Finding the Church as you drive a stranger home...

My father and I talk about the Church and its universality, how you can go to a rural parish somewhere and find a Vietnamese priest of Chinese extraction saying Mass before an Hispanic congregation. This doesn't just happen in Brooklyn.

Jennifer F. tells a new but familiar story:

'They had arrived a day late after getting stuck in Atlanta overnight, and were too exhausted to strain for conversation topics. Rita was so tense and stressed by her strange new surroundings that she'd developed a bad headache. In the forty-minute drive back to our house we made some other efforts at chitchat, but it was hard work. Our group consisted of a suburban American family from Texas, a young career woman from the bustling city of Bogota, an orphaned child from rural Colombia, and we were all tired. It was pretty quiet for most of the ride home, the main sound being the air conditioner straining to beat the sweltering heat.

'Then Maria started to say something, hesitating to make sure she chose the right words. "I hate to trouble you," she said apologetically, "but it's very important that Rita and I go to Mass on Sunday."When I told her that we are Catholic too, everything changed.'

Read on.

How much does conformity dominate almost any specialty?

More than we'd like to think. Nicholas Wade says:

'The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong. You’re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out of line with what your peers believe, they will look at you askance and start to withdraw the informal title of “expert” they have implicitly bestowed on you. Then you’ll bear the less comfortable label of “maverick,” which is only a few stops short of “scapegoat” or “pariah.”'

I am afraid that our elites in the universities and the upper echelons of business and media are just as smug in their moral superiority as the same classes were when the Titanic went down in 1912. Their brilliance and their money could not save them.

What do converts want?

David Layman in First Things focuses on converts to Orthodoxy from evangelical Protestantism and discusses how they differ from those born into Orthodoxy. As a Catholic convert I can relate.

He concludes:

'We have not been converted to live in comfort of our various cultures, eastern or western, Oriental or American, pre-modern or post-modern. We have been converted to learn fidelity to the God who calls us.'

"Jupiter gets a black eye"

Michio Kaku writes a thoughtful piece; here is an excerpt:

'We sometimes forget that the universe is a violent place.

'This week, astronomers in Hawaii recorded an exceedingly rare event. An amazing photograph revealed a comet or asteroid, probably no more than a mile across, plowing into Jupiter’s atmosphere. The impact created a fireball roughly the size of the planet earth.'

Read it all here.

Death by common sense

Peggy Noonan's piece is on the prospects of healthcare reform (and taxation) in Congress.

'Let me throw forward three other things that I suspect lessen , or will lessen, support for full health-care reform, two of them not quantifiable.

'The first has to do with the doctors throughout the country who give patients a break, who quietly underbill someone they know is in trouble, or don’t charge for their services. Also the emergency rooms that provide excellent service for the uninsured in medical crisis. People don’t talk about this much because they’re afraid if they do they’ll lose it, that some government genius will come along and make it illegal for a doctor not to charge or a hospital to fudge around, with mercy, in its billing. People are afraid of losing the parts of the system that sometimes work—the unquantifiable parts, the human parts.

'Second, and this is big, some of the bills being worked on in Congress will allow for or mandate taxpayer funding of abortion. Speaking only and narrowly in political terms, this is so ignorant as to be astounding. A good portion of the support for national health care comes from a sort of European Christian Democrat spirit of community, of “We are all in this together.” This spirit potentially unites Democrats, leftists, some Republicans and GOP populists, the politically unaffiliated and those of whatever view with low incomes. But putting abortion in the mix takes the Christian out of Christian Democrat. It breaks and jangles the coalition, telling those who believe abortion is evil that they not only have to accept its legality but now have to pay for it in a brand new plan, for which they’ll be more highly taxed. This is taking a knife to your own supporters.

'The third point is largely unspoken but I suspect gives some people real pause. We are living in a time in which educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the right to make very public criticisms of . . . let’s call it the private, pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers and the overweight. Drinking will be next. Mr. Obama’s own choice for surgeon general has come under criticism as too heavy.

'Only a generation ago such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make big and very personal demands on you. Those who live in a way that isn’t sufficiently healthy “cost us money” and “drive up premiums.”'

Americans like government services but we hate government mandates, and the Democratic movers in Congress have lost this point.

John Fund notes how the government health insurance cartel is going to squeeze large segments of the population.

"It ain't braggin' when you dun dun it."

So said Dizzy Dean, and this week's baseball hero is Mark Buehrle, who pitched a perfect game, 27 batters up, and 27 batters down.

Don Larson, one of the few to do the same, and the only one to pitch a perfect game in the World Series, said, "It can be equaled but never bettered."

Don't forget...

Losing a war hurts, and the consequences cannot be undone. Here is a Marine's story of being one of the last to leave Saigon in 1975.

I am getting the feeling that the current administration is going to cut and run in Afghanistan, or worse, make a half-effort at educating the public about the war so that Afghanistan will collapse about the time public support in the USA has eroded.

Out of respect for Henry Luce and his wife Clare...

I am linking to TIME magazine. The article is about the last days of Bush and Cheney. It is predictable and boring. It simply places Time/Life photography with the narrative of the mainstream media herd. Anything about George W. Bush is written with the tragic tone of a story about Richard Nixon. Anything about Barack Obama is written with positive voice and cheery color of a piece on Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When I was a kid, I looked forward to TIME arriving in the mail each week. From 5th grade into high school, I read it cover-to-cover. I used TIME on microfilm to research history papers. It had its editorial limits, but I always looked at it as a vehicle with which to explore the world. I trusted it.

It is a shell of its old self. I occasionally buy a souvenir issue, but I am appalled at how it has lost its middle-class sensibility and become a dumbed-down/photo/cartoon version of the ATLANTIC.

When the government subsidizes the cheapest choice, there soon won't be many choices.

The healthcare proposals in Congress look dreadful. It appears that a huge number of equalitarians, essentially Fabian socialists, are willing to convert all of American healthcare into something no better than the Veterans Administration.

In case you are wondering why the V.A. is so terrible, it is a single-payer system made cheap by Congress maintaining sovereign immunity so strong that you cannot sue the V.A. if they chop you into parts. The V.A. is like Amtrak- immune to the tort claims that put the fear of juries into everyone else.

I am always amazed at the number of Americans who want to convert a federal republic populated by libertarians, libertines, and religious dissenters into a centralized autocracy, as if we were French accustomed to the ways of Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Charles de Gaulle. This country was founded by people who despised central government for anything but national defense. Why are people so shocked that blue-dog Democrats would rather suffer severe constipation than pass the poot that the Democratic leadership is sponsoring in the U.S. Congress to "reform" healthcare.

I quote John Randolph of Roanoke: "Change is not reform." What is proposed has already been tried in Tennessee, and it almost bankrupted the state. More here and here.

Michael Barone has a good piece too.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley

Readers of this blog know that I love culture clash. Cambridge culture clash is better than most. I spent much of my life with pompous professors, and now I represent law enforcement officers in civil rights actions.

I was not there, but I have a good idea what happened. The policeman is a veteran, the sort every police chief wants to have. The professor is a proud and accomplished man, the most important African-American professor at Harvard since W.E.B. DuBois. He lost his keys and was observed breaking into his own house. The caller might have been a racist, but did not have to be. The policeman came up to Gates' house and asked for identification. Prof. Gates, in a way not unlike Cynthia McKinney, blasted him for assuming there was a crime and refused to cooperate. Sgt. Crowley persistently asked for identification so he could leave the scene and report all was well. Prof. Gates berated Sgt. Crowley for being a racist and assumed that any white man showing authority to a black man was attempting to reassert the power of the majority over the minority. So the narrative goes.

Sgt. Crowley is not going to apologize because he did nothing wrong, followed procedure, and knows that he can get a better job if the City of Cambridge caves in to political correctness. Prof. Gates cannot apologize because he has spent a lifetime being everything that Bull Connor claimed an African-American cannot be. He truly believes that he was a victim of racial profiling and that if he had been white, Sgt. Crowley would not have asked for identification. Here is the NYT piece. (Let's see if the link works in a few weeks when the NYT probably archives the link and makes you pay to retrieve it.)

My question is this- Who represents the powerful: the African-American Harvard professor who is paid hundreds of thousands per year and is friends with the President of the United States, or the Cambridge cop who wears a flak jacket to work and is pressured by the news media, academia, and the President of the United States to apologize?

If Sgt. Crowley were not a stubborn cop, he would cave in, go on Oprah and talk about his subconscious racism, write a book, and run for Mayor of Cambridge.

Why I like Jewish World Review

I grew up with Jews, Southern Jews, not unlike those in Driving Miss Daisy. I have always had Jewish friends and took the Israelis' side instinctively during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Jews taught me that there was a compelling system of monotheistic belief a thousand years before Saint Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus.

I like Jewish World Review because the Gentiles are the guests. It is unapologetically Jewish in worldview, orthodox in leanings, and conservative in moral outlook. In a world of self-hatred, you never see self-hatred at Jewish World Review. It is, in the words of Russell Kirk, "proudly parochial," and parochialism is welcome in this world of forced homogenization and standardization and without standards.

The Jews are, to quote Pope John Paul II, our "elder brothers in faith."

What about atheist camp?

If the Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Pentecostals can run summer camps, why not the atheists?

Great Books Camp

My daughter loves camp. She is currently in the mountains in a pair of old shoes walking up a stream looking for salamanders. She is also swimming, canoeing, learning archery, and playing kickball.

For kids a bit older there is a Great Books Camp. I don't think I'm going to send my own, but it is a positive sign:

'The mere existence of these programs suggests an important trend in student learning habits. The academic radicalism of recent decades is receding, and students are ready to be serious again. Flaky courses—such as Sociology of Heterosexuality (Yale), Philosophy and Star Trek (Georgetown), or Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism (Mount Holyoke)—no longer interest them. Instead, students from book camp and Princeton are interested in “sitting down with Plato, St. Augustine, and James Madison, to think through the perennial issues of politics and citizenship,” says Robert George, a professor and director of Princeton’s James Madison Program.

'Since its birth nine years ago, the James Madison Program has dramatically grown in its offerings and influence on the Princeton campus. That’s only been possible because “students are very interested in learning about founding principles. Our class enrollments are very high,” says Mr. George. “In the Constitutional Interpretation class, which has the reputation of being the hardest non-science class at Princeton, 100 to 125 students are typically enrolled.” To put that in perspective, most classes at Princeton hold fewer than 19 students. The James Madison Program’s numbers, along with the Great Books Summer Program’s, say it all. Students want to learn this stuff.'

20 questions for the President at his press conference

Will a single one of these questions be asked?

If so, would the President answer them?

Camp and the preservation of religious culture...

I loved camp growing up: basketball camp, Scout camps, sailing camp, and religious camps. I agree with Andrew Silow-Carroll that camp should be for adults as well as kids. His article is not simply nostalgia; he discusses camp, particularly family camps in bungalows, as a primary environment for bonding and sharing of Jewish identity.

A better healthcare proposal...

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy suggests:

'Let the Democrats put forward three different health care reform proposals. Let the Republicans put forward two different proposals. Find five states to volunteer. Each state adopts one of the proposals. Wait several years. See if any of these proposals worked out well, and if so, which one seems best, and why. Learn from this trial and error, and then pass a national health bill, instead of trying an untested, one-size fits all solution for 20% of the American economy.'

More about torture...

Kyle Cupp links to Mark Shea.

I too am trying to work through the moral problems of torture in order to see how to apply the Church's teachings to policy.

In law school, I wrote extensively on war crimes and international law. However, I never found clear answers whenever someone was trying to prosecute people during or after a war, even when the captured were guilty as hell. The results of the trials were and are uneven at best. Like the former Yugoslavia, all the courts in the world cannot make Iraq whole again or even punish a third of the murderers in the country, much less those who aided and abetted violence.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and any soldier far from home having complete power over a captive is going to face temptations I don't know. Some soldiers abuse prisoners out of boredom, drunkenness, or malice. That is illegal and punishable by military courts of justice, which in the U.S. on the whole are better than civilian courts. Soldiers in uniform, enlisted men in particular, tend to punish severely those who disgrace the uniform. Contrary to stereotype, soldiers discipline their own rogues quite well.

Interrogations, however, can be gray. I say that because I know combat veterans and some history. If a ruthless man knows where your comrade is held and is willing to see him die, or if a captured terrorist knows of an operation that could kill dozens of soldiers and civilians, I don't know how any commander given authority to interrogate for the protection of his unit would not use all the tools deemed legal. Moreover, he would see himself as having a duty to stretch those tools into gray areas of the law in order to protect his command.

How do you look a dead soldier's mother in the eye and explain to her that you limited your interrogation to patient persuasion, when the application of pain or fear of death upon a sworn enemy might have saved the young man's life? If human life is our highest value, is it wrong to inflict pain and fear of death on a conspirator striving to kill dozens of people?

The Catholic Catechism discusses the death penalty, just wars, punishments for crimes, and other serious issues. I use Paragraph 2267 when teaching about the capital punishment and other life issues:

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68

The logic of this paragraph is the same logic which can justify a war. Depending on how you weigh the facts and dangers, you could justify or not justify the Iraq war and the execution of Saddam Hussein. I would argue that it might be possible under Catholic teaching to justify torturing a terrorist in a war zone (and possibly out of one) in order to save lives. I will admit that it is a stretch and that determining the guilt of the man tortured might only be possible outside the rules of criminal evidence.

I have more questions than answers. I'm a civilian and a lawyer. I write these things because I think highly of my fellow Catholic bloggers and believe these issues are worth discussing.

Paying for mistakes

Fallen Sparrow just paid off a big financial debt that began with a bad relationship. A good read.

Robert Oppenheimer - The Opera

Pentimento comments about John Adams's Doctor Atomic, which she saw in NYC.

16 Carmelite martyrs

They died on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1794. Christine at Laudem Gloriae has an excellent post:

Four years earlier, when the Assemblée Nationale had demanded the Carmelite Order to justify its existence, Mother Nathalie of Jesus came forward and on behalf of the entire Order in France addressed the company thus:

'The most complete liberty governs our vows; the most perfect equality reigns in our houses; here we know neither the rich nor the noble and we depend only on the Law. In the world they like to broadcast that monasteries contain only victims slowly consumed by regrets; but we proclaim before God that if there is on earth a true happiness, we possess it in the dimness of the sanctuary and that, if we had to choose again between the world and the cloister, there is not one of us who would not ratify with greater joy her first decision. After having solemnly declared that man is free, would you oblige us to think that we no longer are?'

"I wear black on Bastille Day."

Christine posts a video of Louis Alphonse de Bourbon.

Finding meaning in vocation, knowing your work is seen by God alone...

Danny Garland quotes St. Josemaria Escriva:

“I used to enjoy climbing up the cathedral towers to get a close view of the ornamentation at the top, a veritable lacework of stone that must have been the result of very patient and laborious craftsmanship. As I chatted with the young men who accompanied me, I used to point out that none of the beauty of this work could be seen from below. To give them a material lesson in what I had been previously explaining to them, I would say: ‘This is God’s work, this is working for God! To finish your personal work perfectly, with all the beauty and exquisite refinement of this tracery stonework.’ Seeing it, my companions would understand that all the work we had seen was a prayer, a loving dialogue with God. The men who spent their energies there were quite aware that no one at street level could appreciate their efforts. Their work was for God alone. Now do you see how our professional work can bring us close to our Lord? Do your job as those medieval stonemasons did theirs, and your work too will be operatio Dei, a human work with a divine substance and finish.”

Justice Ginsburg interviewed in NYT...

I tried to cherry-pick the best quotation, but found her interview is worth reading in its entirety.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's position is very clear: a woman's rights over a growing baby in utero trump any interests of the child, the father, or the community. There is no room for what we lawyers call "factor balancing." Give her credit for being as clear as Justice Hugo Black, even if she is wrong.

Though those who favor a looser construction of the Constitution usually prefer "factor balancing tests" to "bright-line rules," Justice Ginsburg is unequivocal. Her complaint is that Roe is is not clear enough. She thinks little of Justice Harry Blackmun's trimester analysis in Roe. She would replace it with an absolute right unfettered, not unlike Justice Black's doctrine of free speech.

Fr. Dwight Longnecker comments here, as does Damian Thompson here, and Christine at Laudem Gloriae.

I think it is too easy to see the abortion debate in terms of "pre-Roe" and "post-Roe." The U.S. Supreme Court generally follows the culture. In 1973, the world had been saturated with the propaganda of eugenics for more than a century. The world's population "out of control" was a common subject of science fiction. (Who would you trust to control it?) Abortion was seldom discussed, but it was available in almost any major city. I had a relative who aborted a baby many decades ago by pleading her own health. She was a nervous type, and having a second child scared her almost to death. State law provided her doctor with broad authority in judging the health of the mother, even though abortion on demand was illegal. Her doctor performed the abortion.

After a century of utilitarianism, industrialization, massive immigration, and urban poverty presided over by a ruling class convinced of its own superior breeding, perhaps it is surprising that the U.S. Supreme Court did not find abortion to be a fundamental right until 1973.

I have not read on the subject, but I suspect that a woman in a major city in 1880 or 1940 who wanted an abortion (and could pay for it) could get one, not unlike a teenager's ability today to acquire cocaine or a gun. The expansion of healthcare services and improvements in public health since the First World War elevated abortion to federal policy debate before 1973. By 1973, government doctors on various levels had performed abortions for years at military bases, state hospitals, mental hospitals, and prison hospitals. Encouraging abortions for prisoners, paupers, drunkards, "idiots," and the mentally ill was public policy. Some states had permissive laws essentially allowing abortion on demand. Despite extensive statutes, states seldom prosecuted women for having abortions or doctors for performing them.

Those of us who oppose abortion and believe it immoral in 2009 face the same problem of abolitionists in 1857: abortion, like slavery, is constitutional, common, largely unregulated, considered fundamental by most of the ruling classes, and deemed essential to the economic well-being (and respectability) of millions of families. Changing a culture is much more difficult than changing law.

There is a presumption unsupported by facts that abortion was considered morally wrong by most Americans prior to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Abortion historically has been viewed as unfortunate rather than wrong. (In Sir William Blackstone's England, abortion under the law was not murder but manslaughter, and it was seldom prosecuted.) We generally pity the woman who is pregnant without husband or resources. We feel her desperation, and therefore, we are generally willing to forgive her desperate act, or at least unwilling to give her trouble with the law when she has trouble enough. Prior to modern artificial contraception, we pitied the young woman for getting the full consequences of risky behavior and deplored premarital sex as a social pathology, even though we acknowledged that young people in love are often seriously tempted and prone to yield.

Artificial contraception, more than Roe, changed social perceptions, and ultimately, the law. Premarital sex is now considered normal and not a social pathology. Premarital sex is considered a complex and extended part of the human-development process in which we practice our sexual techniques for years before we actually think about breeding our species. We pity the woman who had sex with a rogue, neglected her contraception, and also neglected to stay in school. We consider her abortion to be a personal tragedy and possibly an admonition for our own daughters, but we see it more in utilitarian terms than moral ones. Our current social and moral understandings are thus not any deeper than Margaret Sanger's.

Before someone suggests that I believe each fornicator, females in particular, should be forced by law to wear a scarlet letter "A" (if not a chastity belt), the purpose of this discourse is to explore the idea that culture (including technology) drives law as often, if not more often, than law drives culture, at least in the direction intended by the legislature. The New England Puritans had laws against fornication and adultery and provided for punishments as prescribed in Deuteronomy, but even the Puritans, outside a few fits of hysteria such as the 1690s, could not convince their own English common-law juries to impose capital punishments upon wayward children and spouses.

Many conservatives dream that we can close Pandora's Box by reversing Roe, but that is a false hope. Reversing Roe won't turn America into something we wish it had been in 1955. Reversing Roe won't change the reality that people can and do commit a host of sexual sins with little fear of consequences. Reversing Roe won't change the reality that millions of young women don't care if they get pregnant because they have no hope of having a traditional family and sacramental joy.

Our moral dilemma is more basic than Roe. Like the early Christians in the latter days of the Roman Empire, we have to show our young people that holiness before God is worth living for and dying to self for. Only the moral imagination and practice of sacramental love can win over the modern synthetic of "safe sex."

Adopting an HIV-positive child...

Jennifer F.'s friend says:

'One day last year, I was working at my desk in my home office (a most commonplace occurrence), when I suddenly had a flash of insight -- not about my work but about my life. As I was lost in thought, it was as if God gave me an unexpected glimpse of the big picture of my life, of the essential meaning of things. And I knew, abruptly and immediately knew, that international adoption was meant to be a part of our lives, that my husband and I were being called to adopt children.

'I realize this might sound bizarre or flaky or just downright unbelievable, but that's exactly what happened. I can't think of a single other instance in my life where I've had a comparable experience, yet I knew then (and still know) beyond all doubt that we are supposed to pursue international adoption, that it's a part of God's plan for our family.

'Now, I just had to convince everyone else of this sudden insight! When my husband came home from work that day, I told him about my experience. And though he was very surprised (we were, after all, comfortably childless and completely content with our lives), he agreed to at least think and pray about the possibility. I didn't say much more about it but just waited and prayed. Soon, after his own share of prayer and thought about the idea, he arrived at the same conclusion.'

More here and here at Jennifer F.'s blog "Conversion Diary," which I still think of by its former name, "Et Tu?"

I don't claim to be a mystic, but I don't think it uncommon for a person to receive direction from God that is quite clear. Balaam in the Book of Numbers had to be told what to do by a talking donkey, but most of us don't need that unless we are being extremely stiff-necked. In Catholic theology, these moments of changing direction are called "actual grace."

[Above: Rembrandt Van Rijn's Angel and the Prophet Balaam.]

The culture war within the Church...

It's not pretty. William Doino, Jr. and Dawn Eden write about our dialogue among ourselves:

'The problem here, we believe, is a lack of understanding of what it means to be a Catholic. Catholicism is not a game of one-upmanship, to see who can make the most savage comment, or humiliate one’s opponent best, during an Internet “flame war,” or elsewhere. Catholicism is about reaching out and embracing people and bringing them to Christ, and to the truth which His Church teaches.

'The problem here, we believe, is a lack of understanding of what it means to be a Catholic…. Catholicism is about reaching out and embracing people and bringing them to Christ, and to the truth which His Church teaches.We are in no way trying to stifle constructive, public debate — even among priests and popes. But it should always be done in a spirit of Christian charity, not hate.

'Yes, Catholics can — and perhaps even should — disagree publicly but the judgment of other’s motives and consciences should be left to God.'


We all know it is possible to be right without being loving and holy.

Saint Therese, pray for us.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

If you are a Kennedy, some organ of the mainstream media will always give you opportunity to mix your ignorance of Grandma Rose's Catholic faith with the family's hubris about public service.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's piece in Newsweek is so ridiculous it could have been written by Maureen Dowd. She says Barack Obama is more Catholic than the Pope. Wishful thinking.

G.K. Chesterton- Beatified?

That is a question for the Church. I'm just a tired lawyer in America who loves to read. Taylor Marshall discusses the possibility.

Grotto candles: their beauty and meaning

Amy Welborn and her children remember her husband through candles lit in Syracuse.


You know I love a Grotto.

Adoro te Devote: Life in the Convent

Here is a nice piece: Adoro te Devote: Life in the Convent.

She notes: 'If religious life in either an active or contemplative community matched such a romanticized ideal, not the reality of the matter-of-fact life of a Religious, not a single human being would live up to it and it would simply not exist. In fact, if each and every person called to such a life had such a total deprivation of personality, who would ever pay attention to it?

'I did not approach my own convent visit with any preconceived notions. My goal was to go, to experience, and to hopefully have the time to listen to God speak to me in the silence.

'In reality, He spoke to me not just through prayer but through the personalities and generosity of the Sisters who welcomed me into their home. He did not speak to me through idyllic romance, but through labor and a regimented schedule that made me die to my own desires in order to live for the good of the community.'

How Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hijacked the Iranian Revolution

Let's suppose we are all good Shiite Muslims, aged forty or over. Let's suppose we live in Iran, or better yet, we were exiled by the Shah but returned after the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s. Let's suppose we believe that the only polity for a good Muslim is a republic guarded by the zealous orthodoxy of Shiite mullahs.

Let's now look at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic, and how he has obtained control of the armed forces and the bureaucracy as well as the acquiescence of the mullahs who supposedly protect us from our heretical selves, the Great Satan USA, and the blood-sucking Israelis. Caroline Glick discusses what happened to the last and best hope for a Shiite paradise.

It's feeling like the Seventies- the 1870s

After Abraham Lincoln, it could be said that no U.S. president was especially successful, much less "transformative" for thirty years. Victor Davis Hanson notes that American presidents from 1933 to 1960 were successful in many if not most of the essentials of the office, if not transformative. Since 1960, however, the presidency seems to have become increasingly difficult:

'Is the problem with recent administrations that our presidents do not measure up to a FDR, Truman or Eisenhower? Or have we the voters ourselves become more unstable than our grandfathers? Or is it that the world itself has radically changed what we look for -- or need -- in our presidents?

'By 1960, the United States had become more urban and affluent. Voters began to assume that someone owed us the good life. In contrast, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower had struggled to offer only an equality of opportunity to all: the beginning of civil rights, fair labor laws, overtime pay, disability and unemployment insurance.

'But in the next half-century, that limited agenda morphed into one of a promised equality of result. Government grew to meet always-greater demands.'


In 1948, the progressives and the left hoped to get free healthcare. In 2009, they demand it and expect it.

The LA Times proposes to pay for guaranteed healthcare by...

Taxing the middle class.

At least it is an honest suggestion. I think guaranteeing healthcare for all citizens is a worthy policy to consider, so long as we do it honestly.

My trouble is watching politicians exaggerate the "crisis," which plays on people's fears. For instance, most states have laws against ambulances leaving poor folks on the curb and emergency rooms kicking out indigents, but you would not know that when you read the mainstream media. Half of the estimated 45 million uninsured don't really care and choose not to purchase insurance. But that is a "crisis."

Whatever Congress does, they try to tell you it's painless.

Peggy Noonan on Sonia Sotomayor, Hillary Clinton, and other things...

Good prose as usual:

'People will ask again why we've stopped visiting other places and have instead spent the past few decades watching the space shuttle orbit the Earth. There are many reasons for this (budgets, the end of the space race, an inability to understand the human imagination) but let me throw forward this one: The space program of the past 32 years unconsciously mirrored a change in American psychology. Once, we saw ourselves as a breakthrough people, a nation with a mission to push beyond ourselves. Now, in the age of soft narcissism, we just circle ourselves. Which is what the shuttle does: It is on an endless loop, going 'round and 'round and looking down at: us.'

"Sonia Sotomayor's Prose Problem"

Stephanie Melcimer writes a piece in Mother Jones very critical of the nominee, not for her views, but for the fact that the liberal wing of the judiciary still does not have a writer to match Antonin Scalia.

My thought is if Sotomayor’s jurisprudence dies under the weight of poorly written opinions, then the world is not a worse place. I’m OK if President Barack Obama appoints many “firsts” who are less able to sell Fabian socialism than the ones passed over for promotion. We can have a "transformative" presidency that has positive feel-good cultural implications with perhaps little lasting impact on the Constitution itself.

Robert McNamara's tragedy and ours...

Robert McNamara's recent death has received less attention than Michael Jackson's, and that is how he wanted it. One of his last requests to his wife was to have no memorial or funeral service. In this age when funeral processions are attacked by suicide bombers in some parts of the world and picketed in others, he wanted to spare his family and friends having to run the gauntlet to pay their respects.

Just about every pundit older than fifty has written about McNamara this month. What I can say about the dozens of commentaries I've read is that McNamara made many talkative enemies and very few friends willing to take a hit for him. Though he deserves much of the criticism he gets, he has become an object of hatred in a way that no other member of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations is hated.

He represents what Americans fear about themselves. He was one of the "best and the brightest," yet his obsessive reasoning led to demoralizing defeat. Rationalism has its limits.

McNamara outlived almost all his peers. Born in 1916 as the world fought to the death in the Great War, he was descended from Irish refugees of the Famine. Growing up middle class, he excelled at Cal-Berkeley and Harvard Business School. He majored in economics and had a gift for statistics. He was appointed Harvard Business School's youngest and highest-paid assistant professor after a stint at Price Waterhouse. During the Second World War he served in the Air Force's office of statistics and analyzed the effectiveness and efficiency of bombers over Japan.

After the war, he and the "Whiz Kids" were brought from the outside to restructure Ford Motor Company. (Henry Ford would die in 1947 at the age of 83.) The company was in need of change, and many of the reforms have to be deemed successful. McNamara and his colleagues were rationalists who believed in scientific management by the careful compilation and analysis of numbers. McNamara, for instance, saw that the Edsel was a loser, and he was the brains behind the successful Falcon and Lincoln Continental. Under his leadership Ford competed successfully with General Motors in many lines of cars and trucks and surpassed GM in some categories.

McNamara rose to the top of a utilitarian culture during a utilitarian age. But the reliance on science to manage tens of thousands of people building products for tens of millions of people has its problems. Utilitarianism, the unmentioned creed of modernism, calculates and advocates the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, which sounds good until you realize that utilitarians ignore some basic facts of the human condition.

McNamara could never understand why anyone would fight to the death for pride, tradition, independence, and symbols when he and others were prepared to explain to them what their best interests were and how everyone would be better off if everyone would give just a little. He was an analyst, not a warrior, yet his appointment as U.S. Secretary of Defense led to a seven-year "cold war" with the officers of the armed services and a bloody escalation of the war in Vietnam. McNamara never understood warriors, whether American or Vietnamese.

Thus, McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense was tumultuous and ultimately a failure. Military officers are not motivated by utility but pride, honor, competition, and recognition. Their uniforms, for instance, carry the pride of tradition and animate the legends of the past. In 1961, naval aviators proudly wore their brown shoes and were mocked by the surface sailors in their black shoes. McNamara could not figure out why naval officers would not rather save the taxpayers' money on shoes of one color. But military traditions, whether rational or not, are born of camaradie and blood, not statistical analysis.

McNamara's most famous battle at the Pentagon was over the F-111, an underpowered fighter-bomber of tremendous sophistication which fit Air Force specifications, but was inadequate for use by the Navy. Like the Edsel, the F-111 did not fail in an absolute sense; it failed to be the superstar its promoters wanted. F-111s were eventually built, but they never fulfilled the multi-purpose role McNamara envisioned.

McNamara ordered the rapid adoption of the M-16 as the standard rifle for all the services, despite its lack of combat testing. The Marines and the Navy did not want the M-16 at all, and the Army was not enthusiastic, but McNamara pushed the program against all institutional resistance. Unfortunately, early models of the M-16 would jam in the jungles of Vietnam, and its reputation never fully recovered from the reports of young men dying with their their jammed rifles in the hands. (Despite forty years of use, there is still no romance around the M-16 as there is with other weapons such as the AK-47; soldiers know when a weapon is made for them rather than for their superiors.)

McNamara lacked what Edmund Burke called the "moral imagination." While labor might be bought for another day with better wages and benefits, wars are fought by people with existential fears and tribal passions. The world would probably be a better place if McNamara had stayed at Ford Motor Company and retired quietly in his sixties. McNamara was a tremendous talent as a business executive, but he failed in the huge challenge of leading armed men because he never grasped what Wm. Faulkner called "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself."

There are more good articles than I can link, but here are a couple by George Will and David Ignatius.

Bret Stephens writes a nice essay about McNamara and quotes William Easterly: "A Planner thinks he already knows the answers; he thinks of poverty as a technical engineering problem that his answers will solve. A Searcher admits he doesn't know the answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional, and technological factors. A Searcher hopes to find answers to individual problems only by trial and error experimentation. A Planner believes outsiders know enough to impose solutions."

One thing I have noticed: the tone of abhorrence in the writings about McNamara is greater than that I hear for any figure of his generation except Richard Nixon. McNamara was a tragic figure, and in the morality play of American history, at least at this point, he has no redemption. He was a haunted figure, and he was haunted because he had no real faith, only reason.

I sense a great loss of faith in McNamara early on, perhaps before he was born. I never hear a word about McNamara's religion, even though he was descended from Irish Catholics. If he had been a practicing Catholic, for instance, you would have heard some caustic remark. But it appears that reason was his religion, not just his method. That was his tragedy, and ours.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Chastise or coddle?

Anne Bayefsky asks: Why are Africans treated differently from Arabs when their problems are similar?

'In Egypt, he [President Barack Obama] chose not to utter the words "terrorism" or "genocide." In Egypt, there was nothing "brutal" he could conjure up, no "corruption" and no "repression".

'In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned "good governance" seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to "make change from the bottom up." He praised "people taking control of their destiny" and pressed "young people" to "hold your leaders accountable."

'He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states—despite the fact that not a single Arab country is "free," according to the latest Freedom House global survey.

'Before the Muslim world Obama donned the role of apologist-in-chief. Over and over again his examples of shortfalls in the protection of rights and freedoms were American: the "prison at Guantanamo Bay," "rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation," impediments to the "choice" of Muslim women to shroud their bodies.

'Christian Africa was to be treated to no such self-flagellation. In a rare tongue-lashing for Africans from any American president, he chastised: "It's easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict … But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy … or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants … tribalism and patronage and nepotism … and … corruption."'

Are we showing fear?

Another murder of a political dissenter in the old Soviet Union...

There is a free press. You are free to criticize the governmnet of Chechnya until you disappear. Natasha Estemirova's story is here.

Post 2700: How fast is the federal government spending your kids' inheritance?

YouTube here.

What was the Cold War about anyway?

What caused it, and who were the victims?

Liz Cheney notes how President Barack Obama gets it all wrong.

The NYT discusses how the president participated in the nuclear-freeze movement. I was in college during those same years when we were showing the Soviets that our government was bold and popular under Ronald Reagan. The peoples of the Soviet bloc lost all confidence in their governments, which were obviously timid, bullying, and unpopular. (The motto of the Soviet worker: "As long as you pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work.")

If the freeze activists had gotten their way, we could have paraded weakness for another ten years after Jimmy Carter. I just don't think the world would be as safe, which leads me to one of life's ironies: the only sure way to avoid war is to make sure your enemies know they cannot win. It is actually easier than convincing the left and the pacifists that the U.S. government is right.

As Congress works to "fix" healthcare, the economy, and global warming...

Thomas Szasz quotes Henry David Thoreau:

"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life."

"On the hidden cost of national health care..."

Glenn Reynolds notes how medical innovation has kept healthy and alive his father, wife, and daughter.

A "national" healthcare system would simply create a bureaucracy to support a gigantic entitlement. Innovation, what we do best, would die. Regulation, what we do worst, would multiply. Yes, we pay a lot for healthcare, but would you rather get cancer here or in Great Britain?

'Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin and the Piranhas of the Press'

Best piece on Sarah Palin and the press by Carl Cannon, a reporter's reporter who happens to be left-of-center but refreshingly honest.

The Idea of a University

John Henry Newman is quoted by Joseph Bottum:

'Here, then, I conceive, is the object of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in setting up Universities; it is to reunite things which were in the beginning joined together by God, and have been put asunder by man.

'Some persons will say that I am thinking of confining, distorting, and stunting the growth of the intellect by ecclesiastical supervision. I have no such thought. Nor have I any thought of a compromise, as if religion must give up something, and science something. I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is, that they should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified in the same persons. I want to destroy that diversity of centres, which puts everything into confusion by creating a contrariety of influences. I wish the same spots and the same individuals to be at once oracles of philosophy and shrines of devotion. It will not satisfy me, what satisfies so many, to have two independent systems, intellectual and religious, going at once side by side, by a sort of division of labour, and only accidentally brought together.

'It will not satisfy me, if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening. It is not touching the evil, to which these remarks have been directed, if young men eat and drink and sleep in one place, and think in another: I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. Devotion is not a sort of finish given to the sciences; nor is science a sort of feather in the cap, if I may so express myself, an ornament and set-off to devotion. I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.'

Rick Garnett posted it first, but I have not heard a dean of any university say anything like it in a while, with a few exceptions.

What would Pope Paul VI think?

That Catholics, for better and for worse, are so "mainstream" that six can sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ann Althouse notes that religion is often the origin of how you think, while race and ethnicity simply affect how you think. Thus, diversity of color is really superficial.

What David didn't ask Bathsheba to do...

Pentimento and Fallen Sparrow link an article in Ask Men on the topic of how to manipulate your girlfriend into having an abortion.

Pentimento notes that it was not the author's intention "to demonstrate that abortion has always worked to the convenience of men and the detriment of women, her article spells it out loud and clear. Let no one who's given the matter any thought believe that pro-choice equals pro-woman."

Sunday morning with St. Augustine

'Whoever does not love does not know God. Why? Because God is Love. What more can be said, my Brothers? If one did not find one word in praise of love through this epistle, nor the least word through out all the other pages of Scripture, and we heard only this one word from the voice of the Spirit of God: Because 'God is Love,' we should seek for nothing more.'

-- St. Augustine of Hippo

More from the lady from Milledgeville...

'The rest are Episcopalians of one stripe or another. Scratch an Episcopalian and you're likely to find most anything.'

Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being

Glenn Reynolds discusses Sarah Palin...

In the LA Times:

'But it's the hate that I find hard to understand. Even some leftist feminists have been troubled by the way she's been treated by the "supposedly liberal doods" of the left, and are noting that it's hard to call her dumb when Joe Biden is around. There's been a lot of indecent behavior from folks who are all to quick to play the "have you no decency" card when it suits them.

'But Democrats are, as you note, Katherine, likely to talk smack about Republicans, and if feminists note that the smack talk in question is often sexist, well, that's not really a surprise to anyone who's read comments on DailyKos. What's more interesting to me is the way in which the Republican establishment has been anti-Palin in large measure too. Joel Kotkin talks about "gentry liberalism," which is certainly an apt description of the Obama crowd. But the GOP, for all its occasional populist posturing, doesn't seem that much different.

'Yet it's not as if the GOP has a surplus of talent. Palin managed to dominate the airwaves and political chatter even amid all the Michael Jackson bathos. What other Republican figure could have made such a splash? Camille Paglia says that Palin doesn't have the necessary coterie of expert advisors to deal successfully with "the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags."'

Sarah Palin and the democratic ideal...

Ross Douthat in the NYT writes a great piece.

Here is an excerpt:

'In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

'That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

'This ideal has had a tough 10 months. It’s been tarnished by Palin herself, obviously. With her missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues, she’s botched an essential democratic role — the ordinary citizen who takes on the elites, the up-by-your-bootstraps role embodied by politicians from Andrew Jackson down to Harry Truman.

'But it’s also been tarnished by the elites themselves, in the way that the media and political establishments have treated her.

'Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith.'


I have to agree that Gov. Palin was often her own worst enemy. Moreover, her defensive shots back at the news media and elites, after the first salvos, were shrill and ineffective. The media and academicians, like jealous teenagers in a high school, managed to malign and destroy the good life and reputation of the beauty queen, point guard, and winner of elected office (who happened to be from the wrong neighborhood). They made Gov. Palin look not just mortal but clumsy. That is Gov. Palin's fault. As I teach my daughter, "Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance." The challenge was daunting, but she needed to rise to the occasion if she wanted to stay on the big stage.

Peggy Noonan wrote a column a few months ago about how Hillary Clinton was no Margaret Thatcher because Mrs. Thatcher never had an ounce of self-pity. As a result, Mrs. Thatcher became stronger through trials and criticism; in fact, her critics, Tories and Labourites, made her career by illuminating her toughness and character.

Gov. Palin failed to take criticism with the grace and steel which turns the criticism upon the critic. Moreover, self-pity is evident in some of Gov. Palin's speech and gestures. Self-pity is a despicable and degenerative attribute in a politician in high office, in case you have forgotten Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Self-pity also invites piling on.

Conservatives are still looking for a champion, perhaps even a messiah in this age of messianic politics. But there is no such thing as a truly conservative political messiah; the best we can hope for is an articulate voice backed by grace and example. I suggest we read and do the Permanent Things and remind ourselves that holding power is not the conservative mission, but conserving the very best of our culture is. Politics is a means not the end, and the law of unintended consequences is often more dynamic than any law enacted by Congress.

"Palin delenda est" is still the rule of engagement for the Democrats and some Republicans.

The Anchoress on Sarah Palin's resignation with a round-up of commentary.

Here is my post from last year, "Palin Delenda Est."

I consider Sarah Palin's political career to be the most interesting of any conservative in the last decade because she is the real thing- a free woman of the frontier who lives like a libertarian and believes like a traditional conservative. She is as conservative as John Randolph of Roanoke but not tied to slave agriculture or the Confederate cause. She is conservative, but no one can call her a racist, a sexist, or a country-club Republican.

If she could get elected to national office in the 21st century, then the New Deal, the Great Society, the regulatory state, and every cause of the Democratic Party and the left could likewise be reformed if not abolished. She is, simply put, the only conservative in national politics who could conceivably change the entire game.

For this reason, I have written about her often. I have noticed, however, that her candidacy for the vice presidency was the first political move she and her family did not control. She was blasted, ridiculed, and mocked, and yet she did not have much room to maneuver. Her assignment was to guard McCain's right flank, but her presence made his right flank a daily target. As governor of a state huge in size, small in population, humble in nature, and Republican in tradition, her celebrity hurt her stature in Alaska and the solid support of friends and neighbors which is the foundation of her political career. She could not attend a Yankees' baseball game without a smarty-pants mocking her daughters and her motherhood on television.

If I were in her shoes, I would do the conservative thing, not fight for political office. I would resign from public office and leave the reigns of state to people who are already divorced and estranged from their families (or if fortunate, people older whose children are grown). Is she the only one standing in front of Alaskans and tyranny? No.

She is one standing between birds of prey and her children and grandchild. Circle the wagons. Take care of family. Regain the initiative at home and with neighbors. Don't risk your family in that long-shot lottery known as national politics through the traditional media. If she wants to be President of the United States, she could do far worse than give up that ambition for the health of things more permanent.

If she tried to hold on to political office for the sake of power, position, and her personal future, she might lose everything that is worth fighting for. Ronald Reagan became a serious presidential candidate after he spent years traveling the country and making speeches for conservative causes. Palin, having played basketball, knows that it is more important to know how to move without the ball than with it.

The inverted religion of global warming...

Kim Strassel reports in the WSJ:

'The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency." In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."

'Around this time, Mr. [Alan] Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.

'The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."'

I have an acquaintance, the son of a good friend, who works for NASA as a meteorologist. He has considerable experience and told me a story of a Congressional hearing fifteen years ago. A NASA meteorologist was called to Washington to discuss climate change. Knowing the political nature of the mission, he was determined to keep his testimony short for the good of his career.

Nonetheless, a Republican congressman pressed him about the apocalyptic projections generally attributed to global warming. He responded under repeated questioning that the most apocalyptic projections are based on scientific models of global warming and atmospheric trends run through computers. They are by no means certain because the variables are numerous.

As he walked out of the hearing, a Democratic congressional staffer told him: "You just cost us billions of dollars!"

In the long scheme of things, climate change is real. The climate is changing all the time based upon solar conditions, volcanic and atmospheric activity, and yes, man-made activities to some extent. Fairly young skeletons of hippopotami can be found in the middle of the Sahara Desert. During Roman days, one could ride a horse across the Sahara. Since Muhammad's day, you need a camel or a car with good coolant.

Am I willing to give up my life, liberty, and property to the benevolent bureaucratic fighters of global warming (who, incidentally, do not believe that liberty and private property are closely related)?

No.

Mortgage crisis- Any skin in the game?

It's less about the honesty of the banker and borrower and mostly about whether the borrower had skin in the game.

Thus, subsidizing more mortgage debt won't change the game.

"The Roots of American Order"

An audio lecture by Russell Kirk.

David McCullough and America' Founders

Peggy Noonan writes:

'Almost two years ago, I was lucky enough to tour Mount Vernon with a dozen people including him. (If I were David McCullough I would know the date and time. But I know the weather.) At the bottom of a stairway leading to the second floor, we chatted for a moment, and I asked him how he accounted in his imagination for the amazing fact of the genius cluster that founded our nation. How did so many gifted men, true geniuses, walk into history at the same time, in the same place, and come together to pursue so brilliantly a common endeavor? "I think it was providential," he said, simply.

'Well, so do I. If you do too, it's part of what you're celebrating today.'

[Above: Mount Vernon by Francis Jukes.]

Sarah Palin resigns as governor

I admit I was thrilled when Sarah Palin spoke to the Republican National Convention. She was sensational: a fresh wind from the west, the sort that sporadically informs, directs, inspires, provokes, and sets in motion a new wave of American politics: from Andrew Jackson to Lewis Cass to Abraham Lincoln to William Jennings Bryan to Robert LaFollette to Ronald Reagan. Like many who were hopeful that a voice from America's frontier might improve the dialogue among the sophists in the media and in politics, I was disappointed when Gov. Palin's interviews on national media were so jumbled. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I know that a good staff can prevent much if not all the kinds of troubles she had on the campaign trail. In not discerning the right people to listen to and not pressing her message successfully, she failed.

Kathleen Parker, a writer I respect, blasted Gov. Palin last fall, and this summer she notes again that Gov. Palin has yet to put together a staff capable of keeping her on top of the game as a national political player. You cannot blame the media. Gov. Palin has to take charge of her message and deliver it effectively by selecting favorable audiences in challenging venues and difficult audiences in favorable venues. That is what smart politicians do.

This isn't T-ball for kindergartners. Everybody is keeping score, tracking every pitch, and grading each at-bat. I am sure that her sudden candidacy last summer had an effect on her and her family not unlike Pearl Harbor and the six months afterwards. Yet Gov. Palin's staff still cannot return telephone calls to her most ardent fans and respond properly to invitations. I like her very much, but I wish she would lie extremely low until she has a staff capable of organizing a dinner party, much less a national political candidacy.

Spengler on Iran after the election and Obama's recent Middle East card-playing

He thinks President Barack Obama has stuck with his foolish premise that Iran can be persuaded by smart Democrats. I agree. Turning on Israel in order to put together an Arab coalition to head off Persian ambitions does not make sense.

The 4th of July

I love of the 4th of July, and as you know, I like to write on patriotic themes. So here are links to prior posts around the 4th of July: 2007 and 2008.

My theme this year is "life, liberty, and property." In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson changed the latter pillar of English rights to "the pursuit of happiness," which sounds better to 21st-century ears, but from a practical point of view, is too vague. Property is fundamental to liberty because without private property, there is no place to enjoy your other rights. So we are going to celebrate the 4th of July with a local parade in the morning, barbecue on my porch at midday, and fireworks by the river in the evening.

Let's not forget those who make freedom possible, such as these Canadian troops assaulting the Germans in Normandy on July 4, 1044, and Americans in the air above the Pacific, attacking Iwo Jima, and
assaulting entrenched German defenders in France.

Sgt. John D. Blair- Requiescat in pace

One of my neighbors attended the funeral of this soldier from Calhoun, Georgia with the 48th Brigade, now stationed in Afghanistan. He was by all accounts a fine soldier.

China as a world power and other foreign issues...

Michael Totten interviews Robert D. Kaplan.

On China:

MJT: What’s China’s ultimate objective?
Kaplan: They’re putting a lot of money into their navy, more than their army. Their ultimate objective is to project sea power, and not just in the western Pacific which makes them a great regional power, but also in the Indian Ocean which makes them a great power in total.

MJT: Do you get the sense that China is becoming more ambitious as it gets more powerful?

Kaplan: I think as their economy develops, and as they have more and more economic interests around the world, they suddenly have more national interests. As they trade more, they have more things to protect. So they develop a world view and their military expands accordingly. It’s very similar to the U.S. military expansion in the late 19th century and the early 20th century before World War I.

On Russia:

MJT: Russians seem to feel genuinely threatened by NATO expansion.

Kaplan: Yeah, they do.

MJT: Way more than they should.

Kaplan: They’ve been invaded by the French under Napoleon. They’ve been invaded by the Germans. They’re insecure about their Western frontier. That was the whole purpose behind the satellite states of Eastern Europe during the Cold War. It provided a buffer region for the Russians, a buffer region that was under their total control. So what the Russians want to do is somehow, some way, create another buffer on their Western border. So there’s a lot of pressure on the Baltic states, on Poland.

MJT: It looks like Ukraine is in danger.

Kaplan: It’s endangered perpetually. Russia as a land power can’t tolerate an independent Ukraine.

On Israel and Syria:

You know what’s interesting? The Israelis. They’ve been great at defeating structured Arab armies, but they haven’t figured out how to deal with a few thousand insurgents in South Lebanon or in Gaza. What did their wars in 2006 and 2009 in Lebanon and Gaza get them?

MJT: It got them fewer rockets for a while, but it’s temporary.

Kaplan: Yeah.

MJT: I don’t know what they should do. They can’t put a David Petraeus in Gaza or Lebanon. It won’t work.

Kaplan: No.

MJT: And they can’t fight a counterinsurgency from the air because that’s just absurd.

Kaplan: Yeah. They haven’t been able to solve this problem at all.

MJT: I’m glad it isn’t up to me what Israel should do. There aren’t any good options. Maybe they should hold Syria accountable. Syria is at least a state with a return address and national interests. I don’t think the Syrian government is particularly ideological. It isn’t like the Iranian government. Syria isn’t an ideology, it’s a state.

Kaplan: It wants to survive.

MJT: Maybe the Israelis should lean on Assad. They can’t lean on Hamas or Hezbollah. They can’t lean on Beirut because Beirut is too weak to do much.

Kaplan: Yeah. I mean, the idea of bombing highway overpasses near Beirut to punish Lebanon for Hezbollah is ridiculous.

MJT: There is no way they could have pulled that off in Lebanon in 2006, no matter how brilliantly they might have fought.
Kaplan: And they didn’t fight brilliantly.

On General Stanley McCrystal:

MJT: What do you think of him?

Kaplan: Oh, he’s got it. He’s another Petraeus. He’s larger than life. I’ve interviewed General David McKiernan, the man he’s replacing. He’s a good guy, but he’s no lightning. He has no great ideas.
I think deep down the real reason the Obama Administration fired McKiernan and wants to bring in McChrystal is because McChrystal is a man hunter. He got Zarqawi in Iraq. And Obama desperately wants to kill Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri to show that they can do this better than the Republicans.

So the White House said, "we want to get these people." And Secretary Gates said, "well, if you want to get them, McChrystal’s your man." He ran the Joint Special Operations Command for five years. It conducts all the secret operations – Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, the best Ranger battalions. It’s all very secret. And they go out on man hunting missions and kill people.


The conversation was pretty sober, but overall, Russia appears more dangerous than most of our potential and existing enemies because it is a land power of shrinking population and largely indefensive western borders. Read the whole thing. There is an interesting discussion of what an attractive and lovable culture Persia would be without Khomeinism.

"Oriana and Rosie - two women of the left"

The Anchoress writes:

'[Oriana] Fallaci, an avowed atheist, nevertheless said she had great hope in the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the papal throne, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal: "I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger." I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."

Obama at Notre Dame

Christopher Badeaux comments:

'Therein lies the beginning of the story of How President Obama Went to Visit Notre Dame. We did not simply arrive, by some hidden transmutation, at a point where American Catholics favor abortion on demand (and embryonic stem cell research) at a higher rate than the population at large, and where the majority of the student body and faculty of what was, at one time, the premiere Catholic university in the country would loudly applaud a man who has spoken of good will in the abortion wars, and gone on to fight every single legal restriction on the slaughter of the most defenseless of us all. We arrived there through the cowardice of the bishops, through a hierarchy terrified of its laity and the changes in the laity, and through a laity that became mainline Protestants.

'Any history of modern American Catholicism must begin with the suburbs. Ethnic Catholic factory workers and their children raced to the suburbs for more land, better schools (the dream of universal Catholic education was always a dream), less congestion, and, over time, white flight. It was the first, real break in the old, established parish system, wherein generations would go from Baptism to a funeral Mass in the same diocese, and usually the same parish. This had two direct effects: It upended the relationship between parish priests and bishops on the one hand, and the flock on the other; and severed the day-to-day traditions that were bound up with the practice of the Faith – everything from the mere act of walking to Mass to Knights of Columbus meetings to bingo at the parish hall – robbing Catholics of the muscle memory of a life that revolved around the parish.'

I believe that Pope Benedict XVI is correct. In the West, Catholics, and even baptized Christians, have become a minority, a remnant. Our influence over cultural institutions is waning. We can only win the world through heroic love. In the words of Saint Benedict: Ora et labora.

"A Family's Valor, A Nation's Freedom"

My patriotism has never been seriously tested. The Krissoffs lost a son in Iraq, and their other son has served in Iraq. In the WSJ (guess the writer):

'I met his parents and brother in Nevada in August 2007 while accompanying President George W. Bush to Reno, Nev. The president was there to address the American Legion before meeting with local families who'd lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan. Mr. Bush has met with about 550 families in private visits like this. At those meetings, he would have a senior staff member close by in case there was something that needed to be followed up on, such as getting a flag to a family member.

'We entered a small room in the back of the convention center to find the Krissoffs waiting -- the father in a black suit with his arms crossed and the mother in a plain dark outfit. Their dress contrasted with their son Austin's Marine dress uniform. Like his older brother, Austin had volunteered for service after college. He was to be deployed to Iraq in March 2008.

'During my White House years, I saw few people with the quiet power, intelligence and poise of Chris Krissoff. She talked about her sons, the pain of her loss, her concern for her youngest when he went into harm's way, and the stakes in the War on Terror. The entire time, her husband was quiet.

'When stories had been told, tears wept, and grief expressed, Mr. Bush asked if he could do anything. At that, Bill Krissoff spoke.

'"Yes," he said. "I'm a pretty good orthopedic surgeon. When my younger son is deployed to Iraq next March, I would like to be working as a Navy medical officer, but they won't let me because I am 61 years old. Will you give me an age waiver, Mr. President?"'

On the Fourth of July, please offer a prayer for Nathan and Austin Krissoff, their mother Chris, and their father, Lt. Commander William Krissoff, United States Navy Medical Reserve.

More about the Krissoffs here.

Preserving holy things...

The Anchoress says:

'Thoughtlessly, we give away our boundaries, physical, spiritual, and psychic – we allow breeching and encroaching without understanding that our natural or learned boundaries are not prisons but safety zones, the places reserved for ourselves and God and those most beloved to us.

'All-too-seldom do we reserve those things for their proper dispersal. Instead, like Chesterton’s “dead things that go with the stream” instead of against it, we bow to the popular culture and morality. We give away our chastity for a very temporary pleasure that brings with it a strange hollowness; with repeated behavior it can only grow into an aching void.

'We give away our sensible reserve, rather than be thought haughty. We give away our better instincts to kindness, in order to make the cheap joke, and when the snickers are over we must listen to our consciences.

'All are guilty, from time-to-time, of throwing away our Holy Things, and when we do it, we contribute to the coarsening of the culture, and the hardening of our own hearts.'

She speaks of "chastity" in a very broad theological sense. The Anchoress begins the post by discussing Carrie Prejean, a pretty girl who believes she got into pageants in order to glorify God. How well she did so is ultimately God's business not mine. Nonetheless, I cannot think of a more difficult life to live in holiness than to be admired, rewarded, gawked at, discussed, observed, made up, clothed, bikinied, and crowned because of one's personal beauty.

If beauty pageants were not an industry, but simply a surprise vote on the subway, they might be more meaningful. But thousands of young women dedicate years of effort to wear a crown and be recognized not merely as pretty, but to be certified as prettier than the next girl. I am trying to teach my daughter that being pretty is a gift that should not be exploited, but merely enjoyed and given to others in visitation and sacramental relationships.

I would not encourage my daughter to spend years practicing her walk and stance in order to gain the attention of pageant judges (though we do teach her to walk confidently, shake hands, and hold her head up). The pageant scene, like modeling, is full of people who love human beauty at best and shamelessly exploit beauty as a matter of course. Miss Prejean found that to be Miss USA she had to flatter and tickle the sensibilities of the judges. She found, as most winners do, that being Miss California is a full-time job of constant public appearances and no time of your own. When she found her cause and voice as Miss USA runner-up and Fox News commentator, being Miss California was no longer important. Moreover, she felt exploited, even if she didn't understand that the entire pageant culture is exploitive by nature.

I won't segregate various human endeavors from stripping furniture to stripping one's clothes as inherently "Christian" or "un-Christian." (Context, intent, and purpose are everything.) If you absolutely would not want at least one of the following to observe a particular endeavor- your mother, your father, your spouse, your child, or your priest- the endeavor will probably put you in a position to commit a mortal sin. You don't have to do so, but you have to be strong every time, not just most of the time. Ask Gov. Mark Sanford (and Cain).

Our real enemies, as King David learned as he stayed home from war and observed Bathsheba from his roof, are boredom and self-pity. We fail to believe that God can fulfill us through His sacramental order and our vocations. Thousands of generations after Adam and Eve, we are still biting into the fruit in hopes of being God.