The Triumph of the Idiot

Thomas Hobbes. (Image source: totallyhistory.com)

The word idiot, I am reliably informed, comes from the ancient Greek ἰδιώτης idiōtēs, via the Latin transliteration idiota. On the face of it, an idiōtēs was merely a private individual, as opposed to a government minister or military officer. However, among the Athenians, it was a derisive term applied to anyone who declined to take an active role in civic affairs, or who cut themselves off from the community in pursuit of their own interests. This pejorative application became associated with a person of low intelligence or skill, who could contribute little to the polis.

Res Idiotica

America is becoming (or has become) a nation of idiots, according to writers and thinkers who deliberately reference this half-forgotten sense of idiōtēs. That’s to say, we are becoming increasingly self-absorbed and disconnected, isolated not only from each other but from any sense of community or history. Their critique of millennials has gone beyond sneering at “snowflakes” and hooting over participation trophies. Instead, their concern is for the disturbing number of twenty-somethings checking out of adult social interaction and the burgeoning industry of “self-care” products.

Writes philosopher Michael Liccione, “It’s as if real relationships and real community engagement are all just too much for many people, who prefer to define and live in their own little worlds, insulated as much as possible from the pain and inconvenience of regular involvement with the big bad world.” Another philosopher, Reilly Smethurst, reminds us that St. Augustine “famously associated idiocy with ostentatious self-authorization. In his Confessions, Augustine referred critically to his younger self as ‘a prisoner, trying to simulate a crippled sort of freedom.’ The specter comforting America is that of the juvenile Augustine — free to enjoy its own vacuity, empowered ironically by crippledom.”

The best use of this equation between self-absorption and idiocy came from Notre Dame professor Patrick J. Deneen’s critique of the education system:

Above all, the one overarching lesson that students receive is to understand themselves to be radically autonomous selves within a comprehensive global system with a common commitment to mutual indifference. Our commitment to mutual indifference is what binds us together as a global people. ... Ancient philosophy and practice heaped praise upon res publica — a devotion to public things, things we share together. We have instead created the world’s first res idiotica .... Our education system excels at producing solipsistic, self-contained selves whose only public commitment is an absence of commitment to a public, a common culture, a shared history.

Welcome to the (Dysfunctional) Catholic Family!

Image source: thecatsdiary.com

So you’ve completed the RCIA program, been confirmed (possibly baptized, if you weren’t before), and have even got your first rosary, bottle of Holy Water, and collection envelopes. Congratulations, and benedicamus Domino! You’ve joined the Catholic Church! Like the song in The Music Man says, “So what the heck, you’re welcome; glad to have you with us, even though we may not ever mention it again.”

It’s theoretically possible that you were comatose for the last twenty years and, like Rip Van Winkle, just woke up before you began the conversion process. Or, you could be young enough to not remember the scandals of the “Long Lent” of 2002 (and haven’t seen Spotlight yet) — was it really that long ago? In any event, I’ll trust you decided that the people of the Church don’t have to be perfect in order for the Church to teach the fullness of Christ’s truth. Many former Protestants and non-Christians convinced themselves of the truth of the Church’s doctrines, through self-directed study, even before they registered for the classes.

If we were perfect, we wouldn’t need the Church to begin with. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ... I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13).

Book Review: Billy Joel biography “a hyperextended Rolling Stone article”

In my younger days, Billy Joel was one of those performers whose music you either loved or hated, mostly depending on your tribal affiliations, your musical expectations, and the depth of your musical exposure. Put simply as possible, if you were really only familiar with the cuts that made it to the Top 40 rotation, or were suspicious of anything the sweaty masses liked, or expected your music to defy musical conventions, or any combination of the three, you most likely hated him.

... At least until you lost some of your snobbish pretentiousness, became more familiar with his catalogue, and grew more appreciative of his craftsmanship.

Going to one of his shows would most likely shift you off your base. By the 1980s, Joel was already acknowledged an electric performer who could pump up the audience with his energy and showmanship. Now in his mid-sixties, Joel may not be able to do back-flips off a Steinway, and may be a little more careful about crowd-surfing or climbing the lighting gantries … but he can still rock the house down to the ground, bringing a fan base that now spans two generations jumping and screaming to their feet.

In a sense, then, how you appreciate Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography, by Fred Schruers (New York: Crown Archetype, 2014; $29.00), depends on your expectations of biography. If all you’re looking for is a recital of some facts of Joel’s life, his interpretation of those facts from his perspective in 2014, and some relation of his music’s lyrics to various events (particularly his failed romantic and business entanglements), Schruer’s work will suffice. If, however, you expect biography to expose the development of the subject’s character and craft, on that level Billy Joel fails; it’s little more than a hyperextended Rolling Stone article.

How I Work

So Thomas L. McDonald, the tech-and-history guru of God and the Machine, decided to post a couple of series based on Lifehacker's "How I Work", the other one being "How I Pray", featuring other bloggers. After posting his most recent (as of this writing), featuring The Curt Jester's Jeff Miller, Tom foolishly extended an invitiation to his Facebook blogger friends to write "How I Work" posts

How could I pass up an opportunity to engage in shameless self-promotion? (Except self-promotion isn't one of my strengths; I tend to overdo the false humility.)

*     *     *

Location: Denton, Texas

Current Gig:

Managing editor, Catholic Stand. Oh — you mean paying gig? None at this writing.

One word that best describes how you work:

Squirrel!

Current mobile device:

HTC EVO 4G Android phone; MID M729B Android tablet.

Current computer:

Compaq CQ5600Y with AMD Athlon II 2.0 GHz processor, 2 GB memory (practically brain-dead by today's standards), 500 GB hard drive, Windows 7 OS; Compaq S2022 series LCD monitor.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without? Why?

Microsoft Office, specifically MS Word, MS Excel, and MS Outlook; Faith Database; Photoshop and Photoscape in tandem; browser.

Microsoft Office: Besides my personal use, they're the office apps I encounter most frequently when I do work. Since I'm not a hard-core user, I don't do a lot of shopping around or experimenting unless I'm forced to (as I have been recently with browsers). I'm almost expert level with MS Word; MS Excel gives me pretty much all my spreadsheet and database needs; and MS Outlook does alright as an organizer/email tool. I picked up OpenOffice some time ago, but haven't gotten around to playing with it.

One hundred eighty seconds

° 2001 United Press Syndicate.

I’d seen the interview scenario before: Two team leaders, neither of whom had the power to hire me, asking boilerplate questions that the real decision-maker would use to determine whether I would have a future with the company. This pair were almost twins, nearly identical down to facial features, except that one positively brightened in response to my warmth and self-effacing humor, while the other remained determinedly serious.

Smileyface asked the question I dread at these kinds of interviews: “What would your supervisors say are your greatest strength and greatest weakness?”

“Well,” I replied cautiously, “my greatest strength is my ability to build relationships with customers. The downside of my approach, however, is that it’s a little more time-intensive.”

Frowneyface, who had been silent up to that point, pounced. “Oh, you take too long?”

This is precisely why I dread that question. On the one hand, I’ve never felt comfortable shading the truth, let alone outright lying. Generally, people have a right to hear the truth and an obligation to tell the truth, leaving aside extreme cases and questions of national security. On the other hand, this interview setup is designed to find reasons to not hire candidates, and I’d just given one to Frowneyface.

To an accountant, the customer service department is an expense; to maximize efficiency, the cost per hour of a phone line must be divided out by as many calls as possible. The word queue is used very much in the British sense: behind the customer you’re talking to, other customers are tapping their feet, impatiently waiting to be served.

One hundred eighty seconds. Or less … preferably much less. That’s the average time you’re given to verify the customer, dope out the issue, resolve it, and get him/her off your line.

The broken gate

There’s kind of a time warp in Facebook Land. On any given day, this strange phenomenon can cough up posts, videos and memes originally uploaded as long as seven or eight years ago. In Facebook Land, the Chuck-Norris-is-tough meme can never truly die.

Thus it was that I didn’t see the RantLifestyle article by Michael Peckerar, “The Girls You Marry vs. the Girls You Hook Up With”, until almost a month had passed since it was published. And not until I read Peckerar’s article did I know about the RantChic article by Regina Phalange, “Men You Marry vs. Men You Bang” to which Peckerar’s article is either a complement or a response. When a man uses an obscenity to describe sex, he’s crude and boorish; when a woman does so, she’s edgy and tough.

I played around with both articles on Monday, hoping to extend them into a commentary on role expectations and the standards of a good spouse. One thing I'd noticed was that, despite the provocative title of her piece, at only one point does Phalange suggest that a man from what we could call the “reject pile” might be good for a one-nighter or “friendship with benefits”; in the other seven categories, we’re almost forced to wonder why any woman would consider sleeping with such a loser, let alone marrying him. By contrast, on several points Peckerar leaves us no doubt that there are women a straight man should want to sleep with ... but not necessarily espouse.

The passion of Dan Grieco

SK Daniel J. Grieco: Beloved husband, father,
friend and brother Knight.

Dan Grieco (1948 – 2013) was in many ways the man I want to be when I grow up.

Dan was one of the first people I met when my brother Bob and I joined our parish’s Knights of Columbus council in 2007. If you met him only once, you might just write him off as a “nice guy”. As you got to know him, however, you learned just how shallow such an assessment could be.

Dan was singularly passionate about everything, from the Church and the pro-life movement to hardwood floors. Whatever he was doing, he was excited about it, and he did his level best to get you excited about it too. Commitment was not a dirty word to Dan; it was almost his motto. If there was a project, he would be the first person to arrive — ready to work — and the last person to leave.

So far as Dan was “nice”, it wasn’t just a general air of bonhomie: he took avid interest in other people’s lives, was warm, engaging and funny, and had no hesitation about telling other people — even other men — “I love you”. If you were in the hospital, you could pretty much count on a visit from Dan. His love for his wife and children was boundless, a shining constant in his life.

But the reason I write of Dan here is because that same vital combination of passion and commitment showed through in his religiosity. Dan’s love of God and the Church was just as fierce, devoted and fully committed as his love for his family and friends. You could almost use the word zealous, except that the idea of zealotry has been spoiled by violent nutjobs; Dan was disgustingly sane. Of all the people I’ve known, he was the best at “walking the talk”.

The war to end all wars

Western front, 1915-1916. (Source: U.S. Military Academy.)

Over on The American Catholic, DarwinCatholic has posted an interesting article on an ongoing reassessment of World War I. The American Catholic has a lot of posts on American history that don’t even begin to reference Christ, the Church or anything specifically Catholic, so I don’t feel so bad about calling this blog a Catholic blog.

The main thrust of Darwin’s post is that post-war revisionism struck early and hard. Most of us who learned anything about the war in school learned that it was a horrendous waste of life, as idiot generals and field marshals hurled frontal attack after useless frontal attack in an obscene homage to Napoleon’s tactics; why, such attacks had become outdated by the end of the American Civil War!

Of course, now that I read this, I realize that the Civil War never dealt with front lines that extend hundreds of miles; with one end fused to the English Channel and the other to the Swiss Alps, the Western front didn’t permit flanking attacks. Just the sheer number of soldiers by itself changed the way the war had to be fought.

The generals of the war, Darwin points out, knew very well Napoleonic tactics wouldn’t work. The problem was finding something that would work. Both sides were fairly evenly matched for inventiveness; as soon as one side found a possible solution, the other side would develop a counter. For instance, gas worked for the Germans only until the French and English started producing their own gas masks. The art of war had to be not just changed but reinvented altogether.

But did the war have to be fought at all?

Healthcare’s rape of the American wallet

Imagine:  You’re in a small town miles from anywhere when your car breaks down. There’s only one repair shop. Your repair bill includes three diagnostics — one at the beginning, a second to make sure the first one was right, and a third after the repair in case the mechanic replaced the wrong part — plus charges for the mechanic’s overalls, grease rags and each tool used to fix it. The part he replaces, which you could buy at Pep Boys for $49.95, is billed at $495 plus separate charges for each bushing and bolt that came in the box with it. The labor includes a second charge for the coworker who looked at the engine briefly while the mechanic was in the loo. And there’s a separate charge for the repair shop itself. Thank God you didn’t drink any coffee while you were there.

This is just a taste of what hospital billing is like.

David Catron chortles in The American Spectator over the success of Circle Holdings in turning around Hinchingbrooke Hospital, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, the poster child for everything people say is wrong with Britain’s National Health System and socialized medicine in general. “This is the first time such a company has been given control of an NHS hospital and the results will not come as a surprise to anyone who understands free enterprise.”

It will also come as no surprise to those who believe the market provides the most efficient health care delivery model that, in addition to dramatically improving the financial prospects, privatization has improved patient satisfaction. Before Hinchingbrooke was taken over by Circle Holdings, patients had a very low opinion of the hospital and the care it provided. Now, this perception is dramatically improved: “Patient satisfaction has risen to 85 per cent, placing Hinchingbrooke in the top six of the East of England’s 46 hospitals.”

The hollow men

In Book 3 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we find a version of the story of Narcissus. Son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, Narcissus was stunningly handsome but haughty, breaking the hearts of many women by refusing them his attention, including the unfortunate Echo. In Conon’s Narrations, the unrequited lovers are all males, one of whom commits suicide on Narcissus’ doorstep. In both, at least one such heartbroken person utters the wish that Narcissus learn the pain he has inflicted on others … a wish Nemesis hears and grants.

So one day, while Narcissus is out hunting, Nemesis leads him to a pool of particular clarity and reflectivity. Stooping to get himself a drink, Narcissus sees his own reflection and falls desperately in love with himself. Ovid portrays him as initially deceived into thinking the reflection is of someone else; nevertheless, eventually, he learns the truth, yet can’t stop gazing at his mirror image. Eventually, he either wasted away or committed suicide; not much to choose between the two.

There is another story about Narcissus [writes Pausanias in the second century], less popular indeed than the other, but not without some support. It is said that Narcissus had a twin sister; they were exactly alike in appearance, their hair was the same, they wore similar clothes, and went hunting together. The story goes on that Narcissus fell in love with his sister, and when the girl died, would go to the spring, knowing that it was his reflection that he saw, but in spite of this knowledge finding some relief for his love in imagining that he saw, not his own reflection, but the likeness of his sister.[1]

The myth-takes of myth-busters

Maggie Fox of NBC News writes about a group of researchers who published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine exposing seven myths about diet and exercise.  The researchers, Fox says, “don’t want people to stop trying [to lose weight], but they do fear there are some misguided policies out there.”

The first myth the group attacks, one promoted by government agencies, diet books and the web, is that doing a little something every day will add up to pounds lost over the years.  It doesn’t take into account laws of physics and biology, the researchers argue.

It’s the idea that if someone burns even 100 extra calories a day, he or she will lose a pound every 35 days.  This is what the researchers call the 3,500 calorie myth — that burning 3,500 calories burns off a pound for everyone, every time.  Over five years that person should lose 50 pounds, but studies have shown the true weight loss over five years is 10 pounds.

“What it doesn’t take into account is that as I lose weight, I get smaller and it takes less energy to push my mass through space,” Allison says.  In other words, the body will compensate.

 Here we have a serious disconnect between the “myth” that (according to Fox) the researchers supposedly busted and the explanation for its presumed falseness.  It’s not the only counterargument that sounds iffy; a couple of other “myth-busting” explanations give you the impression that the researchers were either attacking straw men or just missing the point.

As the “myth” is stated above, a person at weight w performs activity a, which burns 100 calories, once a day every day should lose 1 pound every 35 days, because it takes 3,500 calories of energy to burn 1 pound of adipose tissue.  Allison’s counter-argument is that, when the person drops to 0.8w, activity a only burns (say) 95 calories rather than 100, because “it takes less energy to push … mass through space”.

How soon we forget

French military cemetery at Douaumont (via Wikimedia).

I’ve already passed along this story on The ImpracticalCatholic.  But there’s another topic it fits, and “waste not, want not”:

The British Airways flight had just landed at Orly[1] and pulled up to the terminal.  Amidst the usual arrival bustle, an aged British gentleman was searching his carry-on bag for his passport.

A fellow passenger, a stern French woman, noticed his search, and asked, “Have you been to France before?”

The man, still searching, quietly replied, “I have.”

“Well, then,” the woman sniffed with stereotypical Gallic hauteur, “you should know to have your passport out and waiting, sir.”

“The last time I was here,” the Brit shrugged, “I didn't have to show my passport.”

“Impossible!” the woman snapped.  “You British have always had to show your passports to come in to France!”

Whereupon the Englishman stopped his search, stepped close to the lady, and whispered to her, “Well, when I landed on the beach in Normandy in June of 1944, I couldn’t find any f***ing Frenchman to show it to!”

Richard Collins of Linen on the Hedgerow said I’d “lightened Remembrance Sunday” for him.  For my American readers, Remembrance Sunday, observed the second Sunday of November, is in some ways a more solemn event than our Veteran’s Day.  Throughout the United Kingdom red poppies, in wreaths and baskets and single flowers, decorate every monument and marker raised to those who died in the two great world wars (and by extension all who died for King/Queen and Country).  The red poppy recalls the poem “In Flanders Field” by Col. John McCrae.

Lady Godiva rides again

©2012 Battling BARE

Broken by battle

Wounded by war

My love is forever

To you this I swore

I will quiet your silent screams

Help heal your shattered soul

Until once again, my love

You are whole

This is the poem written on Ashley Wise’s back (see photo left).  It’s also the message written on the skin of every woman who participates in Battling BARE.

Battling BARE is the brainchild of Wise, whose husband Rob, an NCO (non-commissioned officer) of the 101st Airborne Division, suffered/still suffers(?) from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  “At the point in which the idea for our first BB pic came,” Wise writes on the group’s website, “soldier suicide was a weekly occurrence—a friend’s husband had actually just ended his own life a few weeks before, my husband had hit a wall after hearing about his former platoon mate snapping in Afghanistan …, a few weeks later he lost one of his own soldiers from overdose.”

Things came to a head when Sgt. Wise locked himself in a hotel room with a few weapons.  Ashley tried to get help from the Army’s Family Advocacy Program, but “In my instance, … words and intents were twisted,” and Sgt. Wise was jailed and charged with domestic assault, which could have led to a dishonorable discharge and the end of his career.  As she told Business Insider’s Robert Johnson, the Army was “preparing to make her and Rob the ‘civilian sector’s problem.’”  (Sergeant Wise now works with Ft. Campbell’s Warrior Transition Battalion as a staff member.)

Torn between the temptation to give up on her marriage and the obsession to get back the man she’d married, Ashley was briefly tempted to “streak” the Screaming Eagles’ command building to get the division commander’s attention.  Instead, she had the above picture taken, created a Facebook page, and got more of her friends at Ft. Campbell to join her quest.

The page went viral almost overnight.

The futility of minimal goodness

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

—Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, Part 6, Chap. 3

Yesterday, of course, was the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle B).  The theme running through the readings was of strife, envy and jealousy; the only counter to these problems is to humble oneself and become a servant to those whom one wishes to rule.

However — and this might be grounds for censure — the selected Gospel text (Mk 9:30-37) isn’t the one that occupied my attention at Mass.  Rather, another one floated into mind, a text that has had a lot of personal meaning:

[The Lord said,] “Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at table’?  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink’?  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’” (Lk 17:7-10).

It’s worth noting that the Greek word translated in most versions as “servant”, doulos, has the primary meaning “slave”.  In fact, that’s how the New American Bible had it translated when it was originally published.  It was re-translated back to “servant” with the 1986 revision, which is a pity; translating doulos as “slave” brings a lot more to the theological party.[*]

“We are worse than useless slaves, for we have done no more than what was required of us.”  That’s how it went, if my memory doesn’t play me false.  Doing the bare minimum is not a guarantee of a passing grade.

Or, at least, that was the initial impression.

The road not taken

This morning I saw a Facebook post from my good friend StacyTrasancos:

Judging from the scene in my kitchen this morning, you’d never believe I used to dress in smart business clothes, march through labs where people did exactly what I told them to do, and sit in a quiet and tidy office solving complex problems.  Motherhood can be overwhelming — and sticky — at times.  Sigh.

I could just picture her in sweats, her hair put up carelessly with a comb and two or three pins, trying to exercise some calm and pull order out of chaos as five children noisily and messily ate their breakfasts, perhaps while swabbing up some spilled milk and scooping some free-range Cap’n Crunch off the counter.

But I can also picture the smile she had when she posted that thought.  This is the kind of moment Stacy will reflect upon as her children cross stages to receive diplomas, as they step nervously up church aisles to be wedded, as they themselves try to wrestle some kind of calm out of their own kids’ anarchy while Grandma looks on fondly.  And Time will embroider the scene in threads of gold and silver for her to carry through the rest of her days.

And so I couldn’t help but remember the final stanza of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.[1]

The Church of Feliks Dzerzhinsky

The Cheshire Patriarch disappeared, leaving only the watch visible.

As part of the MSM’s usual Holy Week anti-Christian push, Hell’s Bible (aka the New York Times) ran a piece on Holy Thursday about the case of the Patriarch and the Disappearing Watch.

For years, according to writer Michael Schwirtz, critics of Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) have known about a Breguet wristwatch he occasionally wears that’s worth a cool $30,000.  It’s the only substantive evidence shown to prove that Kirill is wealthier than a churchman presumably dedicated to poverty ought to be:

Russian bloggers have published rumors that the patriarch has a large country house, a private yacht and a penchant for ski vacations in Switzerland, though none of this has been proved.

The watch, on the other hand, has been an object of fascination for years, and there is little question of its existence.  It was first sighted on the patriarch’s wrist in 2009 during a visit to Ukraine, where he gave a televised interview on the importance of asceticism [That, ladies and gentlemen, is irony].

The watch is merely a hook on which Schwirtz hangs a Church in Decline story.  The watch had been airbrushed out of a photo on the ROC website.  Schwirtz writes, “The controversy, which erupted Wednesday when attentive Russian bloggers discovered the airbrushing, further stoked anger over the church’s often lavish displays of wealth and power.  It also struck yet another blow to the moral authority of Russian officialdom, which has been dwindling rapidly in light of recent scandals involving police abuse, electoral fraud and corruption.”

Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

"Remember, Man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Such are the familiar words of the ceremony, as the priest or deacon traces the ashes on the faithfuls' foreheads.  Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem revertis. "Remember that you are mortal," the slave used to whisper in the ear of the triumphator even as he was hailed as a god by the Roman crowds for his victories.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.

Even today, there are those who seek to deny this fundamental truth of human existence.  The alchemists and sorcerers now wear lab coats, the philosopher's stones replaced by centrifuges and smoking draughts replaced by enzymes.  And yet it's the same misdirected imperative — the desire to live longer rather than live better.

You like me! You really like me!

I've heard of chain letters ... but chain awards?

No worries.  The Liebster Blog (Liebster = Ger. "dear, darling") is really a good way to get people to follow some of the more obscure blogs in the Catholic blogosphere.  You can either follow forward and read the wonderful blogs I've picked — the trick was whittling them down to five — or follow backwards to see who picked me (Subvet from Blowing San #1), and who picked them, and so on and so forth.  Either way, you're bound to find some good new writers.

Here are the rules: 

1. Copy and paste the Major Award to my blog.
2. Link back the person who gave me the award.
3. Pick out five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

And my five picks?  Hmmmmmmm ....

• Linen on the Hedgerow: Just barely qualified with 181 followers, Richard Collins helps keep me up to speed with what's happening in the Catholic Church in England (as opposed to the Church of England — all that's happening there is a falling into a genteel desuetude).  Great fun, a ripping good read, with all the dry, understated humor you'd expect from an Englishman of some education.
• not a minx, a moron, or a parasite: Pretty, witty and wise beyond her years, Trista Leigh is one of the Bright Maidens whose praises I sing as "what feminism should have produced but couldn't".  For a good sample of her writing, try the first one I read: "Wearing Crucifixes and Condoms".
• St. Joseph's Vanguard:  The home of Catholic Answers apologist and author Devin Rose.  His book If Protestantism is True (which I reviewed on The Impractical Catholic) has 327 "likes" on Facebook — far too few for such a great apologetics tool — but his blog has a mere 57 followers.  A really nice guy who writes with great intelligence and charity.  Go read him and bulk up that number.
• The Corner with a View: Julie Robison is another of the Bright Maidens ... attractive, intelligent and confident.  Most of her posts have great extracts from great literature and poetry, wonderful passages from saints, mystics and popes, but occasionally doing the pop references (like this great quote from Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame).  Go have your mind enriched.
• Catholic Boy Richard:  I just discovered Richard a couple of months ago.  A former Protestant minister who was involved in LGBT causes, he writes with great charity and enthusiasm ... a truly pleasant change from all the bitter, sarcastic and angry blogs that (as Simcha Fisher once said) "always make me want to hide in the catacombs, to get away from those awful Catholics.  Brrr."
• HONORABLE MENTION — Kissing the Leper: You read Elise Hilton's blog and you'll see why I couldn't find it in my heart to leave her out.

So many other people I wish I could have listed but: 1) they have too many followers; or 2) I couldn't verify the number; or 3) he already nominated me, so nominating him back would defeat the purpose; or 4) their writing has been sporadic due to other obligations (the other Bright Maiden, Elizabeth Hillgrove at Startling the Day, and my friend Rob Hall's Road to Rome).

So what are you doing still here? Go read these great writers and spread their names around!

Links, citations and the pro-life story

I recently made the mistake of trying to slap down a troll.  You know the type I’m talking about — the one who tries to pass off insults as arguments, then puts on the air of superior reasoning when called on it.  Let’s call him “Gorbag”.  Granted, it’s the name of an orc, not a troll, but it’ll do.

In one of his patronizing replies to my demand that he apologize for his snot-fest, Gorbag sniffed, “If [third person] wants to use actual quantifiable claims to back up her stories, then she needs to back up her numbers: ‘Porn addictions are now implicated in over 50% of divorces.’ — that’s a lot of implications, so a source should be cited, otherwise it comes across as a fabricated truth — something that religious types like to toss around all the time as ‘fact’.”

Okay, granted that Gorbag is guilty of a gross generalization that he himself won’t back up.  As I’ve said before, hypocrisy is by no means limited to us “religious types”.  I remember reading a claim in an extract from the late Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great that “most Christians are hypocrites”, and thinking, “Gee, for a guy who worships the Golden Calf of Scientism, he has a distinct aversion to backing up such a claim with scientific data.”

However, once you clear away the arrogance and anti-Christian bigotry, Gorbag does have a point.  Many people who write blogs don’t come from backgrounds where sourcing one’s claims is necessary.  And while many if not most writers are good about linking back to story sources, backing data — not so much.  In debate terms, we’re the ones indicting the present system; therefore, we bear the burden of proof.

Paving the road to an authoritarian government

Doubtless you’ve already read two or three posts from other people explaining why the House of Representatives’ proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)[*] is such a horrendously bad piece of legislation.  Jeffrey Tucker has a quick piece on The Chant Café which tries to explain how SOPA’s passage would affect the emergent renaissance of sacred music. 

There are several major concerns with SOPA’s current language.  The most disturbing of these is its placement of primary responsibility for enforcement, along with burden of proof, on host websites for policing not only themselves but sites to which they link for potential copyright infringement.  “A provision in the bill states that any site would be blocked that ‘is taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation.’[†] Critics have read this to mean that a site must actively monitor its content and identify violations to avoid blocking, rather than relying on others to notify it of such violations.”[1]