Philip Pullman

Here's a review of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
[Link via The Corner.]

All I know about Pullman's books is what I've read about them: that he's on record as saying he wanted his books to be the anti-Narnia; that his books support an atheistic, anti-priest, anti-Christianity worldview; that educators praise his books highly; and that J. K. Rowling is believed to have written a satirical portrait of Pullman, in her character Gilderoy Lockhart, an egocentric, shallow, boastful celebrity who eventually proves dangerous to the children under his charge (not by doing anything to them himself, but by not equipping them to deal with the dangers they face and by not helping protect them himself.) This review of Pullman's work goes into more detail than any comments I've read previously, and it reaffirms my suspicion I wouldn't like the books or be willing to hand them to a child; I may eventually read some of them myself to make sure, but, as life is too short to read all the books I want to read, Pullman would be wiser not to hold his breath waiting for a royalty from me.

Reading this review does bring up a question though: Where do so many Americans waste their breath complaining about an innocuous series of books that has repeatedly championed love, friendship, and a willingness to sacrifice for others; that rejected moral relativism in its very first book; that included a sort of mini-hymn to free will in its most recent book; that has its wisest character tell us that death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person; and that depicts its worst villain as having (if I'm not reading too much into this) a Gnostic-like hatred of humanity's physical bodies with their eventual decay and death--in short, why are people wasting their time complaining about Rowling's Harry Potter when Pullman's books sound so much worse?

What Is It About Places Named Berkley?

A school in Berkley, Michigan has pulled a song called "Pick a Bale of Cotton" from a middle school concert. I am not familiar with the song, but apparently it contains such racially charged lyrics as,

"Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Gotta jump down, turn around, Oh, Lordie, pick a bale a day."


Oh, the horror, the horror.

The song was pulled after one parent complained. The child of that parent explained their problem with the song thusly: "They were bringing back the memories of how African-Americans picked cotton, and it wasn't a good memory. It was disrespectful to African-Americans."

Should there be any kind of pain and suffering settlement out of this, I hope I can get in on it. Reading the above statement made me remember how my European-American grandfather made his European-American children pick cotton on their small farm. It's wasn't a good memory. It was disrespectful of the Berkley School District to force me to remember these events, and I hope that in future they will be more sensitive.

To further that aim, may I suggest that the Berkley schools also remove "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" from any future inclusion in its concerts, as the line "Well, you get in that kitchen, make some noise with the pots and pans" brings up painful memories of how female-Americans have been forced to labor in the homes of their male oppressors for low or (more often) no wages?

Our Enemies, Our Siblings

The United States is fighting a war against terrorism. I think we can all agree that terrorism is a bad, terrrible thing and should be fought against, no matter who the terrorists are. But, un-PC though it may be to notice it, let alone call attention to it, most acts of terrorism are committed by Muslims. I have come to think that we have to regard not terrorism but that form of Islam which fosters terrorism as our real enemy; whether we call it Islamism, militant Islam, radical Islam, Islamofascism, or fundamentalist Islam, it is the enemy of not just the US, but all of Western civilization. We nurture it to our own endangerment.

But part of Western civilization is the Christian precept of remembering the humanity of our enemies, reminding ourselves that they too are children of God, whether they believe it or not (which in fact Muslims do, though they would quarrel with Christians about the nature of God.) This facet of the West's great Judeo-Christian tradition is shown in a piece NRO has today by a US military chaplain. It is an emotional piece, but I was struck by this line:

"...isn’t this the kind of world we are fighting for — a world where an
Imam teaches a Rabbi words from the Holy Koran to comfort a young Muslim boy,
and that rabbi himself is comforted by a Christian, a Catholic priest."

Yes. I don't think we should downplay the dangers of radical Islam and as a Catholic I wish more people would come home to the Church, but yes, this is the kind of world I want to live in.

Remembering Veterans

In Flanders Fields


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



"In Flanders Fields" is perhaps the most widely known poem from a war that produced a lot of good poetry. (No, NOT the Vietnam War, which may have produced some fine soldiers who went on to serve in later conflicts, but produced zilch in the way of poetry worth reading.) I usually read "In Flanders Fields" on Veteran's Day, which is the post-WWII name for what used to be called Armistice Day, a day celebrating the end of WWI and honoring those who died in it. Now we in the USA mostly celebrate our living veterans on November 11, and honor the dead veterans on Memorial Day.

And--not to sound like a broken record--I think one of the best ways to honor veterans, living or dead, is to pray for them. Praying isn't everybody's thing, of course, but we can all take a moment to think about the people (mostly men) who have served our country, some of them to the point of giving their lives, and remind ourselves that we sleep peacefully in our beds because rough men stand willing to serve in such ways.

Many of those who served in WWI--and possibly even some who died in WWII--have no one alive who remembers them, and the generalized prayers or thoughts of strangers is all they have. I once read a poem by an English poet (whose name I can't remember--sorry!) that had the men of the Great War "disappearing" as the people who could remember who those uniformed young men in photos on the mantel were died off. There are still some WWI veterans around, but most people who can remember that time are gone. Eventually no one will. It's a sad thing, but it happens to every generation and the best we can do are these "generalized memories", reminding ourselves that there was such a group and that such and such happened back then. As Vonnegut (a WWII vet) would say, so it goes.

Happy Birthday to the Marine Corps

Today is the 230th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. November is also a month that we Catholics pray for the souls of the dead. (Not that we don't the rest of the year, of course, it's just focused on more in November, which begins with All Saints Day and All Souls Day.) Combining the two observances, this month I will remember to pray for my favorite departed Marine, C****** ****. Although he had had to leave the Corps to attend to family responsibilities, he considered himself a Marine to the end; once a Marine, always a Marine, some people say. C was a good man and a father figure as well as a friend to my husband and me. We still miss him.

C had a sort of reversion or resurgence of faith (he was a Baptist) some months before he died. I was at the height of my anti-Christian feeling back then, and his upsurge of faith disgusted me; now I'm glad he had it. My conversion experience began the next year, and a ways into it I wondered if C were praying for me. There's no way of knowing now, but presumably one day I will. Meanwhile I can return the possible favor.

Anyone else who's been close to a Marine who has died might want to do the same today. Or you could pray for the ones who are serving our country now. (This includes one of my cousins.) Even if you don't think prayer can help, it certainly can't hurt. And if you don't think your prayers will help, you can do as I did on 9/11 and ask someone else to do the praying for you; we Catholics believe the pool of people you can ask includes both the people alive in this world and those alive in the next.

Quote of the Day

"Any time you catch yourself thinking that your life might be empty and
pointless, just meditate for a minute or two on the concept "Paris Hilton fan."
That should set you straight." (John Derbyshire)

A Dose of Dalrymple

I've mentioned Theodore Dalrymple's excellent, clear writing before--especially in his book Life at the Bottom--and here's another dose:

"The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris", an article Dalrymple wrote three years about the Muslim immigrant-filled suburbs of Paris.

"The Suicide Bombers Among Us" , in which Dalrymple tries to get inside the minds of people most of us shrink from thinking about too much.

And as a bonus, an interview with Dalrymple.

Ballykissangel, First Series

I only learned of the existence of Ballykissangel when I came across it on Netflix recently, but this show--the first season, anyway, which is all I've seen--is worth watching. Even then I somehow got the idea it was a thirty-minute sitcom, when it's actually an hour-long program (i.e. about 48 minutes) that I guess some might call a "dramedy"; there's lots of "human interest" with the humor.

It is about a young English priest who goes to the Irish village of Ballykissangel, a almost unbelievably beautiful area filled (like most places, if you bother to listen) with interesting people, some of whom may tend toward a very mild eccentricity. Really, it reminds me of nothing so much as a toned-down Northern Exposure, with more beautiful scenery and a certain nostalgic charm. Another difference would be that Father Clifford wants to be where he is, unlike Joel.

The show skirts a "forbidden love" theme in the attraction--irritable and reluctant, but there--between the village atheist (more likely just a scorner of religion, but "village scorner of religion" doesn't have the same ring) and Father Clifford. There's some instances where one could argue Father Clifford could handle various things better; the worst is an instance in the next to last episode where he seems almost to give approval to a grave sin that a dying man admits having commited in the past. Also, Father Clifford's immediate superior, Father MacAnally (played by an actor who is the very picture of an Irish priest), can be a mite, umm, less than idealistic at times. I can see how a few particularly straightlaced Catholics might be offended by these things, but there is no reason to be. Father Clifford is always portrayed as a good priest, trying to do his best. Moreover it's a town where the local church is a fixture of people's life (how often do you see that on TV?) and the clergymen are respected. I also like that all the major characters have good and bad qualities; surely it's a Christian-friendly idea that even the most bad or just plain irritating people we deal with have redeeming qualities?

I really liked this program, which is apparently very popular. Even Uncle Pookie, who'd had no intention of watching it, got sucked in and stayed up late to watch. We already have Series Two in our Netflix queue. According to the Netflix reviews, the show takes a downturn in Series Three, so I don't know how far we'll watch, but I do recommend this first series. You can watch it with the whole family; there's nothing in it I'd be embarrassed to watch with a child or an elderly person.

Knifty Knitters

Several weeks ago I bought a set of Knifty Knitters at Wal-Mart. I'd been interested in the nice wooden knitting looms I'd seen online but was reluctant to order something I wasn't sure I would enjoy; looms showing up at a local store for really cheap made it easier to risk I'd like it.

As it turns out, I do enjoy looming. I never learned to knit and my crochet skills don't really go any further than chaining, but it's nice to be able to do something with yarn other than sew it to a doll's head. Knitting on the loom is an easy, pleasant activity to do while watching DVDs. The basic technique takes only a few minutes to learn, but there are variations to keep you interested. I've already made four adult hats and seven baby hats, including the one I made just to learn the technique; the three cutest baby hats I've already given away to a former coworker who has a new baby. I'm currently working on a camouflage hat for my father and learning to do flat panels by making dishcloths. I hope eventually to make a Harry Potter scarf or two (Gryffindor and/or Ravenclaw) and maybe a shawl.

As for the Knifty Knitter looms themselves, I don't see any problem with them. They're made of a sturdy plastic. Occasionally a single fiber from a strand of yarn will catch on the little ridge (that raised bit you sometimes see on plastic products where the part came off the mold at the factory) in the plastic pegs, but it's not a problem for me. People who wanted to loom things in a smaller gauge might want to buy a different set, but I think most people interested in this would be happy with the Knifty Knitter.

If I had it to do over, I wouldn't bother buying the little Knifty Knitter instructional booklet. There are some websites with instructions and free patterns for knitting looms that do a better job than the booklet. However, the booklet is only 97 cents and if I were buying Knifty Knitters as a gift for someone with limited online access, I'd get her the booklet too.

The very best instructional site is Decor Accents. This site has both written instructions and short how-to videos. They also have free patterns. The free patterns aren't written for the Knifty Knitters specifically. Although Decor Accents sells Knifty Knitters (they recommend them for children), their focus is a broad collection of mostly wooden knitting looms, boards and rakes. As far as I can tell just looking at the site, they seem to make a fine product. If I ever decide to buy a knitting board or another kind of loom, I will almost certainly buy from them, just because I like their instructional information so much. (Note: The link to their flat panel removal instructions is broken--apparently mistyped--but here it is.)

Free patterns and instructions are available elsewhere online. Provocraft, the makers of Knifty Knitters, has five pages or so of free projects. The Loom Room has instructions and several free patterns. Bev's Country Cottage has instructions, patterns, and a lot of links. If you search for "knitting looms" at Yahoo! Groups, you find a good many groups; someone on Craftster said KniftyKnitters is the best, but I haven't tried any of them and can't say.

Knitting on a loom may lack some of the coolness of a couple of clicking needles--I just can't see Miss Marple with a loom, plastic or otherwise--but it is fun. (Besides which, you might not want to take your coolness recommendation from someone who thinks Miss Marple is cool.) I recommend it for anyone who thinks s/he might like that sort of thing, anyone who has a need for a lot of hats, or anyone who wants to buy a low-tech, non-noisemaking, no-batteries-required gift for a child.

Another reason I'm glad I bought my Knifty Knitters, is that now that I've tried it I finally understand how spool knitting works. A couple of people on a Usenet group I used to visit years ago were describing knitting on a spool when they were schoolgirls (apparently it was popular in the '50s), and for the life of me I just could not understand how it worked. I would almost picture it, but not quite get it. That really bothered me. But now I know. And yes, I realize it's entirely possible I have mental problems. Now to find a bunch of historical reenactors and learn how to use a drop spindle...

Saint Martin de Porres, Pray for Us

Today is the feast of St. Martin de Porres, patron of barbers and (according to some accounts I've read, but not others) of people of mixed race; I would think animal lovers, nurses, and anyone facing unjust discrimination might turn to him.

Of course today honors quite a few others as well, but I like St. Martin de Porres best. It's hard not to like a saint who's often depicted with a dog.

An Uplifting Development

I am a pessimistic person. I rarely find anyone more pessimistic than I. Once recently NRO's John Derbyshire posted something in the Corner that made me think, "Dude, lighten up, it's not quite that bad", but usually when I read him or anyone else saying we're doomed, doomed, I'm apt to nod or irritably ask what else is new.

I'm not a denier of facts, though. We are better off in many ways than we used to be. Technology (applied science) helps, as does more humane attitudes toward our fellow men, more enlightened attitudes toward women, and the unprecedented wealth of modern Western societies. We now feed nearly everyone, survive diseases that used to be death certificates, and pollute less driving around than we used to pollute just letting our cars sit in the driveway. In many ways, things are getting better and better.

But nothing I've read about has excited me quite so much as this: a couple of biomechanists say that, what with new fibers and increased knowledge of how breasts move, we are about to have happen with bras what happend with running shoes in the 1970s. (Link via The Corner.) Just think of it. Comfortable bras that look good and support you. Remember what tennis shoes were like in the 1970s? Now remember how much better they were in the 1980s--so comfortable people started wearing them everywhere, because they didn't want to take them off. (If you're not old enough to remember wearing tennis shoes in the early '70s, look at some old photos of athletes. Do their shoes look comfortable to you? No. They had to exercise in shoes less comfortable and supportive than ones we wear to drive to the grocery store.) Now, if you're a woman, just imagine bras making that kind of leap in quality. Ahhh. It's a good thought. No more uncomfortable bouncing, dented shoulders, drooping where it should lift, bulging where it shouldn't, poking wires, biting elastic, cups that fit funny, and so on. Oh, brave new world that will have such things in it!

(If you're a man reading this, you probably have no idea what I'm on about. For an explanation, ask your wife or girlfriend if she's happy with her bras--better yet, ask a group of women. Try to still look interested when the complaining moves into the second half-hour.)

The Middle Ages for Early Ages

A few weeks ago at the thrift store, there was a buggy of free books and I found a book I enjoyed as a girl, The Maude Reed Tale. I picked it up out of nostalgia, and, although the level of characterization was too low for teen or adult tastes, the book was otherwise as enjoyable as I remembered. I was hesitant about reading it the first time, as I had some vague idea Norah Lofts might be a romance writer and I didn't want to read any mushy girly stuff, but the heroine (a girl who wants to be a wool merchant) and the background (middle ages castle life and wool merchant life) to the story turned out to be interesting. I think Maude might appeal to homeschoolers who, I've read, favor books about children behaving self-sufficiently; Maude may begin the book pitching a fit to get her way, but by the end she's learned to keep her own counsel, and think and act strategically.

On the nonfiction front, I recently found three books from the children's history series The Library of the Middle Ages in the local public library. Going by the list on the back of the books, there's twelve books in the series, but my library had only Medieval Feasts and Banquets, Medieval Clothing and Costumes, and Tournaments and Jousts. I'm no expert--in either medieval history or children's history books generally--but these books seem very good. They are beautifully illustrated with pictures from medieval manuscripts, maps, and, in Tournaments and Jousts, photos of armor. They seem to cover the subjects well for children's books; I'm no child and I know just enough about the Middle Ages that I didn't really learn anything from the food or clothing books, but the tournaments book taught me some things, and all of the books were a pleasure to look at. Each book has a glossary to help children with new terms and a large selection of additional resources on the subject.

I could perhaps quibble with a few remarks in the clothing book--not the facts, but attitude or interpretation--but I won't. The only real problem I had was an error in Tournaments and Jousting: the author explains excommunication as the Church condemning people to hell. While I don't want to ascribe to malice what may be explained by simple ignorance, that is a pretty glaring error. Excommunication is a formal acknowledgement of something the excommunicated person has already done to himself--namely, remove himself from the sacramental life of the Church by obstinately persisting in grave error; in still other words, if a man is going to hell, it is because of his own choices, not something the Church has done to him. Excommunication is intended to help the person by, 1.) preventing him from receiving communion unworthily (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-29) and, 2.) impressing upon the person the seriousness of what he is doing, so that he may be more likely to repent.

That aside, I recommend the three books I've read in this series, and it seems as if the series as a whole would probably prove worthwhile. However, several of the books deal with crusades and/or Muslims, and, given the nauseatingly PC world the West has become, I would want to read those volumes myself before I gave them to a child.

Believe it or not, I can recommend some more children's books set in the Middle Ages. Several years ago, when I still lived somewhere with a good public library, I read three novels by Karen Cushman, all of which were well-written, entertaining, and, I think, likely to inspire an interest in the Middle Ages in the children who read them. They were Catherine, Called Birdy, The Midwife's Apprentice, and Matilda Bone. The first of these was the most entertaining; it's the diary of a thoroughly delightful 13th century girl and, among other things, her funny attempts to avoid the suitors her father brings to their home.

The Midwife's Apprentice seemed to me (remember I'm no expert) to be intended for younger children than the other two, but it is still a good story of an orphaned or abandoned child who must steal food and sleep on dung heaps to keep warm. She is taken on as a servant by a midwife, and gradually begins to learn the midwife's trade. By the end she's not only learned a trade that will allow her to support herself, but has given herself a name and acquired a sense of herself as a person and a valuable member of society.

The third Cushman book I listed, Matilda Bone, is the only one I have any hesitation in recommending. It is about an orphan girl who is dropped off to live with a bonesetter as apprentice. What we see of medieval medicine is interesting and the characters are likeable, but the Church doesn't fare well. The priest who raised Matilda before the book begins is pretty unattractive, if not downright repulsive, and we get no countering portrait of a more attractive churchman. (There is a local priest, but he hardly appears.) The attitudes the priest has inculcated in Matilda make a poor display before the earthy decency and humanity of the new people who finds herself around. Worst, Matilda is prone to having conversations with saints, and I thought the saints were treated rather flippantly. There is nothing so bad in this book that I wouldn't recommend it, but I would caution Catholic parents--or anyone giving a gift to a child in a Catholic family--to read the book beforehand and decide whether you think it crosses the line.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's recommendations for good children's medieval-related books.

More Fatherless Children Than Ever

The government is reporting that last year a record number of babies were born to unmarried women: one and a half million. (Link via Drudge.)

That's one and a half million children (not counting any siblings they may have) who will grow up knowing that Mommy didn't think their father was worth marrying. Or vice versa. What must that make these children feel?

The article mentions that, in some cases, these unmarried mothers are living with someone, possibly even the baby's father, so maybe Dad is still around in some cases. But is a household where either of the two parents can walk out at any time really as stable as one in which the couple are bound together by the promises they made, the social and legal contract they entered into, and the sacrament joining them. (Okay, if you're not Catholic, you might not believe marriage is a sacrament, but you probably still have some religious reinforcement for your marriage.) Don't we owe it to our children to give them as stable a home as we can provide?

Random Thoughts

Autumn comes every year, yet somehow, after our long, hot, humid summers, the first few crisp-aired days are always a surprise.

***

I was half listening to Romeo and Juliet recently, and, though I think it takes place in summer (don't hold me to that), it has an autumnal quality to it. But on second thought, all tragedies do. Except maybe Lear, which is all winter.

***

Tragedy isn't really a contemporary genre. There can't be tragedy without free will, and we've been trying to eradicate that--or more to the point the responsibility it brings--for decades.

***

When I understand why the already considerable pleasure of biting into a fresh lemon is tripled if it's done in front of someone who can be counted on to wince at the sight, I think I'll finally have a grip on human nature. Or mine anyway.

Here's a Riddle For You

Here's the riddle:

Let's examine some numbers readily available from the Census Bureau's 2004 Current Population Survey.... There's one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. There's another segment that suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. The other segment suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. [Source]

Okay, what distinguishes the high poverty and low poverty groups?

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Answer: Marriage.

The only thing that surprises me is that the poverty rates aren't higher for the children of unmarried mothers. I'd be willing to bet that many of those that were technically above the poverty line weren't above it by much.

St. Crispin and St. Elizabeth, Pray for Us

Today is St. Crispin's Day. You can hear Kenneth Branagh's rendition of Shakespeare's Crispin's Day speech online here. (Link via The Corner.) I highly recommend the movie this is taken from. For that matter I also recommend Oliviers WWII-era version. I just like Henry V; it always makes me proud to be English, which is odd, as I'm not English. We can all cry "God for Harry, England, and St. George!" though, can't we? AT least we can when the English aren't killing Catholics for being Catholic or letting Islamofascism breed unchecked in their cities, that is; and on that last maybe we should be asking St. George to protect them.

EWTN's Almanac is listing today as the day honoring St. Elizabeth, the kinswoman of Our Lady and mother of John the Baptist. I thought her feast day was November 5, and Catholic Online backs my memory up. But what the heck, we can ask her to pray for us both days. She may be a lesser Biblical figure and we may know next to nothing about her, but I'm rather fond of her all the same. I've heard her called a patron saint of those who become mothers later in life, and I haven't given up hope of being one of those myself. I also like that Elizabeth recognized holiness when she saw it, and the Visitation, with its lovely image of two pregnant women embracing, is one of my favorite mysteries of the rosary. Uncle Pookie has suggested that I also like Elizabeth's story because her husband was struck dumb; to that I have to say: "No comment."

What Historic General Are You? I'm JC (The Other One)

Julius Caesar You scored 59 Wisdom, 81 Tactics, 59 Guts, and 41 Ruthlessness!

Roman military and political leader. He was instrumental in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. His conquest of Gallia Comata extended the Roman world all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, introducing Roman influence into what has become modern France, an accomplishment of which direct consequences are visible to this day. In 55 BC Caesar launched the first Roman invasion of Britain. Caesar fought and won a civil war which left him undisputed master of the Roman world, and began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He was proclaimed dictator for life, and heavily centralized the already faltering government of the weak Republic. Caesar's friend Marcus Brutus conspired with others to assassinate Caesar in hopes of saving the Republic. The dramatic assassination on the Ides of March was the catalyst for a second set of civil wars, which marked the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire under Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son Octavian, later known as Caesar Augustus. Caesar's military campaigns are known in detail from his own written Commentaries (Commentarii), and many details of his life are recorded by later historians such as Suetonius, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 33% on Unorthodox You scored higher than 84% on Tactics You scored higher than 70% on Guts You scored higher than 27% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

This is a really fun quiz. I don't know why they never had quizzes like this in the women's magazines I used to read as a girl.

Something to Think About

Like a lot of Americans, I attended a non-Muslim religious service this weekend. I think all of us who did (not to mention those who exercised their right not to participate in any religion) should be asking ourselves how long our right to do so would last under Muslim rule. Would we be as free and accepted as the Coptic Christians? As free as Dutch cartoonists and filmmakers? As free as British office workers, etc.? (Oh, but if only those British would just be more understanding!)

I think we all know the answer to how free we'd be under Muslim rule--we'd be free to be good little dhimmis. We'd be free to do as they tell us; with luck we might be almost as well off as Muslim women.

Another question we should be asking ourselves is how long beautiful testaments to our heritage--religious, artistic, historical--will last in a predominantly Muslim Europe? Will the Christian-themed paintings in the Louvre last as long as the statues of the Buddha did in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?

Why This Was Probably My Last Summer To Wear Shorts

Because of Mississippi's hideously hot and humid summers, I grew wearing shorts all summer, every summer, and, except for school hours, much of the spring and fall and some days in what we ironically call our winter as well. But this summer I found myself thinking about giving them up.

For one thing, this summer I discovered that skirts can actually be cooler than shorts. For another, the past year and a half or more, I've been doing a lot of thinking about modesty in dress, and I'm not sure most shorts make the cut. I've also sometimes found myself thinking about how Americans never dress up any more and what that and the tendency of so many adults now to dress in juvenile ways says about us. And then there's my age (35) and my noticing that the old and late-middle-age women I see now don't seem to look as neat and well-put-together as old women used to when I was young. And then there was the Wednesday evening I stopped off at mass on my way to do the shopping and only realized as I walked into the church I was wearing shorts; it was a nice Liz Claiborne shorts and vest set but I felt bad wearing shorts to church, and then I started to wonder why it was okay to wear them elsewhere but not to church. But none of these are the reason.

No, I can recall the moment the decision, such as it is, was made. I was in Wal-Mart, headed for the check-out, when I saw a woman, probably in her early-thirties, of average attractiveness, probably with a kid or two at home, and she was wearing shorts. They weren't too short or too tight. They were normal shorts that came at least half-way down the thigh. On the outside of the thigh, that is. On the inner thigh, they were bunched up so high, the cloth was resting against her crotch. On both of the inner thighs. I know not every woman's shorts ride up that badly and that most women would have done one of those covert "pull the fabric down" moves before they rode up that high, but that visual got to me. Somehow shorts just haven't seemed appealing to me since.

Something Beautiful to Start the Day

BBC News has the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and they are stunning. You have to click on the small picture to enlarge, as the small pic doesn't show the whole thing; even if I were on a slower computer that took a little time to load, it would be worth the wait.

I Weep for the Future

Back in the fall of, I believe, 1989, I saw a greeting card for sale that congratulated the recipient on her (/his?) divorce. Self-proclaimed liberal though I was at the time, something just didn't seem right about that. Age and greater experience (especially my ten years of marriage) have persuaded me that it most definitely was wrong; as Chesterton might say, their having a right to make and sell that card is in no way the same thing as being right in doing it.

But it wasn't as wrong as this: Divorce parties. I'm well aware of the need for ritual to mark even the most unpleasant of life stages (former neo-pagan, current Catholic--I grok ritual), but celebrating the failure of a marriage is both repugnant and irresponsible in the message it sends to everyone around you.

What's next, abortion parties?

Black and White Is So Much Easier Than Grays

I think Thomas Sowell may be one of the most brilliant people in America--he's surely among the most brilliant columnists. I say that not because I usually agree with him (although I'll admit people sharing my views tends to give me a favorable opinion of their intelligence!), but because I've so often, while reading his always reasonable columns, said to myself, "I've never thought of that before, but he's right."

But I'm not sure about something of his I just read (it's five days old but I just read it today), in which he lumped "growing legal restrictions on building anything that existing residents in a community don't want built" in with the "spoiled brat politics" that thinks anything we personally want automatically overrides what other people want.

At one time, courts took seriously the 14th Amendment's
guarantee of equal rights for all, regardless of where they lived and voted.
Courts even enforced the 5th Amendment's guarantee of property rights.

In other words, local voters and local politicians
could not arbitrarily deprive other people of the right to come in and buy and
use property as they saw fit, simply because some planning consultants or
planning commissions preferred that they do otherwise. But Constitutional
protection of property rights is no longer "in the mainstream" of fashionable
legal thinking. ...

The only way the government can give current
residents such a guarantee [that their neighborhood will never change] is
to take away other people's property rights, which exist precisely in order to
keep politicians at bay. [Source]

I agree, mostly--property rights are very important, and I'm sure we've all read news stories about people having their property rights infringed upon by government that made us angry, and surely noone wants government to have the power to seize any property it wants and reserve to government agencies the sole right to determine that property's use--and yet shouldn't local people have some say over how their neighborhood or town is developed? Most people don't want a strip club built between the public elementary school and a popular day care center, even if the club owner does own the land it's to be built on. Shouldn't neighborhood residents be able to veto a pornographic book shop in their neighborhood? What about a toxic waste dump or even an ordinary garbage dump? What if a majority of people in a town had rather have small shops clustered in a downtown area, rather than having one big, less centrally-located mall--can't they make local policies that encourage what they want and discourage or forbid what they don't?

I'm not talking about a small minority trying to inflict its will upon the whole neighborhood or town; I'm wondering about cases where the majority want something--should they have no say?

We allow restrictions to be placed on property for public safety (even though I own it, I'm not allowed to burn my own house down on a whim, for fear of setting the neighbors' houses on fire; I'm not allowed to pile raw sewage in my yard no matter how much I may want to, factories aren't allowed to dump waste products even on their own land, etc.), and we zone areas for residences or businesses; industrial areas may even be separately zoned from other businesses. Is it really going that much further for a majority of townsmen to vote that they don't want a particular kind of property development in their area?

This is a hard thing to determine. I think we can all agree that when someone wants to do something on his property that will clearly endanger the lives or health of the people nearby, then those people should have some say over whether the property owner gets to do that thing. But when it comes to property uses that aren't physically dangerous, it gets gray very quickly.

It seems either side is open to abuse. Under a system where we usually decide for the individual property owner's right to do whatever he wants, you could get, say, the sex toys shop in an area where most residents don't want anything like that. But under a system where we allow town or neighborhood planning commissions a great deal of leeway we could get people whimsically forbidding anything for any reason. It's not hard to imagine the freedom of small groups or individuals getting trampled under such a system, even if the planning commissions remained faithful to what a majority of locals wanted. Add in the probability of planning commissions representing, not the will of the majority, but the will of a small elite, and I'm much less sure I want them to be able to decide what property owners can do with their property; the will of a majority of residents is one thing, but the will of a tiny group of "experts" pretending to represent the will of the majority is quite another thing.

And this is not even getting into the will of the most directly affected versus the will of the somewhat less close-by people. For example, I read an article a good while back about Wal-Mart wanting to build a store in a "nice" neighborhood somewhere. Many people in the "nice" neighborhood were deadset against having a Wal-Mart in their neighborhood, but people in the surrounding, "less nice" neighborhoods were mostly for it; the former didn't want increased traffic in their nice area and were worried about "not nice" people coming into their neighborhood to shop, while the latter were eager for low prices and like the possibility of new jobs. Much as the "nice" people's snobby attitudes set my American populist hackles rising and make it hard to sympathise with the most directly affected neighborhood, shouldn't they have some say in what happens to their neighborhood? But then what about the larger area, who did want the Wal-Mart? Like I said, it gets gray quickly.

Thomas Sowell is probably right, and we should err toward protecting property rights when there's conflict; I certainly don't want there to be less respect for them than we have now, when the government can use public domain to seize your property, not just to build a publically necessary highway or dam, but to build a baseball field. But that doesn't mean it won't sometimes be hard to look at the outcome of some of those conflicts and think that the majority of residents got screwed over by the property owner.

More Crunchy Talk

There's a short piece at Likelierthings.com about the argument between Jonah Goldberg and Rod Dreher over Dreher's "crunchy-granola conservatism"; it's hashed out more in the comments.

Callanetics Review

I mentioned a few posts ago that I started doing Callanetics and said I might post again after I'd done ten sessions, to see how Callanetics' "10 years younger in 10 hours" claim holds up.

It should go without saying that nothing can make you younger--relentless march of time and all that--but Callanetics can firm you up faster than anything I'm aware of. It won't make you fit, it won't make you lose fat, and it won't improve your upper body strength. It will firm you up noticeably in an amazingly short time, though, so the "10 hours" claim isn't mere hype.

I'm doing Callanetics three times a week, and I've now done ten sessions. I've lost about one and a quarter inches off my waist and about three and a half inches off my hips. My underarm area (not the triceps, but where ladies who aren't super-thin get a little roll of fat between their bra and the edge of their arm) has firmed up considerably. (This is odd actually, because I assumed when I started that the underarm tightener exercise wouldn't work and it still doesn't feel as if it's doing anything to that area.) I think the sides of my thighs are starting to slim up. My abdomen is MUCH stronger than when I started. I still can't do the full set of reps on the stomach exercises, but I never thought I would improve this much so fast. All of these results in about three weeks and without the loss of one pound; and to be honest, there were two sessions where I was running short on time and had to cut my session short, so my time spent is well under the "10 hours" of the claim.

Callanetics also lives up to its claim to be easy on the back. I don't have back problems myself, but I have tried to assess it as if I did and as far as I can tell there's no strain on the back. There's more talk about back safety in the Callanetics book; I believe there was even another Callanetics book specifically for people with back problems.

There is strain on the neck, however, when you do the abdomen exercises. Callan Pinckney claims it will disappear after a few sessions, and for me at least this seems to be the case. She does recommend putting your hands behind your neck if it's a problem for you, and of course it helps if you try not to pull with your neck.

As for the other negatives, in the reviews I read before I purchased the DVD, I saw that some people didn't like the instructor's manner or her accent and that they thought the exercises were boring and the looks & musci laughably dated. I like the instructor, think the look of the hair and leotards holds up much better than most '80s area stuff, and don't mind the music (it reminds me of Mister Rogers neighborhood for some reason). As for boredom, well, most exercise is boring, that's why people prefer to sit on the couch watching Andy Griffith reruns; right now I'm too busy trying to improve to be bored by this, but when I start to get bored, I think the great results will keep me at it for quite a while after.

The only other "negative" I can think of is that it seems a little odd to have the relaxing stretches before the final exercises; it may be because of my experiences with yoga exercise, but it just seems the tape ought to end with the relaxing lower back stretch. On the other hand, I love the placement of the ab exercises immediately after the warm-up; with this you don't have to go through the tape dreading the ab part.

Upshot: I definitely recommend this exercise video and the accompanying book. It may be nearly twenty years old and the exercises may seem odd, but it works.

Crunchy Cons

I saw today on The Corner that Rod Dreher's book, Crunchy Cons, is in galleys already. You can pre-order it from Amazon, although that may not be the crunchiest choice.

I posted about the whole crunchy con thing once before; I have links to the original articles and try to give the gist of Jonah Goldberg's objection to it as a category.

This Makes Me Very Tired

I don't know why but I skimmed an article about the state of trendspotting or "coolhunting", and the whole thing made me want to lie down with a book--preferably one that hasn't been on a bestseller list for a hundred years or so--and forget about the outside world. But someone might spot me, and then EVERYONE would be doing it.

Today, fads ping across continents and disappear so quickly
that the coolhunter, even the whole notion of "cool," has become
passé.

Fortunately we can show our contempt for "cool" by buying the brands favored by the all the other people who are also immune to the lure of cool new fads.

Every big-city scenester or bored teenager on the planet
has a blog or mass e-mail anointing the moment's hot restaurants, hobbies and
handbags. Add to this, mass obsession with celebrity style and global
corporatization and you can get nearly the same chai latte or
straight-off-the-runway skirt in Columbus, Ohio, that's available in Manhattan
or Milan.

One nation, under advertising, with liberty and blandness for all.

Trend-spotting has, in essence, become just another trend.
Consequently, the most successful trend forecasters are repositioning themselves
as something more than mere arbiters of taste. They're now social scientists
with a hipster edge.

So they're no longer people who spend every waking moment trying to stay a few weeks ahead of rapidly passing fads, they're cultural anthropologists.

IN a way, this desperate need among advertisers to "divine"
our intimate truths has indelibly linked consumerism to culture. Now, there's
hardly time to discover and explore a new experience or a new approach to living
without also considering the new line of products, technologies or services that
has been tailored to that discovery. Life is being captured, repackaged and sold
back to us as quickly as we live it.

How can the effectiveness of trend forecasting be measured,
anyway, when the line between a genuine societal trend and one manufactured by
media and advertising is now so blurred?

Am I the only person who finds this scary? No, not the possibility that corporations may find it hard to assess the effectiveness of their trend forecaster, but the linking of culture and consumerism. Why do so many of us now equate who we are with which trends we choose to follow and what we buy to show we're in on that trend?

And if we are going to define ourselves by what we buy, do we really need the Color Marketing Group to tell us what colors to buy it in?

The value and lifespan of information changed rapidly in the
late 1990s. Just as Internet access and download speed rocketed, so did the
transfer of ideas, making what was "cool" obsolete from the moment it was
discovered.

"It used to be that you had to have the Louis Vuitton Murakami
purse," says Buckingham. "Well, now you can get the $10 version on [Manhattan's]
Canal Street. So when you talk to teenage girls, they say they buy the fakes
because it's all about just showing you know the trend — not even the value of
the trend itself."

I can't say that I'm bothered by girls opting for cheap knockoffs bags over the genuine overpriced handbag (although making your own version seems better than buying the knockoff), but why buy even the knockoff (or make your own copy) if you don't genuinely like the thing? I guess if your life is all about following trends then it doesn't matter what you like, only what other people like; and with our current ten-second attention spands causing trends to change so quickly, anything you can do to save money so you can afford to buy the next trendy purse a few weeks from now is okay.

But as for grumpy old me, I'm starting to wonder if, as a nation, we're not either too rich or too shallow. If we weren't so rich, we couldn't be continually replacing handbags, decorative kitchen canisters, etc. as the next trend comes in. And if we weren't so shallow we wouldn't care whether our neighbors think our stuff is out-of-date or not.

Reading this article and contemplating the speed of fashion not only made me tired, it put me in mind (as so many things do) of something G. K. Chesterton said: He said that the Catholic Church is the only thing that can save us from the degrading slavery of being a child of our times. Of course he was talking about succumbing to intellectual fads, but I think it still applies. If we focused more on eternal matters, we would care less about the passing trendiness of a particular kind of coffee or style of slacks; if we defined ourselves in light of eternity, we wouldn't need to define ourselves by the kind of cologne we buy or purse we carry.

Christmas Came Early (At Least the Gift-Giving Part)

It has been said that bigotry is the inability to conceive seriously the opposition to a proposition. If that's so, there's one thing I'm a thoroughgoing bigot about: Calvin & Hobbes was the best comic strip EVER! There can be no contrary opinions on this. Bloom County? Liked it a lot, but there's no real comparison; besides which, it was largely topical humor and will cease to be funny as people cease to get the references. Get Fuzzy? Read it every day, but still, no comparison. Uncle Pookie's beloved Dilbert? I like it, but please!

This week we saw The Complete Calvin & Hobbes in Sam's Club, I called it "my precious", and Uncle Pookie insisted on buying it for me. In theory I'm the sensible-spender member of the team, but it took only about two breaths for him to convince me we should purchase it. It's a great set. Three volumes containing all the strips and the cover and spot art from the previous collections. Hardcover, good-quality paper, heavy as all get-out, and the papers packed between the volumes smelled like the inside of a leather bookbag. The outside of the books is a nice earthy orange color with brown end cloth, and the strips are set on an off-white page with a narrow light-brown outline, so it looks a bit as if they are cut-outs pasted into a scrapbook. The only bad thing is that the books really aren't convenient for reading in bed; they do lie flat, though, so on that alone they beat paperbacks.

Per the rules of the house, I must now eliminate my much-read paperback Calvin & Hobbes collections. This presents a dilemma: Give them to the library for others to enjoy or cut them up for decoupage?

Yet Another Reason to Check Out Bearing Blog

I stand second to no one in my regard for sweet potatoes, and bearing blog's Savory Sweet Potato Pie has been added to my repertoire of sweet potato cookery. Okay, I have to admit it's a very small list, as my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes is baked (I just throw them in the oven when I'm baking something else) and served with butter or butter and cinnamon; bearing blog's recipe is a nice addition though.

I made it for Sunday dinner this past week. I halved the recipe (not by choice, but because I happened to have only two potatoes), and I made it crustless, because as an adult I've come to prefer crustless pies and quiche (chicken pot pies excepted). It was tasty; the bite of the freshly ground black pepper--I used a lot--went really well with the sweet potato. Next time I'd like to try sauteeing the minced onion in butter before I add it; I think that might be even better.

Misc. Things Seen Around the Web

This is seriously cool*--amphibious houses, that rise and fall with water levels in the event of flooding. A good-sized--and growing--chunk of the Netherlands is under sea level. Problems are kept in check by a system of canals, pumps, and dykes (must not repeat bad Bernie Rhodenbarr joke, must not repeat... ) and, until now, limiting construction in flood zones. They're now testing waterproof home designs, and more power to them. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily)

*Note: Auntie Suzanne is a person of questionable coolness who tends to equate cleverness with coolness.


*** *** ***

Seriously NOT cool (see above): the My Scene Bling Bling Barbie. Why not just call it Streetcorner Barbie and tattoo her price list on her tail, like that Yale girl from the limerick?

The saddest thing here is that this is obviously another attempt to make Barbie look more like the Bratz dolls, which, as I understand it, are supposed to represent underage girls. This kind of thing makes you wonder who won the sexual revolution, women or dirty old men.

*** *** ***

As I've brought up the subject of immodest dress--i.e., I've mentioned contemporary Barbies--here's the two best articles on modest dress I've ever read: Don't Wear That Mini to Mass and Drawing a Hemline, both by Benjamin D. Wiker. The former, obviously, is about immodest dress in church, and the latter is mainly about immodest clothes on campus.

Full disclosure (pun intended): Although I agree with Wiker's points, I did get a kick out of "Berkeley Guy" back when he was doing his thing. But then I don't find nudity offensive, just immodest clothes.

Unfortunately, some of what's touted as modest clothing by some American Christians is aesthetically offensive--all shapeless jumpers and the most dowdy dresses you've ever seen (really, the Amish are more stylishly and flatteringly attired, which is odd as some of it seems to be an attempt to attempt to imitate the Amish)--and seems to be motivated more by an idea that the body is bad than by an idea that it is too precious to share with everyone who walks by. For some talk about beauty and modesty, see Regina Schmiedicke's article, Modesty and Beauty--The Lost Connection; this is probably the third best article on modest dress I've read, although do read this response to it.

FWIW, Schmiedicke's point about how, historically, people of higher status have worn more clothes than low-status people is accurate. It has lasted into modern times. In the early 1980s, the novelist and literature professor Alison Lurie published a fascinating book on clothing and how what people wear reveals social status and attitudes. (I've often thought it would make good reading for fantasy writers who are designing their world's clothing.) She talked about well-off people wearing more clothing--as well as better quality clothing and/or harder-to-clean clothing--as a probably unconscious sign of wealth, even in the '80s. I think it still holds true even today, when many women of all socio-economic classes are walking around skimpily dressed.


*** *** ***

Yet another in the long list of lawsuits I wouldn't have filed: an Oregon woman is suing her doctor and his clinic (presumably they have more money than he does personally) because the doctor convinced the woman that the way to cure her lower back pain was to have sex with him. Apparently more than one time, as the article mentions "treatments".

I wonder if she's any relation to that woman a while back who complained to her state's medical board because her doctor told her she was too fat and needed to lose weight. Stupidity/gullibility and whiny complaining are often related.

*** *** ***

Over the past year or two, there have been so many news stories about policemen being called on elementary school children that when I drove by the local elementary school last winter and saw a cop car in front I thought, "Oh, some little girl must have brought non-safety scissors to school."

Yesterday I saw a news story about cops being called to break up a fight between two six year-olds fighting over a pacifier. But this time I actually felt some sympathy with the caller (in this case, the mother of one of the boys, rather than a school official), when I heard why she called: she said she didn't want her son's school to accuse her of child abuse when they saw the marks on his face. Given the excessive nosiness of schools nowadays and the hell that a false accusation of child abuse could make of your life, I can kind of see it. But that just shows another set of problems.

*** *** ***

This isn't on the web (except as it relates to some opinion pieces I've read on government waste and "compassionate conservatism", etc.) but last week someone told me my husband and I should have filed for the hurricane-related food stamps. I pointed out that we didn't need them. "But you still should have filed, you could get up to $300 worth."

I again pointed out that we didn't need them, as we hadn't lost much food and could afford to buy food. The person didn't seem to get what I was saying and kept saying it was for anyone who'd lost food. "But I didn't lose much, I was careful to use up as much of the perishables as I could before I started using our non-perishables, and I figure what we lost is just a consequence of the risk we take living in a hurricane-prone area, and it's not as if we can't afford to buy more."

I never did get through, but then again I bit my tongue (as a politely brought up Southern girl, I do that a lot) and didn't point out that the government doesn't owe support to people who can help themselves, because I was afraid the person I was talking to might have applied for them and I didn't want to be offensive. But the whole thing was shocking to me, because it was coming from someone I wouldn't have expected to have such an attitude. It made me worry about how many other people are helping themselves to disaster relief they don't need.

I Can't Believe I'm Posting About This...

...because I hate women who talk about nothing but diet and exercise. But here goes.

Last winter I bought the Callanetics exercise DVD (it is a copy of the 1986 videotape) after I read positive reviews of it online. I also read the Callanetics book, first from the library and later from a thriftstore-purchased copy. I tried the exercises, and I could do the warm-up and stretches fine and the pelvic and the standing leg exercises without too much difficulty, but the abdomen and the hip exercises were another story. The abdomen ones were even harder than ordinary crunches. The hip exercises were hard to understand and when I got in position to try them, I found myself looking down at my leg, unable to move it at all. I tried the tape a few times, and just kept finding myself staring down at my immovable leg. Until the last time, when I found if I leaned over more than was really right I could just get my leg up and move it, barely. But by that time I was frustrated with the whole thing and gave it up as too difficult for me. (To be fair, I was also entering yet another off phase in my twenty years-long on again/off again relationship to exercise, and everything else got dumped too.)

Fast forward to last week and the beginnings of my annual pre-birthday insanity (an Auntie Suzanne tradition since the age of twelve.) I decided to start my short routine of upper body strength exercises again on MWF, but I need something for TTS. Why not try Callanetics again--when it doesn't work out I can go on to something else.

Since I'd figured out how to lift my leg, I managed to get through the tape--sort of. A day after my first session I was passing the mirror and thought, "something looks different--aah, just my imagination" and kept walking. After the second session, I thought my hips looked smaller, but of course that was impossible, so I told myself I must be imagining it. Still they do look a bit smaller... Immediately after my third session I looked in the mirror, and they were smaller. It seemed unbelievable, but I was sure I wasn't imagining it.

So then I thought, well why not prove it, get the measuring tape; I'd measured myself for a skirt last week, so I had a day or two pre-Callanetics measurement. I put the tape around my hips and it read two inches smaller than last week. I stared in disbelief for a moment. That is utterly impossible, I thought. I must be doing something different, I'm standing funny or holding the tape wrong or unconsciously sucking in or something. I adjusted the tape slightly, slumped slightly, and blew out to make extra sure I wasn't holding in and re-measured. The tape moved a little. It now read almost two inches smaller. Which is still very hard to believe.

The idea that any exercise program could take more than an inch off your hips in only three sessions is amazing. And I can't even do the whole routine! My abdomen is too weak to even think about doing the full number of reps on any of the belly exercises, and although I can do the hip exercises now, I'm not doing them perfectly or doing the full count. So it's doubly amazing.

The Callanetics book and video slogan was "ten years younger in ten hours". That's a pretty silly claim of course, but maybe after I've done ten sessions I'll post again about what it can do in ten hours. (For the record, it doesn't actually take a full hour to do a session.)

Give Me the Good Old Days

This past Sunday there was an article in the Telegraph that I'd like to say is unbelievable, but which, given our degraded modern society, is all too believable: Women bypass sex in favour of 'instant pregnancies'. According to the article, an increasing number of fertile women in their 30s and 40s are turning to technology to get them pregnant, either as their first resort,or as their almost-first resort when the good old-fashioned way doesn't work immediately. Seems they're too busy to "diary in" frequent sex or, in some cases, any sex at all. At no point anywhere in the article does anyone ask how people who are too busy for sex are going to have time to take care of a baby, or how people unwilling to rearrange their schedules the small amount necessary to allow for extra sex (an activity with immediate payoffs for both people) are going to handle the constant disruptions a baby brings (disruptions that often have no immediate reward.)

Shake That (Coded?) Stuff

EWTNs World Over has its interview with Clare Asquith, author of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare up on its audio page. (When the sound file comes up, skip forward just over 8 minutes to get to the interview.)

I heard about Asquith's book just over a month ago, and while there does seem to be some evidence to support the speculation that Shakespeare was Catholic, any talk of hidden codes in Shakespeare sets my brain on "Suspicious". I participated off and on for years in a Usenet discussion group about Shakespeare, and between that and my other reading, I'm well aware of the phenomenon of nutcakes and their conspiracy theories about Shakespeare, which often do involve codes hidden in the plays. The author of the plays is secretly Edward DeVere and everyone in England knows it but no one is allowed to say it, so there's a massive number of coded references to DeVere's authorship concealed in the plays (presumably so everyone in the audience can nod knowingly); the author of the plays is Marlowe, the author is Bacon, the author is Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son, the author is Queen Elizabeth's lover, the author is Queen Elizabeth, etc. Many of the people who hold these views are out-and-out fanatics--can't change their mind and won't change the subject--and are sometimes rather too much like the other conspiracy theorists (for example, Area 51 or obsessive JFK assassination people) for comfort.

Asquith, however, sounds surprisingly sane and well-balanced. She says part of what opened her mind to this view of Shakespeare's plays was seeing how seemingly innocuous plays were used to convey dissident political messages in the Soviet Union. (Other reasons were her own English Catholicism and the new, non-Protestant takes on English history of the time.) She makes the idea of discreet Catholic references seem reasonable. I still don't wholly buy it, because, besides the danger of publically supporting Catholicism over Protestantism (which meant questioning the legitimacy--in both senses of the term--of the Queen), I just don't think playwrights work that way. There may be a little something to what she's alleging and, even if there's not, her book may provide an interesting look at Catholic sympathizers in Elizabethan society, so I am open to reading it--not buying it, but reading it.

For a World Over program about Shakespeare's possible Catholicism, listen to the interview with Dr. Paul Voss (production date 8/17/01.) It provides an easy, enjoyable introduction to the subject and also explains in passing why Calvinists never wrote tragedies.

Cultural Tourism

The Reuters story yesterday about an Israeli couple fined for kissing during their wedding ceremony in India amused me in a mean-spirited way. The couple, who as far as I can tell are not Hindu, decided they wanted a traditional Hindu wedding in Pushkar. They proceeded to embrace and kiss while the priest was chanting vedic hymns, which outraged the presiding priest and other priests as well--one called their public kissing "cultural pollution". I have no problem with PDAs, but good for him.

I don't usually go in for the lefty cries of "cultural theft" or "cultural appropriation". Healthy cultures adopt things that are useful or even just likeable from other cultures, they always have done, and no one called it theft until recently. But when Westerners decide to pick up spiritual things from other cultures because they're oh so quaint and picturesque and closer to nature than us, etc. and then do it in a shallow way that mocks the tradition, I cringe and start considering using the t word myself. The most notorious example of what I'm talking about are the people who go to a weekend workshop, come home with a certificate, and proclaim themselves "genuine Native American shamans." But I think wanting a picturesque Hindu wedding when you're not Hindu or even willing to respect the mores of the local people who are comes pretty close to the attitude.

Hurricane Rita

Hurricanes can highlight our selfishness. I confess my main feeling toward Hurricane Rita is one of relief; I don't wish anyone in Texas or SW Louisiana any harm, but I'm glad it's not coming for my area. Viewed from the national level and from a purely practical standpoint, it would be better for Rita to hit here again--this area of the country is already messed up, why add another messed-up area to the national burden?--but I'll bet nobody on the Mississippi Gulf Coast or SE Louisiana is looking at it that way. I know I'm not.

Wall Street to the Contrary, Greed is Not Good

There's some interesting discussion of price-gauging over at Caelum et Terra. I don't know as much as I probably should about economics. It seems to me that things work better with a free (or mostly free) market, but I think it's crucial that we have decent people in the marketplace. The internal restraints that people trying to be decent put on themselves can check capitalism's excesses without having to resort to the nearly always doomed government controls on economic freedom.

I'm reminded of something I read by William F. Buckley:

Every ten years I quote the same adage from the late Austrian
analyst Willi Schlamm, and I hope that ten years from now someone will remember
to quote it in my memory. It goes, "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The
trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

Maybe that doesn't mean what I think it does, but I think it means that if we let our greed and self-interest dominate us we create the ugly side of an economic system that generally works pretty well. Capitalism works because it allows for human nature (our desire to seek our own self-interest, to take care of our own family, to have our own stuff, to keep the fruits of our labors) more than socialism does, but then the trouble with capitalism becomes fallen human nature (greed, selfishness, desire for power over others, choosing temporary goods over longterm goods, general sinfulness.)

Home-schooling Bestsellers

The WSJ recently had an article on what homeschoolers are reading.

Home-schooling is sort of like a college student's virginity:
People figure it's a mark of religiosity, but nearly as often it's just personal
taste, or a lack of better options. The majority of families who home-school are
conservative Christians, to be sure. But another sizable portion are secular
counterculturalists, and then...anyone far from a school.

I'd argue that conservative Christians are counterculturalists, but let that go. What's interesting is that book choices overlap. Both groups favor books about children behaving in a self-sufficient way, both like the Narnia books and love Laura Ingalls Wilder and George Alfred Henty.

I've never read Henty, although I've read some praise of him, but I really enjoyed Wilder's Little House books when I was a child. Much better than the TV show, which I also liked. When I wasn't reading the books, I would look again and again at those wonderful pencil illustrations by Garth Williams. If I'm ever blessed with a child--not likely, as, to quote Raising Arizona, my womb is a barren and rocky place where Uncle Pookie's seed can find no purchase--the complete Little House set goes on the Books for Baby list. I figure they'd not only be fun to read aloud but would help reinforce my "you don't have to have lots of expensive toys like the other kids to be happy" indoctrination. (I have a little bit of Calvin's dad in me.)

Pro-choice or Faux-choice

Before I became a Catholic, I was pro-choice. I would not have become Catholic had I not been able to accept the Church's views on this matter, so obviously my opinions have changed a lot; I am now sorry for my attendance at the one abortion rights rally I attended and for any influence I may have had on anyone else's views. But one thing I can say in my defence (sort of) is that at least I was genuinely pro-choice. I believed that only the pregnant woman herself should have the right to decide whether or not to end her pregnancy, and I believed that only the individual in question should determine whether he or she would be sterilized. Forced abortions and sterilizations horrified me.

I make a point of saying I was genuinely pro-choice, because some people in today's society say they are pro-choice, but really aren't. The most obvious example is people who claim to be pro-choice, but who refuse to condemn China's coercive population control program or, worse, approve of it--people like Molly Yard, former president of NOW, whom the Associated Press is reporting has just died. But there are others. Parents who say they're pro-choice, but who force their teenage or college student daughters to abort. Judges who offer convicted women time off sentences if they agree to sterilization or insertion of Norplant. People who claim to be pro-choice and then grumble at who gets and stays pregnant. Or who talk only about the boons of not having children, while seeming to find it hard to fathom that many women would prefer to keep their children. Or who talk as if people who choose to have large families are doing something wrong. Or who don't want to hear others talking about abstinence or Natural Family Planning (or, in extreme cases, even the Fertility Awareness Method). Or who don't want pro-life people to be allowed to talk at all.

People who are genuinely pro-choice may not be where they should be in their views, but at least they're not forcing or subtly bullying women onto operating tables.

(For some interesting listening on China's population control program and American responses to it, listen to Steven Mosher, author of A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy, talking to Marcus Grodi on EWTN's The Journey Home. The episode is dated 4/28/2000.)

"Defenestrating princesses are a little unusual!"

This website is mostly sewing related, but if you click on the "Assault on Dragon Castle" page, you can see the greatest toy I have ever seen in my life!

Teenage Pregnancy

The bearing blog (a pretty cool blog I found a while back--an engineer turned SAHM and homeschooler writes about whatever takes her fancy) has a post with a couple of questions about sex ed programs that "work". Just a taste: "It isn’t self-evident that the programs that best reduce teenage pregnancy are the same programs that best reduce STI rates..."

Just a quibble on my part--and it would be a quibble with nearly everyone who discusses this subject, not just with bearing blog--but teenage pregnancy is not necessarily a problem. Unmarried teen pregnancy is a problem. Teenagers used to get pregnant all the time; the difference was that they got married--either before pregnancy or, hastily, after a pregnancy but before the birth*. At least one of my grandmothers married in her early teens (first baby arrived one year and one day later) and went on to have a long, apparently happy marriage. Go back far enough and we all have teenaged mothers and fathers in our family tree.

Of course, many people would argue that teenagers shouldn't get married, because they're too young or because it's hard for people who haven't been to college to support a family. To the first I say "bollocks". As to the latter, I think there's something wrong with a society that makes it so difficult for a young man to support a wife and child. But it's only hard, not impossible, especially if the couple have the support of their extended family.


*Cute story: My mother reports that her grandmother told her that, "When a couple get married, their first baby can come at any time, but after that it always takes nine months." This was coming from an elderly, Victorian-era woman in the 1950s, in the backwoods of "socially conservative" Mississippi, in a family with multiple Baptist ministers. Hasty marriages have been around for a while.

Our Lady of Sorrows, Pray for Us

Today commemorates Our Lady of Sorrows, patron of Mississippi. Women for Faith & Family have a couple of nice pictures and the words (Latin & English) to the Stabat Mater Dolorosa.

Misc. Observations Spurred by Hurricane Katrina

Not everything about losing power is bad. It's easier to get to bed on time when there's no electric lights and a dozen forms of electricity-dependent entertainment waiting for you. People sleep better without LEDs all over the house lighting things up and street lights pouring through the shades.

Then there's the fact that situations like this bring out the best in most people and we get the opportunity to see neighbors and strangers doing good.

And then there's the greater family togetherness when everyone's not in different rooms pursuing separate hobbies. On that front, check the papers nine months from now for news of a baby boom in the affected areas.

***

In the '90s I started making a solar cooker after reading how in The Tightwad Gazette; I made the mistake of starting before I had all my supplies gathered, and I ended up abandoning the project. Every summer since, when I'd ponder whether having some particular dish was worth heating up the oven (and thus the kitchen), I'd wish I'd finished it. While we were without electricity, I really wished I had a solar oven. With one, we could have had normal meals; had our tap water been contaminated, we could even have used the solar cooker to boil water, instead of relying on bleach.

***

I discovered that, when cooking on the grill, I could get two meals from one portion of charcoal. When I took the cooked food off the grill as usual, I put a lidded, all-metal pot with food inside in the grill and shut the lid. Four or five hours later, the food was cooked. You're a bit limited in what you can cook this way (especially if you only own one all-metal, lidded pot), but any hot food makes a change from peanut butter sandwiches or summer sausage and canned fruit.

***

I learned that if you paint the sides of a can of soup with non-toxic black spray paint and put the can in the sun for a few hours in the middle of the day, you can have hot soup without cooking.

***

I was surprised how quickly the human body adapts to heat. Mississippi writer Jack Butler once described our summers as a hundred days at a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity; trust me, we usually make abundant use of the air-conditioning and electric fans, and I've never gone more than a few days without electricity--that time was from Hurricane Frederick, when I was a child. Tuesday and Wednesday sweat poured off me all day (Monday was relatively cool because of the storm), but on Thursday I felt much more comfortable and on Friday I was perfectly comfortable. It has made me rethink our use of air-conditioning and my reluctance to walk anywhere during the day in summer because "it's too hot".


***

In our society it's easy to live cut off from your community--not participating in local events, shopping outside of your area, preferring national or world news to local news--most of the time, but in a natural disaster local news and resources become highly valued.

***

It's amazing how used we are to having news--local, national, & international--available at the flip of a switch. Lying in the dark Wednesday night, I felt very cut-off. No long-distance phone service, no cell phones working, no electricity for internet or TV news, some area radio stations down, no newspapers, no mail. At that point people were sending messages with people driving out of town--a bit like runners or troubadours carrying news. Things quickly began normalizing--a satellite phone was found, more people bought generators as they came into town, the local newspaper got out an edition, the long-distance service came back on Friday, and so on. But for the first couple of days, we were in a more old-fashioned state, and it felt odd.

***

I gained a newfound appreciation for the electric washing machine--specifically its ability to wring out the water from clothes.

***

It's odd to go into a grocery store and all the refrigerated sections are empty and there's no produce (or only cabbage and a small amount of fruit), nothing but non-perishable food. It wouldn't seem odd if we weren't such a prosperous country that we have been able to take stores full of all the food we want, whenever we want, with no waiting (other than the line to pay), for granted. It is so ordinary to us that I sound dorky for mentioning it, but it really is an amazing thing to waltz into a grocery store any time we want and know it will almost certainly have everything we want. It beats the heck out of waiting in line to buy bread, a la the former Soviet Union.

***

Unexpected pleasures are even better than they would be usually. When you weren't expecting to have tea at all, sun tea (I prefer brewed) made from inferior quality tea and poured over the last of the ice from your rapidly thawing freezer can be more enjoyable than good tea is usually.

***

I've changed a lot with age and becoming Catholic. Two things recently brought that home to me. We went through distribution lines several times to get ice (you couldn't buy ice at the store), and one of the centers was set up to get people through as quickly as possible, so we couldn't tell them we only needed ice, not food, without stopping the line. I felt bad about taking food other people needed more, but once upon a time it would have hurt my pride even to take the charity ice.

Second thing was that, after I found out about the horrible things that had been happening in New Orleans (when long-distance service returned Friday), I was able to offer genuine prayers for the souls of the people terrorizing their fellow citizens. I've always been a little more attached to the "some people need killin' " school of thought than befits a Catholic and, as I'm not a naturally forgiving person, my prayers for my enemies have usually begun with a prayerful request that I be able to mean the prayer. People who prey on other people after a natural disaster are the lowest of the low and I think they should be dealt with harshly to discourage others from doing the same, but they, like all of us, are souls in need of divine mercy and I'm glad that I was able to mean it when I prayed for them.

***

I know it's fashionable to criticize capitalists, but there's nothing like having no stores open for two days (and then only a few open for another few days) to give you an appreciation for them. And as for the ones who opened up here before they got generators up and running and had to let only a few customers into their darkened stores at a time and "ring them up" by writing barcodes down on a piece of paper for later entry into their computer systems, it's hard to think it was a purely monetary decision on the part of the managers. I may sound naive, but considering how inconvenient the whole thing was for the stores and how their regular sales were diminished by only being able to allow a few people in at a time, it's hard not to think there was some idea of providing a service behind it.

I know the idea of service inspired the local radio station, which operated for a week without advertisements, just so people could hear local news--things like whether we need to boil water, a local nurse is driving to a dialysis unit north of us and can carry passengers who need dialysis, that sort of thing.

***

MREs are wonderful! I'd only ever heard of them in the context of complaints, but having sampled a couple, I think that either the quality has improved greatly or the complaints were coming from soldiers who got tired of having only MREs for too long. Each MRE has an entree, a snack (such as bread and cheese or peanut butter and crackers), a dessert, an instant drink mix, salt, sugar and creamer if the instant drink was coffee, a tiny container of hot sauce or packet of pepper, two pieces of breath-freshening gum, a high-quality plastic spoon, paper napkins and a moist towelette. The entree is heated in an ingenious little pack, just by adding a tablespoon or two of water to the bag; if your instant drink was a hot drink, you also get a bag for heating the drink. Everything is vacuum-packed in high-quality plastic, and it's lightweight and relatively small in volume. The main bag everything comes in can double as an emergency water carrier. Our military must be the best-fed in history, and as the old saying goes, an army travels on its stomach. Can you imagine how the Roman generals would have loved to have had MREs for their men?

***

There are exceptions, but I usually only go to mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation. During the time since the hurricane, I went to First Friday mass and a couple of daily masses, and it was good to know that, even during a time when everything else is different from your usual life (no traffic lights, for instance) the liturgy is still there, the same.

A New Fantasy Author on My "To Read" List

Ignatius Insight has an interview with Tim Powers:

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tpowers_intvw_sept05.asp

I've heard the name before but never come across any of his books. But his novels sound interesting and one comment of his made me suspect I might like the man:

I was on a panel once in which a woman said, "Dracula is
actually about the plight of 19th-century women," to which I replied, "No,
it’s
about a guy who lives forever by drinking other people’s blood – don’t
take my
word for it, check it out."

Our public library is still closed and its online catalogue is down, but I'll be checking for Powers as soon as I can.

In Memoriam: 9/11/01

Michelle Malkin has, as expected, an excellent collection of links:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003516.htm


And here's a collection of pictures:

http://www.september-11th.us/Archive.html

The Real Lesson

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Hurricane Katrina, most of them related to preparedness, but I think the real lesson is what I found in Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ Friday night:

It is good for us to have sometimes troubles and adversities: for they make
a man enter into himself, that he may know that he is in a state of banishment,
and may not place his hopes in anything of this world.

God gave us the good things of the world to enjoy, but ultimately they're not what we're here for. All of the things we spend our time and energy on--jobs, homes, possessions, hobbies--can all be taken from us in a matter of moments or days. Even our loved ones can be snatched from us, though their immortal souls live on. As the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory realized nearing death, in the end nothing matters but being a saint.

I'm going to try to remember this more often.

I'm Baaaack!

Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie are safe and sound, possessed of home and health (physical anyway), and are currently reveling in the newly acquired presence of things like electric lights, fans, and washing machine. Some men visited our house half an hour ago and restored power. This time last week we were still being told it would be four to six weeks before we got power, but things have been returning to normal pretty quickly; then again, we live near a hospital, so we're among the first to get power.

Three cheers for electricity!

You Just Can't Reason With Hurricane Season

Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie, not to mention a few million others, are in the projected path of Hurricane Katrina, which some say may be worse than Camille. If anyone happens to come across this and can spare a prayer or ten, we'd appreciate it.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, pray for us.

A Moment with Chesterton (Who Was Married)

"...the wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and the princess lived happily ever afterwards: and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other." (G. K. Chesterton)