Too Little, Too Late?

After 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced in the four years since violence began in Sudan, President Bush has ordered new economic sanctions in an attempt to pressure Sudan's government to end the genocide in Darfur.

Targeted are 30 government-sponsored companies, one company suspected of shipping arms to Darfur, and three individuals, Sudan's minister for humanitarian affairs, Ahmad Muhammed Harun, Sudan's head of military intelligence and security, Awad Ibn Auf, and the leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, Khalil Ibrahim.

The president is also seeking a U.N. resolution that includes expanding the embargo on arms sales to Sudan and banning offensive Sudanese military flights over Darfur. Any resolution faces an uphill climb because of China's strong oil trade ties to the region.

Yes: 200,000 dead; 2.5 million displaced; four years; 31 companies; three people; a UN resolution that has a snowball's chance. As anemic as these steps are, the US remains at the forefront in taking action to end the bloodshed. And so it goes...

(HHTs: Coalition for Darfur)

Is SETI Science?

This question came to mind when reading a reference made in passing by Michael Egnor at Evolution News & Views, a Discovery Institute blog. Almost two years ago, Scott Carson, of An Examined Life, and I had a go-around (ends here) about whether intelligent design (ID) constitutes science (note I do not refer to the movement called Intelligent Design).

I admit to having taken an apparently weasel-way out by using Thomas Kuhn's framework for normal science and noting the derivative nature of ID allows us to ignore the broader question of what science is, i.e., because the primary work of ID is attempting to classify instances of evolutionary anomalies with respect to the neo-Darwinist mechanism for evolution it falls under the umbrella of the paradigm of neo-Darwinism, which everyone agrees is science.

Can the same be said for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence? The Center for SETI Research would have us believe it is, as would most of mainstream science, including the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. It seems, however, to have the same kind of falsifiability problems and, arguably, similar utility shortcomings as ID. It is clearly a scientific endeavor, but is it science? I am just not going to buy that SETI is science because scientists say that is what scientists do.

Of course, I'm not really looking to start another debate here about what science is. I'm just wondering about SETI...

[submitted by e-mail]

Snags in the System

The LA Times tells the story:

As a child, Traci Hong came from South Korea to the United States as a legal immigrant. Fifteen years ago, she became a U.S. citizen.

Yet in March, when Hong, now 37, applied for a congressional staff job, an employee screening system that is the linchpin of the Senate's immigration legislation told a different story: It flagged her as being here illegally.

Hong spent eight days navigating the bureaucracy to correct a database error and convince officials that she was entitled to work here — and she's an immigration lawyer, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and its law school.

This is but a single, straightforward example of what is at stake with the complexities introduced by the recently proposed regularization and temporary guest worker programs for the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, with their background checks, touch-back schemes, and the like. This includes expanding Basic Pilot, the screening system used in Traci Hong's case, to function as a national verification system within 18 months and subjecting all the country's 150 million workers to it in three years.

The president can insist all he likes that the current plan is the right thing to do, and I agree in principal. Nevertheless, I remain skeptical that the right things will get done.

Catholic Carnival 120 is Up

At A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars. This week's torchlight post is "Environmentalism = Population Control" by Ian at Musings from a Catholic Bookstore. It picks up on the same thing that I posted a few weeks ago.

Pro-Lifer Wins Idol

I didn't know about Jordin Sparks being pro-life, or any of the "controversies" when they popped up a few weeks ago. Now I'm even more glad I voted for her all season long.

House Votes to Give Federal Government a Sword Against Big Oil

Tally another blow against subsidiarity.

The House of Representatives, with a margin just shy of veto-proof, has voted to make it illegal for companies to sell gasoline at "unconcionably excessive" prices. Penalties could include up to a $2 million fine and 10 years in prison. The bill also requires the Federal Trade Commission to give special attention to companies with sales of more than $500 million a year (which wouldn't even get them into the Fortune 1000).

Don't worry, I'm sure the FTC will know "unconsionably excessive" prices when they see them. Here's the truffle passage from USA Today's story, however:

Most states have laws that prohibit price gouging but there are no federal gouging laws, according to the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. Many of the state laws are triggered in times of emergencies.

The issue of gasoline price gouging received considerable attention when prices at the pump jumped nationwide following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The FTC in a May 2006 report said it found no evidence of price manipulation and argued gouging legislation would be tough to enforce and "could cause more problems for consumers than it solves."

The passage came shortly after the FTC said that it has not uncovered any anti-competitive behavior or other illegal business practices by oil companies that have caused current record gasoline prices.

"We have not seen evidence of illegal activity at this time," Michael Salinger, director of the FTC's Bureau of Economics, told reporters after testifying at a congressional Joint Economic Committee hearing on oil industry mergers and gasoline costs.

There's no evidence of gouging happening and most states already have laws prohibiting gouging... Of course we need a federal law.

I Said Comprehensive, Not Incomprehensible

I used to be an "open borders" guy. But not so much anymore. Tom Bensman has a series in the San Antonio Express-News explains why in a four-part series (highly recommended--part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). Here's an extended truffle passage:

Since 9-11, the U.S. government has made guarding the 1,952-mile Mexican border a top priority. One million undocumented immigrants are caught each year trying to cross the southern and northern U.S. borders.

Because all but a tiny fraction of those arrested crossing the southern border are Mexican or Central American, issues of border security get framed accordingly and cast in the image of America's neighbors to the south. Right or wrong, in this country the public face of illegal immigration has Latino features.
But there are others coming across the Rio Grande...

"They are not all economic migrants," said attorney Janice Kephart, who served as legal counsel for the 9-11 Commission and co-wrote its final staff report. "I do get frustrated when people who live in Washington or Illinois say we don't have any evidence that terrorists are coming across. But there is evidence."

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehension numbers, agents along both borders have caught more than 5,700 special-interest immigrants since 2001. But as many as 20,000 to 60,000 others are presumed to have slipped through, based on rule-of-thumb estimates typically used by homeland security agencies.

"You'd like to think at least you're catching one out of 10," McCraw said. "But that's not good in baseball and it's certainly not good in counterterrorism."

(Hard Hat Tip: Hugh Hewitt)

Heritage has outlined what the Beltway fast-talking is covering, and Thomas Sowell reminds us how little has been done to contain the border security problem via the fence. (HHT on the second link: Laura Ingraham)

I probably qualify as a moderate on this issue:

To fix what ails the country...requires a different calculus. Recognizing the dignity of the migrant first could have been the master stroke to seize the agenda. The National Guard and drawing out otherwise law-abiding denizens of the melting pot can only produce marginal benefit over the course of years... Consider that both legal and illegal immigrants represent a still small percentage of the adult work force and that the economic impact of immigrants is something far less than 1% of GDP, although the burdens are concentrated in a few states. Substantially increasing the quotas for legal immigration and streamlining INS procedures will address many of these issues. It is aligned with recognizing the dignity of each human person. It reduces the incentive for immediate, massive illegal immigration. It puts more people into the system for tracking while they assimilate the culture. It provides an opportunity for the federal government to facilitate dispersing immigrants so as not to be concentrated in just a few states. It eliminates the ridiculous charge of being anti-immigrant. And it puts a little lustre back on the shining city on the hill.

It seems pretty straightforward to me and ought to include:

1. Build the fence now
2. Substantially increase (legal) immigration quotas
3. Promote/enhance guest workers (skilled and unskilled)
4. Provide a path to citizenship for those illegal aliens here
5. Create an alternative punishment for illegal aliens that at least covers the cost of bringing those "in the shadow" into "the light."

In the mean time, I suppose we'll have to wait.

My Weekend

A smally just shy of 5 pounds--too bad it was out of season...

Catholic Carnival 119 is Up

Memorial of St. Rita of Cascia

At Book Reviews and More. This week's torchlight post is "15 Ways to Purity in Men" by Jean Heimann at Catholic Fire (again) because it fits into a developing theme here. Here's a truffle quote:

We experience true contrition in our hearts when we realize how much sin
offends God, hurts us, as well as others. It is our sins that have caused the
death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. It injures our soul and mortal sin results
in spiritual death. Sin also injures our relationship with others, especially
with our wife, girlfriend, friends, co-workers, as well as the mystical body of
Christ. We should meditate daily on the passion and death of Jesus Christ.

Pediatricians Want Research Dedicated to Adult Stem Cells

Memorial of St. Isidore the Farmer

The American College of Pediatricians has called for an end to embryonic stem cell research and recommends exclusive support be given to proven, effective therapies derived from adult stem cell research. Citing areas where successful treatments using adult stem cells have been demonstrated in human trials in the last decade, the significant failures of embryonic stem cell research, and the promise of non-embryo sources for stem cells with those properties that are considered so desirable to warrant embryo destruction, the ACP in a statement has concluded that apart from its moral difficulties, funding human embryonic research prolongs needless suffering by delaying the development of more promising adult stem cell treatments and cures. Here's the truffle quote:

Every dollar spent on the failed and unnecessary process of embryonic stem cell
research steals resources away from the established utility and potential of
adult stem cell research. This is fiscally irresponsible and medically
unconscionable.

That this isn't the default public policy position is evidence that we live in times of vast prosperity, among other things.

Happy Mother's Day

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima

As today is also the second anniversary of Pope Benedict opening the cause for Pope John Paul the Great's canonization, today let us remember his devotion to Our Mother and pray that may the Troglodytrix, the Troglomatrix, and all mothers standing in her place on earth be a focus of devotion by their children and a society dedicated to a Culture of Life.

Here' a re-post from 2005 of John Paul the Great on Mary:

Mater amabilis, Mother worthy of love! Mater pulchrae dilectionis, Mother of fair love, pray for us! Teach us to love God and our brothers, as you loved them: make our love for others to be always patient, kindly, respectful.

Causa nostrae laetitiae, Cause of our joy, pray for us! Teach us to be able to grasp, in faith, the paradox of Christian joy, which springs up and blooms from sorrow, renunciation, and union with your sacrificed Son: make our joy to be always genuine and full, in order to be able to communicate to all! Amen.

Prayer at Lourdes Grotto, Vatican Gardens, 1979

Lost Their Ashes

Memorial of St. Scholastica

The search continues in New Mexico's mountains for the payload carrying experiments and the cremated remains of James Doohan, who played Star Trek's "Scotty," NASA Mercury and Gemini astronaut Gordon Cooper, and approximately 200 other people. The suborbital "Legacy" space flight of a UP Aerospace Spaceloft XL rocket launched April 28 from Spaceport America, 30 miles east of Truth or Consequences, NM.

I will limit myself to two questions:

1. Did they check whether it might be suspended in molecular limbo by a loop in the transporter system?
2. Does this really constitute treating the bodies of the dead with respect and charity?

Catholic Carnival 118 is Up

At Postscripts from the Catholic Spitfire Grill. This week's Torchlight Post is "Virginity and the Stages of Love: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen" by Jean Heimann at Catholic Fire. Here is a truffle quote:

Anyone who knows the real philosophy of love should not be confused at such noble loving. There are three stages of love, and few there are who ever arrive at the third stage. The first love is digestive love, the second is democratic love, and the third is sacrificial love. Digestive love enters in the person whom one loves. It assimilates in persons, as the stomach assimilates food, using them as a means of to either its own pleasure or utility. Mere physical or sex love is digestive; it flatters the other person for his possession, as the farmer fattens livestock for the market. Its proffered gifts are only "baits" used as Trojan horses to win the other person over at the moment of its devouring. Those marriages which last only a few years, and end in divorce and remarriage, are founded on a love which is purely organic and glandular... "We are no longer married, but we're still good friends."

Truism

John Derbyshire drives me nuts sometimes, but yesterday at The Corner he was spot on in calling out that which are in fact logical fallacies of relevance that occur too often in popular debate (ID vs. evolution in this case). It is for this intellectual honesty that I keep reading. Here's the truffle passage:

[Y]ou shouldn't hold an idea responsible for the people who profess it.

Thus, the fact that Woodrow Wilson swooned over Darwin's theory about the origin of species, tells you nothing at all about Darwin's theory, though it probably tells you something about Wilson.

The creationists rely far too much on this "recruiting" of historical figures in their efforts to make Darwinism look bad. As I've said, it cuts both ways. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swoons over Intelligent Design...
and that tells us nothing about Intelligent Design.

A corollary is that you shouldn't hold an idea responsible for other ideas the originator of the idea may have had. The fact that Sir Isaac Newton believed in alchemy and Bible codes casts no shadow on his theory of gravitation (even if Newton THOUGHT it did!)  Likewise, if it is the case (don't ask me) that Darwin favored state-enforced eugenics, that does nothing to invalidate his theory about the origin of species, which could still be perfectly sound.

[submitted by e-mail]

Catholic Report Sees Positive Signs In Ruffled Feathers

That some of the heterodox are concerned with the idea that Bishop Nienstedt, recently named coadjutor archbishop for St. Paul and Minneapolis, insists on standing by the Magisterium is not surprising. Dave Hartline thinks this as a good thing, and I'm inclined to agree:

[W]hen placed in context and perspective it shows that the tide is turning since the left is angry about these new prelates who enforce the Church's teachings.

I would also add that if NCReporter-types can get spun up over this kind of thing (and not be indifferent), then they may also be open to conversion/reversion.

Oh, Brave New World, With the Right Amount of People in It

Something from the UK called the Optimum Population Trust has issued a briefing, A Population-Based Climate Strategy, that identifies the best, easiest hope (as they would have us believe) for staving environmental doom:

The most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the number of children one has. The most effective national and global climate change strategy is limiting the size of the population. Population limitation should therefore be seen as the most cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals and nations – a strategy that applies with even more force to developed nations... because of their higher consumption levels.

A non-existent person has no environmental footprint: the emissions “saving” is instant and total. ...

A population-based climate change strategy has several additional advantages. Fewer people means less demand on resources which means fewer of the negative environmental effects of a purely technological strategy – from wind turbines in beautiful countryside and biofuel plantations on land needed for growing food to a possible new era of nuclear energy. These impacts are substantial. ...

A population-based strategy also involves fewer of the taxes, regulations and other limits on personal freedom and mobility now being canvassed in response to climate change - travel taxes, congestion charging, water restrictions, carbon rationing. And because technological adaptation would be less urgent if population was stable or reducing, the economic costs of transition to a stable climate would be less and the transition itself would be smoother. To sum up, a population-based climate strategy would be easier, quicker, cheaper, freer and greener. ...

A purely technological strategy for mitigating climate change involves increasing intervention by the state both in the market and in individual freedoms for the foreseeable future, with all the scope for social tensions this could bring. Given the nature of democratic politics, the outcome of such a strategy would be uncertain. [C]limate change “strategies” since the 1990s, with targets proclaimed and later dropped or missed under political pressures, are a model for what might happen in the future. But climate change is also a question of supply and demand (for energy). The current approach to mitigation emphasises one half of the equation (supply) while virtually ignoring the other (demand). It is based on two approaches which were once anathema to the environmental lobby: technical fix and predict and provide. OPT argues that while greener technologies and reduced consumption both have a vital role to play, treating population growth as a “given” – something over which we have no control – is a failure of courage and leadership in the face of a planetary emergency. It will do nothing to increase people’s awareness of how their own decisions about family size could have potentially devastating consequences for the environment in which their children grow up. The world... needs to take population seriously.

Three things come first to mind:

1. "Do it for the environment" is supplanting "do it for the children" as the last refuge of scoundrels.
2. "Family planning" has never been about choice; this I knew. I have been thinking it was about good old-fashioned license, but now I'm not sure--I can't quite put my finger on it...
3. "Go forth, be fruitful, but stabilize" is what God meant when He took the boot Adam and Eve to help them on their way out of Eden?

Right Wing Nut House glances off the third item:

[W]hat makes this such an idiotic, shallow, and self defeating criticism – to the point that we now have international eco-arbiters who have taken it upon themselves to police the manners and customs of everyone else in search of “green” violations – is that it fails to take into account the potential contributions and even eco-pluses of those extra human beings to the human race. This is what happens when you stop thinking of human beings as living, breathing, thinking, caring, loving organisms and instead look at them as metrics on a chart who either consume resources like food, or raw materials or belch carbon. (emphasis added)

Each person is an end in himself. Yes, sustainability of growth is an important factor, as Pope Benedict reminded us recently. Nevertheless, this is not an either/or, but a both/and situation:

The Church’s conviction of the inseparability of justice and charity is ultimately born of her experience of the revelation of God’s infinite justice and mercy in Jesus Christ, and it finds expression in her insistence that man himself and his irreducible dignity must be at the centre of political and social life. Her teaching... thus appeals to right reason and a sound understanding of human nature in proposing principles capable of guiding individuals and communities in the pursuit of a social order marked by justice, freedom, fraternal solidarity and peace. At the heart of that teaching... is the principle of the universal destination of all the goods of creation. According to this fundamental principle, everything that the earth produces and all that man transforms and manufactures, all his knowledge and technology, is meant to serve the material and spiritual development and fulfilment of the human family and all its members.

In other words, in the final analysis, the earth was made for man, but man was not made for the earth. When we lose sight of this, we get the anemia that is Europe today. Which raises the question: If we developed nations (the higher consumers), because of our "sophistication," struggle to maintain replacement birthrates, as is widely chronicled, despite largely ignoring the energy demand and emissions factors, then why do we need a policy for limiting national population growth in the first place?

(hard hat tip: The Anchoress)

Lileks Reduced to Writing Straight News (Bumped)

Dashing his hopes and dreams, the StarTribune is squandering the genius that is James. In his own words:

[T]hey've killed my column, and assigned me to write straight local news stories.

Really.

There’s been some talk that I might leverage my mad web skillz into a tech beat, reporting on the Internet. But a local beat about the Internet? How many stories can do you about six guys in a loft coding a hot new start-up? And heaven forbid we have to illustrate them, because then you get the inevitable geek-by-the-screen shot. Look! He’s customizing the drop-down location menu so it defaults to the United States instead of Afghanistan!

I don’t want to write about the Internet. I want to write on the Internet. I’d rather develop content than report about content developers. It’s that simple, and it’s also a matter of recognizing my failings: I am not Biff Deadline, Ace Reporter. I can do long stories with lots of color, all aslosh with subjective opinions, but writing straight news - clearly, simply, briskly - is a skill I lack, and I take off my hat to those who've mastered that discipline.

My column will end a week from this Friday. (There’s a series of pieces I can’t wait to write.) After that, it's just-the-facts-ma'am - and I'll no longer be telecommuting, either. This means I will start burning my share of hydrocarbons like a good American. Hell, I may leave the vehicle running all day outside the building just to make up for lost time. Maybe I will put a green roof on the car to balance things out. Some turf, some switchgrass. It's murder on the paint but we all must do our part.

Would it matter if you contacted the paper? It very well might. Here's the reader's rep's page.

If I can get my column back and / or a nice big Online gig, that would be a satisfactory conclusion. Reporting on internet start-ups as opposed to joining an internet start-up – eh, not so much.

Update:

Hugh Hewitt is as strident as you'd expect, with prophecies that this portends the endtimes for the old media, plus a decent nexus on the topic (here and here).

Another Day When I Love My Job

On May 1st, the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, where we celebrate the dignity of human labor, Mitchell Hadley re-posted on Stella Borealis a fisking of an inane corporate memo plus some reflection from his (and others') Our Word blog from several years earlier.

He introduces it:

Unfortunately, for many in Corporate America, dignity is the last thing one finds, in an environment that sees work not as a reflection of God's greatness, nor as something to be offered to God, but merely as a tool to generate profit. Likewise, the employee is seen not as having been made in the image of God, but as a statistic, to be manipulated in whichever way possible in order to improve the bottom line.

I work for a global, Fortune 300-sized company in a growing and competitive industry and haven't really shared this kind of "Corporate America" experience in my nearly 20 years. Sure, I've worked plenty of nights and weekends and had my run-ins with "Human Resources." On the flip side, I am paid quite well, receive good benefits, and have flexible hours. If somebody chases me down with a cell phone while I'm on vacation, I'm not charged a vacation day. Nobody has said a word about my statue of St. Joseph on my desk, a cross from my mother on the wall, or an Easter bookmark on my bulletin board that Troglotyke #1 made. Nor has anybody questioned my putting "JMJ" on every one of my e-mails, other than to get the occasional inquiry as to what it means. I work with people from many different cultures, and many of them advance their traditions in similar ways. Our company has had it as an objective to be a "Most Admired Company" for more than a decade, which includes being an employer of choice. Being employed "at will" fits into this, despite rants in the comments section to the contrary. However, I won't claim that I can extend my particular to the general here. Instead I can just remind myself again that there is plenty of good to counter the frustrations and the disappointments that anybody faces at work.

Looking for Masculinity? Try the Classics

Fifth Sunday of Easter

In a Zenit interview last month (full read recommended), Providence College professor, Anthony Esolen, discusses the move afoot to rediscover masculinity, which touches nicely upon my recent post on the roles of man and woman in marriage. In response to a question about what ancient rememdies could we apply to address societal problems, such as high divorce rates, below replacement birthrates, and large numbers of children born into single parent families and increasing numbers of out of wedlock births, Professor Esolen responds with a truffle quiote about how classic literature may hold the keys to the solutions:

People can learn from both the Catholic and the Protestant literature of the past an appreciation for the wonder of the body, and of the virtue of chaste love.

They can learn from Dante that the love of man and woman is a glorious motif in the symphony of love fashioned by him who moves the sun and the other stars.

From Torquato Tasso and Edmund Spenser they can learn that the typical sin against love, occasioned by unchastity, does not so much stoke the flame of desire as it dampens it, making both the heart and the mind feeble, ineffectual.

From Spenser they can learn that marriage is not a private matter -- one of our greatest and silliest errors -- but a deeply social bond that unites those two fascinatingly different sorts of creatures, man and woman, in such a way as to link them to the families who have gone before them and to the families that will be born from their love.

If you have a view of marriage that does not include all mankind, all the natural world, the physical cosmos, heaven and earth, the dawn of time and its consummation in eternity, then your view of marriage is a cramped and hole-and-corner affair. So at least the old poets teach.

Maybe the most important thing they teach, though, is the delightfulness of the good: the lovely and modest woman -- Miranda in Shakespeare's "Tempest" -- and the brave and gentle young man -- Florizel in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale."

Our children's imaginations now are a war zone, or what is left of fields and hills after the bombs have blasted them and the poison gas has infested them for 15 years.

Even fairy tales, those deeply Christian and incarnational folk parables of the West
have been poisoned by feminist revisers.

So I guess I am saying that we will cure none of those ills, not one, unless we rediscover the virtue of purity, and we will not rediscover that virtue unless our imaginations are engaged by its beauty, and that from our childhoods.

Who Won the GOP Debate?

My attention will not turn in earnest to 2008 before the unofficial Iowa straw poll in August. That said, I did watch a bit of last night's festivities, and I think there was a clear winner: Brian Williams, who moderated last week's Democratic debate.

[submitted by e-mail]

Cue the Theses

That the global warming scare, recently re-coined by its prophets as the "coming climate change crisis," has had a religious feel to it is not particularly new. To be more accurate, it feels like the stereotype of the trumped up theocracy the caterwauling left would have had us believe had replaced our republican form of government in the wake of the 2004 elections. William F. Buckley summarized this sense nicely about a month ago:

The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.

It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.

To ease Catholic-like guilt, celebrities, politicians, and now big businesses are in a headlong rush to make a show of their righteousness, despite the plain hypocrisy of their jet-setting ways, which is creating a market explosion for "carbon offsets" as perhaps its most significant consequence. It has not escaped notice by fellow environmentalists:

"The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation," said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. "Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins."

"This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther," Mr. Hayes added. ...

Mr. Hayes said there were legitimate companies and organizations that help people and companies measure their emissions and find ways to cut them, both directly and indirectly by purchasing certain kinds of credits. But overall, he said, an investment in such credits — given the questions about their reliability — should be looked at more as conventional charity (presuming you check to be sure the projects are real) and less as something like a license to binge on private jet travel.

Granted that indulgences can be and have been abused in the Church, and excepting what indulgences actually are, the lack of absolution and repentance on their part, as illustrated by impressively high carbon footprints, may portend a crisis of faith for the popular environmental movement, but I doubt it. They will always have their hermits in the desert, but it will be interesting to see whether "carbon neutrality," which actually requires very little change in behavior, carries the day.

Catholic Carnival 117 is Up

Memorial of St. Athanasius

At 50 Days After. This week there are two torchlight posts that will tie into a post I'm planning for later this week, or early next. The first is a book review by Jay at Living Catholicism of Meg Meeker's Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. The second is a book review by Steven R. McEvoy at Book Reviews and More of Peter Kreeft's The Best Things in Life.

Also, for the record and with apologies, I had missed Catholic Carnival 115 at To Jesus Through Mary and Catholic Carnival 116 at Cause of our Joy. If I get a chance, I may add torchlight posts for these as well.

May Day Demonstrators Repeat Their Mistake

Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker

Almost a year ago in a discussion around the president's immigration reform proposal, where I still "think he missed an opportunity to be pro-enforcement, pro-business, pro-immigrant, and... right," I noted the opportunity missed by the pro-immigrant crowd to cast the debate in terms of the dignity of the migrant worker had they only rallied last year's May 1st protest around the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, rather than the usual communist/socialist suspects. With reform stalled, you hope they would have tried a better approach this year.

I, Troglodyte

My getting smacked up side the head is at the heart of the matter as to why I have gone long stretches without blogging in the last year and a half. I find that my writing, even though it is not my profession, is a means for self-development. The trouble is that the time necessary to blog often conflicts with the actual service that Christian marriage requires. I can understand Fr. Shane Tharp's position that the best blogs are those that are tied into a person's profession, and to a certain extent I agree that that is true for those who strive to be prolific. My blogging, however, must have a different end than those. I am choosing to walk a fine line here. Prayers are welcome.

Up Side the Head

Every once in awhile you hear something you've heard many times before that you thought you understood, but after you hear it again, maybe with a little twist, it feels like somebody knocked some sense into you. This happened to me about a year and a half ago.

Troglotyke #1 had a religion class assignment where he was to ask me (and the Troglodytrix), among other things, for a brief answer of what it means to me to be a man (or a woman in the Troglodytrix' case). I gave him a lower case "g," lower case "s" good shepherd analogy. Later that night I was watching EWTN when Fr. Mitch Pacwa had Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers as his guest, who was talking about his then upcoming series, Behold the Man. I have always been drawn to passages in scripture that are mentioned in the Old Testament and repeated in the Gospel and the Epistles. Deacon Burke-Sivers hit on one that night, which John Paul the Great also highlighted in his development of the Theology of the Body.

From Genesis:

The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man,

the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken."

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

(Gen 2:22-25, NAB)

From the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan. Great crowds followed him, and he cured them there. Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?" He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

They said to him, "Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?" He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery." [His] disciples said to him, "If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." He answered, "Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it."

(Matthew 19:1-12, NAB)

From Paul's Letter to the Ephesians:

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.

(Ephesians 5:22-33, NAB)

Here we can see with the emphasis on a mutual suborning to Christ by man and woman, the sacramental understanding of marriage is revealed as an elaborate teaching on Christ and the church that was prefigured by the Creation. Fine.

A good way to rankle just about any (American) woman is to do the bit about how wives should be subordinate to their husbands. In fact, this makes for an interesting ice breaker at parties--not that I've done that much. Now, of course, I am always dutiful and quick to point out that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church, which is often taken to mean that a husband must be willing to die for his wife and brings head bobs and "Darn right"'s all around.

OK, now the twist. I had always stopped there. But St. Paul didn't, as the good deacon pointed out that night. A husband (specifically as a man) is to hand himself over for her that she may be sanctified; he must serve her. A husband must make himself a better man, so he might be worthy of her, and they may each be brought to holiness. And how ought the wife respond (specifically as a woman)? By letting him serve her in his way, the way in which God has provided him his unique gifts. This imitation of Christ and his bride, the Church, is how we, as couples, are to devote ourselves to Christ through sacramental marriage.

Smack! Of course! Love your neighbor as yourself. Pow! Charity begins at home. Biff! Love your wife. Thwack! Lead your wife to holiness. Bop! You better get to work on being a better man if you think you're gonna do that. Zap! Love is a verb here--so start acting like it.

As I noted, this was more than a year ago. Since then, I think the Troglodytrix' and my marriage has grown considerably as I appreciated what the consequences of my realization were and how I must act. I am no ordinary dummy, and I have to think that if I did not understand the depth of the true nature of Christian marriage, then it is also true for many, if not most, of those in our culture, married and unmarried, otherwise, I am sure, the institution of marriage would not be threatened as it is today.

Pope Benedict's Prayer Intentions for May

General prayer intention:

That, following the example of the Virgin Mary, all Christians should allow
themselves to be guided by the word of God and always remain attentive to the
signs of the Lord in his own life.

Mission prayer intention:

That in the mission territories there may be no lack of good and enlightened
teachers in the major Seminaries and in the Institutes of consecrated life.

For more info, see the Apostleship of Prayer.

There are Days When I Love My Job

From Reuters:

An employer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers for failing to milk his cows, police said on Saturday.

Neighbors watched in horror as Upendra Yadav was dragged out of his house in Jharkhand state on Friday by his angry employer.

The employer's father and brother held Yadav down before he was beheaded with a sword, police said.

The employer has been charged with murder.