St. Isidore of Seville, pray for us

Patron of geeks, the Internet, computer users, ITs, programmers, et al

And, boy, do we need prayers.

Happy Feast Day, Isidore. He is highlighted in my Doctors of the Church series this weekend, so look forward to those postings.










He lived in a time when the classical order of the world was being destroyed from within and without.

Is he important for us, or what?

Well, take a look at this

http://victimsofgaybullying.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/scott-rose-demands-death-penalty-for-traditional-marriage-supporters/

Pray for Seminarians Today!

A word for the seminarians of America and Great Britain

Fr. Guillermo Marco, the ex-press secretary to the Pope when the Pope was Cardinal and Bishop, noted yesterday that the one thing which a seminarian must pray for during his time in the seminary is, "Perseverance".

Fr. Marco noted that a nun told him this when he was in the seminary. This is excellent advice, men.

Pray for perseverance.

"Risky business"

http://freebeacon.com/risky-business/

A First Lady with No Class

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/04/02/michelle_obama_agrees_president_obama_is_a_sex_symbol.html


ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT: [Jackie Kennedy] was also one of the first to have a president -- husband -- who is kind of a sex symbol. Like, people used to look at JFK, 'Oh, he's sexy.' And then it was Bill Clinton, and now it's your husband, Barack Obama is looked upon by women across the country as a sex symbol. What do you think?

MICHELLE OBAMA: He's got a little swag, you know. That's Okay. I mean, I'm proud of him. He's a stylish, I think, man who is healthy and he's smart and he's passionate and he's inspiring. And who wouldn't fall in love with that, you know? It's okay, yeah.

What happened to "class acts"?

More on Obedience for the Laity-Four

Alas, minor orders no more...

A few more areas where the laity must be obedient are these:

1) when your confessor gives you absolution, you must obey;

2) if your local diocese or the council of bishops in your country declares a holy day of obligation or rules of abstinence and fasting particular to your diocese and/or country, you must obey.

3) of course, if your bishop asks all teachers in the Catholic schools to take the oath and promise of fidelity, you must obey, as that was a directive from Rome which the bishops can enforce;

4) if a bishop demands that all women who have been excommunicated for abortion, or anyone aiding or abetting an abortion needs to see him personally for the lifting of that, one must obey.

There are most likely more, but these were added by a smart seminarian who reads my blog.

Generation Gap Problem?

Video on line is down slightly. This is because people are using their mobile connections for the Net.

Great. I hate videos and would much rather read text than watch a video.

I do not have time to go through introductions and what-not which are not necessary.

In fact, today I was looking up a course on line and the entire introduction is on a video.

I did not bother.

Reading is a superior type of media for many reasons.

No more talking heads and silly graphics for me.

Turn off....

New World Pope

I have been thinking of several strains of history and political science, as well as the heresy of Americanism.

Now, my thoughts have led me to some questions.

Can a New World Pope understand, really, the Old World hierarchical structure of the Church?

Can a New World Pope realize that the Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith?

Can a New World Pope know the importance of culture, the culture of music, art, drama, education which was established by the West?

Can a New World Pope appreciate his role as a monarch, the leader not only of the Vatican State and a Bishop of Rome, but also a world leader on the world stage?

Can a New World Pope control a curia which has its roots in Medieval order and Renaissance governance?

Can a post-Vatican II Pope from the New World convince our world increasingly utilitarian and evil to embrace the Beauty Who is God and all the splendour of the Creator?

Can a man from the New World have the wisdom of the European experience of faith, disruption of faith, loss of faith, communism, anarchy and the real need for order?

Is the New World too new? Pray for Pope Francis.

Just wondering....

Excellent post and good comments found here on the Papal Secretary's comments

http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/pastoral-thoughts-on-oil-of-gladness.html

Is anyone else concerned about this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/03/us-missile-defence-system-guam-north-korea

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/u-sends-missile-defences-guam-over-north-korea-183552264.html#leMyfNH

Nuance, objectivity and propaganda-two

Read this and comment...it is great to get an example of something I have just alluded to in a text.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/03/us-embassy-cairo-twitter-stewart

Readers, objectivity and nuance: readers who cannot read

In this day of "yellow journalism", (and if you are an American and do not know what that means, you are part of the generation who did not have to study the history of your own country), the vast majority of readers miss two things in reading journalism which is superior to editorializing and commentary.

These two interpretations in reading are caused by the dire state of education which has been taken over in the States in the past 40 years by ideologies.

The same can be said of the English school curriculum, part of which I have taught as recently as last year.

The problems stem from several problems with modern education since the 1960s.

Here are the problems.

One, students do not recognize total objectivity in writing. That is, when a writer reports exactly from an objective viewpoint, the ordinary reader cannot distinguish between what the interviewer is reporting and the stand of the interviewee.

Let me give you an example.  If I report on a talk by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wherein he denies the Holocaust, I am reporting on his interpretation of history. If I make NO comment on that talk, or editorial slant, which should be stated outright by the writer, then the article is about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's false idea of history and not my own.

Some readers cannot see objectivity because they have not learned to think and read objectively. They are primed to interpret everything in life subjectively and therefore assume everyone is like themselves; that is, subjective.

One can write in an objective manner. One can be taught to think objectively. Part of the problems in communication today between persons stem from the fact that people assume subject reality.

Seriously, this is not the stand of the saint, who is able to stand back and be objective not only about themselves but other people.

For example, a person is talking too much and making errors in a pub. I can step back and think, "This person is under stress and if I am kind, this will defuse the situation."

A subjective person thinks, "This person is a mess and is making my life difficult." And, so on.

Not judging another person's actions means stepping back and examining all the possibilities  This is called prudence and is connected to discernment.

The second problem is that some readers cannot read nuance. Nuance is found in non-objective, subtle writing which appeals to the intellect. 

Nuance should be picked up by the discerning readers.

I have had comments from some readers who are not reading what is in the text on the blog but only what they think is in the text. These readers have not been taught how to read.

Nuance is a necessity is one does not want to create a strong editorial stand, but incline a reader to a certain viewpoint. It is perfectly valid.

For example, if I write, "The speaker was nervous", I am making a judgment from body language or speech and this is editorializing.

If I write, "The speaker played with the cuff of his shirt and dropped his notebook twice" one can interpret the nervousness of the speaker by merely looking at the facts. This is objective writing

If I write, "The speaker played with the cuff of his shirt, dropping his notebook twice, actions which caught the attention of some observers", I have created a shade of meaning which the reader can interpret. 

I write mostly from an objective point of view, especially when I am reporting some talk or discussion.

That readers think I agree with the discussion or talk if I publish the notes is absurd. To report is not to agree. To interpret is to create nuance or, more strongly, an editorialized piece of writing.

If someone objects to a topic, this reader only has to step back and look at the way in which the post is written.

If someone thinks I agree with everything I post, this reader is not reading carefully.

Readers who cannot read insult writers who are not propagandizing. 

To show Catholic teaching as it is in a post is objective writing.

I usually put my comments either in parentheses or in colored text.

Those who cannot read cannot learn or judge correctly.

Those comments go into "delete" if I have tried to explain to a reader how to read but they persist in her own interpretations.

The trouble is compounded by those who already have a preconceived idea of what an article actually states.

To be continued....

Comments wanted on the March Maltese Elections

I have not made any comments here on the landslide victory of the Labour Party on March 9th because I do not know the party stand on abortion or civil unions for people of the same sex.

If any commentators would like to share some information, that would be great.

God bless. http://welections.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/malta-2013/

Ah, the game of summer in America is beginning...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/01/why-this-is-baseball-s-golden-age.html

Cardinals

1-1, 2nd in NL Central Division

Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona

Today, 02:40

St. Louis

Cardinals

(1-1)

Arizona

Diamondbacks

(1-1)

6 - 1

Final

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Cardinals	0	0	0	1	0	2	3	0	0
Diamondbacks	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Recap - Box Score

On not wanting to be middle-class....

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100210285/why-bbc-lefties-hate-being-middle-class/

a snippet from Christina Odone's great article today...

Britons are as class-obsessed as ever. The only difference is that inverse snobbery is so widespread – especially at the BBC – that no one wants to be middle-class anymore. So Twitter has been spluttering all morning with Lefties who want more than anything to be "working-class", but fail miserably because they have a mortgage and hang out with university profs. Damn it, they're thinking: there goes my chance to be on the Today programme or Newsnight.

It's perverse, isn't it? I'm deep in Servants, Lucy Lethbridge's excellent book about Britons on the bottom rung of society. The parlour maids spent their entire lives trying to scrape a bit of money together to afford to leave service and work in a position that would allow them to climb the social ladder. Their common dream was to make it into the middle classes.

Little did they know that a time would come when being middle-class would prevent them from having a voice. I blame the BBC. It has been playing at social engineering for years now. Its regionalist agenda has been exposed as costly and ineffective. 

Remember what Solzhenitsyn said about detente?

"Kuwait Parliament Approves Death Penalty for Insulting God," by Fiona MacDonald and Dahlia Kholaif for Bloomberg, April 3.

Kuwait’s parliament approved a law imposing the death penalty on any Muslim who insults God, his prophets, messengers, Prophet Mohammad’s wives or the Koran, in any form of expression, if they don’t repent.

The bill, which adds articles to Kuwait’s penal code, was passed today by 40 lawmakers, including all Cabinet ministers present, and rejected by five Shiite Muslims as well as one liberal lawmaker.

“Islam is a religion of tolerance, peace and acceptance, but that doesn’t mean it should be stepped on,” lawmaker Ali al-Deqbasi told the house before the vote. AbdulHamid Dashti, who voted against the bill, said the law “should be broadened to criminalize those who insult all beliefs and faiths.”

According to the law, judges must give defendants the option of repenting, which, if taken, reduces the sentence to at least five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dinars ($36,000). Non-Muslims will be sentenced to 10 years in prison if convicted of violating the law, which will take effect after signed by the emir and then published in the Official Gazette within a month of parliamentary approval.

Happy 90th Birthday to Dad

A veteran of WWII and a great Catholic dad...

happy birthday to you! Here he is with one of his grandchildren.

Best Comment on Aggressive Catholic Symbolism

New Sister said "Establish Michael Voris as Vatican Press Secretary!"

Not that I was having a contest......

Abbreviated Cute Wednesday..to be cat-tinued