Happy New Year

Resolutions have become cliche', but in terms of my reading, I really want to get more into Belloc this year. His St. Joan of Arc is something that Ive deleted out of a shopping cart numerous times when Ive been ordering books online. I click with his personality in some ways, he reminds me of some people I served under in the Army .

In terms of Chesterton, it has been years since I read Fr. Brown, and it is time to go back again. Ive read a number of different books this way. Its amazing how those couple years of life experience in between reads change what you notice and what jumps out at you.

In terms of the larger world, this is going to be an interesting 2009. I think the trend in government is toward leviathan institutions when the observable facts of the matter is that smaller local banks have fared better than the massive institutions.

I think the "culture war" really has entered another phase, but one more of blood and soil than debate and rhetoric. I think the palpable truth of humble responsible living speaks to all much like St. Francis said, without words. There is a conclusion I have heard Peter Kreeft defend in his online talks often, an opinion that many of my non-religious military friends who have seen the bad part of the world think of as well. It seems that certain ideas and ideaologies can be conceived only by a decadent, spoiled, egotistic, and elitist people. When the power of money and the power of being powerful is shown for the illusion that it is, the phantom worldview that such views espouse likewise loses its luster.

This here is very interesting, and perhaps an omen of future change.....There is a demand from a small group in France to have the Verdee' massacre declared a genocide. I think most of us in traditional circles know that those who claim that contemporary secularists have taken us out of the age of religious bloodshed are sorely mistaken. Secular and atheist governments have spilled more blood than centuries of inquisitions combined. This is an interesting stirring to have this debated in mainstream Europe.

Happy New Year!