or Supervillain? Take the quiz! I only scored 70%, which means 1/3 of the time I couldn't tell the GOP frontrunner from a Very Bad Guy.

However, some of the explanations for the answer are, as they say in these parts, "triflin'."

Meanwhile, I had no idea the plot of one of the X-men movies was to save the UN from a "bad guy" who wanted to turn all the delegates into mutants to punish them for UN misdeeds. Never seen it, but I think I'd root for Magneto.

Oy, Gestalt

I have not reached a decision about whether Mitt or Newt is the better choice for the GOP, but here are a pair of pieces that tip the scale in Mitt's direction.

First, Mark Steyn's hit job on Gingrich, with which I don't fully agree (and from which the post title is derived), but he works in a reference to Gussy Finknottle, which is most excellent.

Then there's this from K-Lo, which is the first thing I've read that actually makes me think well of Romney.

She's always had a soft spot for Romney, but she points out that he got into office supporting the status quo on abortion, but when a human cloning bill came up, he didn't just go with the zeitgeist.

Romney had a complicated — and controversial, given the ethical and scientific fog amid which the issue was presented — decision to make back in 2005, and he took it seriously.

He seems to have begun re-evaluating life matters from there. A lot of people don't believe that; I find it plausible.

I did know (as she says most folks do not) that the legislature was 85% Dem while he was governor, and his compromises and rhetoric need to be evaluated with that in mind. Furthermore, it ticks me off when Conservatives fault Romney for being a flipper on health care when his plan was largely the Heritage Foundation plan, and many Conservatives hailed him as a hero and innovator at the time. So if Romney is a flipper on that issue, so's the whole damn movement, for heaven's sake --and he has shown considerable restraint in not releasing a list of Conservatives who supported his plan at the time.

I'm not baptizing it, I'm just saying it was then considered a worthy experiment in the "laboratory of democracy" -- just as Romney now maintains.

But that gets me thinking: here are two examples of instances where Romney was both bold and thoughtful --whatever criticisms we might make in hindsight. Maybe there is more to him than focus groups?

(On another note, enough already with the sterile lamentation "if only" Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan or Chris Christie had run. Even at a time of ultimate peril for their nation, none of that trio had the guts to enter, so spare me.)

Newsflash: The Pope Is Old

The Associated Press puts itself in the Christmas spirit by openly salivating for the Holy Father's death or resignation. It appears --stop the presses-- that Benedict the XVI is 84, and acts it. Sheesh.

I love this remark of his they quote, though. From Light of the World, when he was asked about resignation in the face of Church difficulties.

One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it.

Bless him!

"We Need More; You Have More"

Trinity Wall Street, a church which has been eager to help the Occupy movement, learns a lesson. I don't know which is funnier: expecting gratitude and reason from the Occupy bunch; the fact that Bishop Tutu has gotten into the act (on both sides, as it happens); or page two of the piece, in which the Formerly Grey Lady seems to suggest that because the church has a lot of real estate holdings, it ought to just surrender to unreasonable demands:

Less known, though, is the church’s status as a real estate titan. Since 1705, when Queen Anne of England bequeathed more than 200 acres of what was then farmland to the church, Trinity Real Estate has come to control six million square feet of property, much of it office space around Hudson Square, financing an operation most parishes could never fathom.
“No matter how supportive they may appear to Occupy, no matter how much hospitality they show to Occupy, Trinity Wall Street owns a lot of Lower Manhattan,” said Jim Naughton, a longtime observer of Episcopal Church issues who works as a partner at Canticle Communications, a public relations firm. “They’re vulnerable in that regard.

Apparently Trinity's owning other property negates its preference that occupiers not use its lot as a latrine and rape center. 

The Missionary Position

The untimely passing of Christopher Hitchens --and the outpouring of prayers for his atheist soul from the Christian internet-- reminds me of something I meant to remark a few weeks' back when that other lodestar of the axis of unbelieval, Richard Dawkins, claimed that if Jesus knew then what we know now, he'd be an atheist, too.

Jesus was a great moral teacher and I was suggesting that somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist if he had known what we know today.

Believers responded with either apologetics, mockery, or both (see that link), but I think they missed the lead: Dawkins wants to claim Jesus.

I say let him. It may not be intellectually tenable to claim Jesus was a great moral teacher if he isn't who he said he was. But so what? If Dawkins wants to follow Jesus' moral teaching without believing he is God, more power to him. That is, in fact, precisely what the Pope recommends to people who don't believe in Christianity & the Crisis of Cultures. Live as if you believed.

Similarly, Hitch's Christian eulogists (self included), are all a bit mystified by his professed atheism, and by his zeal to spread it.

He seems to have been "a seeker," a thing he once admitted all his Christian friends called him, though he himself disliked the term and wouldn't concede that's what he was. I would go a little further and say he was a Christian. Not a believer, obviously, but someone so shaped by Christian culture that he retained its trappings even while rejecting its content. 

In god is not great he wrote a whole book laying every bad thing that's ever happened at the feet of religion. To the rational objection that no religious malfeasance can hold a candle to the evils wrought by militant atheism in the 20th and 21st centuries, his rejoinder is that fascism and nazism renounced God but were still so informed by Christianity that they remained missionary in nature, so militant atheism is also religion.

I call BS on that, but for the sake of argument, does Hitch not have to apply the same reasoning to himself? I think that explanation (well, that and let's-make-a-buck-off-the-zeitgeist) does largely account for why today's atheists feel the need to proselytize. It's because they're still so very Christian. They can empty the faith of content, but keep right on doing what Christians do: evangelize.

I Mustache Germany A Question

Mr. W. & I watched Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny (here it is on youtube), a documentary of 1940 and 1941, when it was in some respects Churchill alone for liberty in a very dark hour.

It's very well done, but confronted with all the war footage: the quasi-miraculous rescue of Allied troops from Dunkirk, the blitz, the slaughters in the Ukraine, and Hitler meeting with various generals, I was faced once again with one of life's little mysteries.

Why did anyone trust a man who thought a square mustache no broader than his nose looked good? Seriously, have you ever seen such a thing on any other person (who wasn't impersonating Hitler)? I don't care how sunk in unjust war reparations you are, does the mustache alone not tell you something is seriously wrong with this person?

(And, yes, Churchill documentaries are what passes for date night around here. I like a man who will nevah surrendah.)

Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

Hitch's brother has a lovely eulogy for him, and here's the NYT obit. My favorite eulogy by far is this string of remembrances from Peter Wehner: they explain why so many of us Christians and Conservatives have affection for him.
Wehner invited Hitch to speak to White House staff:

He had gone out to smoke, which wasn’t unusual — and he confided to me that he was nervous, which was. The words “Christopher Hitchens” and “nervous” don’t usually belong in the same sentence. He also wore a tie, which he indicated to me he hadn’t done in years — and, he told me, he had gotten his shoes shined before the speech, which he didn’t recall ever having had done.

It wasn’t hard for me to fit the pieces together. Christopher felt it was an honor for him, a British citizen, to speak at the White House. For all his reputation for being a bon vivant, an iconoclast, and a man not known for his devotion to protocol, he was in fact quite moved to be a guest at one of the great symbols of American democracy. It was, I thought, something of a touching moment.

RTWT.
As for his legacy, who knows? You wouldn't know it from the superlatives people now use, but he was as capable of phoning it in as the next guy. It's just that when he didn't, well: wow. For standing with Salman Rushdie against a fatwa and with Bush and Blair against the jihadists, he has my respect and thanks.

Reading Books For Pleasure Shall Not Die!

I am incandescent with delight over this news. Congress has overturned the ban on bulbs you can actually read by.

This Is Why I Call Him Chaput the Great

Archbishop Chaput was installed in Philly on September 8th. This is the pastoral letter he sent to his people December 8th (w/ Jimmy Akin's commentary). So much to be admired in it: courage, decisiveness, muscular Christianity. And he's wise enough to let people know what's coming so they can get used to it, and possibly even get on board. Some excerpts:

The Church in Southeastern Pennsylvania has deep roots and an extraordinary legacy of saints, service and public witness. These are profound strengths, built by the faith of generations of Catholic families. But all of these good facts depend on our willingness to sustain them by our actions in the present.

He warns people on three fronts: he's pushed for quick resolution of abuse cases, which will come to a head in March one way or the other; we can't be true to our mission throwing good money after bad, so schools and parishes will be combining and closing; and the chancery office budget will also be slashed.

The process will be painful. But going through it is the only way to renew the witness of the Church; to clear away the debris of human failure from the beauty of God’s word and to restore the joy and zeal of our Catholic discipleship.

A little more:

Over the next 18 months the same careful scrutiny must be applied to every aspect of our common life as a Church, from the number and location of our parishes, to every one of our archdiocesan operational budgets. This honest scrutiny can be painful, because real change is rarely easy; but it also restores the life and health, and serves the work of God’s people. We cannot call ourselves good stewards if we do otherwise.These words may sound sobering, but they are spoken with love as a father and a brother.

Man, do I wish the President and Congress spoke like this and addressed our political problems as forthrightly. Then again, perhaps the Church must lead the way, showing by example how purification and genuine stewardship and commitment to the common good are done.

Wiped Out By A "Heat Event"

Come back, it's not about global warming! Archaeologists are excavating sites believed to be Sodom & Gomorrah.

The cities at the site were suddenly and completely wiped out in the Late Bronze Age, which makes a reasonably good fit with the biblical accounts of Abraham and Lot.  The entire presentation was very convincing, but never once did they deal with the "elephant in the room": what caused the sites to be suddenly abandoned?  As soon as the session was over, I was the first to raise my hand.  "Did you find any arrow heads?  Signs of invasion?  What happened to them?"  The lead archeologist paused for a moment.  "I didn't want to go there," he said.  Another pause. "I'm preparing material for publication."  Pause.  "All I want to say 'on camera' is, they appear to have been wiped out in a 'heat event'."

The expert wasn't willing to speak of his findings on the record. 

I wish I could divulge what he said to a small group of us clustered around the podium after the session was over, but it would break confidence.  We'll have to wait for the official peer-reviewed publications.

Boy howdy, don't bet against the Bible. Isn't that cool?

Curtsy: The Crescat

Haven't Even Heard of Them

ninme cracks me up each year with her guide to the Oscars, where she lists the nominees and then --usually-- adds "haven't seen it."  Today American Digest posts a mash-up of the year's most important movies and with the exception of Harry Potter, Captain America and Tree of Life (which I saw), I not only didn't see these movies, I had no earthly idea they were made. I recognize a lot of famous actors; but I had no idea they worked this year, nor do the clips help me at all. The only other flicks I saw this year didn't make the mash-up, so apparently they weren't important.

The cumulative story being told is about an elaborate car chase involving many very disheveled people.

Want!

Shamelessly pinched from here. 

Happy Meals Return To San Francisco

You're not going to believe this.

Come Dec. 1, you can still buy the Happy Meal. But it doesn’t come with a toy. For that, you’ll have to pay an extra 10 cents.
Huh. That hardly seems to have solved the problem (though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities). But it actually gets worse from here. Thanks to Supervisor Eric Mar’s much-ballyhooed new law, parents browbeaten into supplementing their preteens’ Happy Meal toy collections are now mandated to buy the Happy Meals.
Today and tomorrow mark the last days that put-upon parents can satiate their youngsters by simply throwing down $2.18 for a Happy Meal toy. But, thanks to the new law taking effect on Dec. 1, this is no longer permitted. Now, in order to have the privilege of making a 10-cent charitable donation in exchange for the toy, you must buy the Happy Meal. Hilariously, it appears Mar et al., in their desire to keep McDonald’s from selling grease and fat to kids with the lure of a toy have now actually incentivized the purchase of that grease and fat — when, beforehand, a put-upon parent could get out cheaper and healthier with just the damn toy.

Why, it's almost as if bureaucratic intervention served no purpose but to raise the price of a good and cause the very behavior it was supposed to solve!

Let's Play: Spot The Whopper!

President Obama at a fundraiser:

I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.

Oh, I get it. It's like Time's "Man of the Year" not necessarily being a good guy, just most influential.

But that he doesn't pat himself on the back much? That's just a flat-out lie.

Turns Out I Am A RINO

Hadn't quite thought of "RINO" in these terms, but I accept the truth of it. From Jonah Goldberg's G-file today (to which I don't subscribe, but a friend quoted it): 

I plead guilty to being a Republican in Name Only for the simple reason that I take no particular pride in being a Republican. I'm a conservative, and the GOP is the more conservative of the two parties. If it stopped being that tomorrow, I'd stop being a Republican tomorrow, the same way I'd stop being a Chipotle customer tomorrow if they replaced the meat products with tofu.

I am trying to think if, by that measure, I know any Republicans. I know Democrats who will be Democrats no matter what the party stands for, but do I know anyone with similar allegiance to the GOP?

Can You Love Your Father If He's A Monster?

David Pryce-Jones with a remembrance of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, who passed away last week.