"Little citadels of light"

This series of short videos is worth watching if you care about western civilization. "The End of the World as We Know It" --a five part Mark Steyn interview (Peter Robinson, Uncommon Knowledge). Interesting conclusion (even if not explicitly stated): the Catholic church will ultimately be responsible for saving western civ. No real surprise there (given history), but I agree with Mr. Steyn: "The pruning is going to be far more severe than we yet know."

My apologies for not blogging for a week. Life has been busy.

"Random and illiterate hecklers"

The Mighty Shea on the current crop of British atheists:

The Old Atheists of the 18th and 19th Centuries still had the future. The New Atheists have got nuthin'. Their own ideology, everybody realizes, points to Nothing and leads to mass murder--especially the ideology of the New Atheists which is all about calling for the utter destruction of faith in general and the Catholic Church in particular. They have no positive message, nothing to say beyond Pullman's and Ditchkins' "Ecrasez l'infame!" The Old Atheists could talk about the Great Rosy Dawn, the Triumph of the Proletariat, the March of Science and Progress because the Great Atheistic Slaughters of the 20th Century hadn't happened yet. Now everybody knows that their Immanentized Eschaton is a great big steaming pile of crap--including them.

If it's normal and healthy...

Then what's the big deal? A Hamilton, MI teacher faces charges for (alleged) indecent exposure, which is, of course, reprehensible. But the really curious thing is that the article makes a rather big deal out of his... ahem..."self-pleasuring" activities. If masturbation is normal and healthy (as all up-to-the-minute sex-ed programs insist), then why mention it at all? They might as well make an issue of how this teacher habitually yawns or blows his nose in between classes. (Sarcasm mark required here).

So glad, by the way, that this was not a Hamilton, ON teacher. Then he would be getting an award for being a wonderful (dare I say 'hands-on') sex-ed instructor, instead of being charged with a felony (see Mrs. Beazly's post, below).

Got this link from The Steyn; he listed it under the heading of "Creepy Teacher in the News". I hope I am not alone in thinking that it might be nearly as creepy for a janitor to be sniffing the tissues he finds in the trash. (Methinks this may be the self-same janitor to whom Mr. Witko was referring in an earlier comment on this blog.)

New Ontario Sex Ed Curriculum

It looks as though a battle may be brewing over the new courses set to roll out this fall. I have very little experience with the traditional school system in this province - just enough to know that I am not interested in the product they are offering. I hope that parents who are unhappy with this program will let their school boards know and pull their children out of classes, if necessary.

Our premier has spoken:

McGuinty said he supports teaching sex education to youngsters in school, rather than leaving them to rely on inaccurate information they may glean from other sources, such as the Internet or other kids.
“I have confidence in the curriculum that they have put together,” McGuinty said. “I have confidence in the judgment of our teachers...."

Gee, maybe Mr. McGuinty is right. I guess it would be slightly less corrupting/embarrassing for 12-year-olds to hear about oral sex from their teachers in the classroom rather than seeing them act it out on the gym floor.

It's playoff time.

I hope this photo brings to mind many pleasant memories for certain Canadian DOH readers who now make their homes in other lands where hockey is not quite so popular.

This is the greatest idea in the history of the world.

It's completely amazing to me that our society has survived this long without a sarcasm mark. I just don't know how anyone could write anything without one of these, because there simply is no way to convey sarcasm unless you are speaking to someone face to face or have access to the appropriate emoticons or the skill to create  hand-drawn facsimiles thereof. This will save a lot of friendships and bring greater understanding to all mankind. The irony thingy sounds great, too. As someone who hopes to be a writer one day, I just think to myself, "Boy, if only my words didn't have to communicate anything but their dictionary definition to the reader, that would be really, really, really...good."

Vivat Rex!

Here's another "gem" (as Paul Tuns at Sobering Thoughts described it).


"If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fuelling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission...."

... you may be an environmentalist!

German theologian Hans Küng urges bishops to disobey pope

This was a  NEWS item? If that headline is "news" then so are the following:

"U.S. to pull troops out of Vietnam"

"President Kennedy Assassinated"

...because Hans Küng has been urging bishops (and everyone else) to disobey the pope for DECADES. In fact Hans Küng is, at 82, very nearly dead. Dr. Küng, I actually do have news for you: no one cares. No one is listening to you. Not because you're old, but because you're a tedious, clapped-out heretic. The only people who listen to you are tedious, clapped-out heretics. Hadn't you heard? The gates of hell will not prevail. So give it up already.

UPDATE: George Weigel agrees with me  (that is to say, I agree with him), but then of course, Mr. Weigel says it much more intelligently: (ie."you have forfeited any claim to be taken seriously").

Read his vastly enjoyable smack-down of Küng here. Thanks to Mark Shea for the link. Here's just a taste:

...you have lost the argument over the meaning and the proper hermeneutics of Vatican II. That explains why you relentlessly pursue your fifty-year quest for a liberal Protestant Catholicism, at precisely the moment when the liberal Protestant project is collapsing from its inherent theological incoherence.

[...] Yet I venture to guess that the iron really entered your soul when, on December 22, 2005, the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI—the man whose appointment to the theological faculty at Tübingen you had once helped arrange—addressed the Roman Curia and suggested that the argument was over: and that the conciliar “hermeneutics of reform,” which presumed continuity with the Great Tradition of the Church, had won the day over “the hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture.

[...]
I expect it’s too much to expect you to change, or even modify, your views, even if every bit of empirical evidence at hand suggests that the path you propose is the path to oblivion for the churches.

[...]
Permit me to suggest that you owe Pope Benedict XVI a public apology, for what, objectively speaking, is a calumny that I pray was informed in part by ignorance (if culpable ignorance). I assure you that I am committed to a thoroughgoing reform of the Roman Curia and the episcopate, projects I described at some length in God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church, a copy of which, in German, I shall be happy to send you. But there is no path to true reform in the Church that does not run through the steep and narrow valley of the truth. The truth was butchered in your article in the Irish Times. And that means that you have set back the cause of reform.

Say it ain't so, Mel!

Mel Gibson has split from his girlfriend - five months after she gave birth to his child, according to reports.

And a year ago: Mel Gibson has split from his wife of 28 years after she gave birth to seven of his children, according to reports.

Why am I not surprised? On-going mid-life crisis, anyone? Apparently, Oksana Grigorieva (39) has accused Mel (54) of "cheating" on her. Gee, ya think? It's not as though he's never done it before. Sad. Grow up, man.

Why, the nerve of the guy!

Some people don't like Mark Steyn - I've gotten that faint vibe from the "Mark's Mailbox" feature. Some people just call him names, some actually state which of his ideas they think are bad.  And some people don't like it that he believes his own opinions:

"After reading your latest Macleans piece, I feel the arrogance of you believing in your own opinion is astounding."

(It's the third letter from the top.) Poor Mark. You would think by now he'd realize that in Canada, it's only okay to hold beliefs which back up someone else's opinion - ideally, an opinion which has been pre-approved by such vessels of wisdom as the CHRC, the CBC or Bono. Otherwise, you might express the wrong opinion and get into an embarrassing situation like this:



Perhaps in his next Maclean's article, Mr. Steyn will stick to subjects more palatable to some of his Canadian readers - like naming his favorite "Friend"! As long as it's not Ross.

Are writting nowadaze might of been better if only

... the educational establishment had not stopped teaching Latin in school. A lovely little article by Katherine Eastland at American Spectator.

Ancient tongues like Latin tend to enter our daily lives in small ways. There is the quick phrase sitting like an italicized island lending polish and age, if not pretension, to what we write. In art galleries there is the occasional tapestry with Latin embroidered in the top and bottom margins or in the spaces between figures. And upon aged churchside graves there is often a name carved, usually in wing-tipped Latin letters -- proof, it would seem, that the language is at rest. And yet, every so often, like a crocus in winter, the so-called dead tongue displays her original, brilliant force. This is, I think, a gentle species of what the Greeks identified as epiphany.

As is often the case, some of the best material is to be found in the comboxes (my bolds/comments).

Matt:

I took five years of Latin in a Jesuit High School. (We were required to take two periods in Freshman year.)

Not much remains except the solid foundation it provided for English. [as if that's not reason enough!]

Sarah:

Just the other day, one of my children asked me why I used a much more expanded vocabulary than their father. [kudos to the kids for noticing!] I told her it was because even though two words can mean the same thing in English, one of them may hold a nuance that better describes the thing than the other. This, of course, led her to ask what "nuance" meant. *sigh*


I took three years of high school Latin, and one year each of Latin and Greek in college. I have never regretted it. My high school Latin teacher (who is himself fluent in Russian and Mandarin Chinese as well as Latin and of course English) still teaches at our local community college and I have offered my daughter that I will attend the class with her if she wants to go. She doesn't think that it's necessary. I weep because she has no desire to further expand her horizons in understanding our linguistic background. My youngest child I have higher hopes for as she seems to take after me in the learning department.

And as to the above comments about returning the Mass to Latin, I have to agree. When I was 18, our priest asked me to sing the Gloria in the original Latin at Easter Vigil. I happily obliged. Afterwards, the amount of older parishoners who wanted to thank me for doing so was overwhelming. The joy that was in their faces over a simple prayer sung in the original Latin was astounding. Whether we realize it or not, Latin calls to many of us, both young and old, in ways that are primal and not understandable.

Shrek Dreck

Mrs. P has asked me to comment on this story about Shrek and his friends. (Because we can all tell by the caliber of our respective posts which of the Dumb Old Housewives spends more of her time contemplating cartoons.)

We're supposed to think a controversy has arisen over the imaginary cast of Shrek having "posed" for what is described as a "saucy" photo spread, but I think it's pretty obvious this is merely a publicity stunt...if it's not a belated April Fool's joke. The article (which erroneously identifies the upcoming fourth "Shrek" film as the third in the series) tries to make it sound like the innocents at DreamWorks Animation had no clue what was being done with their characters, but I'm not buying it. It's an advertising gimmick - why, just consider the two extra people who will be aware of the new Shrek movie simply by reading this post!

Anyway, it's not exactly out of character for Shrek and company to be featured in slightly suggestive pictures since the movies themselves are larded with adolescent vulgarities. (For detailed reviews I refer you to Steven Greydanus; I saw the first film and couldn't be bothered going back for more.) This is not really a novel direction - just more lameness from DreamWorks. I'd rather review their far superior "Kung Fu Panda" - or better yet, wait for "Toy Story 3".

Calling Al Gore...

Winter returns with a wallop in southern Alberta; thousands without power

The storm, which appears to be moving into Saskatchewan, has raised concerns about flooding because warm temperatures by the weekend could cause the snow to melt quickly.

Thank goodness there's some flooding on the horizon (thinks the Goracle), cuz the polar ice caps sure aren't panning out!

As for "warm temperatures by the weekend"... BRING IT ON. It is (supposedly) spring, after all...

Too funny

...Except that they haven't got the caption quite right. Under state-rationed medical care, it should read "The Doctor will see you:
a) eventually
b) briefly
c) in two or three weeks
d) in two or three months
e) never, because he's not taking any new patients; please go to Emergency, but not on weekends.

"Share your pain." Health Care Gifts available at CafePress.

Not likely to be reported in the NY Times any time soon...

unless it's to complain about how "homophobic" the Church is.

Homosexuality is the Cause of the Sex Abuse Crisis

The Vatican's number two official, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, said today that the Church's problems with pedophile priests have not been caused by celibacy, but by homosexuality

LifeSiteNews

Update: good thing The American Spectator is not as un/non/anti-curious about this issue as is the NYTimes...

Clearly, Malangré was warning Fahr that Hullermann was a homosexual.


Of course, you knew that already, somehow. But that somehow was not because the New York Times told you. The word "homosexual" does not appear a single time in all the articles the Times has run since the story first broke.


That is the curious incident in this story.

Scotland Yard detective Gregory asks Sherlock Holmes, "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes replies, "To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime." Gregory responds, "The dog did nothing in the nighttime."

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

[...]

There are, in fact, at least three scandals here. One, that a priest molested boys thirty years ago, is scandal to be sure, but alas, hardly news now, given the number of such stories over the past decade -- including one in California that came to light only this past week.

The second, and underlying, scandal is that it's the homosexuals allowed into the priesthood in the sixties who have been causing most of the trouble.


Are all homosexuals child molesters? Certainly not.


Are most child molesters in the Catholic Church homosexuals? Almost certainly.


But try finding that story in the New York Times.

By popular demand: Danish Pastry

Half the readers of this blog have been clamouring for this recipe, so here it is:






Danish Pastry

Ingredients:

1 tsp Granulated sugar
¼ cup warm water
¼ oz. (1 Tbsp) active dry yeast (instant is OK too)

4 cups all purpose flour
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt

1 ¼ cups butter or hard margarine, cold

2 large eggs
1 cup of milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm

1 large egg, beaten, for brushing tops

Filling: lemon cheese, jam or jelly

Topping: 1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions:

Stir first amount of sugar in warm water in small bowl. Sprinkle yeast over top. Let stand ten minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast.

Place next three ingredients in large bowl. Cut in butter until size of small peas.

Beat first two eggs in small bowl. Add warm milk. Add yeast mixture; stir. Add to flour mixture; mix with fork until it forms a ball. Dough will be sticky. Place in greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover with greased wax paper and a tea towel. Refrigerate for about six hours or overnight.

Divide dough in half. Roll out on floured surface ½ inch thick Cut into 4-inch squares; fold each corner almost to centre. Press or pinch down to make a depression. Place on greased baking sheet two inches apart.

Brush with egg. Put 1 teaspoon (or more, to taste) of cheese or jam in centre. Sprinkle with walnuts or pecans if desired. Cover with greased wax paper and tea towel. Let stand on counter for 15 minutes. Bake in 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Makes 16 pastries.

Variations:

Place a half-inch cube of cream cheese in centre of folds before filling with jam.

When pastries have cooled, dust with icing sugar or drizzle with glaze.

From Company’s Coming: Breads by Jean Paré.

Mrs. P testifies: This cookbook is fully AWESOME! I have been looking for another copy forever. I wish the "Company's Coming" folks  would reissue it. In a world that is rapidly going to hell in a hand-basket, there is nothing quite so comforting as homemade bread.

Arrest the pope?

The cries are getting shriller; the arguments, sillier. National Post. This is supposedly why the pope is not entitled to the diplomatic immunity granted to heads of state:  

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, two law professors evaluated the Vatican's claim to statehood based on four criteria in international law. They argue that it has neither significant territory nor a permanent population. It has a functioning government, but no justice or education system, and only ceremonial defence.

How exactly does that make it different from most Western European nations, to say nothing of Canada and the U.S.? Oh right, the "functioning government" part. Which gives the Vatican 1 out of 4. The rest of the world's nations are pretty much 0 for 4.

God help us all.

After Burka Barbie, it was only a matter of time

Religion News Service

"With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest.



The 11.5-inch-tall fictional graduate of Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., has donned a cassock and surplice and is rector at St. Barbara’s-by-the-Sea in (where else?) Malibu, Calif."

This story really can't be improved upon, except for what's in the comboxes. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, such as:

Eh...I’m not impressed. Barbie always end up naked and in the bathtub.

Or this one:
Perfect! Once again, the Episcopalians have shown themselves impossible to satirize. Deacon Ken and his “friend” Stephen! These people are beyond loony. Cleaver-Bartholomew needs create a “Parishioner Patty” doll, so there will be somebody out there listening as Bishop Barbie announces that the Church is shutting its doors forever.

Just one more: “Pope Ken I, anyone????” As long as it’s not Mod Hair Ken.

Because there are only 69 more sleeps until Toy Story 3 is released....

...here are some interesting musings by Steven Greydanus regarding a Peter Chattaway theory about Pixar.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Pixar? I have dreams of working there one day...as soon as they create a position which requires the employee to do nothing more than rove around the Pixar studio yelling,
"You... guys... are...FULLY... AWESOME!!!" (Executive in Charge of Surfeit of Studio Morale?) 

Yes, I'm aware "Bolt" is not a Pixar movie and therefore Rhino is not a Pixar character, but he and I have a lot in common. We both exist in our own little world where we grossly overestimate our own talents, but we can also recognize pure genius when it brushes up against our respective spheres.

All religions are equal

Child bride, 13, dies of internal injuries four days after arranged marriage in Yemen
UK Mail Online

Yemen's gripping poverty plays a role in hindering efforts to stamp out the practice, as poor families find themselves unable to say no to bride-prices in the hundreds of dollars for their daughters.

(That's just bogus. I would starve to death before I would sell one of my daughters.)


And the freakin UN wants to nail the pope for his so-called toleration of abuse. Hey, boys and girls at the UN, have I got a job for you! Try bringing various and sundry imams forward to face charges of crimes against humanity.

Last month, a group of the country's highest Islamic authorities declared those supporting a ban on child marriages to be apostates.