Rochester Chesterton Conference

The Rochester (NY) Chesterton Conference is tomorrow at St. John Fisher College. The usual gang will be there - including me. I'll take some pictures, keep some notes, and maybe write a clerihew or two.

As a side note, I'm teaching a writing class at my high school. I just introduced the students to clerihews. They have to write some of their own for next week. I hope to submit some of theirs to Gilbert - or at least post some here.

Arcade Friday

Diamond Hollow II

As one reviewer wrote, here's the thing about this game: "...it tricks you into playing it because it has the word 'diamond' in the title. You think it's going to be pretty and nice and kind of glamorous and ladylike and sweet smelling, like a gardenia. But then it's just like any game. You're supposed to kill stuff and collect points but the primitive animation makes it hard to tell the difference between the diamonds and the bad guys so you get confused and die many times over. Then you just give up.

Also, the diamonds in this game are the color brown."

What fun.

Chesterton had alot to say about Margart Sanger and her club. He was one of the early voices to sing out against her type of progresive madness. “Progress,” G.K. Chesterton observed, “has discouraged anybody who had anything to say in favor of man, in his common relations to manhood and motherhood and the normal appetites of nature. Progress has been merely the persecution of the Common Man.”

He, of couse, was right. So why did hardly anyone listen. Sanger, long before Rules for Radicals was written, employed what Saul Alinsky wrote in the beginning of his book:

“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.” Here is an excellant article of how she do the voodo she do so well.

Speaking of progress:

Mrs. H. Clinton, accepting Planned Parenthood’s highest honor, the Margaret Sanger Award, said “I want to assure you that reproductive rights. . .will be a key to the foreign policy of this administration.” For our little Hillary the taking of innocent life gets the same priority as issues of war and peace.

Secretary Clinton also told her adoring audience, “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision,” and “Margaret Sanger’s work is not yet done.”

Oh yes her work is not yet done because the one she worked for is not done the father of lies, the great accuser, that talking snake.

On this the feast day of the Arch Angels let us call them back to battle. Especially Michael

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards could not have been happy on September 15 when she was served with a letter from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce announcing the opening of an official investigation and demanding financial and other documentation dating back 20 years in an effort to ascertain if the company is misusing federal funds and violating the law regarding the reporting of suspected sexual abuse and the aiding and abetting of sex traffickers.

My prayer now is that this is not just an other episode of political theatre.

This is a good beginning for 40 days of life.

JUST A HEADS UP

Father Barron's Catholicism TV series starts next week, (check your local PBS listings). I bought the book last week and although I am only a little way into it I would like to note two things:

The first is that Father Barron has so far quoted GK Chesterton and CS Lewis at least once per chapter.

The other is, if this TV series is only half as good as the book be prepared for bulging RCIA classes.

As Marc Barnes said, "The things we do should be fantastic. We’re not just anyone, we’re Catholics! What we do reflects our Church, and our Church is the only sane thing left in the world! Strive for excellence then, glorify God by using every drop of talent He’s given you, because I do believe that—now more than ever—our Church needs to reaffirm that we have brought the world the best literature, art, architecture, music and life it has. And that we still do."

doodlers of the world unite

I feel so much better now.

I am so glad the era of the "angry white chick" is over.

"What could it hurt?"

Brian Brown is the president and spokesman for National Organization for Marriage. NOM is working the front lines in the war on marriage. He is doing good work and I do not envy him. This video below shows you one of his skirmishes.

He lost this round not because he was wrong, (he was the only one in the room that was right), but he did not know how to state his point. He relied on common sense and obvious truths, stuff that was throw out decades ago.

“...the reason the government is involved in marriage is that taxpayers and society have a key interest in bringing together mothers and fathers to raise their children together”.

Brian, you need to articulate that interest.

“The government obligates third parties to respect and recognize your marriage, it does not merely enforce your private and personal agreements”.

Brian, why does it obligate any one to recognize that union?

Brian was out gunned and out maned. Some one needs to give him better sound bites. If I could think of any I would send them.

This just reminded me of the time before the roe v wade decision came down. No one thought it would happen the way it did - it just wrong and 'everyone' knew it. Surely the highest court in the land would see that, so no worries. Now 40 million babies later..........

I hope Brian succeeds I don't want anyone blogging 30 years from now saying. "How were we to know?!?".

The Ruth Institute is doing very good work as well.

"We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws." GKC

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable", GKC. When they agree on what activity is excusable it becomes law. When an activity becomes legal it then becomes normal and then it becomes moral. It does not matter if that activity is intrinsically evil or not the pattern is the same, (they sometimes switch out the words its moral for its a right). Judith Reisman and Mary Mcalister have done a great job in connecting the dots.

When a law is evil the mental gymnastics needed to keep convincing yourself its moral is something you need to do every day and leads to a society that borders on insanity.

The only entity that keeps us tipping completely over the edge is the Catholic Church. Or as GKC said "We do not really need a religion that is right where we are right. What we need is a religion that is right where we are wrong."

Chesterton on Orthodoxy

“There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.” - GKC

Take Your Magic Elsewhere Holy Man

Remember Fr. Judge? There were prayers that day. Lots of them. But Bloomberg does not want that messing up his event to remember 9/11.

"No, Michael Bloomberg’s Super Colossal, Low-Salt 9/11 Memorial and Networking Event is a big-ticket item for the the ones who can be tapped, later, for their money or their influence — the most important sorts of people.

And of course, some of the families of the dead will be allowed in. One does need them for the pictures, after all.

First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened."

And as everyone knows those first responders don't dress very well.

"This is America, and to have a memorial service where there's no prayer, this appears to be insanity to me," said Mr. Washington, former dept mayor to Giuliani

Oh Joe What You Don't Know

"Biden’s remark was not only not a condemnation of China’s one-child policy, it wasn’t even a slight criticism. Worse than that, it seemed to be an endorsement. Note the line again: “Your policy has been one which I fully understand—I’m not second-guessing—of one child per family.” He next appeared to say that the policy, which he “fully understands” and is “not second-guessing,” is not financially/economically sustainable because too few young people will exist to pay the social services of elderly people. If that’s a criticism, it’s one based strictly in financial/economic terms, not moral terms. In fact, Biden thus seemed to express added understanding of the “severe” problem China faces."

As Pia de Solenni said, "Anyone who can say that he or she is ok with those forced experiences of loss, both of one’s child and family, needs some time off to think, regardless of their religious beliefs".

Holy gourd Batman! Let's get a fried pickle.

We are in the middle of Fair week here - the greatest county fair on the planet. It is a big deal around these parts and I enjoy it in a large way. Just to give you an idea of how big this is our county has a population of 53,000 humans by the end of the week 185,000 humans will pass through the gates of the fair. Many like me will register more than once on that count but hey....

The people are beautiful.

For those who love fried food this is where heaven meets earth. Truly I say onto ya-all that even cow pies deep fried would taste good at the fair.

My daughter won a Blue Ribbon at the dog show. That with an apple dumpling buried under a half pound of ice cream makes this a day for dancing.

Another voice in the wilderness.

San Diego, August 22, 2011: St. Gianna Physician’s Guild today launched an online petition (www.StopTheBirthControlMandate.com) requesting the Obama Administration and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, toimmediately withdraw all references to contraception and contraception counseling from the “Guidelines for Women’s Preventive Services” under The Affordable

Care Act, and to provide a conscience clause to protect the religious freedom and beliefs of Catholics.

Not sure if this type of petition works. However, it would never work if we do not put forth our voice. The current occupant is moraly tone deaf. I have fought a lot of fights I did not 'win' and knew I would not when the fight began ("not sure how many of them it would take to kick my ass but I knew how many they were going to use.") but it would be worse for not fighting.

I have signed it and wish you to do the same.

Invisible infants

We know the moral costs of abortion but "they" think morality is so yesterday. So here are just some economic stats and its the 'economy stupid'.

"In 1973 there were 744,000 abortions of babies who would be 38 years old, if they were alive today. If about half had married and had an average of 2.1 children, another 390,000 babies would have been born.

On the assumption that people marry at age 24, About 10 million of those invisible infants would have married and would have had 10.8 million children of their own. Perhaps another 2 million babies would have been born out-of-wedlock.

Consequently, America is missing about 65.5 million people. That is more people than live in New York, Los Angeles, and an additional 127 of America’s largest cities.

The economic consequences of these missing people are staggering. Marco Ciavolino, a computer consultant, created the Invisible Infants website and the spreadsheet which estimates that these people would have earned $5.7 trillion, (assuming an average per capita income of $26,000 according to Census). They would have paid $1.4 trillion in taxes!

We live in a time of high unemployment. If all those children had been born, wouldn’t the economy be worse?

No. If those Invisible Infants had been born, they would have been a boon to the economy. This column noted recently that the 76 million Baby Boomers only had 49 million children. No wonder they have trouble selling their houses and downsizing! If 38 million couples had the usual 2.1 children they would have had 80 million children. There would be no housing slump."

See charts and Mike McManus' article here

It is a lie that more people equals more poverty, and strife. As you look at the world the places that have the most poverty, war and political instability are the countries with the lowest numbers in population.

File this under the 'no crap' column.

"In the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only against Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers…the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief…We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith …These are secular operations focused on making a profit…They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth."

Archbishop Chaput

Read it all here

Patient: "Doctor. Doctor. It hurts when I do this."

Doctor: "Then don't do that."

Pope Ben has named a new doctor of the church, 16th century Spanish priest St. John of Avila. The title of ‘Doctor of the Church’ is bestowed upon a saint whose writings are deemed to be of universal importance to the Church. The Pope must also declare the individual to be of “eminent learning” and “great sanctity.” Other Doctors of the Church include St. Augustine, St. John Chryosostom, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Catherine of Siena and, our bestest little girl, Therese of Lisieux.

They also released a short list of those to be considered as doctors which include John Bosco and Louis-Marie de Montfort - two of my favorite Saints.

An historical clerihew

Titus Oates

liked wearing heavy overcoats.

When it simply got too hot

he alleged a papist plot.

Do Not Try This at Home

one for the good guys

One of the really great things about being a Christian is we know how the war ends. Sure, sure, we are going to lose a few battles and there will be the wounded and sometimes we feel that we lose every battle. So when we do win one we should share it like the widow who lost her coin ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’

Here is a good win - a coin almost lost.

“America,” Chesterton says, “ is the only nation in the world founded on a creed. The creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is theoretical politics and also great literature.”