Just overworked and underpaid at the moment. I ain't complaining, though.

Bern made me and another fellow a 4th of July dinner consisting of standing rib roast, corn on the cob, fresh steamed asparagus, and sweet potato casserole. The child can cook. Of course, since I mowed and edged her lawn for her, it was the least she could do. And day before yesterday she let me hit balls with her on the driving range. It's beautiful to watch. Her swing I mean. She's decided to slowly get back in shape for the LPGA's Bell-Micro (or Micro-Bell? No, that can't be right) Classic in April 2010 which, according to her, is right around the corner. She earned entry by winning Big Break X Michigan. Anyway, we're going out to the range again today, which interferes with time that could be spent blogging. Guess which I'd rather do.

...loses her mother. The linked post is only the most recent; there are several others if you scroll down the page. Sorry, ma'am.

...bows out.

We inherited this picture from my wife's grandparents after they died (many years ago). At the picture's bottom is inscribed:

14 colors were used to achieve this effect.
This picture is also known as "St. Veronica's Handkerchief" and is a copy of the celebrated painting by Gabriel Max, an Austrian, who was born in 1840. The original painting, valued at $25,000, is in a private collection in Prague, Austria. His best known work in America is "The Last Token" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

But it also says: "If you watch the eyes closely, they will suddenly open!"

It's never worked for me, but maybe it will for you. You might want to click on the picture to enlarge it before trying.

I guess I might as well get this out the way. I think on the net they call it shameless self-promotion. I've put my novel up on Lulu. It can be found here (which is my storefront) or here (which shows the front and back cover previews plus a few pages), and can be purchased through either link for about 16 bucks. The PDF version is about 6. I might put it on Amazon eventually, but not yet, since that would jack up the price and require me to buy a "package", the effect of which on publishing rights is not quite clear to me. Some readers bought, at some time in the past (maybe a couple years ago?), the homemade version (which I very much appreciated), but one of those readers informs me that it's starting to fall apart. I told him to get out the Elmer's and keep it together as best he can because no doubt it will become a collector's item. (Shut up.) I've bought a few of these new ones, and quite frankly they look a hell of a lot more professional than that other thing. And they're cheaper, too.

Anyway, if you know anybody who likes a good read, tell him about it. Link to it at your website. On Facebook. Whatever you can do to make the promotion less of the self-sort. Whatever other reservations they might have had, most people who were kind enough to give me feedback said at the least that it kept them reading. One of those was Peony of Two Sleepy Mommies, whose promotional blurb - ripped whole cloth from her post-reading review - graces the back cover. TSO's friend, Ham o' Bone, supplies the precís at the storefront.

I thank any potential readers in advance, and will of course welcome any further correspondence. As always, 'thanks' hardly comes close to expressing my debt to Todd McKimmey, web genius, for making it possible.

Provoked by political scandal, Emily takes another look.

I buzzed a lot before I died
And joined the stillness of this room,
Before the presidential pique brought down
The cultured hand of doom.

He fixed me with his gimlet eye -
Calculating, cold, was he -
No Buddha in transcendant trance who
Took no note of me.

He's bound (he claims) by higher things,
Like fixing health care 'ere we die,
By duty at a camel strains but
Must needs swat the fly.

"All victory to the King!" they cry
As one (a monolithic group),
"His stroke was pure, the outcome sure,
No maggots in the soup!"

But every creature finds its niche - I've heard -
And mine is surely here,
Sucking presidential sweat
From off the royal ear.

Power corrupts, we must conclude - for
When it came to me -
My crucial place in God's good plan
He could not see to see.

He who loves diversity lets
All creatures in the door,
But looked down so indifferently
At me on the floor,

Where, before the windows failed,
He saw but one of me -
My many-chambered eyes saw death -
In multiplicity.

That sounds like an oxymoron, but I guess it isn't. Anyway, I heard some funny noises while drinking beer outside a few nights ago, and recognized them from past encounters. So I ran inside and grabbed the camera. There were two owls high up in the camphor tree. I got one of them on film, which has been severely edited to cut down on all the camera shake and pan shots of leaves and blackness. I was holding a flashlight in one hand and the camera in the other. What remains is the essence. You can see it here.

I've been wanting to put up a post dealing with all kinds of important matters, but the several of you who still visit are lucky I'm here at all. I should be a dead man. I came into the house the other evening after mowing the yard, all filthy dirty and sweaty and looking forward to the required refreshment. I walked into the living room where the wife's relaxing in a recliner and watching TV. "It's done," I said. "We're the envy of the street."

"Oh, good," she said. "There's something for you out in the guestroom."

"For me?" It's not my birthday so I'm puzzled. "Should I go out there and see what it is?"

She nodded. So I head out to the other building and find a good size, brand new barbecue grill waiting for me, which we've been needing because the bottom's rusting out of the old one. Well, I thought, ain't that sweet? She saved me a trip to Home Depot. On the grill was a card saying "1973-2009. WOW! That's a long time!"

I don't know what's happening to my mind, but for some reason I thought she was congratulating me for keeping the old grill going for so long. It wasn't until I got back inside that the math settled out and it occurred to me that we hadn't owned that grill for 36 years. It was only about 20 years old.

"Well thanks," I said, "is that my Father's Day present?"

She just rocked back and forth in her combo rocking chair-recliner and wearing a half-smile with a sort of bitter twist to it. "Did you see the card?" she asked.

"Yeah, 1973 to 2009...?"

She looked briefly toward the ceiling, then turned that weird smile back on me, which set my mind to racing. My head had been filled lately with the kind of desperation that accompanies the need to think of something for a daughter's birthday, something for my Dad on Father's day, to find time to fix the gutter, repair the chimney, put a new screen on the front door, take a chain saw to the camphor tree, write a blog post, do some reading and finish a painting and so on. So my mind was racing through June trying to figure out what I'd overlooked. Then of course it hit me.

"Is today the 15th?"

She nodded and rocked.

"I forgot our anniversary?" She nodded and...

I put my head in my hands. It wasn't entirely an act. "Can I make excuses?"

She shook her head.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Do? What can I do that would do any good? You are what you are."

"You do realize I've treasured every moment."

She was back to nodding and rocking.

"Thirty-six years," I said, in a voice filled with awe. "That's a long..." She turned the weird smile upon me.

"Well," I said after a moment, "why have you stuck it out so long? A normal woman would have gotten rid of me."

"Oh, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death..." It sounded like she was reciting the sentence she'd been handed by the judge.

"Hell," I said, "nobody pays attention to that anymore."

"Maybe not some people."

"It's the girls, isn't it? I gave you a couple of good-looking, good-hearted daughters so you thought you'd reward me by hangin' round."

"They haven't hurt any."

I finally wished her happy anniversary. She said, "Thanks, Bill," then went back to watching TV. I dragged my dirty sorry self outside, flopped down in a rubber deck chair and started sucking down the Pauli Girls. I suspect anniversaries are more important than all the other days we celebrate except maybe the religious ones. You can't have fathers' days and mothers' days and grandparents' days and kids' birthdays without them. A marriage has to come first. And I'd forgotten it. Even Valentine's Day points in that direction. Even Christmas and Easter are different when you're married with children. I don't know how much I'd care about them without my marriage. Its anniversary really is more important to me than all the others. And I'd forgotten it. She seems to have moved on, but I don't know what it does to a woman inside, because they're real good at hiding that sort of thing. I ain't dead yet, but I probably oughta be.

I also suspect I better put that grill to good use this weekend. She likes porterhouse, with a subtantial tenderloin attached. Rare. Coming right up.

From the old archives, July 2004. I keep finding things that never made it over here.

---

Mr. Buckley: Recently from these quarters I spoke with Malcolm Muggeridge on the subject of the search for religion, his encounter with it, and the desolation of abomination that came from it. What we did not get into, and propose to do in this hour, is the question of denominationalism. Is he a member of a particular communion, and if not, why not? What is the role of the institutionalized church? ... These questions...we explore in the study of Malcolm Muggeridge...who...says he has visited America for the last time, and if this is indeed the case, we can be grateful, as we seldom have been before, for the benefits of television.

I'll begin, then, by asking what I suppose is the most obvious question, particularly inasmuch as I am one myself: Why are you not a Catholic?

Mr. Muggeridge: It's not altogether easy to answer that actually, Bill. I've, believe it or not, longed to be a Catholic...I've longed for it as though it were the most marvelous thing, but I've never been able to feel in honesty that I could present myself for instruction, and it's extremely difficult to know why. The truth is, I think, that I take a very pessimistic view of the Catholic Church, despite the very brilliant Pope you've now got. It seems to me that it's dropping to pieces; and of course it had a severe blow after the Vatican Councils. Therefore, I would be joining something of which I was enormously critical, and this isn't really an honorable thing to do.

Mr. Buckley: That's never bothered you before.

Mr. Muggeridge: I've never contemplated anything so serious as joining a church. I mean, even if you were to turn to mundane things - joining a club - if you were to join it quite confident that you were going to challenge all its rules and have rows with all its members, it would be a rather foolish step to take.

Mr. Buckley: You once called yourself an imperfect Christian. Is this a sign of pride?

Mr. Muggeridge: I don't think so, because I would have no troubles if I felt that I could go as a sinner into the Church. I'm sure many people have. It's a feeling that I would go there in some degree under false pretenses. I don't know. There was an incident which, trivial in itself, played quite a part in my decision not to become a Catholic. The time when I was nearest to going and asking to be instructed - and I'd planned that I would go to Father D'Arcy because I had a great love for him - it was when I was rector at Edinburgh University, and I ran into a row there which you might have heard of when I was asked, as rector, by the students -

Mr. Buckley: To supply contraceptives.

Mr. Muggeridge: That's right - to recommend that they should be given, unquestioningly, free supplies of contraceptives by the University medical unit, and I refused to do this and there was a hullabaloo. And I thought to myself, you see, "Well, there are a thousand Catholics in the University, and they'll be on my side anyway. I've got a thousand men on my side." What happened was that the first big blast against me was a letter in The Scotsman by the Roman Catholic chaplain at the University, saying what a monstrous thing this was that I had done.

Mr. Buckley: Excuse me, but why was it monstrous?

Mr. Muggeridge: It was monstrous, according to him, because it accused the students of wanting to be promiscuous; but in a letter I wrote in answer to it, I said I wondered what the Reverend Father thought they wanted the contraceptives for? Was it to save up for their wedding day? He offered no answer to that. But then I thought that somebody would give him a very big reprimand. But no such thing happened. Then I thought he'd almost certainly become a bishop. But that didn't happen either. What happened is the perfect payoff of the whole episode: He's now rector of Edinburgh University. (laughter)

Mr. Buckley: Is that right?...And did they get their contraceptives?

Mr. Muggeridge: Oh yes, oh yes. But there was nobody who reprimanded him. One Jesuit monk wrote to me and said that he thought it was monstrous and that he'd written to this Father and suggested that he should apologize to me, but nothing came of that. Anyway, it was a small episode, but it gave me the feeling that - One of the things I admired the Church for so much was Humanae Vitae. I think it's absolutely right that when a society doesn't want children, when it is prepared to accept eroticism unrelated in any way to its purpose, then it's on the downward path. So I admired it so much, and then I realized that since I was involved in this row, their adherence to it was very, very ceremonial rather than actual. They didn't really believe in it themselves...and they haven't practiced it.

Mr. Buckley: Well, I'm, to put it lightly, stupefied that you would make a decision whether or not to extend your loyalty to an institution based on the behavior of some its communicants. I can't imagine any time in history when anybody would have become a Catholic if he had been so easily put off.

Mr. Muggeridge: That's true. That obviously wasn't a major thing, Bill, but what it did was it kind of crystallized certain feelings I had that these things that I so enormously admired...are the very things that it's turning its back on - that I would be involved in endless controversies connected with them.

Mr. Buckley: Well, you would be the millionth Catholic who was.

Mr. Muggeridge: (laughing) Yes, I suppose so. But can't you see that the - Perhaps it's an excuse I've invented myself. It's quite possible.

Mr. Buckley: You have no problem then, I take it, with the Apostles' Creed?

Mr. Muggeridge: None at all.

Mr. Buckley: Or with apostolicity?

Mr. Muggeridge: Not at all. I assent to it. Or the infallibility of the Pope; that doesn't worry me at all. I can see the purpose of all those things, and I see the context of people that I so admire - like St. Augustine and St. Francis - who were ready to accept all that...On the contrary, it's the feeling that the Church itself is moving away from these basic beliefs that is distressing. Or maybe it's just some kind of instinct.

Mr. Buckley: But there can't have been a more resonant reaffirmation of them than by the present Pope. I'm not here to try to convert you. I'm just exploring.

Mr. Muggeridge: No, no, no. I know. This is absolutely true, and of course, it has given great joy to many people because of that, but it still remains the case that I can't join it; and I'll have to meet my Maker not having joined it. Probably I'll get a frightful pacing in purgatory for it, but I can't help it. No.

© 1981, by the National Committee of Catholic Laymen - a transcript from Firing Line

Issue 2 of The Christendom Review is now available for purchase in book form here. There is also a cheaper pdf download on the same page. Please support us. The online version will always be free.

Since the Review is available only in black and white, art lovers can purchase separately, either in book form or download, the visual arts excerpt featuring Tim Jones' fine work.

I should mention that Lydia has an article in the June Touchstone that is sort of an offspring of her TCR piece. You can view the table of contents here, but hers is not available online, so I guess I'll have to buy the freaking issue. Since the impetus for it was the fact that she had managed to collect (and put in one place on the web) all the 2000 Schiavo trial testimony for the Review article, it seems exactly the sort of article that ought to be online. But they don't exactly consult me on editorial matters.

Got a daughter coming to town, so there doth my interest lie.

Still, I should make mention of Paul Cella's visit a couple weekends ago. He and his father-in-law (a great guy - Paul got lucky in his in-laws) hit the links with Bernadette and me. I've got video of Paul's swing, but not permission to post it. Let's just say that he now knows more about Florida wetlands than the Okeechobee Water Management District. And yet a pleasanter course companion you could not ask for. (Bernadette, by the way, beat us all. Handily.) He can't blame his golf on the clubs, though. We gave him the set Bernadette used in her first year on tour, top-o-the-line Callaway irons, the driver she used to place 10th at Q-School, a Cleveland wedge, and a Taylormade putter. (I'll have to say he putted well and wanted to keep the instrument of his success.) The reason he had to use Bern's clubs is that his own were stolen out of his own car in front of his own house right there in All-American suburban Atlanta. Afterwards we came back to my place and sucked down some Newcastles and Coronas before Paul and his Dad-in-law had to rush back to Disney so as not to displease the wives, who apparently had everyone on a schedule and no idea what a cold beer and good conversation mean to a man after 5 hours in the hot sun and 95% humidity. "Who's running things?" I asked the father-in-law.

"They are," he said, no hesitation.

That was Monday. Friday, after getting into town, Paul and his wife and three daughters came for dinner. That's right, count'em, 3. One man against 4 women. He's a goner. The girls, if I recall, are two, four, and nine. And basically delightful. It was fun watching Paul's wife (not using her name because I don't know if she wants me to) cut up the barbecue into little tiny chunks for the little ones. I'd forgotten I used to do that. We had ribs, pulled pork, fries, beans, slaw and cornbread. I'd mowed the yard earlier to make the place look half decent, so I knocked back a fair number of Staropramens and Coronas. Bernadette pretty well kept pace with me. I love having daughters for drinking companions. Paul managed one or two Newcastles, and everybody else was on water and cranapple juice. The oldest daughter (Paul's) played the piano (as did TSO's wife when she was here) and drew a picture on a sketch pad I loaned her. The weekend happened to coincide with Elizabeth's birthday, and Mary Helyn missed her so much she went ahead and bought a birthday cake and watched Paul's kids eat it. And then, before I knew it, it was over. Paul and I didn't get to talk much about The Important Things, but then the important stuff was probably happening right in front of us. Said he'd be back soon, though. He'd mentioned bringing along some Chesterton to read in his down time (I can't imagine when that might have been) and has posted some of the fruits of it here. Pretty good stuff.

...to Elizabeth. (In the red pants.)

I guess anyone who stops by here already knows that the best Catholic moral apologist on the internet has taken flight. I do not qualify that with "one of the best," or "in the world of Catholic blowhard bloggers," or even "along with Professors X,Y & Z of such and such universities with 50 post-graduate letters after their names." The best, bar none. But he's got to land sometime.

In other news, Paul Cella will be here tomorrow accompanied by a wife and three daughters to take dinner at the Luse household. Says he likes dark beer. Hmm. Any suggestions? And then golf on Monday. Me'n him and Bern and his father-in-law (a really good guy - I've met him before). Paul says he needs a swing lesson. I'm going to say, "Watch Bern."

I'm back in beer mode. Had a week's break during which the weather finally found its way back into the 90's. That means yardwork, lots of it, the beer providing the incentive. The break's over, but the load's lighter, so I'll be able to stay in character most of the week. I promise not to drink before meeting a class, although sometimes it's hard to see how much it could hurt. For example, I read to one class a story by Guy de Maupassant. I told them to re-read it at home, and gave them some questions to answer. Next class I gave them a test. One of the questions was: in what city does the story take place? The second question was: in what country? Now, aside from the author's at the beginning, certain other names had popped up in the story, things like "the Seine," and "Champs Elysees," and "Rue des Martyr," and denominations of money like "francs," and "sous" and "louis," and terms of address like "Monsieur" and "Madame" and "Madamoiselle," and people with names like "Ramponeaux," "Forrestier," and "Loisel." One girl guessed the city as Rome, which she felt pretty sure was in the country of Italy. All but about three left the questions blank. When I asked what famous river is mentioned in the story, someone answered "the Nile." In the face of this, I don't see why a teacher should be denied the fortification provided by a good whiskey or just about any brand of foreign lager.

While we're on the subject of the country's future, I saw in the news the other day that the city I live in (maybe it's the whole county of Orange - can't remember) is now comprised of a majority of minorities (49. something % white), and that approximately one-third, maybe more, of the entire country is now non-white, and that by some not-so-far-off year, say 2030 or 40, it'll be majority-minority. If any of you are old enough to have assumed that America would always be, at its core, the new and improved version of Europe-across-the-Atlantic, now's the time to wake up. It wouldn't bother me all that much if I could just be assured that, say, 90% of the illegals crossing the southern border knew in what country the Seine could be found, or that Ben Franklin is known for more than kite-flying. The lit class mentioned above is comprised of a few blacks, a few whites, a few Hispanics, and a couple of Muslims. I didn't get the impression that the whites knew their geography any better than the others. So if things end up going to hell, don't blame it on the minorities. It'll be everybody's fault, especially the white people who not only did a poor job of training their successors, but fell down on another one as well. In the immortal words of John the Tavernkeeper:

The Democrats own the blacks and the Hispanics and will continue to do so. Combined with that portion of the white population that considers itself liberal, and those that can be bought either under the table or with "programs", the Democrats have a lock on the American political future.

If the GOP had wanted a future it should have paid more attention to Pope Paul VI and Humanæ Vitæ 45 or so years ago.

And if, as you get older, you find yourself growing nostalgic for the company of white people, just remember that whatever fault you wish to find with other ethnicities, they knew more than you did about the purpose of one very fundamental thing: sex. They may be having a lot of it out of wedlock, but they reproduce nevertheless. White people don't like babies. Well, maybe one or two, but more than that and the little tykes become annoyances. They're expensive, and obfuscate the fun for which sex was primarily designed. Thus, we've decided to sterilize ourselves into obsolescence. To everything there is a season, and ours is over.

As the political and demographic landscape changes, some things remain the same. Like Notre Dame. A commenter at some website was of the opinion that the university had probably "learned its lesson" in light of the lay and ecclesial outrage which has greeted the invitation extended to Obama by Catholic bootlickers. I don't know what time warp that commenter stepped out of, but Notre dame's been doing this sort of thing since the 70's. Some people think it's still a Catholic university, but real Catholics don't hire people like Richard McBrien. Or Father Jenkins. In his article at The Weekly Standard, Joseph Bottum (formerly known as Jody, sometimes as J.) finishes up by asking:

If Georgetown doesn't appear Catholic to ordinary Catholics, that's just Georgetown. But if Notre Dame is shaky--if the most identifiably Catholic place in America doesn't seem Catholic--then the old connection between Catholic culture and Catholic institutions and the Catholic Church really is broken beyond repair. And where will Catholics send their children to school then?

I've got the answer: Notre Dame. And Georgetown, and Fordham, and USF and a bunch of other places that try to serve two masters. Why? Because most Catholics are no more Catholic than Notre Dame. Mr. Bottum himself points out that "He [Obama] won 54 percent of the Catholic vote in the last election, after all, and at least 45 percent of the vote of Mass-going Catholics."

Them's a lot of Catholics. If we restrict ourselves to the Mass-going kind, that 45 percent must be comprised of those who are against torture except when it's inflicted on born-alive infants. Well, there's comfort in the fact that 55 percent didn't vote for Obama. Maybe. I'm willing to bet that well more than half of that 55 percent either favor torture or make ambivalent apologies for it ("yes, it's wrong, but..."). It's the flavor of the day for the cafeteria conservative who wants to keep it safe, legal, and rare. Abortion and infanticide are far graver evils, of course, but when consequentialism is the modus operandi for over half the Catholic population, we got a problem.

* * *

Okay, I started this two days ago and I see that Obie's already given his speech. I saw Father Jenkins on a newsclip cuddling up close for the photo-ops. Most of the students seemed happy to have Obie on hand, and the only people arrested for fanaticism were abortion protestors, among whom was Norma McCorvey, the original Roe. They gave Obie an honorary law degree. Isn't he already a lawyer?

How did Yeats put it? "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." That may describe something in general, but it's wrong. The best on Notre Dame's commencement day ended up in jail, at least for a while. Hopefully they were all released on their own recognizability as decent human beings.

My initial purpose was not to write about societal degradation. It was to bring you up to date on...something. I'll remember before we're done. The problem is, I was sober at the time, a condition which inclines one to be half-serious about things. Now that I've done some yardwork washed down by a few Czech lagers, I see clearly what's really important.

You've probably been wondering, for example, about Sam the squirrel. I still feed him regularly. There's more than one squirrel, though, and I'm not sure which one's Sam. All I know is that I put nuts in the camphor tree on a regular basis, which inclines one squirrel to try to terrorize the other into leaving. He (Sam, I presume) chases him or her into the topmost branches to keep it all for himself. So I put nuts in more than one crook so that both can feast. One day I came out the back door and Sam was hanging from a big branch by his hind legs to attract my attention. Literally hanging there and swinging in the wind. I didn't have my camera handy, but I did get a shot of him eating the nuts:

video here.

Pretty single-minded about it, isn't he? Unlike a lot of people, he's true to his nature. Without fail. Animal nature can be disturbingly complex, though. I assume some of you saw the vids on youtube of Christian the lion. Animal Planet revisited the history of it recently, which included interviews with the two young men (now in late middle-age, or worse) who originally bought the lion cub at Harrod's in London back in the sixties and took him home as a pet. Here he is, still a cub, but not exactly your average kitty-cat:



And here he watches a newborn flock of chicks walk by without laying a paw on them:



As lions do, Christian grew big, too big to live in London outside of a zoo, so arrangements were made to take him to Africa, where George Adamson had agreed to try to acclimate him to the wild. George's story, and that of Elsa the lioness, was told in the movie Born Free. The actress who starred in that movie, Virginia McKenna, and her co-star, Bill Travers, met Christian and may have facilitated the arrangement with Adamson. So Christian was put on a plane and, many thousands of miles later, greeted by his owners:

Video.

As part of his introduction to a new life, Christian had to meet the full grown lion, Boy, already in Adamson's camp. Boy beat up on him pretty good, and once the dominance factor was established, the two were set free to start a pride of their own. They returned periodically of their own free will to Adamson's camp. One day Boy showed up, having been badly mauled by rival lions. He was treated for his wounds, of which he healed, but his temperament had changed. One day he showed up at camp and killed one of the black men who had worked with Adamson for years. I don't know what happened to him after that. But Christian had met with success, starting a pride of his own. He had been living in the wild for a year before his owners returned for a visit. Adamson knew where to find Christian, and took the young men with him. Christian just stared at them for an uncomfortably long time, and then this happened:

Video.

They saw him one more time, when he had come to full maturity, huge mane and all. He still recognized them and still displayed affection, but also more distance. After that they never saw him again.

Speaking of animals, Bern came home and I think I've captured the essence of her relationship with Cedar, as when they nap together...



...and when they're awake:



We also played golf and saw some more of these over the fence along the fairways:



Back in April I took a trip to the Quad Cities to see Elizabeth perform. Along the way, I saw some clouds from the topside at 30,000 some odd feet:



I know, big deal. Have you ever seen Atlanta, the town where Paul Cella lives, through the haze?



Well then, have you ever landed at Hartsfield Airport? I know you've always wanted to. If you're afraid of flying, this should put you at ease:

Video.

I know, it was just like being there, wasn't it? Busiest airport I've ever been through, by the way. I don't see how we got from the runway to the terminal without being hit. Planes taking off and landing all over the place. I wonder who coordinates it all.

Anyway, we eventually got where we were going so that we could look out over the ratty rooftops of Rock Island from our hotel window:



We crossed the river into Davenport to see the ballet. It appears to be a little more, oh, upscale than R.I., but the whole time I was there I kept thinking, as I had last time I was in Massachussetts, that this is one of those states where homosexuals can marry. For real. I mean pretend-for-real. It's an actual right imposed by judges, and will probably have social effects down the road somewhere, but it's a right to do something that can't be done. It entitles people to a relationship that doesn't really exist. For real. I think much of our moral and political life has become a fantasy life. How many states is it now, in which this fantasy right has come, or is about to come, to fruition? Massachussetts, New York, New Hampshire [!!], Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, and Iowa? Have I forgotten anybody? How many will it take before equal protection becomes mandatory?

The only thing I took the trip for was real enough, though - Elizabeth, with friend Josh, who works nearby as a computer whiz for John Deere, and who graduated from the same university as my girl.



One other thing the trip confirmed for me, after probing my child's heart about her experiences: the ballet world is full to repletion with vain, self-obsessed, petty, power-hungry, small-minded, visionless, heartless, no-talent narcissists. These qualities are exacerbated when they do have talent. They're almost as bad as writers.

I think I'm taking the rest of the summer off. Not sure, but it sounds like a good idea. At last semester's end, one of my students handed me a note as she left the final exam.

Mr. Luse, Thank you for making my first year at Valencia memorable. I am so glad I took your class. I will always remember you as you were the first teacher whose class I enjoyed. Thank you once again, H.

She's thoroughly American, but of a dark-skinned variety whose family's origins are by way of Egypt. I think they're Coptic Christians. Well, H., you just might keep me showing up for work one more year, just as my Elizabeth keeps going because every now and then, at the most unexpected moment, she runs into someone who offers the kindness of a compliment. It's such a little thing, isn't it?

...The pleasure of a search, like that of a hunt, lies in the searching, and ends at the point at which the pleasure of Certitude begins...Such are the pleasures of investigation and discovery; and to these we must add, what I have suggested in the last sentence, the logical satisfaction, as it may be called, which accompanies these efforts of mind. There is great pleasure, as is plain, at least to certain minds, in proceeding from particular facts to principles, in generalizing, discriminating, reducing into order and meaning the maze of phenomena which nature presents to us. This is the kind of pleasure attendant on the treatment of probabilities which point at conclusions without reaching them, or of objections which must be weighed and measured, and adjusted for what they are worth, over and against propositions which are antecedently evident. It is the special pleasure belonging to Inference as contrasted with Assent, a pleasure almost poetical, as twilight has more poetry in it than noon-day. Such is the joy of the pleader, with a good case in hand, and expecting the separate attacks of half a dozen acute intellects, each advancing from a point of his own. I suppose this was the pleasure which the Academics had in mind, when they propounded that happiness lay, not in finding the truth, but in seeking it. To seek, indeed, with the certainty of not finding what we seek, cannot in any serious matter, be pleasurable, any more than the labour of Sisyphus or the Danaides; but when the result does not concern us very much, clever arguments and rival ones have the attraction of a game of chance or skill, whether or not they lead to any definite conclusion.

Are there pleasures of Doubt, as well as of Inference and of Assent? In one sense, there are. Not indeed, if doubt simply means ignorance, uncertainty, or hopeless suspense; but there is a certain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its own. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure, painfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind to be able to say, "At length I know that I can know nothing about any thing" — that is, while it can maintain itself in a posture of thought which has no promise of permanence, because it is unnatural. But here the satisfaction does not lie in not knowing, but in knowing there is nothing to know. It is a positive act of assent or conviction, given to what in the particular case is an untruth. It is the assent and the false certitude which are the cause of the tranquility of mind. Ignorance remains the evil which it ever was, but something of the peace of Certitude is gained in knowing the worst, and in having reconciled the mind to the endurance of it.

John Henry Newman, from A Grammar of Assent.

...is now up. (Yes, I should have posted this yesterday.)

The Special Features section takes a look at the legacy of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. People who actually knew her - including the priest who delivered her funeral sermon - are the ones doing the looking.

In The Modern Error, Lydia McGrew revisits the legal sham (imho) that delivered Terri Schiavo to her Maker. This is the only analysis I know of that uses all of the eyewitness testimony from the original 2000 trial as source material. (The transcripts of that testimony can be found at Lydia's website the only place online - again, as far as I know - where it is gathered in one place.) I think the article's of a groundbreaking nature, but don't expect to see it lauded in major new outlets. At least you'll know that the truth is out there.

There is also a mix of fiction and poetry (I especially like Bill Miles' short story, Chocky's Debut; Bill's an interesting character and you'll no doubt be hearing more from him) and a sampling of Tim Jones' brilliant artwork.

Please read it and, if you're able, support the site by purchasing a softcover book version at the link provided under "Support this Site" in the left margin. And link to the Review from your own website if you like what you see and want it to continue. Some have already done so, like Dylan and TSO, and I'll find the rest of you in due course. (Well, maybe. If any of you know of folks who have done so, please alert me so that I can thank them.)

I can't sufficiently express my gratitude (first) to Lydia McGrew for her investigative efforts, "elegant mind", and the sheer intrepidity of her devotion to finishing a task; and secondly to Todd McKimmey, whose brilliance with regard to all things Web makes the site possible.

First Things has linked to the Review, for which we are greatly appreciative; and Paul Cella did us a similar kindness by linking from Redstate and W4.

From Catholic Online:

The Orlando Diocese, where Thomas G. Wenski is bishop, has announced a Mass of reparation for "the many shortcomings and transgressions committed against the dignity and sacredness of human life in our world," specifically for Notre Dame's decision to honor pro-abortion President Obama at commencement. The Mass is taking place at the Cathedral of St. James on May 3, 2009.

In a column on the Orlando Diocese website, Bishop Wenski writes, "Notre-Dame (at least in its Administration and Board) has forgotten what it means to be Catholic. Last year, in Washington, D.C., Pope Benedict XVI addressed Catholic educators, including university presidents," wrote the bishop. "He said 'to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission. Father Jenkins, Notre-Dame's president, must have nodded off during the Pope's speech," he concluded.

I didn't even know about it. My friend in Atlanta, Rick Barnett, told me by email, just as an aside: "Kudos to your Bishop for offering that Mass, etc." What Mass? I don't know about no Mass. I went to the evening Mass with the wife and a daughter and it turned out to be that Mass. So there I was in the middle of it while he said flat-out what kind of pro-abort Obama was and dinged Notre Dame for being of the world rather than merely in it. Kind of cool. Problem was, the acoustics for music in the cathedral are great, but not for a sermon. Only certain kinds of voices come through clearly unless you're sitting in the front row. Still, when he was done, he received nearly universal applause. Bernadette said she saw a few people on the other side of the church shaking their heads angrily. Oh well. I wondered about the black family sitting right in front of me, but when the Bishop sat down, they clapped along with everyone else.

Still, the whole mess is cause for minor depression. Though the church was better attended than usual for a 6 p.m. service, there were still some empty seats. The number of Catholics who are deeply disturbed by Notre Dame's treachery are probably quite few.

The Bishop's column at the Diocesan website.

[Update: Amy Welborn at Beliefnet has linked to this pitiful post. If I'd known she was going to do it, I'd have gone into way more detail. Hell, I'd make stuff up. I hope a couple of you will take the trouble to leave enough comments to outnumber the idiots who seem to enjoy plaguing her. I know she's tough and all but a woman who's just lost her husband shouldn't be bothered by anyone for at least a year. You know, just shutup for a while.]

...there was Paul Potts. Maybe some of you, or a lot of you, have already seen it (I generally don't keep up with this stuff). I found it at Old World Swine, Tim Jones' place, and he found it back in 2007. Listen to Paul, and then to a snippet from a PBS tribute to Pavarotti. Still, Mr. Potts is pretty impressive. A pauper to a prince, says Amanda. Or maybe it's a frog to a prince.

The videos are here.

I learn from Dylan that it's Bob's 5th, and also his 53rd birthday. He's a clever poet, and celebrates the occasion appropriately.

...We were discussing Terri Schiavo last time she was here and got onto the question of whether someone is obligated to receive treatment - ever. For example, you're diagnosed with, say, some kind of fatal cancer. You're given two years to live. There will of course come a time when the end is in sight, at which point you might decline further intervention. But at the beginning of the two years: are you morally obligated to take treatment (some of which might be fairly unpleasant), or are you free to say 'no'?

Today is Earth day,
Let us pray,
With Al Gore and all his ken,
That the prophet need
No more bemoan
Depletion of the sacred ozone,
That air be once more clean and pure,
Car fumes replaced by horse manure,
That an ice age soon
Will come again,
But not before our last Amen.

© 2009 and following unto the end of Time, by William Luse

(Yes, I know it was yesterday, but I wrote it yesterday and forgot to post it, which no doubt would have been fine by most of you. Any complaints about the quality of the verse should be referred to Dylan. I don't have time for them.)

...sorry, more music, but it seems the appropriate sort to mark a Resurrection. Back when I had some spare time - oh, say, in the early to late 90's - I was in a choir here in Orangelando and we sang this Gloria many times, and the whole mass on Christmas Eve. It's Mozart's Mass in C Major, the Coronation Mass, and this is my favorite of all his Glorias. Performed by the London Symphony, Sir Colin Davis conducting, the John Alldis choir supplying the voices. Included on the 2 disc CD are the Requiem and the Great Mass in C minor.

The music is here.

...posts a video, a funny exchange between Stephen Colbert and a Bible berater named Bart Ehrman. I don't know if he's a serious scholar, but I figure he'll drive Lydia nuts.

Here's another egg in your basket (I hope). If you want it to open in your media player (no doubt the richer experience), try this link. I also hope you have a subwoofer attached to your sound system, as I do. Let's raise a glass together, in the hope, sent with a prayer, that some of the suffering in the world - of the kinds we inflict on each other, especially the innocent - will diminish somewhat in the coming year, by virtue of this most incomprehensible act of Divine condescension.

The video is here.

Via Zippy, we are asked to pray for Kyle Cupp and his wife, who carries in her womb an anencephalic baby, the prognosis for which condition is a very, very brief life. The child's name is Vivian Marie. It sounds like they want to give her all the love they can while she's here. So God bless them, and the little one.

...or so her daddy seems to think. Lydia has a suitable Good Friday-Easter story up on her blog (appropriate links included), although for the little girl in question the Easter part is, as of now, no sure thing.

Update:

In comments at Lydia's, Beth gives a link to the Joubert's Syndrome website (the condition with which the little girl is afflicted) and says: "And here are two of the FAQs from that site that give vital information to understand that what these parents and doctors are doing is trying to murder this child because she is physically handicapped and may be mentally retarded: she is NOT 'dying' any more than are the rest of us."

I thought I had it bad. I'm in that circle of hell where teachers go to grade research papers. They get to leave the circle after a while, but must return to it a few months later. It's a cycle, like Lent. Well, the cycles are over for Terry Southard's father, whom she lost a few days ago. She tells the story here. She really loved him.

Puts me in mind of Emily Dickinson, who thought about these things on occasion:

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,—
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

I complain about having to grade those papers. But I'll bet I'd agree to a batch a month if it meant another year of drinking the good beer of life. This life. Lent is supposed to put us in mind of our last end, so I'm not very good with it. We complain about the cycles, but I wonder how many would be willing to let them go. If any are like me, they take little comfort in knowing that one day the choice will be taken from them. Life is Lent, and death is your last, and briefest, observance of it.

I guess. Frankly, I'd rather get off this train of thought.

While discussing a story in class the other day, I almost fell out of my chair. Literally. I have this habit of rocking back and forth, but had thought myself safe because the floor was carpeted and the chair mounted on a three-wheeled tripod. But somehow I managed to tip sideways, and in the midst of elucidating all the subtleties of James Joyce's "Araby", found myself suddenly gripping the desk in speechless desperation to keep from falling over. I was 45 degrees to the floor, doing a stationary wheelie, every muscle straining to win this battle against the foreseen outcome: utter humiliation. I righted myself, but now the conversation was interspersed with giggling. Especially from the girls. They love that kind of thing. But I couldn't blame them. A few years ago, in a classroom with no carpeting, and sitting in a chair with wire rims for legs, I tilted backwards just a little too far and simply disappeared from view. As if greased, the rims went out from under me and I was sitting on the floor. For the class, it must have been as if some vortex had sucked me from sight. They couldn't see me because of the metal skirting on the desk's front. All they could see above the desk were my fingers still gripping the back edge. I never regained control that day. Here I'm trying to teach them something important and they're sitting there trying to stifle giggles behind their hands. I told them to go home and play video games.

After the "Araby" class, I ran into a couple of the girls in front of the library, a pretty redhead and a pretty Puerto Rican who's already signed up to join the Air Force at semester's end.

"You're talking about me, aren't you?"

"Yeah!" Giggle, giggle.

"I'd have thought you'd admire the balancing act. After all, I didn't fall over."

"Almost though!"

"You're silly girls, you know that?"

"Yeah!" Peals of laughter.

Speaking of students, my wife had to chaperone a field trip to Sea World and managed a few photos:











She also visited Elizabeth, who's doing a guest turn with the QuadCities Ballet, and got a shot of her in a Rock Island laundromat.



And from me you get this excerpt from a TV documentary, just cuz I think these are one of the neatest creatures God made:

See it here.

Oh, and by the way - while we're on the subject of cycling through life - I should have posted something on the anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death (guess what I was doing), but the failure was not the result of forgetting. We're giving over some of the next issue of The Christendom Review to her cause, so please try to keep it in mind. It should be out within the month.

Well, the purpose of this post was to inform readers that I'm a bit taken up for now, and might not be posting for a while, just in case anyone who'd been checking in here and not seeing anything thought that might be about to change. I like the consistency of cycles. They let me know I'm still alive.

I suppose I ought to get into a semi-Sunday Thought frame of mind, since it's that day of the week. So here's a song for Terry. Maybe it'll lift her up a little.

And it's here.

Lydia McGrew's daughter, Bethel, age 16, performing at a homeschool Talent Night. I can see the quandary now: "What shall I be? Chess grandmaster? Philosopher? Chess-playing philosopher housewife? Singing star?" My advice: follow the money.

I don't know if it's here yet, because I don't pay enough attention. But as it approaches, one of my neighbors has a tree in her yard that looks like this:

So long I'm not sure I remember how to do this, nor any reason thereunto. One of the new incentives offered by Blogger is the accumulation of "followers." Someone like TSO has about a hundred of those things. I have....2. So I guess I'm doing this to keep those two. If they haven't already abandoned me, which they probably have, but felt sorry enough for me not to remove their status.

Well, you two, I've been busy. Schoolwork, housework, yardwork, reading manuscripts (for free!) for the next issue of The Christendom Review, and having to write one of my own because I just had to open my big mouth and...never mind. Keep your eye out for it (the issue) sometime in April. One of the articles, by Lydia McGrew, is of a groundbreaking nature, giving the lie to the accepted wisdom regarding a certain aspect of the Terri Schiavo case. That's all I'm saying so's the suspense will kill you. I don't mind if you read my article too. The first issue, the one commemorating my writing teacher, has been printed and bound and can be purchased here. It's a handsome thing with a glossy cover and 134 pages of good reading. I've bought half a dozen already to send off to people. Some of you are cheapskates, though, so for you we have the completely free, fully downloadable pdf version.

Oh, Todd McKimmey, our webmaster and that of W4 as well, is responsible for both those wonderful things. He has branched out now and opened up a photography business. He offers other services too. He's basically a genius with anything software, so if you need help with web design, hosting, or custom publishing, seek him out. You can see more of his photography here.
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So, what can I bore you with?

Oh, I know. This video of the launch of Discovery taken from my roof. As usual, I got up there too late to set up the tripod (I had to throw down the hoe and the rake and knock the dirt out of my ears, then scramble up a ladder; plus I might have had a couple Beck's by then), so there's some bouncing around, and some dead space in the middle when the shuttle disappears behind a cloud, but if you hang in there you'll see it emerge and the boosters separate from the people part, and the rocket trail outlining the clouds in orange and white. Go ahead, waste your time.

Speaking of followers, some Catholic bloggers found me on Facebook. A couple were nice enough to invite me to be "friends." Terry's was best: "You do want to be my friend, don't you?" Ever notice how a woman can make an invitation sound like a demand? Now I have more friends than I used to, like maybe 15 instead of 10. One of my daughters has over 400. It is not humanly possible, of course, to know that many people well enough to call them all "friend." She admitted this was true. What's been happening, I suggested, is that friends of friends ask to be your friend and you're too friendly to say no. Right? Right. It's time to start defriending the ones you don't know, right? Uhh...

Anyway, my Catholic friends have probably figured out by now that I ignore that page even more than I do this one.

Well, the back 40 smells like a giant orange blossom. I haven't seen so many blooms on the tangelo and orange trees in many a year, and this after a very cold and moistureless winter. These are very old trees and I can't figure out what kind of weather produces abundance. Maybe it's just a cycle, long years of relative slumber followed by a sudden awakening. I should mention that even in bad years, they produce more than we can possibly eat.

Paul Cella's coming to visit at the end of May.

Lessee, what else? I renewed my subscription to First Things in honor of Father Neuhaus.

I haven't lifted a paintbrush in 6 months. (Wait till you see the paintings in the forthcoming Christendom Review. Not by me, of course.)

My fascination with nature continues. I was watching this Animal Planet show in which a couple guys had sealed themselves inside a plexiglass cage so that they could watch the lions up close. Outside the cage they had set up two wooden dummies, one an antelope and the other a human sitting in a chair. The lions ignored the human and went straight for the antelope. Once they figured out it wasn't edible, they decided to try the human.

He's a handsome fellow, isn't he?



This is what he did to the human dummy (the wooden one, not the two inside the glass cage).



Unable to figure it out, he calls his wife in to help:



She reports back that the human is inedible, so the big fella begins investigating the glass cage:



By nightfall, the two cowards in the cage had found an opportunity to slip out and tie a carcass to a tree, so that they could watch this:

And you can too, here.

Yeah, they'll eat people. I wouldn't judge them too harshly though. I've heard that there are people who do the same thing. Pee-pul, pee-pul who eat pee-pul, are the hungriest pee-puuuul in the world.

Oh, I almost forgot. I've still got stuff from Christmas and January I meant to post. Bern visited in January and we played golf out at Redtail, where we saw this right beside the 4th tee. It took me 15 minutes to get the animal lover back into the game:



And here she is with the General Manager, a long time benefactor, the two of them leaning against the BMW she won in The Big Break:



And even further back, here she is sucking down the egg nog at Christmas:



And here's The Dancing Queen being lifted by me, her partner, who quite obviously missed his calling, and is now sending out CV's to various ballet companies:



Okay, back to the present, and the subject heading: THINGS THAT MAKE TEACHERS DEPRESSED.

This student, a black girl, in the 18, 19, 20 year old range, with a ready smile, a desire to succeed, and fair writing ability turns in her first paper with the title How To Choose an Abortion Clinic. Choose carefully, was the general advice; this is not a decision to be taken lightly. What isn't? I asked her later. Choosing the clinic, she said. Some are good, some are butcher shops. She was referring to butchery of the woman. I had asked because there wasn't a word in the paper about whether killing a baby was a decision lightly made. She writes from experience, having been through the process herself, for precisely the reason you might suppose. In her next paper, a narrative, she tells the story of how her twenty-something uncle raped her when she was nine years old. It was quite detailed and painful to read. Did you ever tell anyone? I asked. No. Not to this very day? She shook her head. Why? She couldn't answer, then mumbled something about just wanting it to go away. She had even seen the uncle throughout the years at family reunions. He pretended as if nothing had ever happened. He'd only done it that one time. I asked her if she ever wondered how many other girls he'd done this to. She didn't think he had. Didn't think? The next class, she tells me she let her mother read her paper. Was she mad? Oh yes. But you knew you had to do it, right? Yeah. That's all I know.

I've decided I don't want to know how many of my female students have borne children sired out of wedlock. Sometimes the father is "in the picture," which means just what you might think, but most often he is not.

But, to pick you up, another fellow, a young black fellow in the same age range told a miracle story. His word. His uncle had suffered cardiac arrest, been taken to the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator, and the family instructed that he would never recover, that if he woke up he'd be a "vegetable." Doctors these days actually use that word while speaking to the vegetable's loved ones. My student's aunt, the uncle's wife, said to the doctor, "Do you believe in God?" Taken aback, he just gave her a funny look. "You're fired," she said. They got another doctor. He said the brain was a mysterious thing, and sometimes it just needs time. So they gave the uncle more time and lots of prayers, and one day while they were praying he woke up. He's back home now.

Which reminds me of a story I forgot to tell you from a couple semesters ago. The 69 year old grandmother of one of my female Hispanic students had suffered a stroke. She was taken unconscious to the hospital, where the prognosis was dire and the need felt to put her on a respirator. The weeks passed with no improvement. Three months passed. Finally the doctors started putting pressure on the student's aunt, her mother's sister, to remove the ventilator. There was no brain activity, and no hope of recovery. I can't remember if he used the V word. The aunt resisted, but after a couple weeks of being indoctrinated in the physical facts of the case, began to relent. The morning that they were scheduled to remove the ventilator, all the family were gathered in the grandmother's room, my student holding her hand. As the doctor explained to the aunt what they were about to do, and what to expect, my student suddenly felt a pressure on her fingers. She looked down and the grandmother was squeezing her hand. She squealed out to the others, "She just squeezed my hand!" The next morning the grandmother woke up. She's home now, somewhat debilitated, but she can communicate and get around with a little help. The doctors were unapologetic for their desire to pull the ventilator. Very rare, they said of the grandmother. A freak occurrence.

Some of the stories are interesting, though poorly written. But every now and then a fine line leaps out, like that from the girl who found herself in a car being driven by a drunken friend who had accelerated to over a hundred miles an hour: "Panic's a funny thing. It's like you're drowning in the air you're trying to breathe." She ended up with her pelvis broken in five places.

Most of the girls like to write about love. They are not usually stories of success, but more often of the strains of selfishness, physical abuse, babies born to teenagers and young women only to be abandoned by their so-called fathers. Sometimes even the girls do the abandoning. It runs the gamut. For some reason I get sentimental reading them and start thinking back to the world of young love I grew up in, which wasn't like theirs at all. I start remembering the girls I knew, and the music we listened to in the car, or slow-danced to in the gym at the sock hop. Sometimes in the back, in the corner, in the dark. Stuff like this.

It was hard enough to get to first base, let alone get one of them pregnant. Know why? They wouldn't let me. Things have changed. Women. They're unknowable, but could change the world if they would.