Condi Rice and torture - a clerihew

Condoleezza Rice
seemed so smart and nice,
but I'd have to say she's flawed
if torture gets her nod.


(Rice was the head of committee - than included people like Cheney and Powell - that reportedly approved in specific instances methods of torture that at the least violated human rights, and may have violated U.S. and international law.)

GKC, Just War, Torture, Law of Land Warfare, The Servile State....Oh My!

I see Inside Catholic just had an article on this same matter......

After scanning the discussions on this over at Blue Boar, and Inside Catholic, I have to say that the level of discussion is very high, well reasoned, and it is quite surprising that this issue is being discussed at its best within faith circles......whom, to use Bill O'Reilly's phrase, the Secular Progressives (SP), would see as the fundamentalist inquisitors. The strongest support for "Torture" in general, and waterboarding in particular are from those who obviously have played the card of idolatry of the state. For those who didnt read on Friday, we had a very good give and take between alot of people with alot of military experience and very well read both in faith and morals, as well as politics. I myself was involved with detainee operations in Iraq, have also served as tactical PSYOP in both Iraq and Bosnia. I worked in civilian corrections for 7 years as well.

This discussion could take place over hundreds of pages, but I think there are a few things that can be agreed on by all, there is an enormous amount of gray area for disagreement, but I think the principles and considerations to be taken into account can also be universally agreed upon, with an enormous amount of difference of opinion as to application. I think all sides must come away with very uncomfortable realizations.

First: I think we all agree that causing physical or psychological damage to innocent parties for no purpose other than the glee and psycho-sexual release of the captors is mala in se. This clearly is torture and the objectifying and dehumanizing of persons. I think we can accept this as a given.

Second(perhaps third and fourth): States do have a right to conduct military operations in certain circumstances. Part of the exercise of this function requires knowledge of the movements and plans of the other parties in the conflict. This information can be gained electronicially, through scouting, and through questioning of enemies who come into the custody of a state's forces. This I think needs to be mentioned because I think there is an unspoken thought behind some words on the political left that interrogation and questioning of prisoners, even HOLDING prisoners is unjust or inappropriate.......I actually say some things not challenging this point, but making its understanding more complicated.

Third: In an effort to bring some philosophical and legal structure to the most horrid and chaotic aspects of human existence, we have models such as Just War in philosophy, and the Geneva Conventions in International Law: Just war principle: Jus ad bellum-Just cause, comparative justice, legit authority, right intention, prob of success, last resort, proportionality. Part II is Jus in Bello - Distinction, proportionality, military necessity. The Geneva conventions are here and here. Note, and if you see this, you are understanding the situation at a level far above and beyond anybody in the US Legislative branch, the mainstream media, and certainly the Democratic Party-----the Geneva Conventions "dont apply" to the situation we find ourselves in. I will admit that line has been used politically by the administration. However, just as raw jurisprudence, it is still true. The GCs are written around a WWII type of situation. The war on terror(bad term, I know), is already a very gray area since we are dealing with groups that exist on the fringes of being paramilitary organizations, organized crime groups, and multinational-non state entities.

I think these are the three essential pillars, many other things branch off, but those three points summarize the crux of the issue. I think a couple things that add nuances are as follows.

-This isnt necessarily a situation of vox populi or sensuum fidelium. There is a certain amount of expertise, knowledge and background necessary to really properly address these topics. I think this issue cant be fully explored and adequately dealt with unless everybody involved holds a security clearance. The end point critical facts and procedures at the heart of the discussion simply cant enter the mainstream debate. One example: I think there are far better organizational models used by some other countries in integrating their intelligence functions that would greatly benefit us. Unfortunately, that line of reasoning cant take place in public. Im going somewhere with this at my end conclusion if you can hang with me.

DING DING--Havent mentioned this yet, but the state of ISLAM is very important here. We arent talking just about academic theories, but about a concrete, real situation, with actual definable forces. We arent in a "Clash of Civilizations," but you can sure see it from here. I see a couple things that I have not seen addressed in other places.
1)Historically, during the Crusades and other times, there have been prisoners taken and exchanged on both sides. There have also been prisoners executed and tortured on both sides. There were religious orders founded for the ransom and exchange of captives. I find this very interesting. From the stories one reads, the Crusader knights, and some of the Islamic chiefs, were treated very Chivalrously, and gentlemanly. My natural instinct, and I think that of our contemporary intelligence model, would have us grilling those guys for order of battle information as well as for intelligence about their military infrastructure -- How many horses could be bred and trained for war every year out of certain areas of France, for example. I havent read enough to see if this was done, or if it has even been translated from the historical documents. An important note, however......prisoners were always held for ransom, thus they were a dehumanized commodity for cash and capital. In our age, information is a commodity......so has anything changed? We are morally superior in the sense that we recognize that the average Joe Private should be released back into normal life.
2)This leads us to the observation that contemporary Islam is the "sick man of the world." The US and allies at least TAKE prisoners, anybody falling into the hands of these other groups is killed, period. I think we can see even in our own time how this situation has deteriorated. Remember Terry Waite, Fr. Jenco, and the Lebanon hostages during the 80's? As terrible as that situation was, we cant even raise to that level now.

Where this takes us to a conclusion....
I think we can clearly see that our current intellectual and political paradigms are inadequate in dealing with our current situation. Just War is strained when dealing with modern conflict where immigration has intermixed all the populations of the world, where groups other than states are capable of mounting operations, and where technology has made distance obsolete. The Geneva conventions, likewise, are inadequate in dealing with non-state forces and loosely organized cell structures.

Where I see the kernels of good ideas:
The Petraeus doctrine: The "surge" was not merely a strategy of throwing more bodies into Iraq. It is a radical shift in thought from seeing a military force as merely a battlefield fire and maneuver element. The economic, social, societal, and neighborhood problems of an area are equally, perhaps more important at times, than the combat power issues affecting an area. This sort of thinking seems so much more in tune with Jus ad Bello than mere "Occupation". On a cultural note, I dont think anyone from a non-Christian society could ever dream up this stuff. As to our original question of "waterboarding" and "torture", I think as this sort of more modern, unconventional theory of warfare permeates all the branches, I think that the intelligence and interrogation functions will progress in step.....there will still be tough interrogating(thankfully, I have to say), but I think the organizational culture will be such that abuses will be seen as detrimental to the overall effort --Look at it this way, suppose we do the whole routine on somebody who gives us useful information, there might be 10 people who would have "Snitched" who will now keep their mouths shut due to the actions taken against the first. I know this sounds like a very shallow cop-out, but Im trying to be realistic as to what is possible, and how morals and procedures change within institutions.

Benedict XVI - That rascally devil. My impression of Benedict/Ratzinger is that of an intellectual of the highest order, an urbane and cultured man who will be remembered for the density of his thought. However, I am now seeing him as a very shrewd politician who fully seems to be able to manifest the Love of Christ as "Tough Love". The Regensburg lecture, although yet again decried by the media, did spark some very serious debate. I dont like to dwell on what I see as cultural failures of Islam at too much depth, gets the feeling of a racist rant, but, I will say that there is a certain machismo and mafioso element(hell, Godfather was Saddam's favorite movie, just about EVERYBODY who has access to media in those countries seems to be aware of it, "it breaks my heart") in Islamic culture that you really need to carry yourself like an alpha male to have respect. I cant believe I just had to use that same term in reference to B16, but nobody..NOBODY else has accomplished as much to open a dialogue with Islam. Read this about Benedict's interaction with Islamic scholars.
I think in order to move from our current situation of generational warfare to one of at least detante, if not co-existence, the paradigm of the Islamic world has to be challenged, and challenged from within. Benedict's moves are the only ones being played on that most important Chessboard. Indeed, as GKC said, "Islam is a movement that ceased to move." Thats it in a nutshell.

This is very long, very wordy, but a dense topic. I think it goes to show how all of these things are interconnected, how our political and academic systems are piecemeal in their workings, and how one needs a "catholic" outlook on things to truly contribute.

Have a great day!

Diamonds Aren't Forever?

Stefan Kanfer, in his book on the De Beers diamond cartel, gives Chesterton the last word on Cecil Rhodes, who instead of promoting Western values "illustrated almost every quality essential to the Sultan, from the love of diamonds to the scorn of women." The irony was, as Kanfer points out, that Rhodes' "scorn of women" caused his ruin. While he hid from Poland's aggressively flirtatious Princess Catherine Maria Radziwill, the lady searched his study and carried away the secret telegrams that would eventually lead to his downfall. [The Last Empire, New York: Farrar Straus, 1993. pp. 47-48.]

My Country Right or Wrong?

I see that Sean over on the Blue Boar put up a post of Mark Shea's about waterboarding, and linked to a "Hannitized" T Shirt making light of the practice. I really applaud Sean(Dailey, not Hannity) et al for really calling this out as a life issue and something to be condemned as dehumanizing and not to be condoned by a Christian society.

My thinking on this is in the process of changing....Im somewhat close to these circles. My award for an ARCOM coming out of Iraq includes "587 Interviews conducted" in the Achievement #2 paragraph box. For the purposes of my unit's information requirements, we were considered passive intelligence collectors, and soft interrogators, to use the proper term. In 2003, most of the folks we ran into were somewhat happy to help us. There was an energy in the air of potential despite the chaos and upheaval. I know that the practice of waterboarding is associated more with Gitmo, and the more clandestine activities of certain agencies, but Ive questioned myself many times about my Iraq experience, in terms of where I was in my head at the time and how I would have viewed certain things. This is the task of a lifetime, so Im patient with myself on it. As Ive thought and read more and more about the Gospel, Just War, Augustine, and Chesterton, I end up coming to what I feel are solid conclusions. Some I feel like sharing, others not.

I feel at one hand we are on a slippery slope towards micromanagement of hour by hour soldier tasks. Most combat is based off of ambush/counterambush. Once the element of surprise is taken away, one comes closer and closer to an organized, ritualistic duel. As a PSYOPper, I know about tactical loudspeaker, and surrender appeals, which are appropriate for certain situations. What I am afraid of is the requirement for the offering of surrender as part of the law of land warfare. This could ultimately lead to MORE loss of life on both sides, as an intransigent enemy could use those vital seconds or minutes to fortify a position and prepare to take on an entry team or counter them in mid-maneuver. What this has to do with waterboarding? There is a tough, brutal reality to the situation that just does not come across through the media, and certainly not through the politicians. Some of these bad guys are very, very tough, well conditioned, and trained to resist questioning and frustrate the process. I see many defending the practice of waterboarding in a similar fashion to how the NRA used to deal with gun rights....no room to maneuver, and concession can only lead down a road to defeat. I can picture certain politicians who would not allow a prisoner to be questioned without due process, attorneys present, and the accompanying administrative mess.

I think that those of us who spend time delving into Chesterton(perhaps Belloc even more so) are deeply aware of the concepts of nationalism, worship of the state, "Prussianism", and distributism. From this body of material, one has to question the legitimacy of most of the conflicts which have occurred since the industrial revolution. Mass production of war material, and mass transportation of foodstuffs are necessary for fielding the vast land and naval (later air) forces of a national power. It is ironic that the Middle Ages are seen as so bloodthirsty when they could only fight about 40 days a year due to the requirements of manpower needed to maintain agriculture. CS Lewis made the chilling observation that if war is sometimes just, then peace is sometimes sinful. Most of us know theology of the body enough to recognize the true beauty and goodness of sexuality, and how pornography and promiscuity are shadows and abberations of that good. Likewise, greed and monopolization are distortions of the just use of the goods of this world. I dont think we have even developed the vocabulary to truly make distinctions between the just and holy application of force, and the violent gruesome phantasms of that good. Due to the thoughts of our contemporary pundits, Holy War and Jihad can only be manifestations of fundamentalist rancor. There is a professional and just way of approaching combat and the military life. However, if one is facing a prisoner who, due to time and circumstances of capture can reasonably be known to be in possession of certain knowledge. What does one do when he only stares back, plainfaced or smirking, when being questioned about operations in motion targeting US soldiers or civilians? I think what one must keep in mind, or at least be aware that I have in mind, is that there is a distinction between a 15 year old shepherd thrown on a truck and drafted into the army(or have his family killed), and someone who has been trained at terrorist camps, indoctrinated, and connected to the larger terrorist infrastructure.

I honestly think that the Petreus doctrine really is the answer to this situation, and should be seriously studied by philosophers of Just War, as the factors of modern, multinational, multi-front, and multimedia warfare are vastly different than the type of situations that JW theory developed (evolved :-) ) within. I dont want to talk down to people, but I should provide a very quick summary --also dont want to breach security clearance stuff. The Petreus doctrine turns a counterinsurgency force from being a battlefield maneuver force into behaving more like a highly armed community police force. Winning hearts and minds is accomplished not merely through media efforts, but through putting US bodies in the line of fire in the same neighborhoods where people are being pressured by militias. Rebuilding is done even before insurgent group numbers are eliminated. It is hoped that the populace then sees the militias as standing in the way of progress. In this situation, the necessity of waterboarding and aggressive interrogating is lessened, as the pool of information sources are increased....there are neighborhood leaders and citizens who will likely "snitch" on events, lessening the importance of the information of a single individual.

For as goofy as this sounds, just like theology of the body, I believe that the truth lies not in eliminating negatives, but in adding a positive-- a proactiveness, and structures that affirm humanity and human interaction.

Hope I dont catch hell for this..........folks on both sides could be upset.

Have a great weekend.

Roosevelt clerihew

In 1912, Roosevelt, Teddy,
when asked if he was ready
to run again, said he was fit as a moose,
prompting Taft to sputter, "What the deuce!"

Blind patriotism

The saying, “My country, right or wrong,” is often cited as a statement of blind allegiance to the nation and its policies, no matter what.

It is often said to counter those who try to point out when this country is doing something wrong - implying that critics are not patriotic.

The problem is, it is only a partial quotation – and one that distorts the real meaning.

In 1872, Senator Carl Shurz said: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

His notion was that if the nation is wrong, it should be set right, not just blindly followed. Criticism can not only be patriotic - a true patriot must be ready to criticize and fix things when the nation goes astray.

Naturally, G. K. Chesterton had his own spin on the idea: “'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'”

Obama Clerihew

Barack Obama,
neither Muslim, nor Osama.
But his foes are not above lies
to fabricate ties.

Why is this man Smiling??

Because he knows GKC!!

Ive started reading a bit of history/current events about the Vatican II era forward of the Church and the Papacy......I realized how little I really knew about John XXIII, Paul VI, and JPI and how they saw their leadership in tumultuous times.

Pope John Paul I, born Albino Luciani (sp?) wrote a book calledIllustrissimi , a collection of letters to historical and literary figures, including G.K Chesterton! I attached a link to a google books excerpt. I think John Paul does catch the spirit of GKC, for those of us who have lived most of our adult lives with John Paul the Great, the style of writing seems so un-pope-like. I cant believe Ive been a Chestertonian this long without knowing about this.

Sorry for my absence, I plan on being around much more frequently.

Happy Easter.

Any Thursday Experts Out There?

I received this question by email. Can anybody help?

Can anyone help me identify the "constable" who recruits Gabriel Syme to become a "philosophical policeman" in THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. I'm convinced it's not Sunday himself, but neither is it Lucian Gregory. Who is it? Help, please!

More on Second Spring

John Zmirak writes about Second Spring at Taki's Top Drawer. Excerpt:

But in the Easter spirit, I’d like to offer something positive today—news about a terrific intellectual journal edited in Oxford by Tolkien scholar and theologian Stratford Caldecott. Learned in the work of other “Inklings” C.S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers, and well-versed in the smart cultural criticism of Chesterton and Belloc, Caldecott provides a contrarian voice among orthodox Catholics—one that takes seriously the importance of “just war” teaching, distributism, and internal cultural renewal instead of the confrontations urged upon us by the neocons. Published twice per year, subjects regularly covered in Second Spring include the arts, sciences, technology, liturgy, new ecclesial movements, metaphysics, history, literature, poetry, and the world of books. Indeed, one might call Second Spring a kind of First Things for the peace party.

GKC-Type Joke

I think GKC would've liked this joke:

There are three religious truths:

a. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
b. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
c. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store.

It's Only Friday

The men of the east may spell the stars

And times and triumphs mark

But the men signed with the cross of Christ

Go gaily in the dark.

The Ballad of the White Horse

Whenever I get depressed about the current condition of things I have to remind myself that I am called to go gaily in the dark because it is only Friday and Sunday is coming.

Second Spring

I received an email from John Zmirak, new writer-in-residence at St. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, informing me of a new project:

"We recently launched a new journal, Second Spring: An International Journal of Faith and Culture, edited by the Oxford-based theologian Stratford Caldecott. This thoughtful, thought-provoking journal explores and advances the mission of a Catholic intellectual in the context of contemporary culture. Published twice per year, subjects regularly covered in Second Spring include the arts, sciences, technology, liturgy, new ecclesial movements, metaphysics, history, literature, poetry, and the world of books."

They're offering a 50% discount right now. I bet it'll be good. Zmirak might be the best Catholic writer alive. Scamper over.

(Aside: I responded to Zmirak, congratulating him on landing a position at the location of the annual Chesterton Conference. Kind of embarrassing. His is the school in New Hampshire, not the one in St. Paul, Minnesota. Oh well, I received his email in the heat of the work day, just as the morning caffeine burst was wearing off. I'm sure he understands.)

Quiet Beauty

The good news out of New York is the Neue Galerie is hosting a Gustav Klimt show though June.

If you can take it in you will not be disappointed for your effort to go into “the big bad city”.

(OK maybe not as exciting as Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the same movie but in this world we need to sometimes seek out quiet beauty in order to renew the spirit.)

Klimt was one of only a few artists that captured the transcendent strength and beauty of authentic femininity. Just compare this mother and child with the dripping sentimentality of Mary Casset’s work, the predatory sexuality of Picasso’s women, the aloof elegance that Modigliani gives us or the party girls of Lautrec. Klimt loved women, and loved the idea of woman. He gives us the same tenderness in his portrayals of old women and those in their prime.

Through the symbolism of women he worked out his biggest spiritual battle - the question and meaning of death. His conclusion was that life was monumental and at the same time as delicate and fragile as the wings of a butterfly. He saw it is only in women that this paradox is at balance.

A Buddha Clerihew

When Siddhartha Gautama
was seeking Nirvana
he refused to settle
for any old heavy metal.



(Karma's gonna get me!)

Stupid is as Stupid does

What Eliot Spitzer did with those naughty ladies of the night is between him and his wife and him and God. We will pray for him. Of course it cost him his dream job, he will become the butt of many jokes for a long time and he may even have to do some jail time because our system of justice nevvverrrr favors the rich and powerful. But remember, within the Democratic Party this kind of activity is usually a resume booster. Look what it did for Jerry Springer.

Both Springer and Spitzer support Hillary Clinton because Bill is their hero – sin attracts sin and as Mark Shea tells us: “Sin makes you stupid.”

Psalm 94: "Can judges who do evil be your friends? They do injustice under the cover of law; they attack the life of the just and condemn innocent blood."

The Bad Catholic's Guide to Distributism

John Zmirak (of The Bad Catholic's Guide fame) has a post on Distributism today at Taki's Mag. A snippet:

Those of us who understand the importance of economic independence, the virtues of independent farms and mom and pop businesses (and here comes the radical step) should patronize them. And convince our friends to join us. And boycott everything else.

read all of A Road Not Taken: Distributism

Frank Petta, RIP

Frank A. Petta, a man who played a significant role in the GKC revival, passed away last week. I met Frank once, at his birthday party when he was turning 84. He was a most gracious man, based on my brief meeting and the testimony of his many well-wishers at the party. His obituary:
Frank A. Petta, 89, of Elgin passed away Monday, March 3, 2008 in his home. He was born March 12, 1918 in New York, NY, the son of Victorio and Rosa Maria Petta. Frank was Baptized at St. Anthony of Padua and received first communion at the Church of Transfiguration in 1929. he graduated from St. John's University in Brooklyn and served two years in the US Army Air Corps. He then attained his Masters Degree from Columbia University. Frank was a teacher and taught in New York and Chicago for many years prior to retirement. He had a life long interest in the ideas and writings of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, an English journalist and author of many books. With others, he founded the Midwest Chesterton Society, and helped start an annual conference. Frank had been a member of several Pro Life organizations, and was director of Elgin Birthright for several years. He was a member of St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Elgin. Survivors include his wife, Ann, whom he married on March 23, 2002; a sister-in-law, Ethel Petta of New York; along with niece, Theresa Catherwood; and nephews, Fredrick, Joseph and Robert Petta; and many cousins and family. He was preceded in death by his parents; and his brother, Louis Petta. Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 7, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. in St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Elgin with Rev. Geoffrey Wirth officiating. Burial will follow in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Elgin. Visitation will be on Thursday from 4-8:00 P.M. at Laird Funeral Home, 310 S. State St. (Rt. 31), Elgin, IL 60123, 847-741-8800, and on Friday at the church from 9:30 A.M. until the Mass. Memorials directed to St. Thomas More Building Fund.

Lunchroom Caucus part duex

The Wednesday lunch after Hillary’s win in Ohio my buddy announced to our table, “See my girl won. Na na ne na na.”
The ladies chimed in, “I can’t believe that hag won.” and other derogatory remarks.
So I asked them, “So you voted for Obama?”
“Well no. Not exactly, I didn’t vote. I was just sure she would lose.”
The only other person that voted at all was the 20 something girl (voting for Hillary). So I asked her why she voted for Hillary.
“That’s who my dad told me to vote for.”
Of the 10 of us 3 voted, two for Hillary and one for McCain.

“The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.” GKC

Let’s just hope we don’t get too unconscious.

Collecting Rocks

I have posted the following quotes on my studio wall. This kind of thing helps to keep me focused on what studio work is supposed to mean.

"The world will never starve for want of wonders, only for want of wonder."
Chesterton

“The Catholic Church is the natural home of the human spirit. The odd perspective picture of life which looks like a meaningless puzzle at first, seen from that one standpoint takes a complete order and meaning, like the skull in the picture of the Ambassadors.”
Belloc

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Although Saint-Exupery is not an official member of the friends of Chesterton many of his quotes and essays have that flavor. I think Gilbert would have liked The Little Prince, as well as Saint-Exupery adventure stories.

Letters from Belloc

I wasn't aware of the book "Letters from Hilaire Belloc", edited by his early biographer Robert Speaight, until today. Are there any H.B. fans reading this that have read his letters? John DeJak recently posted one of Hilaire's letters to Chesterton. If his other letters are only a portion as good as this one, then Speaight's book would be edifying to read.

God Tube Chesterton

There's a Christian version of You Tube - it's called God Tube (http://www.godtube.com/).

There's a variety of groups and videos on there - some great music videos, talks, skits, and so one. There's also some Catholic ones.

And when I searched there for Chesterton, I found a Gilbert monologue.

Check it out.

If I knew how to link a video, I would. http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=dc2a6340e258630febd5 This is the best I can do!

UPDATE: Here it is, "embedded":

New Gilbert is Here!

Volume 11, Number 5 is on my lap. In the editors' sites: Feminism. It looks pretty good, though I've only had a chance to read Sean Dailey's Tremendous Trifles. He mentions that the headmaster of new Chesterton Academy has started a blog: War, Drink, and the Church. Presumably not for the weak-hearted, weak-stomached, or weak-minded.

Definitely not P. C.

An interesting thing happened at work the other night that might explain Hillary’s “surprise” fall for inevitability. I say interesting because I was surely not expecting the comments I heard. It was a great example of the cheat the prophet game.

As a reminder my primary source of income is as a third shift factory worker in Ohio. The gender mix on my shift is 75% female of which 80% is over 35. They are fork lift driving, power tool using, tough, independent working woman. This is Hillary country or should be.

March 4th is our primary so election talk is now running through the lunch room along with domestic issues. The guy I was sitting with said he was going to vote for Hillary and before I could talk about the expensive and dangerous socialist policies Hillary is purposing, the woman next to him said, “What are you nuts! You don’t really want a menopausal woman as president. Do you?”
Another woman chimed in, “Yea, she’s all dried up.”
Another, “Even if she is not in menopause you can’t have someone PMSing with access to nuclear weapons.”
Another, “She can’t even keep her own house in line.”
This went on for little while till a 20 something female said, “Hillary, she’s a democrat right?”

Like I said, I was surprised and I think Hillary will also be surprised here in Ohio

Nothing is important except...

Nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us, or the things on the retina of the eye, or the enormous irrelevancy of encyclopaedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come.

from G.K. Chesterton's introduction to Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop

--

Political colors

Jim Wallis recently reminded me of G. K. Chesterton.

I was reading Wallis’ latest book, The Great Awakening.

In the book, he argumes that the old religious right coalition is being replaced by a new politics/faith alignment engendered by a new “great awakening.”

I don’t want to get into all his arguments here – though I admit I find them interesting.

It was one passage that jumped out at me.

Wallis argues that many evangelicals and Catholics are, “like most Americans … searching for a new political agenda that doesn’t fit the standard right-left battles of American politics and is more consistent with their deeply held values.”

He continues, “What would such a new political agenda look like, one that moves us beyond the color-coded cultural divisions of ‘red’ and ‘blue’ that the political class and media pundits continually impose upon the country? If many Americans are actually closer to ‘purple,’ as is often suggested what might be a compelling vision that could evoke their convictions, reflect their values, summon their commitments, and change America?”

That sounded familiar.

A couple of days later I picked up my copy of A Miscellany of Men, and spotted the essay “The Voter and the Two Voices.”

I had an Aha moment. That’s where I’d seen that notion before.

In that essay, Chesterton wrote, “The real evil of our Party System is commonly stated wrong. … The real danger of the two parties with their two policies is that they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen. They make him barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to do anything except prefer one existing policy to another. We have not got real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people. We shall have real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people. The ordinary man will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about.”

Chesterton goes on to contend, “A certain alternative is put before them by the powerful houses and the highest political class.Two roads are opened to them; but they must go down one or the other. They cannot have what they choose, but only which they choose.”

Sound like the “political class and media pundits” Wallis mentions.

Chesterton, like Wallis, then uses some colorful imagery in terms of what “suffragettes” might want to do with Mr. Asquith.

“Let us say (for the sake of argument) that they want to paint him green. We will suppose that it is entirely for that simple purpose that they are always seeking to have private interviews with him; it seems as profitable as any other end that I can imagine to such an interview. Now, it is possible that the Government of the day might go in for apositive policy of painting Mr. Asquith green; might give that reform a prominent place in their programme. Then the party in opposition would adopt another policy, not a policy of leaving Mr. Asquith alone (which would be considered dangerously revolutionary), but some alternative course of action, as, for instance, painting him red. Then both sides would fling themselves on the people, they would both cry that the appeal was now to the Caesar of Democracy. A dark and dramatic air of conflict and real crisis would arise on both sides; arrows of satire would fly and swords of eloquence flame.”

In this Presidential primary season, doesn’t this sound familiar?

“The Greens would say that Socialists and free lovers might well want to paint Mr. Asquith red; they wanted to paint the whole town red. Socialists would indignantly reply that Socialism was the reverse of disorder, and that they only wanted to paint Mr. Asquith red so that he might resemble the red pillar-boxes which typified State control.The Greens would passionately deny the charge so often brought against them by the Reds; they would deny that they wished Mr. Asquith green in order that he might be invisible on the green benches of the Commons, as certain terrified animals take the colour of their environment.”

“There would be fights in the street perhaps, and abundance of ribbons, flags, and badges, of the two colours. One crowd would sing, 'Keep the Red Flag Flying,' and the other, 'The Wearing of the Green.' But when the last effort had been made and the last moment come, when two crowds were waiting in the dark outside the public building to hear the declaration of the poll, then both sides alike would say that it was now for democracy to do exactly what it chose. England herself, lifting her head in awful loneliness and liberty, must speak and pronounce judgement.”

All well and good – or not so good – but what if red and green are not what the people want?

“Yet this might not be exactly true. England herself, lifting her head in awful loneliness and liberty, might really wish Mr. Asquith to be pale blue. The democracy of England in the abstract, if it had been allowed to make up a policy for itself, might have desired him to be black with pink spots. It might even have liked him as he is now. But a huge apparatus of wealth, power, and printed matter has made it practically impossible for them to bring home these other proposals, even if they would really prefer them. No candidates will stand in the spotted interest; for candidates commonly have to produce money either from their own pockets or the party's; and in such circles spots are not worn.”

As for the media pundits – “Nearly all the great newspapers, both pompous and frivolous, will declare dogmatically day after day, until every one half believes it, that red and green are the only two colours in the paint-box. THE OBSERVER will say: 'No one who knows the solid framework of politics or the emphatic first principles of an Imperial people can suppose for a moment that there is any possible compromise to be made in such a matter; we must either fulfil our manifest racial destiny and crown the edifice of ages with the august figure of a Green Premier, or we must abandon our heritage,break our promise to the Empire, fling ourselves into final anarchy, and allow the flaming and demoniac image of a Red Premier to hover over our dissolution and our doom.' The DAILY MAIL would say: 'There is no halfway house in this matter; it must be green or red. We wish to see every honest Englishman one colour or the other.' And then some funny man in the popular Press would star the sentence with a pun, and say that the DAILY MAIL liked its readers to be green and its paper to be read. But no one would even dare to whisper that there is such a thing as yellow.”

CNN vs. FOX, with maybe Colbert tossed in?

When it comes to issues, Chesterton says, we are given two choices, when there are many available: “What is plain is that it was not inevitable; it was not, as was said,the only possible course; there were plenty of other courses; there were plenty of other colours in the box.”

Chesterton notes, “The democracy has a right to answer questions, but it has no right to ask them. It is still the political aristocracy that asks the questions.And we shall not be unreasonably cynical if we suppose that the political aristocracy will always be rather careful what questions it asks. And if the dangerous comfort and self-flattery of modern England continues much longer there will be less democratic valuein an English election than in a Roman saturnalia of slaves. For the powerful class will choose two courses of action, both of them safe for itself, and then give the democracy the gratification of taking one course or the other. The lord will take two things so much alike that he would not mind choosing from them blindfold - and then for a great jest he will allow the slaves to choose.”

Sounds like the criticism of our two-party system in the U.S. - a system in which the parties are really much closer than they (and the political aristocracy and pundits) would care to admit. The Republocrats and Demicans that Ralph Nader cites.

Anyway, at least I discovered why Wallis’ point sounded familiar.

Maybe he had an Obama moment and used someone else's ideas and neglected to mention where he got them.

Season IV . . . And It's Racy

Received from Dale Ahlquist: The 4^th season of “The Apostle of Common Sense” with all-new episodes will finally begin to air on Sunday, March 2^nd (9 pm EST, 8 pm CST). The first episode “The Only Man I Regularly Read” will have a bedroom scene!!!

Date With A Broken Record

I was thumbing through a new Art History Dictionary I received and the following made me smile, as this kind of comment always does.
------------------------------------
AD or A.D. - Abbreviation for "Anno Domine," which is Latin, and means "in the year of Our Lord." It is conventionally placed before a number to show that it refers to a year following the birth of Christ, although contemporary experts generally agree that Christ was probably born in 3 BCE. These are fundamentals of the Christian calendar. Other cultures designate years according to other schemes. An alternative term for AD is CE, standing for Common Era. Although CE is a less traditional term, it is globally preferred because it avoids the bais inherent in an insistence upon referring to Christ.

Quotes:
"Every scholar I know uses B.C.E. and shuns A.D."Harold Bloom, contemporary conservative scholar, Professor at Yale University, in correspondence quoted by William Safire in No Uncertain Terms, 2003, NY: Simon & Schuster, p 150.

"[The D. in] A.D. [standing for] Dominus means 'lord,' and when the lord referred to is Jesus, ... a religious statement is made. Thus, 'the year of our Lord' invites the query 'Whose lord?' and we're in an argument we don't need."William Safire in No Uncertain Terms, 2003, NY: Simon & Schuster, p 152.
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First of all Safire’s book No Uncertain Terms is a fun read and sometimes enlightening but his quote above is of course absurd for the argument he is trying to make. This is because, “…invites the query Whose lord? and we are in an argument we don’t need” it is precisely that argument along with “Who is Lord”, and “What is the nature of our Lord” that shaped and unified the “Common Era”. When someone says “the Common Era” what if another asks, “What makes it the Common Era?”, what answer will be given? I have yet to hear one that did not include the Judeo and Christian ideals. Also it is exactly the argument we do need.

And if we use the nomenclature B. C. E. (Before the Common Era) what is it that makes it uncommon or unattached to each other in that pagan era? There was no consistent common story (outside of the Jews). Or as GKC said “The term "pagan" is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaning a man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man with about half a dozen.” Oops back to a religious statement.

We are the family of man and what is the common thread that binds a family, it is blood and a story. A.D. gives us the unifying blood of Christ and a story that is about His family, which would be us – warts and all.

However, what struck me funny was that it was used in an art history book. If you pile up all the art done before Christ you get different people working out their ideals on different views of the transcendent. If you pile up all the western art done for the past 2,000 years 99% of it is of a religious nature. Even the early 20th century artist grappled with religious issues. It can be argued that weakest art produced in history has been done in the past 6o years where a denial of our story has been the vogue. And the fruits of the denial of universal truth are always banality and boredom. B.C.E and C.E. are boring terms because they have no meat to them.

[As a side note: what really gets me rolling on the floor with laughter is when the HistoryChannel uses BCE and CE when talking about Bible History]

Next let’s look at Harold Bloom who put together the western cannon of must read literature. I will not impute Mr. Bloom’s intelligence on this list but I question two of his entries which relates to the above quote.

The first is he included, under The Ancient Near East Category, The Holy Bible - King James Version. Not only is the King James Version bereft of several books known in the Ancient Near East it is also full of translation errors in the books it keeps.

Secondly and the bright spot on this list is that he does include G. K. Chesterton (collected poems and The Man Who Was Thursday) but he includes him as a 19th century writer and The Man Who Was Thursday was published in 20th. And Bloom does not include any of his other writings – To religious I suppose.

And he puts G. B. Shaw (a long list of books) as a twentieth century writer. He also places H.G. Wells in the twentieth century saying all his science fiction work is a must read. Maybe it is one of the rules at Yale, a former divinity school, that religious thought has to be pushed back to the 19th AD where it’s stuffy but cute and right thinkers are pushed to the 20th CE where he lives.

"Book's exuberant truths still impact readers a century later"

Ray Waddle writes today in The Tennessean about his choice of book for Lenten reading. It is G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy.

Existence itself was always a shocking wonder to him. It made him grateful for creation, where nothing is trivial because everything holds clues to divine revelation.

His religious witness offered a rare mix — intellectual dazzle and humility. We could use both just now.

GQ Guy Quotes GK Chesterton

Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, quotes GK in today's [London] Daily Mail article Attack of the 50ft Dream Woman. The article overwhelms me. Perhaps someone else can comment on it.

--

Colbert on the Angels and Free Will

Read the quotation from Chesterton below, and then enjoy watching Colbert speak the truth with levity.

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly... Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do... It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

-- G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy

***********
UPDATE: the original embedded video clip (at YouTube) was removed due to copyright restrictions. Comedy Central has it available on their website: Colbert interviews Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect
***********


"Hat tip" to Marcel LeJeune, The Catholic Evangelist, who sent along the link.

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Very cool.........

An Omen

GK's Poetry in the NY Times

A bit of Chesterton's poetry was quoted in yesterday's New York Times (link). The article was about suicide and the quoted poem was, of course, Ballad of a Suicide.

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Chesterton in Russia

Take a minute to watch this video clip about a small Chesterton conference and debut of a new edition of his writings in Moscow.

H/T to Mark at Straight Flusche who sent me the link.

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"I gave Bobby a book about G.K. Chesterton..."

Big News brought to our attention by Sean Dailey @ The Blue Boar:

In 2004, [Bobby] Fischer was arrested and detained in Japan for allegedly attempting to travel on a revoked passport. The U.S. government insisted that his passport had been revoked. San Diego attorney Richard Vattuone, a Catholic, flew to Japan to act as counsel for Fischer. After his release, Fischer emigrated to Iceland.

Vattuone is intrigued by Fischer's final act. "When I met him in Japan, I gave Bobby a book about G.K. Chesterton, The Apostle of Common Sense. The book covered many matters of culture and religion. I know Bobby had read at least some of the book. Chesterton was a convert and the book contained an article about his conversion. We had also discussed religion."

-- from an article by Robert Kumpel

A haiku clerihew

Basho
on seeing a frog jump said, "Oh,
that should inspire a haiku
or two!"

Some Thoughts and observations.....

Ive got a couple different thoughts Im going to mix and match here. Im a bit erratic in my posting. I apologize. My time issues make me have to mash together some very different things when I do get the chance to come on here. Some outstanding things being said lately.

This is Despicible

and

This is bizzare

I do think that someone has to come up with some solid ideas for cultural assimilation of Middle East/Central Asian immigrants. I find this interesting as a Chestertonian. I think those of us in this circle do take the lessons of Lepanto seriously. On the other hand, I also think that it is the little "c" catholic ideas which we espouse which would form the basis of the mixed culture of the future. During my time in the Balkans and the Middle East, I observed something which Ive been mulling over for years. Despite the seeming contradictions of theology and history, the Islamic interpreters Ive worked with, and even Islamic villagers seemed most comfortable dealing with the more fervently Christian religious soldiers. I think there is a recognition of honor and purity in lifestyle that appeals across denominational lines. The Muslim men, in my opinion, saw that I would not be eyeballing their wife and daughters, and would treat him as a true paterfamilias. Obviously there are extremists and those who stir that pot, but ultimately I think that the common morality of robust faith is the key to cooperation.

Must end with a final rant.......Saw an excerpt and overview of USCCB document on Islam. I value it as an apologetic. Surely the Church must be propped up by the power of God if it is run by people like these guys...............

A bit unrelated....politics.

If Hillary Clinton becomes president and moves Bill back into the White House will a notification have to be sent to all the schools and daycares within a mile of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

I have very bad feelings about this election year. Democratic turnout is so high, and Hillary/Obama both have messianic appeal as "first of their kind" presidents. Contrast that enthusiasm and emotion with the begrudging, ho-hum support that McCain gets from the Republican side. A great many of McCain's primary supporters will cross over to vote Democratic. Im predicting a margin of victory equal to that found in nations where you sign your ballot with name, address, and coffin size.


Have a great day!!

Al-Kyro!

Birthday of Dickens

Today, Feb 7, is the birthday of Charles Dickens. Without G.K. Chesterton's advocacy of Dickens over 100 years ago very few people would be reading Charles Dickens today. A brief quotation:

Christianity said that any man could be a saint if he chose; democracy, that every man could be a citizen if he chose. The note of the last few decades in art and ethics has been that a man is stamped with an irrevocable psychology and is cramped for perpetuity in the prison of his skull. It was a world that expects everything and everybody. It was a world that encouraged anybody to be anything. And in England and literature its living expression was Dickens.

- G.K. Chesterton in Charles Dickens

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Recentl googler's have found their way to two articles from this blog's past, and have left short comments on these posts from 2006: Dawn Eden yesterday found Nick Milne's transcription of Homesick at Home, and "bls" found Lee Strong's post on G.K.C and Fairy Tales.

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Super Winston

Jonah Goldberg in today's LA Times:

As a conservative, I'm a big believer in the importance of tradition, which writer G.K. Chesterton dubbed "democracy for the dead." But tradition can only be as strong as it is in the people who pass it on. And so when I read that 23% of Britons think Winston Churchill is no more real than Spider-Man, it makes me shudder at the voluntary amnesia of society, the wholesale abdication of parental responsibility that represents.

Primary Purity and Innocence

Whatever else the worst doctrine of depravity may have been, it was a product of spiritual conviction; it had nothing to do with remote physical origins. Men thought mankind wicked because they felt wicked themselves. If a man feels wicked, I cannot see why he should suddenly feel good because somebody tells him that his ancestors once had tails. Man's primary purity and innocence may have dropped off with his tail, for all anybody knows. The only thing we all know about that primary purity and innocence is that we have not got it.

-- G.K. Chesterton in All Things Considered

(this is today's quote from Chesterton Day by Day)

Not reading a book

I have a confession to make.

I stopped reading a book.

I know many of us have done that - for a variety of reasons. (My best previous excuse was when I was reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and it got in the laundry bag and, well, ended up as pulp in the washer. I took that as a sign from God to stop reading stuff that might damage my soul!)

But in this case, it was a book I wanted to read, about a person I was interested in learning more about: Hilaire Belloc.

Last year, I bought an autographed copy of Joseph Pearce's Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, at the Chesterton Conference in Rochester.

I couldn't finish it.

That's not a criticism of Pearce. I've read others of his books that I have enjoyed.

It was Belloc.

The more I read, the less I liked him, and the less I cared to read more about him. (Sort of like the people who discovered the more contact they had with Rudy Giuliani, the less they liked him. Thus his Florida flop.)

I was reminded of what happened with my planned biography of Bishop Sheen many years ago.

At the time I was a writer for the diocesan paper in Rochester, where he served as bishp from 1966-69. We have his archives, and I had access to many people who knew him.

I decided to write a multi-part series about his years in Rochester for the paper, and then to expand the series into a book.

I interveiwed, read, searched the archives, and wrote the series. I won an award for it.

But the more I dug into his life, the less I wanted to spend time with him. A biographer (can't remember who) once commented that to write a good biography you have to be willing to live with the subject for several years.

I could not imagine living with Bishop Sheen.

Nothing against him per se. And not a judgement of his morality or character: He may well be in heaven praying for my soul right now.

I just didn't like him as a person. There have been a lot of saints who would have been murder to live with. That doesn't mean they are not saints.

Anyway, that's how I began to feel about Belloc.

Guess I'll stick with Chesterton. I never get tired of hanging around with him.

Lesser-Known GKC

Those looking for less familiar essays by Chesterton should note that he contributed to The Venture, a highbrow literary annual edited by W. Somerset Maugham and Lawrence Houseman. The Venture was an expensive production, and only two issues appeared—the 1903 and 1904 editions, respectively. [Ted Morgan, Maugham, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 93-94] Incidentally, Chesterton's 1903 contribution, "The Philosophy of Islands," was reprinted in The Spice of Life (1964).

Weekend thoughts........

This is very cool......OT History

An awesome interview of Fr. Schall, SJ
and is continued here.

I chose these two things with intention. Fr. Schall is very "progressive" in how he seamlessly blends classical philosophy, Aquinas, and a literary life with the problems and questions of today -- which are really the problems and questions of every day. Fr. Schall can almost make tears come to the eyes.......for the beauty of the truth and the sadness of the Jesuit order. If Fr. Schall is what the Jesuit order was meant to be, and indeed was for much of its history, it would have been amazing to see in its finest flowering.

Link this to the discovery of archaeological evidence of the ancient history of the Hebrews.

Amazing at times to think of the shoulders we stand on.

A Presidential Clerihew

President James Polk
would rarely crack a joke.
But friends say he was quick
with a limerick.

CSL

New C.S. Lewis blog, and it's a big hitter, sponsored by HarperOne.

Some weekend thoughts.....

Life is getting very, very political now. There is a temptation at times to fall into the trap of thinking that political thought is actual reasoning. I found this little quiz as a fun thing to keep balanced with.

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

I'm really not sure which of the Fathers would be most Chestertonlike personality wise. Belloc and St. Jerome could easily be pictured together. Chesterton would most likely match best with.....St Justin Martyr? My knowledge of the Fathers isnt quite what it should be. I know controversies, and the names associated with them, but little about personalities beyond the heavies (St. Augustine, St. Basil) There is a certain Eastern-ness to Chesterton which leads me to suspect that he might be most closely mirrored by one of the Greek or Alexandrian writers.

Interesting thought at least.

GKC and BBC

Sorry for my absence. I'm still not back up to full health, time-wise. In the meantime:

On December 7, 1936, the BBC, which had started in public television only five weeks before, broadcast a televised pantomime—directed and performed by Hilary D. C. Pepler, a Ditchling associate of Eric Gill. Originally the performance had been planned by Pepler and G.K. Chesterton as a benefit for the Distributist League and was produced at London's Little Theater on June 28, 1936, shortly after Chesterton's death. [Evans, America, December 26, 1987, pp. 501-02]

Huckabee cites Chesterton!

I know that Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been the subject of debate in Catholic circles and blogs - with supporters and detactors - but something he said should raise a smile among Chestertonians.

In his victory speech, Huckabee loosely quoted Chesterton: "A true soldier fights not because he hates those who are in front of him but because he loves those who are behind him."

(Actual GKC quote: "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.")

Huckabee went on to say, "Running for office is not hating those who are in front of you but loving those who are behind you."

When was the last time a U.S. politician cited Chesterton?

A clerihew

Any foe of Andrew Jackson
who dared to make attacks on
Rachel, his wife,
was risking his life.

Family Legacy?

I made it into my thirties without knowing this........

Was at a family function and one of our geneologist buffs told me that we are related to one of the 2 men executed as warlocks at the Salem witch trials.

Not particularly surprising, really explains alot.

If I remember correctly, upon hearing of the American holiday of Thanksgiving, instituted by the Puritans to commemorate their leaving England, Chesterton wanted to institute a similar holiday in England, celebrating the fact that they left.

Merry Christmas - Book Things

Sorry to have missed my regular Friday.....holiday Chaos.

Local library just had overflow sale.........amazing deals

Hardcover 50cents
Softcover 25cents

They are just trying to offload. Ive picked up some amazing stuff over the years.

This year I picked up a hardcover edition of the complete poetical works of Milton, and some of his more important prose and political tracts. Also picked up a hardcover, gorgeously illustrated edition of Chaucer...in original middle English, but I can battle through it, I have contemporary editions of all the same material.

As far as GKCness.......Im making a resolution to read his small bio of Chaucer for New Years. I dont think it is very long regardless, just to get a feeling for his reactions.

And a QUESTION for the readership!!!

I got a $50 Barnes and Noble Gift Card for Christmas!!!

Im stumped what to do with it. Will take advice. Im leaning towards picking up a copy of Dore's Illustrations for Idylls of the King, but Ill take advice on what to do with the rest of it.

Thanks and God Bless.

A Christmas Carol

By G.K. Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

A surprising introduction

I was trying to teach my high school students about writing descriptively. We had a few examples in our book, but then I remembered one of my favorite descriptive passages: The opening chapter of Bleak House and its description of fog.

I knew I had an old “Everyman’s Library” edition – 1954, but first published in 1907 – that I hadn’t read in years. I found it in my bookcase at home, and brought it in the next day.

I read the passage. Then I happened to look at the introduction.

Yes, it was Chesterton’s. A treasure I didn’t even realize I had.

Somehow I never thought of Dickens as somehow like “mature potato“ or Napoleon, but Chesterton made it all work.

He talks of Dickens’ growing maturity as a novelist. And he praises the very section I read – “Dickens’s openings are almost always good; but the opening of Bleak House is good in a quite new and striking way.”

And in talking about Dickens’s use of the fog (of the air, and of Chancery), he observes, “He means that all the characters and all the events shall be read through the smoky colours of the sinister and unnatural vapor.”

Fancy that. Enjoying a great book not only for the book itself, but also for its introduction.

A little Christmas gift!

Schall at Dappled

Fr. Schall has written a GKCish piece for Dappled Things about Christmas. He opens with this lesser-known quote:

“Christmas . . . is one of numberless old European feasts of which the essence is the combination of religion with merry-making. But among those feasts it is also especially and distinctively English in the style of its merry-making and even in the style of its religion. For the character of Christmas (as distinct, for instance, from the continental Easter) lies chiefly in two things: first on the terrestrial side the note of comfort rather than the note of brightness and on the spiritual side, Christian charity rather than Christian ecstasy.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, 1906

Hobbit

Good news from a Chesterton friend that was a generation behind: Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have reached agreement to make J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” a planned prequel to the blockbuster trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.”

Great Giving

If you still can not think of what to give that special someone who already has a book shelve of Chesterton here is a great idea, Portraits of Grace: Images and Words from the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, by James Stephen Behrens, OCSO.

Father Behrens is a Trappist monk at the monastery and a master photographer.

Photography is the most difficult of the art forms to create transcendent beauty because it is the easiest art to do – point and click. This is what still keeps the debate going on whether or not photography is an art or a craft.

Father Behrens has created art in this collection. He also has written short reflections to accompany the photos.

Good art or poetry takes the common and makes it divine or takes the divine and makes it common. Truly great art does both in the same piece. “The meaning of life is often hidden amidst the ordinary, asking only that we pause, look, ponder,” the author notes. All of Fr. Behrens art is good and some of it is great.

And by giving this gift you give twice because all the proceeds from the book’s sale help the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA.

You can get this book at Amazon

Weekend Thoughts

Ive been thinking lately about the English-ness of Chesterton and its place in his Catholicism. As Americans, inheritors of the English language and other aspects of Anglo culture we could likely benefit from some reflection.

Olde England was Catholic to its soul. There are some in Chestertonia who delve into this deeply with the stories and legends of the old missionary saints and the role played by the monasteries for almost a thousand years. It also stands to note that the English model of governmental development reflected the development of doctrine in Catholicism to a certain degree. I hate using terms vaguely, but England, Britain, and the UK all mean specific things and I might accidentally interchange. To my point, the British government does not derive from a single document, like the US Constitution, but rather emerges from a long series of acts and motions over a period of time, beginning in general with the Magna Carta. At least that's what I was taught in school. This isnt a perfect parallel, but it does mirror the process of Catholic thought in many ways. This makes the sheer violence of the Tudor era unsurprising. An amputation, such as what the break away of Henry/Elizabeth was, is a very bloody thing by definition. I do not think that this is a point of historical minutiae or religious esotericism. There is a lesson to be drawn here that sexuality and power, particularly of the state, wield forces of persuasion stronger than a thousand years of tradition and entwined systems.

Something Ive thought about in the larger sense is that for as catholic and Catholic as England/Britain have been, their experience is still just a small part of the life of the universal Church. Paradoxically, it is the Angloness of Chesterton's Catholicism that has really opened my eyes to the fellowship we share with the ancient Syriac Churches, the Greeks, the Japanese martyrs, and continental Christendom.

New Again

This, by all accounts, has been a bad year for me. Filled with tragedy, disappointments and emotional upheaval, perhaps the worst year I have gone through. I sunk into a deep blue funk. Blah. Blah. Balh.

A couple of things have helped me turn around to start winning the battle of spiritual sloth. The battle turned on a few seemingly unconnected phrases. The first was remembering what my grandma used to tell me whenever I was down, “Ah, It feels so good to feel so bad.” The next was a line from a popular song “Life goes on after the thrill of living has gone.”

These phrases swirled around in my head as I watched the first Advent candle being lit. Both made me laugh. Grandma was right, she was very Franciscan in her thinking and Cougar was wrong, life is always a thrill. As our friend Gilbert would say, " An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."

The Church understands suffering and brings us comfort in many ways. One is with a sense of humor. Saint Steven (feast day Dec. 26) was named Patron Saint of stone masons and headaches. How can you not love a Church that would do that?
“Little did all the people present, casting stones upon him, realize that the blood they shed was the first seed of a harvest that was to cover the world.”

Yes, it is now Advent, the Word will be made flesh. The world receives hope. Yes, yes, it is the event that broke the back of the world and it is still reeling and still erect.

What could possibly be more of a thrilling ride.

Mencken on Wells and Chesterton

By E.J. Scheske

"A man with a head worth a pile of Chesterton heads as high as the Trafalgar monument."

That's H.L. Mencken, writing about H.G. Wells, dissing G.K. Chesterton.

Mencken was a Chesterton fan at first. In January 1910, he reviewed Chesterton's George Bernard Shaw with this type of high praise: "The cleverest man in all the world, with the second cleverest as his subject, is here doing his cleverest writing. . . Not since St. Augustine have the gods sent us a man who could make the incredible so fascinatingly probable."

But HLM tired of GKC. Not too surprising. As GKC become increasingly Catholic, he probably became increasingly distasteful (and boring) to HLM.

Simply delightful

From Gerald Lynch's Leacock on Life:

In his time, [Canadian humourist/economist Stephen Leacock] shared the press’s more plentiful pages with such of his essaying contemporaries as H.G. Wells, Hilaire Belloc, George Bernard Shaw, and G.K. Chesterton. Leacock and Chesterton met over a billiard game, which the two insisted on keeping private for its three-hour duration, and became friends. In a piece poking fun at a fad for getting at the private person behind the public figure [...] Leacock concludes a pretty funny catalogue with the news that the corpulent Chesterton is, in private, actually quite thin.

I'll likely be putting together a brief piece about Leacock for an upcoming issue of Gilbert, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for it in the future.

Friday Thoughts

Greetings All,

Cant wait to read the new encyclical. Im glad to see some reference to it here.

Im noticing a wonderful trend in the Catholic blogs over the last couple months. Im sensing a bit of a turn towards the fullness of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. There are so many things we could lament and complain about when it comes to the Church , the nation, and the world, but Im seeing a great deal of appreciation of art, of the seasons, of beer and joie d'vive. This is what I think mature spirituality looks like rescued from a hundred different fundamentalisms.

A Clerihew...

Mitt Romney
Is not the enemy
Following Joseph Smith
Does not make him a Sith


er, ok. another one......

Barrak Obama
Is strong in Iowa
Oprah's best pitch
Can make Hilary a witch


Well....

Everybody have a great weekend and God Bless

A Giuliani Clerihew

With Rudy

you get Judy.

His former mistress, I must confess,

looks better than he does in a dress.

(i.e. - Giuliani is currently married to his third wife and his former mistress, Judith Nation. And yes, that is Giulini.)

Morley on GKC

In 1912 Christopher Morley, then a 22-year-old Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, was shown a "real" book manuscript—the first he had ever seen. It was The Victorian Age in Literature, "all," he remembered, "in Chesterton's strong curly hand." [Helen MckOakley, Three Hours for Lunch, New York: Watermill, 1976]

Evocative

So, I'm back.

==

Reading through the Holy Father's latest encyclical, Spe Salvi, I came across a passage that contains a dramatic evocation of something that will be familiar to many of our readers. The whole document is worth reading, of course, but this passage in particular (from article 6) delights me:

The figure of Christ is interpreted on ancient sarcophagi principally by two images: the philosopher and the shepherd. Philosophy at that time was not generally seen as a difficult academic discipline, as it is today. Rather, the philosopher was someone who knew how to teach the essential art: the art of being authentically human—the art of living and dying. To be sure, it had long since been realized that many of the people who went around pretending to be philosophers, teachers of life, were just charlatans who made money through their words, while having nothing to say about real life. All the more, then, the true philosopher who really did know how to point out the path of life was highly sought after. Towards the end of the third century, on the sarcophagus of a child in Rome, we find for the first time, in the context of the resurrection of Lazarus, the figure of Christ as the true philosopher, holding the Gospel in one hand and the philosopher's travelling staff in the other. With his staff, he conquers death; the Gospel brings the truth that itinerant philosophers had searched for in vain. In this image, which then became a common feature of sarcophagus art for a long time, we see clearly what both educated and simple people found in Christ: he tells us who man truly is and what a man must do in order to be truly human. He shows us the way, and this way is the truth. He himself is both the way and the truth, and therefore he is also the life which all of us are seeking. He also shows us the way beyond death; only someone able to do this is a true teacher of life.

What am I driving at? Why:

"The Convert"
By G.K. Chesterton

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

The second stanza, in particular, seems significant, especially given the attention paid in the passage above to Christ's status as the "true philosopher."

Further encyclical-based eurekas as events warrant.

On Hope

G.K. Chesterton in Charles Dickens (1906):

It is currently said that hope goes with youth, and lends to youth its wings of a butterfly; but I fancy that hope is the last gift given to man, and the only gift not given to youth. Youth is preeminently the period in which a man can be lyric, fanatical, poetic; but youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged; God has kept that good wine until now.

Pope Benedict XVI in Spe Salvi (30 Nov 2007, St Andrew's Day):

“SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.

Punker Chestertonian

Sean Daily, editor of Gilbert Magazine, is a punk rock fan. Check out his great post about punk rock music (which he ties into Distributism at the very end). Excerpt:

Punk as a genre arose simultaneously in America and the UK, but there were distinct sub-genres and styles depending on where it came from. There was Los Angels punk (bands like X and the Vandals), New York punk (the Ramones) and London punk (the Clash and, of course, the Sex Pistols). Of course there were a lot more bands than these, and there were other regional outposts, such as Athens Georgia (home of the B-52’s), but these are the most recognizable examples. The American Midwest, particularly Chicago, Madison (yes, Madison), and Minneapolis also developed its own regional sound.

Of these regions, LA punk was most heavily influenced by R&B and country. X even released a purely country-western LP, Poor Little Critter on the Road, for which they renamed themselves the Knitters. It is a BRILLIANT album, and nearly impossible to find (I found a scratched copy in a used record store in St. Paul -- still have it; and you can buy it here now -- and look, I guess X put out a second Knitters album. The things you can learn on Amazon...). Another West Coast band from a little later in that era, the Beat Farmers, shamelessly flaunted their rockabilly roots (I saw them play multiple times at the Cabooze in Minneapolis). The duo Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, from San Diego, even took the stage with Skid playing a washboard for percussion.

The London punkers also were heavily influenced by American R&B and country, especially the Clash. To listen to their masterpiece, London Calling, is to listen to a band steeped in American musical traditions and styles: jazz, country, rockabilly, blues, R&B, folk, and more, with some reggae and Hispanic influences thrown in for good measure.

Happy Birthday Jack

Today is C. S. Lewis' Birthday.

In honor of the day - and of the Christmas season that is upon us - here's a little passage form The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch’s reindeer, and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world—the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.

The Holiday Gilbert Magazine is Here

I don't have time to blog about it now, but it's thick. Unfortunately, based on a quick glance it doesn't appear to have much Christmas stuff in it. It is, however, heavy on Harry Potter. That's bad news for me (a mere spectator, the Harry Potter debates bore me) but good news for the normal people out there who share the HP obsession, either by loving HP or hating it. My wife loves Harry, so I'll put the copy on her nightstand.

Post Thanksgiving Thoughts

Greetings All,

Sorry to miss a couple appearances here.

A handful of unconnected thoughts. Unconnected save for a morsel from the Chestertonicopia.

Laura Ingraham(wonderful woman, convert to the Church as well) and some of the other conservative radio commentators really get after the pornification of the culture. I think we have truly warped sexuality in our society. However, I think money and its role have equally been distorted far from the place proper reason would put things of this sphere, much less the demands of the Gospels. Peter Kreeft said it so well...something like we use sex as a means of exchange, and expect our money to get pregnant and reproduce itself.

The more I read about the Puritans the more I am deeply, deeply disturbed. I do think that the meme of the Puritans still exists in American culture, especially amongst East Coast Bluebloods. The puritanical morality is basically gone, but the puritanical urge to purge and persecute those who dont live up to its current incarnation is alive and well. The new scarlet letter is "C" for Carbon.

Does anybody besides me see the movies Fargo and My Big Fat Greek Wedding as racist trash?

Does anybody else see the irony and flat out weirdness of the recent bunch of athiest books that have been published? Im particularly thinking of the Mother Teresa hatchet jobs. What intellectual slovenliness. Even a superficial investigation into Catholic spiritual theology would find the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul. At the very least, one could point a finger at the Church for enshrining a depression related disorder as a mark of spirituality. One could also explore if such a state corresponds to any of our contemporary DSMMD conditions. But nobody does this. I could make better arguements across the board than these guys, and Im on the other side. And they consider themselves enlightened and "brights."

Isnt it ironic that despite the mad jihadists out to get us, the US has established more Moslem regimes around the world than Al Queda? (Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo)

Have a great week?

A Black Friday Atheist

"There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less." GK

At 6 a.m., I got up and took the dog for a walk.

Then I went out for my morning walk, enjoying the quiet and the fresh snow.

When I returned home, I made some coffee, and sat down to read the paper.

I checked my e-mail, and posted a blog entry. I wrote a haiku.

I helped my wife fold some laundry. Then I made a nice bowl of oatmeal, and took a warm shower.

I post this as I sit here in my bathrobe. In a few minutes I will get dressed.

Maybe later we will go see a movie or dip into our Christmas video/dvd collection. Or go out for a cup of coffee. Or read a good book (plenty of Chesterton lying about!)

I also have some students' research papers to grade.

Mostly, we'll just relax.

You won't see me near the malls today.

Black Friday is a "holy day" I do not honor. I don't worship the gods of commerce and excess.

A Huckabee Clerihew

With Mike Huckabee
you get what you see:
A plain-spoken man
with a national plan.