TribalPundit

DNC Thoughts: First Night

2008-08-25T22:55:00.002-04:00

I came away with a mixed view. Rather than try to build up to a conclusion, I'll just spit it out: she comes across as a tone-deaf, wide-eyed zealot. She's got a compelling story, she's cute, and she obviously loves her family very much, but it comes across as blithe. It was like watching slightly shy, earnest girl who's bright...but has been told that she's brighter than she is and has bought into it. Her line about Hillary Clinton delivering 18 million cracks to a glass ceiling was a little poetic, but it prompts the question: "What was it that prevented that ceiling from breaking?" The messianic language about how Barack doesn't care where you're from and so on continues to creep me out as being cult-like.

However, CNN loved it. Of course, they should: they had a hungry, murderous look in their eyes at the dullness of the night and were almost snarling as they cut away from the uber-boring former Representative from Iowa. Jesse Jackson, jr. doesn't have the same rhetorical skill as his father and comes across as a zealot (again, complete with messianic language).

The Ted Kennedy this was interesting, but I've got the sneaking suspicion that I got had. From the build-up, it sounded as though he was almost dead and I'll confess that I half-expected him to keel over in what would instantly become the most dramatic thing to ever happen at any convention. Instead, after a stilted speech by Caroline Kennedy, we got a Ted Kennedy who seemed to be, other than a little slow, in decent shape. It's possible that this was just a truly amazing event, but I just feel as though I got suckered by lowered expectations.

What I want to know, though, is this: is the praise of Barack Obama by senior Democrats, saying that he's revived their faith and hope and given them a role model, just talk or have they really drunk the Kool-Aid?

Brilliant Idea of the Day

2008-08-04T16:29:00.003-04:00

You know those islands off the coast of Cornwall? They probably don't have a Chinese restaurant, and if there's anything tourists love, it's Chinese food. Why not open one and call it the Ministry of Scilly Woks?

Election 2008

2008-07-03T12:45:00.005-04:00

I have to admit that one reason I haven't been blogging much is because of how simply appalled I've been at the Obama campaign. A lot of what I'd have to say simply isn't printable in polite society.

Very short version: Obama is a lying, duplicitous, corrupt, naive spoiled brat of a promoted-above-his-competency politician who has the character and judgement of Gollum.
I've got more than a few disagreements with McCain, but his service record is sterling. I won't even repeat some of the despicable rumors out there, some of which are so outrageously offensive that I wanted to reach through my computer and punch someone on behalf of all those who've served, and even died for, our country and for other people.

I have the feeling that we're about to have a "national discussion" that's not going to be like the one Obama thinks we should have (and that he would moderate/dictate). There's a lot of simmering resentment out there that's ready to boil, and it's not at Bush.

As for me, I'm going off to England for a few weeks for a summer law program with the University of Richmond. I'm really, really, really looking forward to it. Perhaps my blood pressure will drop a little by then and I'll have had a chance to have done some pleasure reading and can make intelligent contributions again (yes, I said "again").

It's Important To Think When You're Being Mindless

2008-06-27T12:09:00.002-04:00

Otherwise you wind up like me, steeped in the study of history that I am, walking from work to my apartment today, whistling a stirring anthem. I was like "Hey, this is catchy; I wonder what it is?" until I realized that it was the Horst Wessel Song.

Actually, it's probably more the Wolfenstein 3D and Indiana Jones movies that embedded it in my head, but still, you have to admit that it's stirring. Evil, but stirring.

Because the Pun Is Strong In This One...

2008-06-27T12:08:00.001-04:00

...I direct your attention to Heller Kitty.

Quote Help?

2008-06-20T10:37:00.002-04:00

I've got a partial recollection of a quote that's been in my head, but apparently I can't remember it well enough for Google to find it. I'm pretty sure it's from a movie, and was said in an accent similar to Peter O'Toole's. Essentially, it's something like "He walks like a man who carries his importance as though he were afraid of breaking it." That's only the gist, and while I'm 100% sure of the "afraid of breaking it" part, I'm only 75% sure that the subject was "his importance" and not all that sure of the rest of it.

It's possible that I read this in Lewis or Chesterton, but I'm pretty sure it's from a movie. Perhaps it was Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons? Has anyone heard this before?

NObama

2008-06-09T09:13:00.001-04:00

Guess what sticker's going on my car?

(created by Tamara

The Answer Is "Yes"

2008-06-04T10:52:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm honored.

I've been mostly lurking among blogs lately, with the occasional comment here and there. I'd like to finish The Brothers Karamazov, That Hideous Strength, and several books on Church history before blogging again; hopefully those will recharge my brain. At this point, writer's block is so bad that I can't even come up with clever AIM away messages!

Recharging

2008-05-07T22:03:00.003-04:00

My brain is empty, I'm out of shape, and I'm way behind on my reading. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there, but at the moment I don't have anything intelligent to add (as for prior moments, I plead the fifth).

Show Goes On As Scripted

2008-04-29T16:27:00.002-04:00

So Barack Obama is "outraged" by the comments his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, made recently? Big surprise. Obama clearly can't disavow what Wright said while Obama was sitting in the pews (although he can claim not to have been there), but he can say "This is too far" now that Wright has retired. It gives Obama his Sister Soujah moment. I have a hard time believing that Jackson, Sharpton, and so on are truly against him; I think they're trying to show that Obama's not [just] a candidate for black racists.

I really wish the Democrats would put up a non-scumbag one of these days; by my recollection the last one they nominated was Michael Dukakis.

Not What It Looks Like

2008-04-26T02:50:00.003-04:00

Check this out. (Seemingly disturbing, but not actually so.)

(via commenter "Hollowpoint" at Ace's (language warning))

Why Not Tibet?

2008-04-22T23:57:00.002-04:00

Ben Domenech recently posted about China's crackdown on Tibet and wants to know why conservatives have essentially ignored the issue. It's true, he points out, that this is normally seen as a left-liberal issue, but he can't find any sort of ideological reason for the political right to be silent (although a few voices here and there are found).

He's right, of course: this is a case like Sudan, where the human rights of a religious and ethnic minority are very clearly being violated by a repressive regime. He doesn't mention it in his post, but similar persecution occurs regarding Christians (including forced "ordinations" of Catholic "bishops") and the Muslim Uighur population in western China, plus the Falun Gong which everyone's heard about.

I'm going to say that the reasons are practical, rather than political (don't think I'm criticizing Ben: he's a smart cookie and knows that this is the reason). It's practical out of both political necessity and out of human nature.

On the one hand, America has a lot on its plate. We've got uncontrolled immigration from Mexico on our southern border, a War on Terror going on, tinpot dictators in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran threatening to overthrow the Great Satan and install either a Worker's Paradise or Sharia law and dhimmitude, a weakened dollar, a huge national deficit, a trade imbalance, and...well, you can probably add another half-dozen things off the top of your head. China isn't an immediate threat to us and doesn't appear to be on the verge of invading (or re-invading...) Taiwan, Vietnam, Siberia, or the Korean peninsula. We've got bigger fish to fry, politically speaking. We're saying "nice doggy" right now because our stick is otherwise engaged: we only barely managed to attack Iraq while still officially at war with it and couldn't even muster any sort of will to stop the genocide in Darfur. What does anyone expect our government to do versus a country with about a fifth of the world's population and who is a huge trading partner of ours?

Yes, the idealists would say that we should declare an official boycott, not to mention skipping out on the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. I wish we could, but with all that's going on we don't need the a billion screaming Chinese ticked off at us as well. They know that they can physically appropriate any of the countries/regions around them if they put their mind to it and we're in no position to expel or even stop them short of maybe South Korea.

This gets us to both the solution and the second part of the problem. The solution is for we as ordinary Americans to declare an unofficial boycott of Chinese products. I already do this, wavering between an outright ban and only buying things Made in China if I can't find an alternative. The problem is that human nature, especially among Americans, has a hard time staying focused on a distant, foreign threat for too long. The girl in your class you want to ask out is of very high importance to us, but the possibility that the slippers you're wearing might have been made by the slave labor of pro-democracy protesters isn't very high in people's minds. An awareness campaign might help, but who would do it? Social-issues groups are focused on domestic matters. Among those more economically minded there's a Catch-22: China is "Communist" so the political left supports them, but they also make production less costly so the political right doesn't want to spoil a good thing, either.

What's needed is for everyday people to demand that their things be made elsewhere. This is going to be tough: you can probably find a reason not to buy from just about anyone if you search hard enough. However, it's not impossible. Most of the rest Asia and Central America have manufacturing capacity (not to mention, you know, ourselves...). If everyone, for instance, who bought a hammer decided to get the one made in Taiwan or the Philippines instead of the one made in China and left a comment card saying why they did so, you'd see store managers factor this into their decision-making.

It's not that easy, though: some things only seem to be made in China these days (sandals and dumbbells come to mind from my own experience), while things sold online rarely list the country of origin unless it's Made in the USA. You can't really expect people to call a fistfull of companies every time they want to buy a new vacuum cleaner or toilet plunger (besides, if you need a toilet plunger and the grocery store only has ones made in China...well, you've got yourself a dilemma, haven't you?). Chinese stuff is also inexpensive, and that's an important factor as well.

I had an idea to start a website where people could check where the products they want are made. Contributors would take it on themselves to cover a niche and report back; I did this before buying my laptop and discovered that only Dell and Fujitsu make their computers in places other than in China (although being Taiwanese companies, I suspect Asus and Acer do so as well). This is obviously easier for things like appliances and harder for toilet plungers and dental floss (although given recent events I wouldn't dare put anything made in China into my mouth).

In short, there's just no real support for the matter because it's out of sight and would involve an awful lot of effort to remedy. If we can help lay a foundation, it might give an exposure effort more traction. Taking on all of China is political suicide, but forcing a chain like Target or a brand like Sony to certify their products as "Human Rights Safe" would be helpful. If people can shop for "organic" food and "fair-trade" coffee then they have the will to do this as well.

There are some problems with this idea, it should be pointed out. The biggest is that if done wrong it could be like the radical Abolitionists who were a major factor for the sparking of the Civil War; this needs to be not only a peaceful protest but one with a reasonable scope of action. We're not going to solve this in a year or even probably a decade.

What do you think?

Amazon Humor

2008-04-22T21:59:00.000-04:00

Point/Counterpoint.

That said, I'm fascinated and entranced by my Leatherman Micra. Now I just need to find a use for it...

Amen

2008-04-22T19:07:00.002-04:00

May America be blessed as Italy is, and may both nations be further blessed by similarly-principled physicians.

Upgrading from Vista to XP

2008-04-20T02:38:00.002-04:00

Well, I was going to, but apparently you can only do that if you have Windows Professional and I have Windows Home. Tragic.

I've got 2GB of RAM in this computer and despite this my programs are getting sketchier and sketchier in their execution by the day. Half-Life 2 is choppy on even the lowest settings; this is odd in that it's a 2004 game that even my old laptop could handle without fuss.

My guess is that this stems from one of the updates that Windows Updater seems unable to install. Update KB938194 failed to install last August and things have been getting weirder and weirder since then. Of course, with finals coming up, I'm not willing to mess around too much, as several of my friends have lost all their notes and course outlines lately and I'm in no mood to have the same happen to me.

Microsoft: You're 0-for-2 lately. You'd better pick up your game or I'm off for the world of Open Source.

The TribalPundit Guide to Wine, Women, and Song: Classical Music: Byrd's Infelix Ego

2008-04-20T00:53:00.005-04:00

I'd like to recommend to you the piece "Infelix ego" by William Byrd, especially as sung by Oxford Camerata (yes, it's the album I recommended in the post below this).

William Byrd was one of the foremost composers of Renaissance sacred music. Byrd and his mentor, Thomas Tallis, are notable not merely in that they are the two foremost English composers in the Renaissance style, but that they composed sacred music during the English Reformation and managed to stay on the good side of the Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants. Which group Tallis agreed with seems to be hard to pin down, but Byrd was emphatically a Catholic (in his Mass for Three Voices, he has all of the voices normally doing their own thing come together for the word "catholicam" in the Credo and the again drifting apart). The view at the time was that musicians were no threat to the social harmony and so Byrd was tolerated.

"Infelix ego" is a meditation on Psalm 51 written by Girolamo Savonarola, a zealous and strict Dominican friar who became ruler of Florence from 1494-1498 before being excommunicated and deposed. He was tortured into signing confessions of heresy and other crimes; it was in remorse for this that he composed "Infelix ego," which means "Unhappy [wretch] [that] I am." This writing was one of the handful of Savonarola's works which escaped being put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum and was set by many composers, especially in England. I couldn't find the Latin words online (here's the English translation), so I copied them down from the booklet accompanying another album with a different version (I'm going to go out on a limb and say that whatever claims to copyright may have ever existed are long gone by now).

Infelix ego, omnium auxilio destitutus, qui coelum terramque offendi. Quo ibo? Quo me vertam? Ad quem confugiam? Quis mei miserabitur? Ad coelum levare oculos non audeo, quia ei graviter peccavi. In terra refugium non invenio, quia ei scandalum fui.

Quid igitur faciam? Desperabo? Absit. Misericors est Deus, pius est salvator meus. Solus igitur Deus refugium meum: ipse non despiciet opus suum, non repellet imaginem suam.

Ad te igitur, piisime Deus, tristis ac moerens venio, quoniam tu solus spes mea, tu solus refugium meum. Quid autem dicam tibi? Cum oculos levare non audeo, verba doloris effundam, misericordiam tuam implorabo, et dicam: Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

Find and listen to the version by Oxford Camerata. I've heard the version by Stilo Antico, and while it's good, there's an important difference between the two. To me, Stilo Antico's version is a little more down-to-earth: it's slower, and the climax of the song is done less hauntingly. In the Oxford Camerata version, the climax occurs with "Miserere mei, Deus" at 11:42, but please trust me when I tell you not to go there immediately. That climax is one of the most beautiful moments in all of music; I had the album playing in the background as I was working and when it happened I was just frozen and transfixed by it. You need to listen to the piece as a whole to get the most of it, though.

I downloaded it from eMusic, but Napster and iTunes have it as well. Remember that it's the version by Jeremy Summerly & Oxford Camerata, and that it's by Byrd, not Lassus.

Zuned Out

2008-04-20T00:22:00.004-04:00

You know, I was prepared to get a Microsoft Zune 8GB and like the heck out of it. I don't like how iPods won't play WMA files, and so I thought it'd be great to use a device which lets me just plug into my computer. Well, no. Microsoft, you fail.

I don't like that I have to specifically use Zune software; why can't I use Windows Media Player (try and guess who manufactures this program, if you can) to sync? Well, I figured, no huge deal: I'll just install the Zune player and let it work its magic. It's kind of skimpy, though: there's not even a way (that I could find) to sort music by genre. This is odd, as the version of Zune that I already had (and was forced to upgrade from before I was allowed to transfer music) let me do this. So does Windows Media Player. Even this was tolerable; I use WMP to play my music anyway so a tiny bit of extra hassle in sending the files over isn't the end of the world. What pushed things over the edge is that all the time-intensive editing I did on my classical and sacred music isn't recognized at all. Let me explain.

Some albums are simple: they have one work (such as Bach's Mass in B Minor) and all I had to do was change the tags so that the album artist was "Bach, JS" and the album title was "Mass in B Minor (The Sixteen)". Other albums, however, include several works. I tend to prefer to listen to the works separately, so that this album (which I very highly recommend) is divided into "Mass for Four Voices", "Infelix ego", and "Mass for Five Voices"; it's even harder when the works aren't all by the same composer. I'm not a complete nut, though: I only do this when several of the tracks are part of a larger work; compilation albums stay pretty much as they are.

Zune puts everything back as it originally was. Did I say that a better genre than "Classical" for Bach's Mass in B Minor was "Sacred"? Zune don't care. Did I divide an album of two works by two different composers? Zune don't care. Am I going to put up with this? Nope: the Zune gets returned tomorrow.

One Year

2008-04-17T23:34:00.003-04:00

I don't know if anyone came here yesterday looking for commentary on the one year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech; I apologize if you were hoping for my take on things. I think I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I don't really want to talk about it. Don't think I don't appreciate the kindnesses that have been shown to me and to Virginia Tech over the past year; I remember things like that for a very, very long time. Just as an example, I remember that University of Virginia students had an Orange-and-Maroon Day and painted one of their bridges in memory of our loss. Most conversations I have just seem to go "Yes, I was there. No, I wasn't a student. Yes, it's sad." That may have just been me being worn out over the matter. It would be profoundly ungrateful not to acknowledge the humbling amount of support there's been, so as just one Hokie let me say it: Thank You.

It's weird: there are plenty of things that can make me sad, but not in a way that just hits me. I can be just driving along, find myself thinking about Tech, and before I know it my eyes are suddenly watery and I have to think about baseball or tax policy or something I'm not very interested in so as not to break down. It's stupid, as I wasn't in Norris Hall and I only knew one of the victims even slightly. I didn't get this way over September 11th.

After one year, though, it feels as though there's less of a weight, as though a period of mourning is finally over. The sentiment among Hokies over the past year has been "We are Virginia Tech. We will prevail." I think we can change the tense of the second part of that; we are prevailing.

That said, I'm still bitter about the ban of firearms on campus. Most classrooms, including most at Virginia Tech and many here at William & Mary, are absolute deathtraps. I have no idea how even they're even safe in case of fire, let alone a gunman. People seem to think we'll have the Wild West if guns are allowed; I have trouble staying high-road in my thinking when this argument is made. Let me say it one more time: the Virginia Tech and William & Mary policies only disarm the very students who are most likely to be responsible. Virginia Tech's administration has blood on its hands; I hope the same can never be said for William & Mary's.

That said, I'm working on seeing what kind of options are available here. I know that the current policy allows only one exception: permission by the Dean of Students. I don't believe she's likely to grant it. The Board of Visitors has the ability to alter the Code of Conduct; I have yet to speak with them. I don't know whether anyone higher in the administration could compel the Dean of Students to grant permission. Obviously, I don't believe that a public university has the right to forbid citizens with Concealed Handgun Permits to carry (under threat of academic discipline). However, I'm willing to work within whatever framework is necessary to solve this problem.

Some Things I've Learned in Law School

2008-04-02T20:48:00.002-04:00

1. The police are not obligated to attempt to come to your aid. If someone mugs you and a cop is standing right there and decides not to intervene, that's your problem.
-Castle Rock v. Gonzalez (2005)

This means that if a mass murderer comes into my classroom and starts shooting at me and my classmates are legally on our own (it already being established that the College of William & Mary has declared campus a Second Amendment -free zone). Then again, maybe I'm paranoid. It's not like anyone would ever shoot up a law school or a public university in Virginia, and certainly not this decade.

2. No matter how well-kept your property is, if your neighbors have let their places fall apart, the state can take your property under eminent domain by claiming "community redevelopment."
-Kelo v. City of New London (2004)

Especially while at Virginia Tech, I did a fair amount of volunteering with a group of Evangelical missionaries up in Chester, PA. One of the main things they did was operate a mission school for those in the Chester-Upland School District (last-ranked in all of Pennsylvania) that basically said "Pay what you can; we'll find a way to cover the rest." They had two buildings: Douglass, where the elementary school (and when I first started volunteering, a small middle school program) were operating, and Carver, across the street, where they were hoping to eventually start a middle and high school. In the wake of Kelo, the city decided that a better use for Carver would be a parking lot for the horse-racing track they were hoping to build. They eventually used it to build low-income housing after taking it from the missionaries.

Democratic Nomination

2008-04-01T10:59:00.003-04:00

Look, Barack Obama is not going to get the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton is. Polls, delegates, and so on don't matter: she has it in her sights and will obtain it. Now, she may get crushed by McCain in the general election (although possibly not), but she will have it. She'll destroy what's left of Bill Clinton's "legacy" among Democrats, and Obama will be consigned to the Senate for the rest of his career (although I think he'll eventually go back to academics).

I think the Democratic Party will ultimately be glad they didn't run him, too.

UPDATE:
As TS O'Rama notes in the comments, mine is a pretty darn bold prediction, and so I feel as though I should give a better account of my reasoning.

The way it seems to me, it's just a function of how much Hillary Clinton wants the nomination in relation to all other factors. This is her raison d'etre. I can't say it was the case from the beginning, but certainly by 1992 her marriage with Bill was largely, and perhaps completely, one of mutual political benefit: she acts as the proper wife-prop for a President, and in return he uses his charisma and capital with the Democrats to get her to high office (and allowing her to pursue policy while he's in office; her quote "I want domestic" in exchange for not divorcing Bill for his affair with Gennifer Flowers). She was essentially given a Senate seat and it was known that she'd eventually have her turn to run for the Presidency with the Democratic nomination. I strongly suspect that the reason Hillary threw an ashtray at Bill (the sitting President of the United States!) upon learning of Monica Lewinsky wasn't for his unfaithfulness but for damaging his image and her future chances.

However, in the primaries another not-while-male candidate who had been gifted a Senate seat and was being groomed for greater things showed dazzling charisma and his message of "hope and change" resonated more powerfully with the Democratic base (if not necessarily centrists and political independents). I also strongly suspect that for Barack Obama 2008 was meant to be a warm-up, either to be Clinton's Vice-President or to run in 2012 or 2016 once he had some more US Senate experience under his belt (as his political resume is pretty thin). Edwards was the socialist from the losing 2004 ticket, and was never a serious threat. Nor was Bill Richardson, who while being a governor and being hispanic, wasn't very exciting (not to mention how hard it must be to gain traction as the "First Hispanic President" with a last name like his). Obama had an exotic name, a great stage presence (his voice is different now...early in the campaign it sounds like he was trying to imitate David Palmer), and was a fresh new face.

This leaves the Democrats with a problem: Clinton was supposed to be the nominee. The skeletons are (presumably) out of her closet and she's a seasoned politician (and a woman!). Whichever old white guy the Republicans put up, especially in the wake of two relatively unpopular Bush administrations, presumably would get creamed. This election was theirs for the taking. However, Obama's sudden and unexpected ascendancy screwed up the timeframe. Instead of a potential sixteen years of uninterrupted Democratic Party control over the Executive Branch, they risk another four or even eight years of the GOP.

Hillary Clinton has sacrificed everything for this chance. I can't see how she could be bought off: she's not fit for the Supreme Court (not to mention that the Chief Justice is relatively young) and Senate Majority Leader isn't much of a prize. If she doesn't get the nomination, all the years of the cheating husband, the knowing smirks, the pretenses require politics will have been for, in the end, nothing. MAYBE she could run in 2012...but only if Obama loses in the general election. This is her chance, and if it means clawing her way over Obama's political corpse then so be it: the Democratic party obviously isn't going to simply sit out the election; it'll be forced to rally behind her. Besides, she's the wife of the "Comeback Kid" and in her mind she's just as capable (and probably more) than he is.

Bill Clinton also can't afford for her not to get the nomination: he's also staked everything on it. Before, he was the beloved elder statesman of his party, with the base pining for the years of his administration. Now...he's lost that. He's somewhat despised, and for a man reportedly concerned so much about his legacy that's clearly unacceptable.

To the Clintons, there is no tomorrow. The upstart Obama must be crushed...either he'll agree to run as VP or he'll be brought down in a hail of scandals and suspect political affiliations.

Some have mentioned Al Gore as a potential "compromise" candidate, but what this ignores is how polarized the primary has become: it's seen as the historic race where either a woman or a minority will finally break the long streak of white men. Al Gore is...a white man. His nomination would be seen as a betrayal by both Clinton and especially Obama loyalists, who may simply sit out the general election or vote for a third-party candidate.

The Democrats know what they face: a centrist Republican war hero with (presumably) no skeletons in his closet. He still fairly spry, but he's old: it's conceivable that his VP could take over due to future illness or death of McCain and maybe even be elected in his own right once...or even twice. Obama, assuming he's not a charred corpse by June, isn't going to win enough of the center. Gore would lose some of the base, even if he did pick up some of the middle. Clinton, for all her faults, is seen as at least sorta-kinda on a similar footing with McCain: centrist-ish Senators with years of political experience. Running Clinton is the "safe" option: she has a shot at winning, and even a loss wouldn't be too terrible: the Dems could take credit for running the first female candidate for president. Having finally exorcised her from their future, they would probably still have Obama as a viable candidate (and this time with experience) next time.

Clinton is the safest bet for the Democrats and the one by whom they'll lose least in terms of political capital.

TWEAKED

2008-04-01T10:38:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you: the energy shot drinks like Five Hour Energy Drink both work and have side effects. They do work: I'm awake and don't feel tired at all. On the other hand, I kind of want to stand up, yell, and run a lap around the law school and then swing from a tree. So yes, there are side effects.

A Realization

2008-04-01T10:37:00.001-04:00

This is not my beautiful house.

This is not my beautiful wife.

How did I get here?

Letter to SCOTUS

2008-03-18T20:52:00.001-04:00

Dear Supreme Court,

Shorter decisions, more breakdancing.

Yours,
HokiePundit

New Feature!

2008-03-11T09:28:00.003-04:00

That's right, we here at TribalPundit*, in our ongoing efforts to better serve the community, may be introducing our very own non-traveling blog carnival (although it'll be open to anything found online). We're still working on a witty name. Some possibilities:

Carnival of Meaty Posts (too ironical?)
Spanning My Attention-Span To Bring You a Constant...hey, look at that!
Stuff I Found
Linkin' Logs

I'm also looking to continue the The HokiePundit Guide to Wine, Women, and Song. I'm visiting some wineries this weekend, so there's potential for the first part. As for the other two...I'm not pursuing and relationships until I'm done with my first year of law school and I'm not a very good singer. Nonetheless, I've got opinions, and that's what counts.

*I don't know why, but hyperlinking to myself cracks me up every time I do it.

Out of Curiosity...

2008-03-11T09:20:00.003-04:00

When did the whole hand-holding thing become a regular thing at Roman Catholic masses? I mean, it was obviously some point after 1530, and I'm guessing some point after Vatican II, but is this a new thing?

It just looks silly. I've always been a little bit skeptical of the Passing of the Peace; holding hands with an unknown neighbor (especially while singing) is beyond the pale, and I speak as one who has survived being a regular attender at "huggy" services.

Maybe I'm just becoming a crotchety old man fifty years ahead of schedule.

I Just Don't Understand

2008-03-03T14:09:00.002-05:00

This website sells "sacramentals," which are apparently things like "blessed salt," "holy relic water," and rosaries "touched to" relics. Reading over the descriptions, all I can think is that the term "voodoo" comes to mind. I had the same feeling when I was in a Catholic bookstore and they were selling brown scapulars with written assurance than anyone wearing one at death would be saved from hell.

Yes, I'm aware of Paul's handkerchief from Acts 19:12. While I don't claim to understand it, I can accept that a person touching a relic could be healed/blessed as a result. Once you go beyond that, though, then what? The relic touches a stand which touches a floor which touches the ground which is part of a country which is part of the world, and my part of the world has ground which my apartment touches which are in turn touched by (at the moment) my bare feet. Am I thus blessed in any way by this relic (other than perhaps abstractly by its existence)?

I can understand how things like rosaries and icons serve as aids to worship, and that the things advertised are meant to be accompanied by prayer. When we get into the realm of "lucky beans," though, I can't help but think that things have gone too far.

(via Mark Shea)

Blasts

2008-03-03T00:03:00.002-05:00

Blasts: After hearing a talk, I spent the next few hours thinking and finally realized that I still had some harsh words for Catholicism, Evangelicalism, and Protestantism (yes, you read that right: I still haven't finished with them; perhaps it's more like I'm working a Gatling gun than "giving them both barrels"). I've got things turning around in my head; I'm just not sure of the order in which I want to write and publish them. I do intend to include "pros" as well as "grows" in these blasts, however, so they won't really be screeds.

Well.

2008-03-03T00:03:00.001-05:00

All sorts of things have been going on lately...

1. Law School: My brain has been utterly drained for the past month or so. Fortunately, we've just entered Spring Break. Most of my friends hit the beaches or cruises; I'm staying in Williamsburg and just vegging for a while (and maybe doing the readings for next week, too).

2. Sick: I had a really nasty flu that made me miss an entire week of classes. Apparently about half the school came down with it in one form or another; mine was one of the worse cases but I know at least one girl who had it far worse than I did.

3. Reconnection: Found an old friend. Excellent!

Food

2008-03-03T00:02:00.000-05:00

I went to a Korean supermarket and ended up buying some sweets. This is always a risky thing for me: sometimes you'll end up with what are basically just oddly-shaped peppermints or melon-flavored gumdrops, and sometimes you'll end up with candied sardines (yes, I bought them that time; no, they weren't very good). This time I bought sweetened bean curd. It comes in little bars and they ones I got were flavored as citrus, green tea, chocolate, and apparently two unflavored varieties (one with bean flecks). It's all a matter of perspective: I was initially hesitant until I realized that coffee is just bean juice: therefore, sweetened bean curd isn't really all that wacky. It turned out that they were pretty good, although I think I'd only ever purchase the citrus ones again.

Sacraments

2008-03-02T23:39:00.005-05:00

I went up to Philadelphia this weekend to visit some friends. While I was there, I went to Church of the Good Shepherd, a Traditional Anglican Communion parish and did two things: I made Confession on Saturday and ended up staying for Mass on Sunday. What novelty! Two different sacraments in as many days! I'd never made Confession before, so I had to cover the past 25 years. I think the priest took pity on me, as this was my first time, and left me with a pretty light penance. I was also able to take Communion for the first time in a very long while, which was also a blessing.

You see, I can't partake of the sacraments as the Roman Catholic parish I attend in Williamsburg, as I'm not a member of the Holy Catholic Church. However, I can't very well take Communion at the Episcopalian or Anglican parishes around, as they don't have a valid priesthood or even the correct view of the sacraments. This leaves me, baptized as an Episcopalian, with the TAC, as they've tried to re-establish their apostolic succession and reunite with Rome. I guess that makes what I did valid but illicit (hopefully; once the Pope makes a decision regarding TAC's petition it may turn out that TAC's priesthood was not successfully reestablished).

I guess I have mixed feelings about it: doing something illicitly isn't a good way to be, but at the same time it doesn't seem right to me to be risking eternal separation from God simply because, as one not baptized Catholic, I couldn't partake of the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Flu

2008-02-19T18:55:00.003-05:00

So for the past few days I've been hit hard with the flu. I was achy, cold, exhausted, had a massive headache, couldn't even keep Gatorade down, and was somewhat delirious.

Somewhat delirious? Not only did I have very little idea what was going on around me, but I was convinced that yesterday was the North Carolina Democratic primary, that Clinton, Obama, and Edwards were all duking it out for the state's delegates, and that Abraham Lincoln had weighed in to support Edwards. In retrospect, having a women's beach volleyball game stuck in my head, or poking myself in the eye with a pencil, would have been more enjoyable.

I'm (mostly) better now. Hopefully it'll be a long, long time before I get hit this hard again.

KABOOM!

2008-02-17T12:41:00.002-05:00

If you haven't been reading Kaboom!, it's well worth your time. The writer is an Army 1LT commanding a Stryker squadron stationed in Iraq. He's smart, observant, and dutiful, while also taking things with a grain of salt.

I Blame George Bush

2008-02-17T01:29:00.000-05:00

Just because.

Tragedy at Northern Illinois University

2008-02-14T21:31:00.002-05:00

We just don't learn, do we?

May God preserve those injured, accept those killed, and comfort those grieved.

Nichol Resigns

2008-02-12T14:59:00.000-05:00

Gene Nichol, now-former President of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, resigned today after being informed by the Board of Visitors that his contract would not be renewed. He was always officially a member of the law school faculty (he taught here years ago); he'll apparently be a regular professor next year. His wife was my Civ Pro professor last semester; she was very nice.

I'm not going to say much about what I think of this, as I don't see any need to make enemies. The short explanation is that he was a controversy-causing official at a university which doesn't like controversy. Taylor Reveley, Dean of the Law School, is apparently acting as President in the interim. I have no idea whether he'll become the regular President; it'd be a tough loss for the law school, even as it would be a huge gain for the university.

Georgia Tries to Steal Tennessee's Fluids

2008-02-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

While I know it's misleading, I'd like to point out that Georgia is a coastal state while Tennessee is landlocked.

Seriously, what gives? Isn't "We're talking about augmenting some water needs, and as you know, the Tennessee has got plenty of water in it" a little bit socialist for a Republican from a Southern state?

Then again, I support retroceding the District of Columbia to Maryland, consolidating Connecticut and Rhode Island, Delaware and either Maryland or Pennsylvania, North and South Dakota, and perhaps North and South Carolina, so perhaps I'm in the minority. Despite its illegal secession, however, I'm fine with West Virginia staying as it is (unless it wants to merge with Ohio or Kentucky, which I'm also okay with).

Lesson of the Day

2008-02-07T12:22:00.001-05:00

Not everyone appreciates joviality.

Happy Dirty Forehead Day!

2008-02-06T09:16:00.001-05:00

I went to Ash Wednesday services this morning, at the heretofore-nearly-mythical hour of 7AM. For whatever reason, no one who received ashes from one of the priests seemed to have it show up very well on their foreheads. I guess what I told my black campers at KAA when they asked me whether I had any lotion still stands true: "White people don't ash." [What would I need with lotion? Meanwhile, these poor kids were waking up with chapped knees, of all things...I considered buying some out of mercy (but forgot).]

As for Lent, some friends of mine last week mentioned that they like to not only give up something but to add something positive as well. I'd already felt led to give up meat (including seafood!); I'll be adding a rosary each day to that.

I did have an odd-but-gratifying experience at the service this morning, though. I recognized a girl who I'm pretty sure is Episcopalian go up and get ashes, which wasn't that odd. I then saw her get in the Communion line and I was a little concerned, as most of us Anglicans don't really know that we're not supposed to take Roman Catholic Communion. Right before it was her turn, though, she properly crossed her arms and received a blessing instead. Hooray for cultural sensitivity!

QOTD

2008-02-06T09:12:00.000-05:00

"I'm pregaming Lent."

-a friend of mine last night at a party, after I pointed out she had a drink in each hand.

In Which I Attempt to Make T.S. O'Rama Spend Money

2008-02-05T01:40:00.000-05:00

For whatever reason, I've been listening to a lot of Celtic Punk Rock lately, especially bands like Flogging Molly, Enter the Haggis, Young Dubliners, Real McKenzies, and Oysterband. I'm like 1/16th Scottish and 1/32nd (Northern) Irish, so I guess it's legit.

Flogging Molly...well, they seem to me to be the Celtic version of Streetlight Manifesto: very talented, catchy, and...absolutely empty inside. Not just indifferent to religion, but openly hateful of it. As much as I enjoyed listening to the music of their album Drunken Lullabies, I kept noticing lyrics that just rubbed me the wrong way. Thus, no link-love for them.

Enter the Haggis, as T.S. already noted, is a mixed bag. "Gasoline" is really catchy, although perhaps a little overwrought. "Minstrel Boy" [I can't find a decent version] is a punk cover, virtually guaranteeing that I'll like it. "Music Box" and "Martha Stewart" are both good, although the latter is probably a little hard-edged for some tastes. There's also a really funny song on Let the Wind Blow High that I'll let you find for yourself.

The Young Dubliners and the Real McKenzies each cash in on the aforementioned punk cover craze, with, respectively, "The Rocky Road to Dublin" and "Farewell to Nova Scotia".

Oysterband is a bit older, and their songs are a little more mellow, too. I think "20th of April" is my favorite, although it was surprising to hear them singing in Spanish. "Another Quiet Night in England" is also good, and manages to be pro-worker without engaging in class warfare. Lastly is "One Green Hill" which could almost be a drinking song. [I couldn't find online versions of the latter two.]

My last post on this prompted T.S. to buy Casualties of Retail by Enter the Haggis; let's see if he feels the urge from anything above.

Today's Law School Tidbit

2008-02-04T22:10:00.001-05:00

"So far as the law courts were concerned, the feoffment with livery of seisin created a fee simple absolute in X."

I'm still working on decoding this.

I Guess This is an Endorsement

2008-02-03T17:20:00.000-05:00

"May God forgive us if we condemn a million plus children a year to death by abortion because we're angry at John McCain."

-John Hawkins

I'm not a big fan of McCain, but he does have his up-sides. While Romney might (might, because who really knows?) be better on The Issues, McCain's tolerable. With Iraq and Afghanistan to conclude successfully, likely vacancies on the Supreme Court, a Democrat majority in Congress, the prospect of Hillary! or the Obamessiah, and how hard it is to get two social conservatives elected in a row (Bush I only barely counts), maybe we should take the deal and live with it.

Besides, maybe he'll surprise us and surpass expectations, rather than disappoint us as Dubya has (which isn't to say that I'm not profoundly glad we had him over Gore or Kerry). Let this be a reminder: we can't delegate to the President the responsibility of being the People of God and living bearing witness to Him. That said, having a President who isn't hostile to our goals gives us a lot more room to work than having an active opponent.

Let's hold our noses, be thankful for the half-loaf we've got instead of pouting over the whole one we don't, and work to elect McCain. Maybe we can learn a few lessons about over-reliance on government, how to wage a successful campaign, and the importance of being thankful for what we do have along the way.

Cool

2008-01-31T12:37:00.000-05:00

Read it.

Then the Rosary Beads, Count Them 1-2-3...

2008-01-31T01:11:00.000-05:00

Please excuse the ramblingness of this post; I'm tired.

I drove from Williamsburg to Roanoke and back today, and on the way I did two things of note: prayed the Rosary twice and did some thinking on Hobbes, Locke, Marx, the Fall of Man, the Labor Theory of Value, and economics. The latter was very deep (or seemed so at the time), and I may write about it later, although I'm still sorting it out.

As for the Rosary, the first one was said for the intentions of a friend of mine and the second for the petition of the Traditional Anglican Communion for union with Rome (I'm new to this, so hopefully these were both proper subjects). I've seen it recommended before as a good, useful, and edifying way to pass the time while driving, and there's a lot of merit to that. I'll confess that I have a tendency to get impatient and wonder how many beads are left in the decade I'm on, although I seem to be getting better at it as I become more familiar with things. Getting familiar is also a gradual process: unless I have a guide before me, I tend to slip into the Nicene Creed rather than the Apostles Creed, and in either case to use the Anglican version of it (the only differences are in word choice, not in substance). I also tend to forget how the Fatima Prayer goes; I called a friend to ask her while I was on the road and she told me she didn't normally pray the Rosary and couldn't remember (I think she felt bad, which made me feel bad, as it was for her intentions that I was praying).

The Rosary is one of those things which is (or at least seems to be) completely meaningless if not done in sincerity and contemplation. The Lord's Prayer is the same way. Why am I asking Mary for intercession instead of going straight to Jesus? Apparently it's a compliment to Jesus to pay respect to His mother and ask her to ask Him, which I suppose makes sense (the Fatima Prayer helps smooth this in my head, as it's directly addressed to Christ Himself, meaning that I'm not neglecting Him). The Glory Be is a prayer that I've always liked, probably because it's a short and succinct statement of unfathomable depth. I actually use the Lord's Prayer as a way to submit, as I think "Forever and Ever" is much preferable to "Now and Forever," but then it's not one billion Catholics knocking at my door.

It also helps for me to have a bit of a visual. Virginia highways tend to be bordered by trees, leaving a narrow bit of horizon straight in front of me. It's just the right shape to permit me to imagine a truly giant image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, although in my head it's got much brighter colors and is more realistic. As for visuals, I had bought a glow-in-the-dark Rosary for use in the car, as my long trips tend to be at night. Tragically (and I fully expect some playwright to pen a work on this), the beads only stay glowing for a few minutes, leading to me, who doesn't have a ton of manual dexterity to start with, trying to steer with one hand while blindly advancing beads with the other. It's a hard-knock life.

The one problem I have is the "Hail, Holy Queen" at the end. I don't say it. Maybe it's just a defect from Anglicanism and Evangelicalism, but it just seems beyond the Pale. The Hail Mary I get, but the Salve Regina just seems to take things too far.

I'm also thinking of replacing the "Holy Mary, Mother of God" with "Our Lady of Walsingham" when praying a Rosary for TAC union with Rome; is this permissible?

And...

2008-01-25T04:41:00.000-05:00

...I'm confused.

In other news, this is my 100th post at TribalPundit! Hooray for school!

Ron Paul

2008-01-25T01:05:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't become a Ron Paul supporter. However, I did have what may have been a mini-epiphany the other day.

Honestly, Ron Paul supports confuse me and even make me feel a tiny bit nervous. While the man himself seems to be a mental hostage to a variety of conspiracy theories, his supporters horrify not only typical conservatives and liberals but even many libertarians. Have you ever been talking with someone and just realized that you were on completely different wavelengths and weren't really communicating? It's like that. Not all of them are like this, but a surprising number are. They're utterly dedicated to their cause, believe that Ron Paul is America's only hope, and honestly believe that the only reason Paul's not widely supported is because the media is screwing him over.

I have some sympathy for these positions. If I could describe my thought process when hearing them explained, it would go something like this:
"Mmm-hmm, okay...that makes sense. Yes, that's true. Uh-huh. Wait. Stop. Right, that last part at the end? You totally lost me."

One of the topics I worked on helping to research at my job this past summer was a group called J.A.I.L. 4 Judges. To make a long story short, they wanted to be able to pursue criminal charges against judges (and even jurors) who decided against them. Again, in short, they seem to fit the "Western state militia" stereotype.

What got me thinking is the realization that the supporters of these two groups (and I have no doubt that there's a very significant overlap) are people with grievances. They've been worked over in the past, whether it be by a corrupt city councilman who abused his position to cheat them out of desirable property they owned, but a justice system which let them down in a claim (or even criminal charge) in the past, or even simply being upset that they work hard and still get passed over for those with less talent and more influence. Sometimes these are simply misunderstandings over the way things actually work, but I'm inclined to think that most of these people have experienced an injustice, whether to personally or to a close friend or relative.

I've felt this way before, and you probably have, too. It just makes you feel upset that things aren't right. Sometimes we're able to let it go. Sometimes, like Don Quixote, we're able to channel our outrage into a quest to right wrongs against others, disregarding the slings and arrows we perceive against ourselves. Other times we just want to get even and so we seek equalizers. You've probably heard the old saying that "God made man; Sam Colt made them equal," talking about how the "Peacemaker," being accessible to the public, brought the physically weak up to the level of the strong. Some more directly followed the spirit of this by arming themselves, resolving to fight for their rights, even against the American government and its agents if necessary. Others, and this is where Ron Paul and J.A.I.L. 4 Judges went, have attempted to start grassroots efforts to equalize through the ballot box.

Much of the time, the proper response to suffering an injustice is to offer it up to Christ. Actually, we should always do that, but what I mean is that it doesn't always require efforts on our own part to try and put things equal with the way they were before the injustice. Not everyone subscribes to Christianity, especially the flavor I'm advocating, and it's not incomprehensible to me that folks will try to take measures into their own hands (after all, most Americans are descended from people who decided to do just that and emigrate here).

There is a danger when you have a large group of people who feel aggrieved. This is just as true of the rural white people who seem to make up most of the Ron Paul supporters as of urban black people fixated on "institutional racism" and seek reparations for slavery. This can go horribly wrong: Germany before WWII got royally shafted in the early 20th century (most notably with the Treaty of Versailles), Southerners felt their rights trampled upon by busybody Northerners over slavery (while doing little about child labor in their own backyard), and the recent spate of school shooters (and we do not need to remember their names) who found themselves at the bottom of the high school totem pole are examples of what happens when there's no redress or safety valve.

My guess is that these people paid attention in Civics and were told that they had a variety of God-given rights which shall not be infringed by the government, the same government that was obligated to protect citizens whose rights were invaded by others. Instead, they found government taking these rights while leaving the person prey to others who connived to harm them. Maybe they tried to work their way through our often-Byzantine legal system, only to find themselves denied justice (perhaps through a procedural error) and even owing their lawyer a massive debt. Locke, Hobbes, and others argued that we have a government in order that we may be better protected than we ourselves could do. When a person sees that this isn't the case, they may feel justified in deciding to resolve the situation without submitting it to government.

Their backs are also against the wall. In the past, one could simply pack up and leave for the wilderness to seek a new fortune. Columbus to America, Americans in Manifest Destiny, and the California and Alaska gold rushes were examples of this. We've hit a snag, though: there's nowhere else feasible to go. Maybe we'll eventually colonize space, but at least for now that's not an option. Maybe this was an aberration, that civilized people could become pioneers, mixing the decency and security of civilization with the freedom of the wilderness. Certainly throughout history there have people whose only option was to somehow cope with their situation as it was without the ability to escape. One by one, the traditional bastions of freedom which made up the English-speaking world succumbed to fear and sought the remedy of collectivized security. The same stock of people who fought the Battle of Britain and who waged the first successful colonial revolution in modern history now expel high school students for having a Swiss Army Knife on the dashboard of their car.

It isn't a steady decline; popular outcry sometimes forces the government to scale back its claims. Overall, however, the trend has been downward. Technology and new economic concepts have allowed some people to obtain more power, but someone who simply wants to be a farmer or a teacher or a "country doctor" finds themselves regulated by a huge bureaucracy. Ancient Rome comes to mind, falling from a powerful Republic to a tyrannical and corrupt monarchy to a decrepit society unable to do anything but allow themselves to be conquered by barbarians.

It seems to be part of the general Anglo-Saxon mindset, which is itself somewhat barbaric and less cultured than other systems. I suspect it could hardly be any other way. Take the descendants of loutish Vikings and Goths, give them a touch of Celtic and Roman culture and civilizing, and then introduce a religion originally started by the Jews (whose history is full of against-all-odds victories in the name of God and righteousness) and you'll wind up with a people who revere mottoes such as sic semper tyrannis, nemo me importune lacessit, and nolo me tangere. Other cultures, such as China, the rest of Europe, India, and others place a high value on survival rather than vindication. We believe that the squeaky wheel gets the grease; they think that it's the tallest blade of grass which is the first to get plucked.

Where does this leave things? Sadly, but probably unavoidably, unresolved. We tend to want heaven on earth. Failing that, we want a just cause and a clear enemy to fight against. We're not at either extreme right now, though, and as much as prevention is better than repair, it's nearly impossible to make happen. In the meantime, we should try to win battles where we can, not because we think we can win the war (only the return of Christ will win the war we're truly fighting) but because the victories we achieve grant relief to those who are oppressed and might otherwise be crushed.

So to Ron Paul supporters, let me say a few things. One, please don't spam my email or comments boxes. Two, keep supporting your beliefs but take the time to examine them periodically as well. Some of your allies have views that are abhorrent to most Americans, and while that's not dispositive of what's right it does tend to be generally reliable. Three, work on your tactics (but remember that they're a tool for being more effective, not for winning at all costs). Despite some claims to the contrary, you're simply not connecting with most Americans. Lastly, make sure the things you're fighting for are worth the fight. If something can be resolved without too much harm by simply letting it go, do that. For many other things, keep your efforts proportional to the threat faced. And, of course, for a select few things, use every tool at your disposal (so long as it's righteous and doesn't lead you to sin) to win and remember that fair fights are for practice or for suckers.

Swamped

2008-01-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

I've got a lot of assignments due soon and hardly any time to work on them. I don't expect to put up any posts for the next week (maybe two), although I'll probably take study breaks and read other blogs.

By the way, this is apparently the Octave for the Unity of the Church. If you'd consider praying for the Traditional Anglican Communion's petition for "full, corporate, sacramental union" with the Holy Catholic Church I'd appreciate it!

I Don't Care What They Say...

2008-01-13T20:42:00.001-05:00

...I like wearing socks with sandals. Not with shorts, of course, but I like wearing Tevas with white socks and jeans. Of course, I like sandals in the winter, too.

Don't hate.

QOTD

2008-01-10T04:44:00.000-05:00

Looking back on the rise of the insurgency, it seems as if the average Iraqi did not know what to make of America. I suspect that many would have been far more supportive a long time ago, if it were not for the image of a helicopter atop a building in 1975 and a line of desperate people running for their lives. To work with Americans may have been what many wanted to do much, much sooner.

But...

When Michael Moore makes a hugely successful film praising Saddam's paradise and calling these people who bomb women and children in marketplaces "freedom fighters," and when an election turns and places into Congressional power a political party dedicated to reproducing that helicopter tableau as soon as possible... what would you do? Because if you guess wrong and the Americans leave, you will be taken out into the street in front of your family and have your head sawed off.

-Bill Whittle of Eject Eject Eject
(via The Smallest Minority)

Beautiful Piano Music

2008-01-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

This is an absolutely gorgeous medley of songs from the anime series Cowboy Bebop written by Yoko Kanno. In order, the songs are:
The Singing Sea
Piano Black
ELM
Green Bird
Piano Black (Reprise)

Personally, my favorite is ELM, followed by Green Bird. It's easy to just close my eyes and listen for a while.

Sorry for a post that feels rambling in so few words, but I was in the mood for some relaxing music; I hope you enjoy.

Dorky Legal Humor

2008-01-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

So how does the rule in Johnson v. M'Intosh apply to dating? If a man has a party at his house, does he have rights ratione soli over his guests?

Certainly some women are ferae naturae and the custom among singles is to disapprove of an interloper who interferes with a man in hot pursuit of a woman. Of course, actual bodily seizure is not, in all cases, necessary to prevent the intrusion of others. At the same time, however, society benefits when relationships form. Furthermore, if the first seeing or pursuing such women had exclusive rights over them it would prove a fertile source of quarrels and litigation.

The dissenting view, it should be noted, is that exclusive rights may be acquired without bodily touch or manucaption, provided the pursuer be within reach, or have a reasonable prospect of taking what he has thus discovered.

I Don't Like Being Cynical, But...

2008-01-07T13:03:00.001-05:00

...I don't believe for one second that this was unscripted. It's just that after eight years of shenanigans this looks clumsy and transparent.

Committing Adultery

2008-01-06T20:12:00.000-05:00

No, not me. Our first assignment for my Constitutional Law class is an exercise with the following facts (I'm paraphrasing; some relevant information will be added in the discussion):

You are in charge of a fund established seventeen years ago by a group seeking to "return to the 'old-time religion' of the Ten Commandments." To do this, they put together a program where on a person's eighteenth birthday, he or she could pledge to obey the Ten Commandments (no further elaboration or clarification was provided by the group). If they did this faithfully for seventeen years, they could collect $10,000 from the fund [this is an older exercise; perhaps $25,000 would be the equivalent today] and some of the first pledge-takers are now coming to you and seeking payment. Here are their situations (assume that the issue of adultery is the only part of the Ten Commandments in question and the contract between the fund and the claimants is unquestioned):

1. Claimant A is a married man. He has had sexual intercourse with women other than his wife while married, but cites the Jewish Encyclopedia, which says that adultery is "voluntary intercourse of a married woman with a man other than her husband." All of Claimant A's partners were unmarried women.

2. Claimant B is A's wife. She has also had affairs, but with the consent of her husband.

3. Claimant C is a man in a bigamous marriage with two women. He has been faithful to these two women.

4. Claimant D is a married man (and a "practicing Christian" aware of Matthew 5:28) who has lusted after other women, including a co-worker with whom he often holds hands, but has never consummated this lust. One reason for this is that his family needs the $10,000.

5. Claimant E is a married man (and a Catholic aware of Pope John Paul II's statement that "adultery in your heart is committed not only when you look with concupiscence at a woman who is not your wife, but also if you look in the same manner at your wife" [Googling this doesn't seem to work, although I suspect it's in Theology of the Body]) who has never lusted after another woman from the day of his marriage, but occasionally has lustful fantasies about his wife.

The big question here is what "adultery" means. It may mean different things to Moses, to a modern Jewish rabbi, to a modern Evangelical, to a modern Catholic, to a modern Mormon, to a modern Muslim, or to a modern agnostic (among others). According to Dictionary.com, the primary meaning of the word "adultery" is this: "voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse." Under this, Claimants A and B would be denied for cheating on their spouses, Claimant C would be denied because bigamy is illegal in the United States and so one of his partners isn't legally his wife, and Claimants D and E are eligible in that they did not have extramarital sexual intercourse.

If the Jewish Encyclopedia is correct, then Claimants A, C, D, and E would certainly appear to be eligible for the payout, while Claimant B would not be, as polygamy was tolerated for men only and there is no recognition of the Christian views of adultery. Had Claimant B had nonconsensual sex only, she would have been eligible.

If we take a sola scriptura approach (and whose Bible do we use, do we only use the Book of Matthew, and which translation of Matthew do we use?), the question turns on whether we apply ancient Jewish custom or the modern American definition of adultery. If the former, we can definitely say that Claimant B is still denied because she is a woman, and Claimants A and D are denied for each lusting in his heart. Claimants C and E are problematic. In Matthew 5:8, does it mean "another woman" (E would be eligible), or "any woman" (E would not be eligible)? Also, has polygamy been prohibited under all circumstances in the New Testament under a sola scriptura reading? Most commentators, including the Church Fathers, seem to agree that it has been, but these writings are extrabiblical. Claimant C's eligibility hangs on this question of legal marriage in two ways: what the Bible allows and what the government allows. Having not taken a class in contract law, I don't think I can analyze this part properly.

An understanding of adultery as put forth by the Pope would be the same as above except that Claimant E would definitely be ineligible. Claimant C would also be ineligible (if eligible above) if your acceptance of the Pope's statement included an acceptance of all Catholic doctrine.

Ideally, the group that established the fund would have clarified what they meant. Absent this, however, it's a tough question for you, the fund manager.

I find Claimants C (bigamist) and E (Catholic lusting after his wife) to be most sympathetic, especially as, according to the fact pattern, the pledge was taken prior to the Pope's statement. In the United States, Claimant D (Christian lusting after another woman) would probably be able to collect in that he didn't violate the plain reading of the Commandment (although if I knew he and his co-worker had rented a motel room for the night after he collected the $10,000, I'd deny his claim), while Claimant C would not as bigamy is illegal (although if he immigrated from a country where polygamy is legal and was married prior to coming over, I'd grant an exception). Claimants A and B have clearly violated the modern American understanding of adultery. While all of these people may be guilty in God's eyes of breaking the Commandment, American law (which these Claimants will surely resort to if they disagree with your decision) tends to require an act of some kind to verify the intent.

Any Idea?

2008-01-06T18:04:00.000-05:00

Several times over the past few months I've been approached while in stores (Circuit City and some department stores) by guys who strike up a conversation and it's always a similar experience. They'll be near me in the store and turn and ask me a question. The first few times I thought it was just regular conversation: if I'm wearing a Virginia Tech sweatshirt back in May, it's not unreasonable that someone might ask if I went there. Other times, though, it became clear that this was just a way to get their foot in the door, as when questions were along the lines of "That's a nice shirt, is it a large?"

The guys all seemed to fit a mold of 20-30 years old, self-employed (or in one case, a college student majoring in business), and non-threatening-but-personable. At least two were married and shopping with their wives. After a few minutes of conversation, they'd invariable ask if I needed a part-time job. I always told them that as a first-year law student I wasn't allowed to have an outside job, and the conversation would end politely with them wishing me luck in my studies.

I have no idea what this was about. It had never happened to me before yet over the summer it happened maybe every two weeks or so. Has some get-rich-quick program recently come out? Is this some recruitment scheme for a religion? They weren't super-nice like Mormons, slightly-angry like Jehovah's Witnesses, or creepy like Scientologists, and none of them tried to give me anything to read, or even a business card.

It's possible that this was just a series of random occurrences or that something in the way I dress or act has changed recently (I got asked if I needed a job at Jos. A Banks and a local bar, too), although I've been dressed in different ways and have always been minding my own business, looking at neckties or albums when approached. As it is, I'm baffled.

I Just Can't Do It Any More

2008-01-05T16:12:00.001-05:00

Two of the blogs I often read (run by relatives) have gotten to the point where reading them pretty much just makes me sad. I suspect that there are people reading this who recognize who I'm talking about. Maybe I'll check back in a year or so to see how things shook out, but I'm done witnessing things that shouldn't be aired in public.

Mass Report: St. Leo the Great (Fairfax, VA)

2007-12-30T20:09:00.000-05:00

Talk about a tale of two services! Where the Mass at Parish X was rushed, impenetrable, and in a dark little building, the Mass today at St. Leo the Great's was, well...great, being reverent in tempo, easily accessible, and in a bright, beautiful building.

I'll start out with the not-so-great things to get them out of the way. The microphones could have used a little work: in a brick and stone building, the acoustics can be distorted a bit if people don't speak very clearly. The sermon had a lot of good points, but they seemed to get repeated several times and so the sermon went about twice as long as necessary. The stained-glass windows were of a weird kind where there seemed to be more leading than actual glass. The choir music didn't always perfectly match the words in the hymnal. Okay, done.

As I mentioned before, the building itself was beautiful and bright (as opposed to Anglican churches, which tend to be beautiful and dark, or too many Roman Catholic churches, which tend to be dark and dreary). There was an actual choir loft...although no choir. I'm pretty sure the semi-folkish music was piped in, but the cantor (cantress?) was a girl perhaps slightly younger than me with a beautiful voice. There were poinsettias and lit Christmas trees in the front, but they did a good job of helping to set the mood rather than being distracting. Overall, it was very tastefully and reverently done, in a way I don't think I've seen done before in a Roman Catholic service.

However, my favorite part occurred while everyone was kneeling as Communion was being distributed. A very young girl (maybe four years old) turned around and looked at the girl about my age who was kneeling silently a few feet away from me (the two didn't know each other). The little girl put her finger to her mouth and noiselessly indicated that she knew people had to be quiet. The young woman near me mimicked the gesture encouragingly and the first girl turned around, satisfied. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing; I settled for smiling really broadly.

Just Once...

2007-12-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

...I'd like to watch a modern TV show or movie where the "good guy" character can keep his pants zipped and not cheat on his wife/girlfriend.

Really. Is that so much to ask for?

Gun for Christmas

2007-12-28T00:09:00.000-05:00

That's right, I got a gun for Christmas. In breach of my normal policy of not announcing what gun(s) I own or whether I'm carrying at any given point in time, I'll say that it's an Auto-Revolver. To be precise, it's a blued Mateba Unica 6 in .44 magnum with an 8 3/8ths inch barrel. Although any gun could be used for self-defense (or crime), this is one that's more useful as a target pistol, possibly useful for hunting (or animal defense), and excels as a conversation piece. When I took it out at the gun store near me a crowd of five guys instantly formed around me.

What's so unique about the gun? Firstly, it fires from the "six o'clock" position, meaning that it's the bottom, rather than the top, chamber in the cylinder which gets fired when you pull the trigger. The other thing is that it's a semi-automatic revolver: that means that when you pull the trigger, the recoil causes the top part of the gun to slide back and rotate the cylinder and recock the hammer like an "automatic" pistol. Traditional revolvers were either single-action or double-action. Single-action is the "Old West" type of gun such as the Colt "Peacemaker" (which revealingly has the official designation of Single Action Army). To fire a single-action revolver, you have to cock the hammer with your thumb before each shot. Double-action revolvers, such as Dirty Harry's, are more modern and are the type you usually see for sale. You can fire them like the single-action revolvers, but you can also simply pull the trigger and it rotates the cylinder and cocks (and then drops) the hammer as part of the process. This sounds like what the Auto-Revolver does, except that the downside to firing double-action is that it's much harder to pull the trigger and so your accuracy suffers.

I first found out about this handgun while reading about Trigun, an anime series that I really liked. One of the things you first notice is that the protagonist's gun is both really big and that it fires from the bottom chamber. Further research led me to discover that a similar gun was made (although the cylinder swings out instead of having a break-open action) and I would occasionally look at pictures of it when the mood caught me. I later found out that Mateba went out of business in 2005 and thus the guns have been discontinued. I sent an email to one company that claimed to sell them and was informed that they were about to receive their very last shipment soon. I figured that it was now or never, and so I'm the proud owner of one.

On one hand, I'm attracted to it's uniqueness and am sure that it will keep its value and perhaps even appreciate. On the other hand, I'm tempted to have it nickled and polished, have a custom black grip made, and saw off the compensator. I probably won't, although it sure is tempting.

The gun itself feels both well-made and delicate. It's got a European complexity to it, and the manual lists at least seventy parts! After getting it home I did what should have been a simple take-down to properly clean and oil things. Instead, the hammer and trigger jammed, the takedown pin would hardly budge, and the tiny screw which secures the takedown pin got lost several times and then wouldn't go in until I lined up things just right. That said, the gun is well-designed; it just has a relatively steep learning curve. One helpful thing that I did notice, however, is the presence of a back-up tiny screw in a little housing in the trigger (don't ask); that's really helpful because I'm sure that at some point I'll lose the first one.

I haven't fired it yet, but hope to within the month. When I do, I'll post a report and let you know how it handles and how many people came over to investigate.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T01:32:00.000-05:00

This really is my favorite time of year. May God bless each of you and your loved ones this Christmas and this coming year. May there be peace on earth, goodwill toward men, and may the Prince of Peace Himself return in His perfect timing.

Also, what would Christmas be without music? You know the song; it's off Relient K's album Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand.

Movie Recommendation

2007-12-23T16:35:00.002-05:00

I watched Yours, Mine, and Ours this afternoon. It's from 1968 and stars Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, with the premise being that she's a widowed nurse with eight children and he's a Navy widower with ten children (you get one guess as to their religion, and I'll give the hint that it's not Mormon). I don't know what to say except that it's funny, cute, clean, and even has positive messages (gasp). They kind of overdo the constant use of military terms by Fonda's character, but the brilliance of the script and camera work, Fonda's skill as the "straight man," and Ball's outstanding physical comedy were fantastic.

I don't know what to tell you except to say that the movie brightened my day and that I'd gladly see it again.

Attending a Latin Mass

2007-12-23T13:51:00.000-05:00

It's always worse when you have high hopes for something and have gone out of your way to do it. So how was the Latin Mass I attended today in the Diocese of Arlington?

Horrible.

Really.

I wanted to walk out half-way through it. The priest talked a mile a minute, the altar servers were in creepy harmony as they responded, and the pre-Motu Latin/English guide had apparently nothing to do with the actual Mass. Even knowing the order of the Mass and the basics of the Kyrie, Credo, Agnus Dei, Gloria, and so on, I got really lost very quickly and the fact that 75% of what was said was said silently (with most of the rest being obscured by kneeling benches being put down as the priest faced away from the congregation). Some awful-sounding overly-loud bells got rung every few seconds as well. Is this really what all the fuss has been about for the past forty years? I'm baffled as to what anyone sees in this form (especially as hardly anyone in the crowd would have even have hit adolescence by the time of Vatican II). By the end I wanted to declare my own Reformation.

This is why Catholicism is so poorly-regarded in English-speaking countries: the Novus Ordo is like a subpar Methodist service and the Latin Mass is impenetrable. I'm starting to understand why there was so much trepidation about Kennedy becoming President. If I wanted to come up with something designed to horrify Protestants into the belief that they should be suspicious of Catholics are secretive foreigners, I couldn't do a better job than the Latin Mass. The beauty of Palestrina's and Byrd's sung Masses were utterly absent; it was just a dark ampitheatre with plaster statues and a priest speaking a foreign language while we looked at his back. About the only thing I can come up with to commend it was that the presence of hair lace among the women let's me report that there was a scintilla of mantilla present.

This is why it's so important that the Holy Catholic Church find a place for Anglican worship. Evangelicals are going to be less-than-enthusiastic about Novus Ordo folk Masses and creeped out by the Latin form. Mainline Protestants are going to be horrified. The culture gap is just too wide. There was a chance back when everyone's stereotype was of folks like Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Catholicism was seen as being Anglo-American with an Irish brogue, but ecclesiastical Latin sounds menacing to my English-language ears. An Anglican form or Rite would give English-speakers (by this I mean as a culture, not as a language group) something to latch onto. The Episcopal Church is going down in flames, but Episcopalianism/Anglicanism offers something that Catholicism doesn't have: a sort of familiarity that allows it to at least get its foot in the door with Protestants and Evangelicals. An Anglican High Mass is a truly beautiful thing (if you're ever in London, attend the one at St. Paul's Cathedral) and even a Low Mass has a certain dignity to it that speaks well. It's not a matter of content, but how it's communicated.

For whatever reason (pick your favorite), Catholicism in this country pretty much only expands through reproduction, marriage, and a very small number of people who study history and theology enough to decide to convert. Evangelicals (including Pentecostals/Charismatics) may not keep as many of the folks the draw, but at least they get them in the door.

I'll probably give the Latin Mass another shot at a different parish; it's entirely possible that I simply was there on an off-day. However, what does it say when someone who knows what's going on and is inclined to give as much benefit of the doubt as possible comes away from a service upset and even slightly angry? For those who suggest that new Catholics might like the various Eastern rites: I'm not being blasphemous here, but for the love of God don't send them there. If the Latin is this atrocious, what chance do they have with Greek, Russian, or Syriac?

Scarce

2007-12-17T14:47:00.001-05:00

I just had my Criminal Law final today, and I have my Civil Procedure final on Wednesday. No one call anyone else a peepee-face while I'm gone (this happened to me in kindergarten; you can see that I'm still traumatized).

Life Imitates The Shawshank Redemption

2007-12-17T14:46:00.000-05:00

Maybe Escape from Alcatraz, too. I'm thinking a certain jail has egg on its face right about now.

Revolting Post over at Mark Shea's

2007-12-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know it's seeming like every other post here is on that topic. Maybe I have Shea Derangement Syndrome. His blog really has become like finding out that a hoard of jewels has fallen into a septic tank. Do you avoid it and let the valuable bits remain buried? Do you risk getting yourself befouled?

Keep in mind that I once had a job where I had to clean the cages of dogs and cats with , ahem, digestive problems, using a spray bottle and paper towels. If I remember correctly, there were times when I had to work both morning and afternoon on New Year's (and it's Eve), the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. You can guess which of the two approaches above I tend to take.

What's of concern to me is that Shea routinely vilifies his opponents and spreads gossip and libel about them, demonizing them for "tiptoeing up to the line" on issues such as torture and sexuality where people are genuinely trying to find a solution that lets them both obey God and prevent the deaths or serious injury to their fellow man. Not only is does this render him a horrible witness for his views and the Holy Catholic Church, but it bring Shea himself into dangerous territory with regard to sin. As great as his apologetics writing tends to be, his blog and many of the commenters there definitely played a major role in it taking so long for me to finally decide that I belong in the Holy Catholic Church.

You don't see bloggers like Amy Welborn (ladies first), Jimmy Akin, Chris Burgwald, Bob Catholic, or TS O'Rama (alphabetical by last name) acting that way. Meanwhile, Shea's almost certainly started a blog war with Dean Esmay, a recent convert. As much as I've been anticipating the clash of these two, this isn't a very promising start.

It's a Strange World...

2007-12-12T00:35:00.000-05:00

...when folks like Mark Shea use Andrew Sullivan's writings as a cudgel (perhaps a shillelagh in this case, given their last names) to bash Bush. Come to think of it, Shea has seemed willing to bash Bush with anything he can find.

Of course, in this case, it seems that the CIA had received legal advice that they could destroy the tapes they'd made in 2002 of interrogations. Shea also unquestioningly accepts a story that Abu Zubaydah was insane and gave no information; maybe mentioning that former CIA Director George Tenet claims that Zubaydah gave important information was too much for him to write. Perhaps the claims from a former al Qaeda operative that Zubaydah was a major player weren't worth notifying his readers about.

No, Mark Shea has gone from an entertaining source of news and apologetics to a spiteful, foul-mouthed, incoherent victim of Bush Derangement Syndrome. He's already declared George W. Bush the "Worst President Ever" and Dick Cheney the "Worst Vice President Ever;" what are the odds??? In doing this he breaks rule after rule that he himself has coined, including the "What Could It Hurt/How Were We Supposed to Know" and "Consequentialism on Parade." He goes after those who support the War for counting Christopher Hitchens as an ally while himself quoting Andrew Sullivan with aplomb.

Shea apparently doesn't have the decency to hold back; in his enraged mind George W. Bush is the root cause of all problems. He'll post anything, no matter how slimy, if he thinks it'll hurt Bush. When it is pointed out that his reasoning doesn't make sense or that his examples have been disproven (don't bother waiting around for a retraction, by the way), he's as likely as not to respond profanely and with insults.

For a grown man, a husband and father, a well-known Catholic apologist, and popular blogger to act this way is sickening, and he should be well and truly ashamed of himself.

Yeah She Does

2007-12-11T02:49:00.001-05:00

Amy Welborn keeps it real.

(Full Disclosure: I have Amy's book Prove It! Church. A good resource, although geared more toward "Cradle Catholics" than converts and non-Catholics.)

Should I Heart Huckabee?

2007-12-10T20:25:00.001-05:00

Ben Domenech shines in his analysis of Mike Huckabee's run for the GOP nomination, and Mark Byron has been liking Mike from Day One.

My personal preference based on issues and style is for Fred Thompson; he's solidly conservative and seems to have been the only one paying attention when they talked about federalism in Civics class. His campaign, however, has been pretty disappointing. The problem is that most of the rest of the field seems marginal. Giuliani, anointed by the media as the frontrunner, is pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, and is scandal-plagued (I can probably come up with more problems involving hyphenation if pressed). McCain is tough-talking and Romney has proven experience as a manager, but neither of them is quite trustworthy, flip-flopping on issues. Besides, McCain is pretty old and Romney is just too slick. Hunter and Tancredo are marginal, although I agree with them on immigration and hope their views receive proper consideration. Then there's Ron Paul. The less said about him, the better.

Huckabee is soft on immigration and federalism. He has executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and seems to have done a good job of it. He's a sincere Christian with a dose of charisma; he's also nicely low-key as compared to most of the Democrat candidates. As far as I can tell, he's willing to continue the War on Terror. Basically, I get the impression that he's like a copy of George W. Bush; in my book that's a good thing. I'd vote for Bush again if I didn't think that too much power for too long isn't a good thing. While an energetic Thompson might give the top Democrat candidates a run for their money, I think that Giuliani, McCain, and Romney would probably get pwnt by Clinton or Obama (or, *shudder*, Edwards).

As for the Democrats, Richardson is the only one I can stand. Not that I like him on the issues, but he alone among them seems like a decent person (maybe Obama, too, on this) who actually has experience in government. I think it was the Clinton campaign that said (apparently without irony) that running for President isn't actually a credential when it comes to running for President; Obama has virtually no experience. My theory has been that he's running for President in 2012 or '16, possibly as Vice President under Clinton. As for Edwards, I'm not sure there's a politician I detest as much as the former senator from North Carolina (watch this, compare it with this, and see who's classier). I think there are also a bunch of Northeastern senators who always run; they can be safely ignored.

So what's this all mean? I don't know. The election is still a long, long way away, even if the obscenely-early primaries are just around the corner.

Whether True or False, Mark Shea is Irresponsible (at Best)

2007-12-10T19:06:00.000-05:00

As good as Shea's blog can be, there's been a really high noise-to-signal ratio for the past, oh, year or more. Today, it's not missing an opportunity to diss the Bush administration over some unsubstantiated claims. In the comments, it's pointed out that the woman making allegations of gang-rape wasn't exactly set upon by a pack of jackals; rather, she had a history of trading sex for favors, got black-out drunk with men who weren't her husband, and woke up to one of her "assailants" lying next to her in bed (how she can remember that this man was one of her attackers but also have to question him as to what happened that night is beyond me). Maybe she was raped; on the other hand, maybe she just got drunk and stupid (not necessarily in that order, either). We don't know; all we have are her allegations.

Shea's post is, at the very least, an offense against charity. He uses a story with a tangental connection to the administration (the woman's employer used was a division of Halliburton, Cheney used to run Halliburton, Cheney is evil and controls Bush like a marionette; you know the drill). He tries to use the weasel words "If true," but it's clear that this is, at most, a CYA move. He knows better, and should be ashamed of himself.

Two Thoughts

2007-12-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

I'll get back to these later (maybe after finals...):

1. Instead of stepping on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, why not step on the First Amendment's freedom of the press and forbid stories about mass or serial murders (seeing as apparently the Constitution is a Create-Your-Own-Adventure document).

2. Is a university a place of public accommodation? If so, can I sue my school if a gunman shoots up William & Mary (God forbid)? Can I seek equitable relief to force them to hire and station trained security guards around the campus or, alternatively, to disallow those holding Concealed Handgun Permits from being subject to "academic discipline" should they be found to have a firearm or ammunition on campus?

I Can't Think of a Good Title for This Post

2007-12-06T23:36:00.000-05:00

Do you ever just feel crushed by the weight of suffering, injustice, pain, sin, and lies around you? (Not to say that those things are never in my life, of course.) I'm not despairing; it's just that sometimes it sends you reeling and it takes a moment to regain your balance.

I had a moment like that recently. Some of us had gone to a restaurant as a study break; I knew about half the people there and was in some of the same classes with the rest, although I hadn't talked to most of them before. We were all swapping stories and, as a side note to one story, a certain detail about a girl with whom I'm friends came out. It wasn't flattering to her at all, and what made it worse was that the girl telling the story had originally left my friend's name out. A few people wanted to know who it was (I didn't know at that point, but didn't ask), others said "Oh, do you really have to ask? You know exactly who it is. It's ______," to which no one else expressed any surprise and the original story continued on, back on track after the quick detour. I was completely shocked and very saddened, although I think I hid it well enough.

With that detail revealed, a lot of what I knew about my friend began to make sense and, again, it broke my heart to realize it. Like many girls, she'd been taken advantage of before in her life and had taken the lies that come with that as the truth. She's a sweet girl and should have been treated better. Heck, let me be nonspecific: people should be treated better. I'm not perfect; I'm sure I've been like a bull in a china shop with people's emotions before, rampaging around without a second thought for what I leave behind. The guys that take advantage of people like my friend are too often simply acting out on what they've been taught: self-first. They simply don't know any better. Some do, and that's reprehensible, but I think most of the time it's at least a mixture of the two. The girls buy into it and end up not only falling prey to it over and over again, thinking that this time will be different, but even end up enticing guys into the role of user until you have a massive furball of people competing to use each other, thinking only of themselves and not realizing how much hurt they actually cause.

At Kids Across America the highest award that they gave out was the "I'm Third" award. The idea was "God first, others second, and I'm third." I never received this award, and that's probably a good thing: I'd be inclined to rest on my laurels. I don't always put myself third, and too often I put myself first of all. It's something I keep in mind, though, as a goal of how I'm to live.

I don't know what I mean to say by all of this. Treat people better. Be more considerate. If you can't go out of your way to help someone, at least be aware of what's going on around you. Pray for each other (and pray for me, too!). Don't just withdraw from the world; ~~Jacob~~ Joseph running naked from Potiphar's wife was a last-ditch effort.

I'm no better or worse than those around me except that I have a relationship, through Christ and with the aid of the Holy Spirit with God the Father. I am being transformed into a new man. I may be the closest thing a person sees to a reflection of the Living God; how can I let grime and rust obscure that light, or hide myself away lest I be tarnished?

It's scary and it's frustrating. Sometimes I want to simply break down and sob for those around me, both men and women, who have bought into lies and built their lives around them. There is victory in Christ, though, and crying's not going to solve anything.

When Seconds Count, the Police Are Only Minutes Away

2007-12-06T08:16:00.001-05:00

Negron said every available officer in the city was sent to the mall, and it took six minutes from the time of the call for the first officers to arrive.

There was a shooting at a mall in Nebraska the other day; if I understand it correctly nine people plus the gunman were killed and five more were wounded. It's tough not to be bitter at those who insist that this sort of thing isn't likely to happen again, that we should be disarmed, and that the police can protect us. Even given the best of intentions, the police can't be everywhere (nor should we want them to be). We as citizens continue to abdicate from our responsibilities, with an ignorance of how to defend ourselves being but one example.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that some pregnant mother should have pulled out a knife and charged the man as he was shooting (although I do think that pregnant women would be smart to carry a firearm, seeing as they're very vulnerable). However, someone nearby who a basic understanding of what to do could have saved lives.

In a similar vein, I was driving back from Norfolk to Williamsburg earlier this week. It was getting dark and I noticed that the van ahead of me was periodically swerving halfway into other lanes and generally driving erratically. Knowing that we still had a few miles to go until we got to the tunnel that connects Norfolk with Hampton, I called the Norfolk police and told them about the guy, warning them that the guy was seriously endangering other cars and that in the tunnel there would be very little room to maneuver. The police didn't come.

I stayed a moderate distance behind him, honking whenever he swerved into the right lane or looked as though he were about to crash into the left barrier. Cars found themselves forced onto the shoulder or were cut off. Here's where things go from bad to worse: right before the tunnel some sports car cut me off and then began tailgating the drunk guy. Once we got into the two-lane tunnel, an SUV would periodically pull up next to the guy...but not drive on past. It was the craziest thing: two cars boxing in a drunk guy in a van bigger than either of their vehicles while in the middle of a tunnel, going 55mph. I was praying throughout the whole thing and somehow no accident occurred. Shortly afterwards the van took an exit onto one of the regular streets. I called the Hampton police and told them about the drunk driver and where he'd turned off; they said they'd keep an eye out.

And in Other News...

2007-12-01T12:29:00.001-05:00

The King of Thailand is apparently a saint.

w00t!

2007-11-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?

YOU ARE RULE 20(a)!You are Rule 20, an important part of the Federal Rules' policy of permissive joinder. You are designed specifically to allow as many parties in an action as can be tried efficiently, and you'll include someone as long as there is some factual overlap between a claim involving them and the rest of the case at hand. You are popular, out-going, and are never far from friends. However, your overly gregarious nature and magnanimous approach do make things a bit crowded--you're the reason that lawsuits are often cluttered with innumerable parties and even more numberous claims for relief. Still, despite the crowds that you attract, you can't argue with the efficiency of getting everything done at once!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Ordinary Mass Thoughts

2007-11-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

1. Sorry about the ranting below; I'm better now.

2. If a hypothetical person were to find themselves at the folk Mass held in the evening because the hypothetical person overslept, the proper meditation for the service is "This is my own darn fault."

3. And now for something productive: a Latin-to-English cheat sheet for the Ordinary Mass in Latin that I arranged. I don't go to Latin services (although it sounds tempting), but I've got a lot of sacred music and, since I don't speak Latin, the Masses may as well be gibberish to my ears. With the cheat sheet, they make perfect sense. If you like this and find it helpful, let me know; I'm considering doing ones for the Miserere, for the 1928 Anglican version of the English translation, and the Stabat Mater Dolorosa (although I don't know if this has prescribed lyrics or not).

I Don't Know

2007-11-23T03:36:00.000-05:00

I think I'll take a break from song-title posts, or at least not make them obligatory.

Anyway, I've come to realize that I've been very angry lately. I don't know how to describe it, except to say that I know it dates back to the Virginia Tech shootings last April.

Those shootings weren't actually the first case of a killer being on the loose in Blacksburg that academic year: on the first day of classes a prisoner had managed to take an officer's weapon and kill two police officers before being apprehended that afternoon. I didn't have work that day and so I took a pistol over to my then-girlfriend's apartment and waited with her. She had work early that afternoon; I parked out front of her store with the gun on the seat next to me, keeping my eyes peeled in case the killer (who had been described in detail on TV) showed up. After he was caught I put the pistol back in my closet and didn't really give the matter a second thought. As far as I'm concerned, it was a basic precaution that, while perhaps ultimately unnecessary, was a good thing to do.

In April, the killer (whose name doesn't deserve to be remembered) first killed two people in a dormitory (the same building where I had lived as an undergrad) and then thirty more in Norris Hall (where I'd had classes as an undergrad), plus many more wounded. Before the second part of his mass murder, he chained the doors shut so cops couldn't get in and people couldn't get out. Campus security isn't armed and much of the Virginia Tech police department is a joke, so this may have been unnecessary on his part.

I only knew one of the victims even slightly; Ryan "Stack" Clark was a member of the Marching Virginians while I was there, albeit in a different section of the 330-strong organization and I can't have talked to him more than twice in my life. The closest to a "direct" tie I had to anyone were some people who were on campus at the time.

At the same time, they're "my people" in that they're Hokies. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry; very few people who aren't Hokies (or family of Hokies) seem to understand it, while all the Hokies I know seem to understand it completely. It hurt me that "my people" were targeted. If it had been at nearby Radford University or in the Town of Blacksburg I'd be upset, but not to the same extent.

I believe many people have blood on their hands as a result of what happened. While his handling of events that day was okay, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger has blood on his hands for supporting the academic ban of legal firearms on campus. The Board of Visitors and all members of the Tech administration share in this guilt. I hope every single one of them loses their job. The Virginia Tech police and security departments are worthless jokes perpetuating a myth of safety while hassling students over ticky-tack offenses. One person I read put it well: "Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

Many of those who were shot that day were graduate students and professors, with at least one professor being a veteran (of the Israeli army). One student with a concealed weapon could have changed things. Let me explain: at Virginia Tech (and at William & Mary) it is legal for those with concealed weapons permits to carry their handguns on campus. The law doesn't touch that. However, if discovered, they can face academic discipline (expulsion). It's an end-run around a basic right. At Appalachian School of Law the shooter was stopped by two students who had retrieved their guns from their cars, although not before he'd killed six people. I recently heard that during the 1966 shooting at the University of Texas several students retrieved their rifles from their cars and shot back, causing the shooter to have to take cover and significantly disrupting his ability to kill.

The way I see it, the past decade has seen a shooting at a law school in Virginia and a shooting at a public university in Virginia (plus the "Beltway Snipers" in Northern Virginia). I happen to go to a public university law school in Virginia. However, the W&M administration has made it clear that their policy is the same as Virginia Tech's: it's okay for students to get shot up so long as no one has to think too hard and shatter their fairy-tale kumbaya world.

This side of heaven there are people who will do evil things. They will shoot up schools, assault and rape women, mug the unsuspecting, and more. My life and the lives of those I care about are apparently not worth any real protection.

It's really hard not to swear at this point (only years of self-discipline keep me from doing so). I'm not allowed to protect myself and neither is anyone else. There sure seems to be a threat out there. I don't even know how to end this. I'm just angry, frustrated, and can't understand why the good people must be left at the mercy of those who seek to do them harm.

Ngggghhhhh.

2007-11-16T23:20:00.001-05:00

It's important to do the right thing. Even when it sucks.

The Old Rugged Cross

2007-11-07T23:19:00.000-05:00

For those who have seen nothing but gloom and doom for Iraq's Christians, let me direct you here.

[If you're any kind of Evangelical you've heard this song many, many times. Here's the Statler Brothers' version]

Under Over

2007-11-03T00:45:00.000-04:00

Apparently I can't win. Over at Mark Shea's I got reamed for saying that not every form of coercion is necessarily torture. A lot of people were very angry with me. Over the last two days, I've gotten yelled and screamed at over at Dean Esmay's for saying that if waterboarding is torture then we shouldn't do it. It doesn't matter whether we do it to one or three or however many people, whether we do it to our own troops with their consent, or whether it leaves a physical mark.

As far as I can tell I'm not arguing two contrary positions. I'm saying that not all coercion is torture and that if something is torture (and I'm inclined to think that waterboarding is) then we shouldn't do it. Torture is wrong, but not everything that seems like torture necessarily is. When it comes to something like torture, I'm sympathetic to what Jimmy Akin calls (in the last line of his post) the Deerhunter Principle: unless you know it's right then don't do it.

My thinking is that we shouldn't do evil, even when our goal is to prevent a greater evil. Any evil, great or small, has a way of coming back to bite those who do it (good does this, too). Kind of like karma, which although a Hindu term is more-or-less present in Christianity as well. It's my belief that the end result of our doing evil to prevent what we see as a greater evil will be worse than if we declined to use wrong means; in other words, that the short-term benefit is outweighed by the long-term loss. We're the United States. We have two very big things going for us: our science and technological superiority on one hand and that we're generally the "good guys" on the other. We can't afford to sacrifice either one, but we especially can't afford to lose the latter quality. It's what separates us from mere bullies, such as (most of) the empires that flourished in centuries past. We abandon the high ground at our peril, and we do it for something as questionably useful as waterboarding at our own stupidity. Can't those who think we should sell ourselves find a better price?

UPDATE: The equivalent of the "chickenhawk" argument has been leveled against me: namely, that I've never been to SERE school and been waterboarded. True. As always, I thank those who serve and have served our country by volunteering to be put in harm's way. However, I have to believe that there's still a difference between super-intense training done by your countrymen and the same acts done by your enemy. John McCain, who actually was tortured, says that waterboarding is torture. There are many things on which McCain and I disagree, but I'm pretty sure he has as good or better of an understanding of torture as just about anyone else out there.

[The title song is by the now-defunct group Doctor Manette; the words are good but the ending is my favorite part, with it being almost-but-not-quite the same thing over and over.]

Invasion of the Gabber Robots

2007-11-01T01:30:00.001-04:00

That's right: it's election time. Local elections, to be precise. Officially, I still live it my parents' house; it's easier to get some mail there and better than having to update my driver's license and voting precinct every year when I switch apartments at school. I figure rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin, and thus not only do I have a right to vote but also a responsibility to vote (and to become informed about my choices). Just as importantly, I figure that I forfeit my right to complain about any elected official in my district in whose election I didn't vote. Now, for local elections there's only so much at stake. If someone on the Soil and Water Board is in favor of embryonic stem cell research it's not exactly a deal-breaker for me. Besides, being Fairfax County, my state senator, delegate, county sheriff, and district representative to the school board were all Democrats running unopposed. The Soil and Water Board had three incumbents (two Democrats and one Republican) running unopposed with one Green challenger.

After doing a quick check of each candidate's website or blurb in the newspapers, I came up with my list. At least one Republican, Democrat, and Independent (in a race where party could be listed) candidate received my vote. I generally write in a candidate when someone runs unopposed and continued that trend today. As for the rest, these were my criteria:
-One-party rule is a bad thing; in Fairfax County this means that Republicans get a +1 in my consideration
-If they're a challenged incumbent and seem to have been doing an okay (no positions to which I strongly object) job, they get my vote. The other side of this is that I'll risk a new guy if the incumbent is incompetent or seems to be in it for his own gain (like a certain incumbent who seems to be using his legitimate authority to reclassify objectionable things as nonobjectionable and look better to those who don't look too closely)
-Competency is good; being a busybody is bad
-Being a veteran gives you bonus points in my consideration, as does having a family and being a member of a church

So with all that in mind I went in to vote absentee-in-person at one of the satellite government centers. The hours for doing this are all day at the main government center and at the satellite centers on Saturday, but only 3:30-7:30 on weekdays. I couldn't find the polling station and had the following conversation with the receptionist:

Me: "Um, hi. I was wondering where I could go vote absentee-in-person."
Receptionist: "You can do it here, but not until 3:30."
Me: "Wait, what?"
Receptionist: "The station doesn't open until 3:30 during the week."
Me: "Isn't today Saturday?"
Receptionist: [blinks] "You're joking."
Me: [confused]
Me: "Oh. That's right; I'm usually only here on the weekends."

Now, in my defense, I had originally been planning to be back on Saturday, not Wednesday. Since my 5PM class yesterday had been cancelled it felt like a weekend. In any case, I drove to the main government center in Fairfax and voted there. They gave me a sticker.

I encourage you to take an hour and do a quick once-over of the candidates for any local races you have coming up. Tuesday is election day; you should have the day off. A lot of these races only garner a few thousand votes (if that), and every election you hear of some race that got won by a handful of votes (sometimes even a single vote).

[As for the song, "gabber robots" seems like a decent description of politicians to me (especially Al Gore and Mitt Romney). Okay, that parenthetical remark was kind of a cheap shot. To make up for it, I present an internet fad that occurred during my Freshman year of college: All Your Base Are Belong To Us. The video is the first part of a horribly mistranslated Japanese video game, followed by a lot of photoshopping. The music is called "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" and is actually a pretty good, if sad, song if you like that style. Why sad? It's sad because the good guys lose. This takes some knowledge of both video games and some creativity, but bear with me. The driving pulse is the relentless, monolithic enemy. The high-pitched melodic line is the "good guys." Everything else is "mood" and tells the story. Listening to the melodic line, at around 2:10 you have the good guys doing well. They're not doing anything seriously harmful, but are doing the equivalent of dispatching the ineffective minions of the enemy. At about 2:33, they start doing real damage and you begin to think that they've got a chance. At 2:46, however, it becomes apparent that their efforts are futile; they're doomed no matter what. At 3:10 the good guys are continuing the fight, even though they know there's no hope of victory. After their theme dies out, there's a pause...and now you know that whatever the good guys were defending is now facing the enemy themselves.

Okay, so maybe it's just a song. Still, I like the story. Insert Battlestar Galactica references if you'd like.]

Ooh Ahh

2007-10-31T23:32:00.000-04:00

In quick succession, I recently got two horrible pieces of news.

The first is that the wife of a man I know left him (I don't know whether he considers me a friend or just an acquaintance, so I won't presume). I have a lot of thoughts on this, but they're not proper to be anywhere except inside my own head, and maybe not even there. I just pray that God will remain active in the lives of all affected parties and that they'll allow the Holy Spirit to guide them to a proper resolution.

The second is that a guy with whom I was co-counselor at the camp where I worked two years ago just passed away. I don't have any other details. He was a good guy who'd come from a hard background. I'll be praying for him, too.

I don't know what to say, except to note that while I have no doubt that the second guy is on his way to heaven and that, while the first guy surely feels like he's in hell, hope still remains.

[I wasn't sure whether to do a musical title for this one or not. If my only options were punk or something, I wouldn't. The song Ooh Ahh, by Grits, is a soulful rap about life and loss and love and hope. Yeah, that sounds cliche, but it ends up striking a much deeper chord with me than a lot of other songs on the same subject. The link is just the song; you may want to have it in a background tab and read the lyrics as you listen.]

Save Tonight

2007-10-29T00:32:00.001-04:00

...is what I'll be doing as I work on my memo for Legal Skills due in about sixteen hours. I procrastinated, although I did come up with a skeleton ahead of time (unlike last time).

[Save Tonight was a song by Eagle-Eye Cherry that was a big hit in 1996. It's good, but I like the remix by Jackie O better (the anime music video is weird, so you may want to have it playing in the background).]

Minstrel Boy

2007-10-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, so new experiment:
I'm going to try to make the title to every post the name of a song (which will likely be on my playlist, which has a lot of rock, punk, ska, and miscellania). We'll see how long this goes. If possible, I'll try to link to a version of the song on YouTube...although I make no comment on whatever video accompanies it.

[Minstrel Boy is an old Irish song set to the tune of the Moreen, a really old tune that you've definitely heard before. A fun punk version is done by Enter the Haggis, while a haunting version is done by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros (it's in the closing credits to Black Hawk Down).]

Baffled About Communion

2007-10-27T20:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, I thought I understood the rule about Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. I thought it was "Only Roman Catholics, with two exceptions. One, Eastern Orthodox (although they're forbidden by their own bishops). Two, emergencies when the person is properly disposed." Seems reasonable enough, but it fails to address one particular group: Anglo-Catholics.

The reasoning for "No Protestants" is stated as being that Protestants don't consider the Eucharist to be the transubstantiated Body and Blood of Christ. However, many Anglo-Catholics share the Roman Catholic belief about the nature of the Eucharist (and, to be snotty, I suspect a higher percentage of Anglo-Catholics than Roman Catholics believe this).

The reasoning for the "Eastern Orthodox = okay" is that they have valid holy orders. However, due to Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox lines of succession (both of which are considered to have valid orders by Rome), many Anglican and most (all?) Anglo-Catholic clergy have re-established their lines of succession.

Thus my bafflement. According to the Code of Canon Law Canon 912, "Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion. That's where I come in. I was baptized by an Episcopalian priest as an infant. Thus, I have a valid baptism. I'm not excommunicated or under any other form of discipline. I share the Roman Catholic belief in the nature of the Eucharist. If I affiliate myself with an Anglo-Catholic body which has restored its holy orders then it would seem that the only thing holding me back from receiving Communion would be the need to make a valid Confession (I've never done this, so I'm presumably in a state of mortal sin at present).

Does anyone see any obvious flaws in this?

Boycotting China

2007-10-24T23:40:00.000-04:00

One project I'm trying to get off the ground is How to Boycott China. The idea is to prepare a guide to help people avoid buying Chinese goods and to understand why such a boycott is a good idea. Right now I'm soliciting ideas on types of products to research. If you've got anything coming up that you're looking to buy, be it shower curtains or a cell phone, let me know and I'll see what I can do to find non-Chinese manufacturers.

FAQ on TAC & Rome

2007-10-23T00:41:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned a few days ago, the Traditional Anglican Communion (which is not in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion) officially petitioned the Vatican for intercommunion. Reading a lot of the commentary, I've seen a lot of misconceptions thrown around, perhaps understandably by those who fear corruption and scandal of the Roman Catholic Church. What follows is my attempt, as one somewhat familiar with Anglo-Catholicism, to clarify things a bit.

So who are these TAC folks anyway? Do they ordain lesbian bishops?
The Traditional Anglican Communion is an Anglo-Catholic group which splintered off from the Anglican Communion (those national churches in communion with the See of Canterbury), largely over the issues of women's ordination and the general free-fall of worldwide Anglicanism. If the ones I've encountered are representative, they accede to Roman Catholic beliefs, pray for the intentions of the Pope (and somewhat implicitly consider him to be their head; anything he says gets a lot of airtime), and often use a somewhat retro style of Mass (words like "Thou" and "shalt" make a lot of appearances). Most of them would very much like to be in communion with Rome. To their mind, the only truly major hurdle is that of married priests and bishops. All the TAC bishops seem willing to step down if necessary, and the ban on married priests in the Roman Rite is canonical, not doctrinal (which is why Eastern Catholic priests are usually married).

Do they have valid orders?
TAC orders are probably valid, but definitely illicit. While Anglican orders were declared invalid in the 1800s due to a break occurring in the way priests were ordained shortly after the English Reformation, the method of ordaining has been "fixed" and is generally considered okay. That still left the problem of having actual orders to transmit. The TAC solution to this was to get Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bishops to co-consecrate TAC clergy. As Rome recognizes the validity of the orders of these co-consecrators, a seemingly strong argument can be made that TAC priests do in fact have valid orders.

Are there really 500,000 members of the Traditional Anglican Communion?
Eh, probably not. For all I know, it's a tenth of that. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably one or two hundred thousand, with maybe 60-90% of those willing to swim the Tiber. I don't have any hard data, but those are the numbers which strike me as reasonable bases on what little I know.

What are the TAC folks asking for?
In short, intercommunion (unity) with Rome. They'd like something like Uniate status, if possible. They're pretty much ready to jump through whatever hoops Rome has for them; they've just got some requests for things they'd like to keep. Seriously: I think that if Rome were to say "the only solution is for each of you to convert individually," the TAC leadership would encourage their members to do it.

So why not just convert individually? Why all this hassle?
Again, the short answer is that I don't believe it would be in everyone's best interests to do that. Some are seeing this as a give-and-take affair with winners and losers. That seems to me to be a mistaken view. It's about reconciling in such a way as to effectively bring people into the Holy Catholic Church while also enriching it.

Anglicanism has a somewhat unique pedigree in the West. They believe their roots, especially through Celtic Christianity, predate the Roman mission to Britain. Historically the English Church has had many of its own traditions and a distinctive culture. It sent bishops to the Councils of Arles and Nicaea. It has been officially recognized by Rome as the oldest church in the gentile world. The Archbishop of Canterbury (pre-English Reformation) was treated by the Pope as the head of his own "ecclesia," rather than diocese.

Why is this a big deal?
Firstly, no Reformation-induced body of Christians has ever corporately reunited with Rome. The petition of TAC provides numerous benefits. In English-speaking countries, Roman Catholicism is generally regarded as one (maybe just a half) step up from Santeria. It's regarded as an ethnic enclave of Irish, Italians, and Hispanics. Those of Anglo-Saxon(-ish) background (either physically or mentally) have a lot of trouble with that. It's just seen as impenetrable and somewhat suspect. An Anglican Rite would be something of a bridge and a touchstone for English speakers, allowing them to poke around and say "hmm, it's not as bad as I thought it would be." Roman Catholics: feel free to be offended. At the same time, charity's altogether lacking in this world and a little bit here could go a long way. Don't think that the Eastern Orthodox and the Lefebvrist SSPX folks aren't watching to see whether the TAC will be treated cordially as long-lost brethren or simply gobbled up and told to shut up about Anglican ideals. There are Anglo-Catholics outside the TAC, including entire dioceses of the Episcopal Church, who might very well latch on to a viable recognition of Anglican Catholicism. I honestly believe that the Roman Catholic Church, especially under the current Pope, has the potential to heal the Great Schism, bring back the SSPX, get a foot in the door with Anglicanism, and even get the Evangelicals to sit down and really think about how separate they want to be.

8 Bit Fever

2007-10-22T13:52:00.000-04:00

Inspired by this post over at Dean's World, I give you modern science:

Being Immature and Venting

2007-10-21T19:50:00.000-04:00

I've got Verizon Wireless cell phone service and I'm looking to re-up. Their network is great, but (tragically) their actual phones are less-than-inspiring. In any case, I wandered into my local Verizon Wireless store to play with the new phones and see if any of them caught my fancy (none did) (I'm waiting for either the LG Venus or Audiovox xv6800).

Anyway, they've now got some kind of automated waiting list now where you have to put in a bunch of information about yourself. On the Big Board you can see your name (in my case, "Robert.B") and your place in the queue. For various reasons I had to go in multiple times and it got pretty annoying having to do this every time, even when I was the only person in the store.

Before going on, remember that I'm immature, petty, and vindictive at times. Deciding to amuse myself, and wanting to keep things PG-rated, I answered their query as follows:
First Name: IDONTLIKE
Last Name: USINGTHIS

The end result, of course, was "IDONTLIKE.U." This stayed up for several minutes as there was already someone in line before me. However, I did notice that instead of waiting for about five minutes after finished with the lady in front of me, as seems to be their wont, they called me up immediately (and made me wait). Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

PSA on Gun Safety

2007-10-20T22:06:00.000-04:00

When you go to the shooting range, make sure you have adequate ear and eye protection. If you wear small-ish glasses, consider supplementing them with larger safety glasses. The important thing is to make sure no powder or casings can hit and burn your eyes. As for ear protection, earplugs are good, muffs are good...both together are better. As a friend of mine discovered a week or so ago on his first trip to the range, sometimes muffs can get separated from the side of your head for an instant, leaving your delicate ear vulnerable to folks shooting very loud weapons nearby in an indoor range. He may have permanently lost some hearing in that ear. To some extent it's my fault for not checking to make sure his "ears" were on properly, but I'd never had a problem with mine (because I normally wear earplugs as well, I guess) and so it didn't even occur to me.

As a general principle, if you can add a lot of safety for very little inconvenience or expense, do it. Skimping on things like that can really come back to bite you. Hopefully this is just a temporary thing for my friend and he'll be good as new before too long.

Virginia Tech and the BCS

2007-10-19T03:21:00.000-04:00

As of today, Friday, Virginia Tech is #11 in the BCS. Of course, with USF's loss to unranked Rutgers last night that's likely to change soon, but here's the current top 15:
1. Ohio State (7-0), Big 10
2. South Florida (6-1), Big East
3. Boston College (7-0), ACC Atlantic
4. LSU (6-1), SEC West
5. Oklahoma (6-1), Big 12 South
6. South Carolina (6-1), SEC South
7. Kentucky (6-1), SEC South

8. Arizona State (7-0), Pac 10
9. West Virginia (5-1), Big East
10. Oregon (5-1), Pac 10
11. Virginia Tech (6-1), ACC Coastal
12. California (5-1), Pac 10
13. Kansas (6-0), Big 12 North
14. USC (5-1), Pac 10
15. Florida (4-2), SEC East

Keep in mind that the only team I really care about here is Virginia Tech, which means I'm concerned with who we need to pass and who could conceivably pass us. I'm also assuming that Tech runs the table, which would be hard but not impossible in a year full of ACC parity.

While a two-loss Florida would be hard to put over Tech, especially if they don't win their conference, Cal, Kansas, and USC could do so by winning theirs. In particular, it'd be really hard to justify putting us ahead of an undefeated Kansas.

The good news is that many of the teams above us have to play each other. Assuming Tech goes 12-1 and there's no more carnage than necessary above us in the polls, I would see us ending up at #6. Obviously USF is gone, which would move us to #10. Beating Boston College (perhaps twice...) would make it #9. Oregon and Arizona State play each other, meaning we'd move up one more to #8. Among LSU, South Carolina, and Kentucky only one can win the championship, meaning that two of these teams would likely drop below us, vaulting us two places to #6.

This leaves (probably) Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and either Arizona State or Oregon, plus any of the four behind us that might make a run. However, we can essentially discount these last few as they are in the same conferences as the teams before us. If one of them gets in, one of the top five pretty much has to go.

So how do these remaining teams look? Ohio State has to play five 5-2 teams to close their season, including Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Illinois. If they can survive that then they obviously deserve to be #1; even with a close loss to a good team they may still have a chance at the championship game. LSU has survived the hardest part of their schedule, although they'll likely play either Kentucky or South Carolina. Two losses and they're out; undefeated from now on probably gets them #2. Certainly, they have a tiebreaker against us if the records are even. Oklahoma beat Texas, but they've still got Texas Tech, in-state rival OK State, and a champion from the surprisingly strong Big 12 North to deal with. If they make it through, I still think LSU has a better loss against UK than OK's loss to Colorado. If Kansas and Oklahoma each suffer one more loss, though, I think the Big 12 is out of the picture for the Big Dance.

West Virginia might pull it out, but they've got to play away games at both Rutgers and Cincinnati (yeah, it feels weird to write that). Even if they win the Big East, I suspect a 12-1 ACC Champion Virginia Tech would jump over an 11-1 Big East Champion West Virginia. Maybe not, but probably. WVU is also the Big East's only major contender now that USF has fallen. That leaves us with the Oregon/ASU/USC/Cal conundrum. ASU and USC still have to play the other three, while Cal beat Oregon before themselves losing to Oregon State. An undefeated ASU or one-loss Pac 10 Champion of the other three should be higher ranked than Tech, but significant carnage is probably headed our way on that front.

As for the Hokies, we still have some challenges. We host BC next Thursday night and travel to Georgia Tech one week later. We host weaker-than-usual iterations of Miami and Florida State before traveling to unsteady UVA for our season closer. If we win out, we almost certainly re-face Boston College in the ACC Championship, barring a complete meltdown on their part (Clemson and Maryland being the only teams with any hope of unseating them).

The good news is that, given the ACC's weakness, we can probably still win the Coastal division even if we lose to BC this week so long as we can beat UVA. A BCS bowl is attainable, and even the national championship game isn't completely off-limits yet. If there's as much carnage in the next few weeks as there has been already, anything is possible.

On Torture and Hypotheticals

2007-10-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

Let me start by reproducing a comment I left in response to this post over at Mark Shea's.

Mark,

Honestly, I really do appreciate you (and others) discussing the issue. It's something worth discussing. I'm not the only one having trouble with understanding this, and I suspect that I'm not alone. I certainly do apologize for intemperate remarks that I've made, and if I come to understand any other folly on my part I'll apologize for it as it dawns on me.

To my mind, I'm not starting with fear. I'm starting with the idea that coercive force is always wrong and trying to plug it into hypothetical situations (kind of like law school or the scientific method). What concerns me is that in some of these situations it seems as though I'm having to choose between evils to commit. If I have an obligation to protect someone and an obligation not to use coercive force, there are situations where both obligations cannot be fulfilled. I'm trying desperately to find a way out (or a loophole, if you prefer) where I can meet both my obligations in such a situation.

Torture is always wrong. If what the administration is sanctioning is torture then it needs to stop. However, they have an obligation to defend the American people and an obligation not to torture. It seems as though we're putting them into a no-win situation where at best they can only fulfill one obligation.

I had provided hypothetical situations, more-or-less patterned on the "ticking time-bomb" scenario, where the use of coercive force seemed to be the only way to prevent serious harm. The hope was to find either a type of coercive force that did not rise to the level of torture or a situation where what would otherwise be torture isn't in that case. I can think of situations where either one might be acceptable.

I think the police have the right to coerce a prisoner to submit to a warranted body-cavity search. I believe they have the right to forcibly manipulate a person's hand to obtain a fingerswipe on a protected computer. I don't believe they have the right to chain him to a metal bed and shock him. The problem is that I can't articulate a bright line as a distinction.

Similarly, I don't believe that two adults engaged in sadomasochism (or boxers) are actually being tortured as is prohibited, in that they've consented to the ordeal. Is it possible, for instance, that those enemy combatants who do not follow traditional rules of war have implicitly consented? I don't say that this is the case, but the argument could be made.

What gets me is the idea that this is "relativistic porn." This isn't "Who Would You Do?" or "Would You Rather..." being used as a party game. It's meant as a serious consideration of an issue facing Americans today as voters and as moral beings. Hard cases make bad law, but the proof is also in the pudding. Scientifically, a "law" is disproven if you can find a case where the theory doesn't work(having a net effect of zero is something else). In law school, professors regularly come up with absurd situations to find out whether a rule is appropriate. While sometimes this simply downgrades an argument from "always" to "tends to be," it also shows times when application of a rule as stated would result in harm.

When you buy a car, you want to know how it would perform in an emergency or in an accident. The odds of getting hit by a Mack truck are minuscule, but no one considers it odd to look over the safety ratings and consider them in deciding what kind of car to buy. Why is this different? Read the story of Operation Redwing. Four Navy SEALs decided by a vote of 2-1-1 not to kill innocent Afghans. The sole surviving SEAL seems to think he made the wrong decision. We have people out there, risking their lives, who haven't been properly educated on morality. They're facing the "incredibly unlikely" situations from which those of us stateside are insulated. If I end up serving in a war zone I definitely want to have my moral compass oriented right.

Ten years ago I suspect the idea of a shooting spree at the law school of a public university in Virginia would be "incredibly unlikely" and be deemed by some "relativistic porn." Since then, there was a mass shooting at Appalachian School of Law (a private law school in Virginia) and at Virginia Tech (a public university). Is the concern still so remote? I believe it's not. Similarly, I believe that the hypothetical situations to which the idea of "coercive force equals torture and is forbidden)" are being subjected are worth considering.

Do You Ever Find...

2007-10-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

...that there are things that you can't really say to a certain group of people you know because there's no way it wouldn't offend them? Especially if it's something subjective and isn't something that's going to change?

Once Again, Mark Shea Disagrees With Me

2007-10-17T15:12:00.001-04:00

If you read Mark Shea's blog, you've probably noticed his focus on torture lately. The problem is that he's so intent on establishing that torture is wrong that he doesn't both to establish what torture actually is. His big piece of support is Gaudiam et Spes, a Papal document, which condemns "torments inflicted on body or mind, [and] attempts to coerce the will itself." Where I have trouble is that this can be taken so broadly as to be useless. Do you spank your child when they do wrong, or even just sit them in the corner? Seems like coercion and a torment on the body to me. Do you use positive peer pressure to get your kids not to do drugs? Coercion. If someone threatens to kill your family this very instant may you coerce them, through torment on the body or mind if necessary, not to do so?

I don't argue that torture is right. It's not. However, we know that there are times when force is justifiable (or else Just War Theory would be a mere novelty). What we need to know is when those times are, and what may be done. In common law, for instance, you could shoot someone who invades your home and threatens you, but once he starts running away you may not shoot him in the back. Matthew 10:16 commands us to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (New Robert Bauer Translation).

Mark snarkily thinks this kind of thinking is not only counterproductive, but sinful. I had given a hypothetical situation (in these comments) where your child has been kidnapped and will die unless the kidnapper tells you where the child is. Shea goes on to embellish my example with CSI-esque examples and calls it "incredibly unlikely." Really? Such a situation could not be believed? I'll bet this boy and this boy and these two are glad to know that kidnapping never leads to murder.

The fact is that any number of situations occur where information is time-sensitive and people's lives are at risk. Mocking and condemning those who substantially agree with you but want more clarity is reprehensible, and Mark Shea should know better.

UPDATE:
Apparently it's not as bad as all that. While there was snark and disagreement, the two weren't meant maliciously (if that makes sense; it does in my own head). I apologize for any undue harm caused to Mark, and know that he shares the same sentiment. I believe the discussion is a valuable one, and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to consider opinions. It's very easy for tempers to flare up, and I think everyone would benefit by holding back on saracasm, snark, and by extending an extra dose of charity to situations.

FURTHER UPDATE:
Things were getting a little heated in the comments to this post. Debate is encouraged; hostility gets things shut down. I'm not above censorship.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

2007-10-17T10:08:00.000-04:00

Wow, talk about an informative comments section! Okay, for those of you on Google:
"How to become a Catholic if you are already a Christian"
"How to avoid RCIA"
"RCIA alternative"
"Baptized Christian become Catholic"

Incidentally, the priests in this area are apparently currently at a conference/retreat/something this week and so they're unavailable. Bishop DiLorenzo will be celebrating Mass this Sunday.

How to Get (almost) Free Classical Music

2007-10-16T23:08:00.000-04:00

I'll start with the short version and give more info as this post progresses. Your time is almost up on this one, though. Go to Circuit City and look hard for this. They used to be all over the place but now there are probably only a handful on the clearance rack. They're marked at $39.99 but are actually less than $15. The hardware is junk: it works, but it's really basic. Maybe it'd make for a cheap alternative to an iPod Shuffle, but I've already got one of those. You can throw it away without qualm, although I suppose putting it in a Toys for Tots bin might not be the worst thing ever.

The prize is the card with the code for 180 downloads. Now, even when the package cost $40 this was pretty good, as buying the tracks individually would be $180 (the same as Napster and iTunes and essentially the same as Amazon's, Zune's, and Wal-Mart's stores). eMusic focuses on smaller labels, and in fact you probably won't find many, if any, Top 40 songs there. If you like alternative music you can find albums by bands such as Flogging Molly and MU330l, but their hidden talent lies in their Classical selection, which includes the Naxos label. Why is this such a good deal? Two main reasons exist. The first is that a lot of the albums are only five or ten tracks; you could download Shostakovich's 5th, 8th, and 11th symphonies by the London Symphony Orchestra under Rostropovich and it would only be 11 credits. Even at Napster/iTunes prices you're getting three (absolutely amazing) albums for the price of one. Now realize that you paid around about eight cents for each credit and your whole purchase just cost you less than a dollar (actually the same as a single Wal-Mart download). Secondly, even if you want something like J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor which is 31 tracks. Instead of paying $31 through Napster or $13-20 in a store, you're paying about $2.50. The music is encoded in MP3 which means that it'll work on either your Windows Media Player devices or your iPod.

What are the downsides? Well, MP3s are twice as big as AAC or WMA files and so it could cause a budgeting problem on smaller players. However, you can convert the files without too much difficulty. You don't get the actual physical package, which would be nice to have. The lack of a booklet can be an important consideration, as the albums by Anonymous 4 include lyrics that you're probably not going to figure out unless you speak Medieval Latin. The sound quality is less than you'd get from an actual CD.

However, I tend to listen to music on my computer or in my car. The music is plenty rich as it is and I don't have the equipment to really gain more than a little bit more from a CD. The LSO Live and The Sixteen are two groups I've come to enjoy immensely, especially the aforementioned Shostakovich by LSO Live and the works of Allegri, Palestrina, and Victoria by The Sixteen. Really, check it out. I bought several and would give them as gifts if anyone I knew really liked Classical music and would download it.

Lord, Let It Be So!

2007-10-16T16:16:00.001-04:00

This is encouraging. I'd love to see an Anglican uniate church, and TAC seems to have done everything they could to bring this about. Rome, the ball's in your court. Will you restore the English Church's place in Roman Catholicism or will you be hectored by intransigents still upset over the Battle of the Boyne and the English Reformation?

Your Pundit Got Armor!

2007-10-16T13:57:00.000-04:00

IMNSHO, Indian culture needs more appreciation in this country. This is a great start. (via Dean Esmay)

(if BET and MTV are work-safe for you, the link above definitely is)

RCIA

2007-10-16T01:40:00.001-04:00

I think this will have been the third RCIA class I've started and quit. It's not because the people aren't nice: they're very friendly. It's not because they're theologically crazy: the two most recent ones involved what seemed like perfectly normal doctrine. It's just that it's a huge, huge time commitment that seems like a rehashing of work I've already done. I'm not some newcomer to Christianity who doesn't know hermeneutics from apologetics or Peter from Paul. I've read the entire Bible (minus the Deuterocanonical books, but I'm working on those) and sought out answers to questions I had. I've wrestled with the concepts of papal infallibility, the Marian doctrines, apostolic succession, the Real Presence, praying to saints, Purgatory, and the many ways that the Roman Catholic Church has let down Christendom for the past two thousand years (not that I probably would have done better) and found myself in line with Rome's doctrines. This doesn't make me a better person than someone who hasn't done this, but it makes me different from them.

As much as I'd like to partake of the Eucharist, I don't have 2-3 hours every week on the night before I have three classes the next morning. I can't afford to blow off law school based on bureaucracy. I have a valid Christian baptism and a belief in the Real Presence. If an expedited solution isn't available I'll just continue to go up with crossed arms at RCC parishes and get illicit-but-valid Communion at Traditional Anglican Church parishes in the region (their priests have the "Dutch Touch" that restores the validity of their orders).

Honestly, this is annoying. A person gets baptized as a Roman Catholic and does virtually nothing in accordance with the Roman Catholic faith and may partake, but because I was baptized as an Episcopalian my submission and faithfulness mean jack squat.

UPDATE: According to the folks in the Comments, it may be that I'm overreacting and that there are much shorter options available. If so, that'd be great. And, let me be clear: I don't believe the RCIA program I attended was in any way defective. It just takes up a huge amount of time at the time of the week I can least afford to spare it, and does so until Easter. I've already spent scores, perhaps hundreds, of hours researching, praying, and seeking advice. If a priest told me he wanted me to read through the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church and meet with him eight times at a more convenient time I'd be okay with that (I had to do something similar in order to date a girl once). Honestly, I'm just frustrated at what looks to my eyes as red tape. Here's the basic secret I've noticed to understanding me: I'll complain to high heaven about little things, but I generally keep pretty quiet on major hassles. If I'm complaining it just means I haven't figured out a solution or that it's not very important. I take action on things that are actually more important, and I seek advice if it's major and I don't how to solve it. I do appreciate the comments, though: there's not nearly enough material out there on how a faithful Christian should convert to Roman Catholicism short of RCIA.

An Interview with HokiePundit, Part III

2007-10-06T07:38:00.001-04:00

Have you been surprised by the hostility of some of the reactions to your conversion?
I guess it depends on what you mean by "surprised." I've actually told very few people directly about my intentions. Generally, and with some outliers, the responses have ranged from baffled interest to concerned disdain. Back in 2003, in the wake of the disastrous Episcopalian General Convention, I mentioned to a friend that I might start looking at other denominations, such as Methodism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism. At this last item, his response was "Oh Robbie, don't go over to Satan!" I haven't told him about my decision, as you might imagine. I think for people who know me, this news might be unexpected but certainly not surprising. In the Evangelical campus ministry in which I participated during college I was way, way out on what you might call the "Catholic wing," as opposed to those with more "Reformed," "Charismatic," or "Baptist" tendencies. Honestly, I fully expect that when I eventually update my Facebook profile to reflect this that I'll get a boatload of concerned emails, some of which will think I'm joking. Even some people who are close to me who don't go to church services or do much of anything else involving religion see Roman Catholicism as maybe two steps up on if I were to declare myself to have same-sex attraction or were joining Scientology.

An Interview with HokiePundit, Part II

2007-10-06T07:37:00.001-04:00

What led you to the Church?
Jesus. Either that, or a squirrel. (Old, old Evangelical joke.)
Okay, I've never really been a fan of math, but the idea of a vector makes sense here, with my starting point being an Episcopalian background and the direction being an interest in doctrine, theology, and denominations.

Being an Episcopalian gives you both advantages and disadvantages when going between Roman Catholics and "Protestants." Both sides see something in you they recognize...but neither really trusts you 100%. Except for some of your more free-form Bible Church-type services, an Episcopalian can pretty much navigate his way among any other type of service (probably excepting the more ethno-centric services and denominations) well enough to blend in. This works to some extent in theology, too, as he can generally get his foot in the door, whether it be the Westminster Confession, the Council of Trent, or the Prayer of Jabez. Many Episcopalians have had one other unexpected impetus: the general free-fall and suicide of the denomination has caused many of those who are more theologically conservative (Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics) to look elsewhere. The idea of Episcopalians, who tend to be as blue-blooded as you can get (my ancestors weren't, but wanted to be), being refugees is actually really funny.

For whatever reason, I was always fascinated by the differences between denominations. Part of it came from discovering that they didn't just arise ex nihilo, but formed a complicated family tree. Just as an example, Baptists arose from the old Congregationalists in New England (basically the Pilgrims and Puritans from elementary school history). These, in turn, were dissenters from the Church of England, which was itself, of course, broken away from the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Eastern churches broke off from Rome long before this. Not only that, but the Methodists later broke off from the Anglicans, eventually giving rise to groups such as the Salvation Army (an actual denomination) and Pentecostals. Sometimes there were massive differences that caused the split, as with the Calvinists and Anabaptists, while sometimes the differences were minuscule. In some cases, they've even been "resolved," although the groups still remain separated. By becoming aware of what other Christians believed I was able to consider and accept or reject different concepts and have a reason for the decision. I'm not sure why it was, as I wasn't trained in Episcopalian theology (although perhaps the culture had already claimed me), but no matter what I decided it always seemed to end up within the bounds of Episcopalianism. Maybe I should clarify.

Unlike the many denominations that have a specific creed, Episcopalianism generally only requires a belief that the Bible is the word of God, a belief in the Nicene and Apostles' creeds, and in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (I think apostolic succession is the only major point in there). This is even distinct from much of Anglicanism, which often has a very Calvinistic flavor depending on the specific Province. Episcopalianism tends to be almost more "familial" than like a political party. I may disagree with my family members, even vehemently, but that doesn't mean we're not a family. This can be a strength, but it has also proven to be a weakness, as this tolerance has been stretched to the breaking point lately. Really, "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis is a pretty good example of the best aspects of this kind of thought. Lutherans have their Martin Luther and Prebyterians have their John Calvin; conservative Episcopalians pretty much lionize C.S. Lewis. His books, especially "Mere Christianity," "The Screwtape Letters," and "The Great Divorce" provided much of my earliest reading upon becoming a Christian in high school and I'm not sure I've found anything in them with which I disagree.

Here's the thing, though: a "Lewisian" view tends to be relatively "high-church." I don't remember the source, but someone persuasively argued that if he hadn't been born in Northern Ireland, and after Vatican I, Lewis would almost certainly have been Roman Catholic. This isn't exactly self-evident from reading his more popular books; I suspect the Evangelical bookstores would be appalled if they found out. I'll bet none of them have ever actually read "The Great Divorce," as it's essentially an argument for the existence of Purgatory and I can't imagine it being sold if they knew. In any case, important concepts for this view are the quintessential English values of reasonableness and tolerance. Thus, when you see people whom you respect (including, and especially, Lewis himself) believing in things like the existence of Purgatory it makes it a lot easier to put aside what you've always heard for a moment and consider the concept itself.

For me, it was a series of things like this. Reading up on the idea, I couldn't find any basis for actually denying the idea of Purgatory, and could even see some reasons why it might make sense. The question of the canon of the Bible and sola scriptura also came up, as the Table of Contents isn't actually part of the Bible itself. Eventually, one thing led to another and I found myself knocked up with the willingness to consider that perhaps the Roman Catholic Church's claims about itself were true.

The biggest barrier for me was cultural. It would seem that every time I attended some kind of Roman Catholic event I would be appalled by something. I went to an RCIA class and the first thing they did was to enquire as to whether anyone was divorced and remarried and needed annulment. While I don't think they meant exactly what it seemed to me at the time, you can see how this would dismay an Evangelical and be downright insulting to an Anglican (see above). Even now, I feel as though I'm having to trade a huge number of good practices in exchange for doctrinal authority; to my mind it should be an upgrade (insert your own reference to the Pearl of Great Price here). It was also the kind of thing that was much more Petrine than Pauline. While I did have to prod myself to some extent, too much of it, or anything but the gentlest of nudges from others, provoked a digging in of heels and a swing back towards Reformed notions. Something that helped was to see ordinary Roman Catholics who took their faith seriously. While folks like Mark Shea and Jimmy Akin were useful in terms of understanding doctrine, people like TS O'Rama and Louder Fenn (whose has tragically dropped off the face of the Internet) provided a glimpse of everyday life. The conversions of prominent people such as Francis Beckwith, J. Budziszewski, and Dean Esmay also played a role.

An Interview with HokiePundit

2007-10-05T09:14:00.000-04:00

I wasn't sure how to explain my decision to move from Evangelicalism/Anglo-Catholicism (when people asked my denomination, I'd say either "miscellaneous" or, if they were familiar with Facebook, "It's Complicated"), but perhaps poaching (can you "steal" questions?) from the National Catholic Reporter's interview with recent-convert-from-Evangelicalism Francis Beckwith would be a good place to start.

You spent quite a few years in the Evangelical and Anglican worlds. What could Catholics learn from Evangelicals and Anglicans?
Whew, let me go find my soapbox. In my view, a lot. However, let me back the truck up for a moment.

I believe that it is counter-productive for Roman Catholics to consider Evangelicals and those in Mainline denominations "Protestants." The term conjures up visions of laborers striking for better pay and working conditions who will return to the job once their conditions are met, or at least their grievances aired. This simply does not reflect the reality of the situation. The workers have left and started their own factory using the knowledge they gained from their old jobs. In my view, a much better analogy would be the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament. "Protestants" are now more-or-less self-sufficient (whether they're mortally wounded or not and don't realize it is another question entirely), and certainly independent. I would even go so far as to question whether these "tribes" have been ripped away from the Throne of Peter as a result of the wickedness it allowed and even condoned. The Lutherans and Anabaptists had some pretty legitimate gripes, with the Roman Catholic Church seriously abusing its position and definitely failing to properly educate the people in their faith. The Anglicans had much less of a claim, but Henry VIII had a reasonable expectation that the annulment he sought would be granted, as this seems to have been the common practice at the time and if it weren't for the intervention of his wife Catherine of Aragon's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, it probably would have happened. As far as I can tell, all "Protestants" ultimately trace their origins to these three groups. The Roman Catholic Church (which, as a reminder, I'm aligning myself with) bears a huge responsibility for the many, many souls it has let slip away due to corruption, ignorance, apathy, and pride. Back to my point, though, these groups aren't protesting anything. It's not even an issue, and if anything, they believe the Roman Catholics should re-unite with them and not vice-versa. Most of their believers come from a long line of non-Catholics and they no more "reject" or "protest" Roman Catholicism than I reject or protest British citizenship. Rome has already had its Counter-Reformation, and even signed a joint statement with Lutherans saying that they believed the same things on Justification. Yet, the Lutherans aren't seeking reunion, and this should tell Roman Catholics something. Calling such folk "Protestants" simply distracts from the reality of things.

Before saying what can be learned, let me say that nothing essential should ever be compromised. Doing so is a plan for suicide. At the same time, it's important to recognize that simply being vested with doctrinal and institutional authority does no necessarily mean that other Christian groups aren't doing things better. Also, I'm only listing the positives for the two groups; there are plenty of "make sure you don't fall into this trap" things that could very easily be mentioned.

The biggest strength of Evangelicalism is its emphasis on knowing the Bible. While I believe this comes from the mistaken idea that the Church is a product of the Bible and not the other way around, this study is a powerful tool. Roman Catholics have a reputation, which in my experience is often well-deserved, of not knowing what the Bible says. While Evangelicals can often discuss how the prophecies of Isaiah relate to Christ, Roman Catholics are confused by the term "Pauline" to describe half the Epistles. Evangelicals are known for having weekly Bible studies, for having (often overly-long) sermons that delve deep into the original meanings of words in Greek and Hebrew, and for being able to quote verses of Scripture (even if selectively). This literacy of Scripture is a powerful tool, as it is described as a sword and a shield by the Bible in Ephesians. While the Roman Catholic Church has a strong tradition and arsenal of prayers, they tend to be more subtle and defensive in nature, if that makes sense. Scripture is more offensive (in both ways) than prayer, and sometimes it's the right tool for the job.

Other strengths include more of a willingness to utilize updated methods to express beliefs; "praise and worship" music is probably the best example of this, along with the related genre of Contemporary Christian Music. To be fair, much of this is dreck. Again, I don't know the source, but it's been pointed out that 90% of just about anything is junk. Not all Classical composers were Bachs, Beethovens, Mozarts, or Palestrinas (yes, I'm merging Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic; sue me); these are the ones whose work has endured for centuries. There are some jewels to be found among these, though. In particular, I would recommend Casting Crowns and Rich Mullins for P&W and Five Iron Frenzy, Audio Adrenaline, and Relient K for CCM (these are all kind of 20-something guy -type groups, though). These influences, along with that of a lot of Evangelical writing, seem to be making inroads among Roman Catholics.

As for Anglicans, their biggest strengths are in what is sometimes seen as a more "tasteful" and "reasonable" form of Roman Catholicism. Although this is often mocked as being style over substance, there's something to it. Consider aesthetics. Roman Catholic styles look to outsiders as gaudy, tacky, dated, and somewhat feminine. Episcopalian styles are more tasteful, well-appointed, classical, and neutral. I know that's a subjective call, but think of plaster statues, glow-in-the-dark rosaries, and pastel vestments, and then consider stone buildings, the Book of Common Prayer, and bolder colors. Some of this is culture-based, too: most English-speaking "Protestants" are of Anglo-Saxon stock, or at least mindset. To a large extent, they look at Roman Catholicism and say "I don't see my culture reflected there." It's seen as a faith for Irish, Italian, and Mexican people. To my mind, this is why some sort of provision for a distinct body of Roman Catholics with an Anglican flavor would be worth having. In English-speaking countries there is a huge, huge cultural barrier to be overcome for Evangelicals and Anglicans to pursue Roman Catholicism. Seriously, the view is almost that of people swinging at a pinata full of Communion wafers. As battered as the reputation is, Episcopalians still have a kind of street cred as being more-or-less reasonable. Such a group would provide a kind of bridge, as it would be doctrinally sound but without the "ethnic" baggage (yes, Anglo-Saxon is an ethnicity, but we're speaking subjectively here). A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.