Applicable to Sports As Well

A Good Argument for Infant Baptism

Every Child is Born a Muslim.

"The Prophet Muhammad said, "No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist." (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426)"

Why I Love the New York Post

Y'know, it just is what it is, the New York Post, without apologies . . .

PENIS PATIENT IS RE-'MEMBERED'

By ANDY GELLER

September 19, 2006 -- Chinese surgeons performed the world's first penis transplant - but the patient couldn't mentally rise to the occasion and they had to remove it.

The patient was a 44-year-old man whose organ was reduced to a 2-inch stump in an accident. In a 15-hour operation, surgeons attached a penis from a brain-dead man. But they were forced to remove it two weeks later because the patient couldn't adjust to it.

I guess you can say this poor guy really got the shaft.

"A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world . . ."

As I was driving back to the office from court today, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. He mentioned an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times, and his kudos to a fellow who, although a liberal, takes to tasks his fellow liberals for their failure to see the truth behind Islamic fanatics.

Here is the text:

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
Western civilization really
is at risk from Muslim extremists.
By Sam Harris

SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion,
Terror and the Future of Reason." His next book, "Letter to a Christian Nation,"
will be published this week by Knopf. samharris.org.

September 18, 2006

TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization.

In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.

This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.

This difference does not bode well for the future of liberalism.

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope.

Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities. Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise.

And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization.

There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate.

The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior.

This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals. Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration — especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq — liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror.

Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.

Recent condemnations of the Bush administration's use of the phrase "Islamic fascism" are a case in point. There is no question that the phrase is imprecise — Islamists are not technically fascists, and the term ignores a variety of schisms that exist even among Islamists — but it is by no means an example of wartime propaganda, as has been repeatedly alleged by liberals.

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.

We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant.

Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren't.

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

Al-Qaeda Vows Jihad Against Catholics

From Down Under:

Muslims vow to 'conquer Rome'

Al-Qaeda in Iraq warned in an internet statement it would wage jihad,
or holy war, until the West is defeated.

“We say to the servant of the cross (the Pope): wait for defeat. We
say to infidels and tyrants: wait for what will afflict you. We continue our
jihad,” said the statement attributed to the Mujahideen consultative
council.

“We will smash the cross,” it added, and “conquer Rome”.

My question is - what time does the next Crusade start and where can I go to sign up?

Oh Boy, We Get a Film

From the Orange County Register:

Roman Catholic Bishop Tod D. Brown on Sunday will issue the third pastoral letter in the history of the million-member Diocese of Orange. His subject: spiritual indifference.

In his pithy, 17-page letter, Brown decries how the routines of modern life, past mistakes by the church and general spiritual malaise have caused many local Catholics to drift into a tepid and uninvolved version of their faith.

In his letter, which will be accompanied by a 15-minute DVD to be shown at most Sunday Masses throughout the diocese, Brown writes.

"My goal here isn't to deplore our culture or bemoan the evils of society, but to simply point out how we Catholics have to be more realistic about how our increasingly secular and changing civilization can and does have harmful effects on our Catholic character and convictions."

No, I am not making this up.

Some Thoughts On What Actually Is New

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

-- Emperor Manuel II Paleologus

Mohammed took what he wanted from two established mono-theistic religions - Judaism and Christinaity. He added a concept unseen in either: jihad.

There are those who argue that jihad can mean a personal, inward spiritual struggle to attain perfect faith. Well, then it is not a concept to add since both Judiam and Christianity calls for that, seeing a man's relationship with God as a lifelong process that requires rejecting one's self and embracing the will of God.

So, instead, let us look at what directive towards jihad is given in the Qur'an:

And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight against you and do not transgress bounds [in this fighting]. God does not love the transgressors. Kill them wherever you find them and drive them out [of the place] from which they drove you out and [remember] persecution is worse than carnage. But do not initiate war with them near the Holy Kabab unless they attack you there. But if they attack you, put them to the sword [without any hesitation]. Thus shall such disbelievers be rewarded. However, if they desist [from this disbelief], Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Keep fighting against them, until persecution does not remain and [in the land of Arabia] Allah’s religions reigns supreme.

Granted, the Old Testament also metes out some pretty harsh punishment, such as stoning for adultery and homosexuality. And the New Testament has some graphic exhortations, albeit figurative, such as plucking out one's right eye if it offends thee.

But, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. No homosexuals or adulterers have been stoned . . . except in Muslim countries. No criminal has had an extremity cut off . . . except in Muslim countries. Indeed, I don't know of any Muslim who has plucked out his right eye, but I have seen pictures of boys whipping themselves with chains in imitation of their elders in Shiite religious observances. And we have seen that commentary against the Pope's remarks is not enough - rather, demonstrations, calls for beheading, and attacks on churches is the protocol.

Two West Bank churches were set afire early Sunday as a wave of Muslim anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI construed as anti-Islam grew throughout the Palestinian areas.

In Mogadishu this morning, an Italian nun and her bodyguard were shot to death at the doorway of the hospital where she worked, caring for women and children.

Does anyone else see some truth in the Emperor's quote?

The Status of Non-Muslims

One of the pictures I saw regarding the Islamic protests against Our Holy Father confused me, with its slogan: "Mr. Pope, be with in [sic] your limits." Robert Spencer over at Jihad Watch provides the meaning behind it:

Classic Islamic law stipulates that Christians may live in peace in Islamic societies as long as they accept second-class status as dhimmis, which involves living within certain limits: not holding authority over Muslims, paying the jizya tax, not building new churches or repairing old ones, and...not insulting Allah or Muhammad. If they believe that a Christian has insulted them in some way, even inadvertently, his contract of protection -- dhimma -- is voided.

Message to Pope: Don't Back Down

The Muslim world is once again up in arms. Of course, the call is for someone to behead the Pope - one reaction can be seen at Michelle Malkin's blog:

As for the opinion of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, which he
quoted during his Regensburg talk, the Holy Father did not mean, nor does he
mean, to make that opinion his own in any way. He simply used it as a means to
undertake — in an academic context, and as is evident from a complete and
attentive reading of the text — certain reflections on the theme of the
relationship between religion and violence in general, and to conclude with a
clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence, from
whatever side it may come.

In short - read the whole text, Abdul, before you start calling for jihad.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12

Well, I won't back down

No, I won't back down

You can stand me up at the gates of hell

But I won't back down

No, I'll stand my ground, won't be turned around

And I'll keep this world from draggin me down,

Gonna stand my ground... and I won't back down

-- Tom Petty

I Am a Radical Christian . . . Fear Me

I figured it would not take long for Rosie O'Donnell to say something stupid on "The View." On September 11, 2006, she said:

"Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state. We're a democracy here."

I was trying to count how many times Pat Robertson blew up a mosque, or how many times Norma McCorvey hijacked an airliner and flew it into a building, or when and how Terry Randall stabbed to death a film maker who made a movie critical of Christianity. I am trying to remember the last time Priests for Life waved signs saying, "Death to Infidels" after a cartoonist drew a caricature of Jesus Christ.

Yet . . . Rosie can continue to spout her liberalism and continue to follow a gay lifestyle with her partner, raising children without a father, and not fear execution or, at best, a public lashing.

And "radical Christianity" is as dangerous as radical Islam? Granted, Christianity is pretty damned radical, what with God assuming a human form and allowing Himself to be nailed to a cross to die for our sins. I mean, c'mon, if not radical, that was - shall we say - rather extreme of Our Lord.

Oddly enough, when Mel Gibson did a very stupid thing in a drunken state, Barbara Walters vowed she would never see another one of his films, presumably incensed at his insensitivity. Well, now, Babs . . . if Mel is an anti-Semite, what does that make your co-host on "The View?"

BTW, if you want to view the WBE (Worst Blog Ever), check out Rosie's - it is ghastly.

Farewell, Marine

On this Patriot's Day, remember too the men and women who heard the call to service after 9/11 and responded. My boss sent me this link - a very moving tribute to the fallen of the United States Marine Corps.

http://www.pcsuccess.us/yrg/farewell.html

Kevin H. Bracken

Kevin H. Bracken

I am honored as a participant in the 2996 Project to provide a memorial to Kevin H. Bracken, one of New York's Bravest (as we natives of NYC call the FDNY), who died on September 11, 2001. He was 37 years old when the towers collapsed.

Here is the obituary from The New York Times, published on November 22, 2001:

Making the Most of It

His friends called it "the Bracken bounce." It was an expression they coined the day on the golf course when he hit a ball into the trees and it miraculously ricocheted back onto the fairway.But it was not just on the golf course that Kevin Bracken, a firefighter with Engine Company 40 on Amsterdam Avenue and 66th Street, was known as a lucky guy. It was every time he looked for a parking spot on a busy street; or the day, two years ago, his car flipped over in a traffic accident and he escaped without a scratch.

His wife, Jennifer Liang, would say Mr. Bracken, 37, made his own luck. "He was the most optimistic person I ever encountered," she said. "He was never unhappy. Never without a smile on his face. Whatever situation he was in, he made the best of it."

Ms. Liang, who met her husband 11 years ago on the Long Island Rail Road, said that his credo was to live life to the fullest, "to seize the moment and make everything of that moment." He enjoyed being a firefighter, Ms. Liang said. But it was not fighting fires that appealed to him. It was the comradeship at the firehouse. "He was a real people person," she said. An avid sports fan, who coached the softball team from his local bar, Mr. Bracken never would say "goodbye" to his friends. His parting words were always a kind of shorthand for how he believed you should live your life: "Drive fast. Take chances," he would say. She added: "If somebody would have told him this would happen, he would have been, 'Me? Are you kidding?' "

****

Kevin was one of the firemen featured in the book, Firehouse, which was written about his station - Engine 40/Ladder 35 - "the Cavemen." He and his wife had been together for 11 years and married for 5 years, but had not started a family because you thought you had time for that still.

****

Here is another obituary that let us know who Kevin was, from Newsday:

An Avid Golfer Who Was Up for Anything - November 5, 2001

The morning of the attacks, Kevin Bracken and his wife, Jennifer Liang, left their Upper West Side home together and parted company at the polling booths, where the couple said goodbye for the last time, said Kerry Katz, a longtime family friend. Shortly after arriving at his firehouse, Engine Co. 40-Ladder Co. 35 on Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan, Bracken was dispatched to the World Trade Center. He and his unit of 10 others, reportedly never made it out of the towers.

If she had to hazard a guess, Katz said, she'd say Bracken is prowling the heavenly greens right now. An avid sports fan, he was big into golf, she said. Bracken, 37, was known among family and friends for his seemingly miraculous shots on the greens - shots of his had been known to bounce off trees and into the cup. So much so, they coined the phrase, "Bracken Bounce," after his mysterious plays.Katz said Bracken's relativesand friends hoped and prayed the "Bracken Bounce" would somehow work for him in the days immediately following the attack.

But his body has not been recovered. A memorial service for him is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.

Bracken's eight-year career as a firefighter included a stint with Engine Co. 23 in New York City. His father had been a volunteer firefighter in Central Islip, where Bracken was born and raised. Katz said Bracken worked in construction and sales before joining the ranks of New York's bravest. He and his wife, who had been married five years, were planning to start a family, Katz said.

Youthful in his ways, Bracken strived at several sports. Katz said he played hockey for his fire company, which regularly competed against other fire companies and police departments. Softball, too, was a love of his, Katz said. As coach of a co-ed team on which his wife played, he was fondly known as "Coach Pugs," a reference to his cherubic physique. He took it all in stride, Katz said. "He was up for anything, anytime. He was a fun- loving, easygoing, carefree guy" who seldom got upset or angry.

In addition to his wife, other survivors include his parents, Hugh and Mary Bracken of Sandwich, Mass.; and siblings, Billy Bracken of McGraw, N.Y., Chickie Carlson of Sandwich, and Kathy Brown and Patty Sample, both of Houston.

-- Collin Nash (Newsday)

****

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat ei.

Requiescat in pace.

Amen.

The 2996 Project

I had heard of the 2996 Project some time ago, and was recently reminded of it by Kelly over at The Lady in the Pew. I figured no names would be available, but I went to the site anyway. There are names available for a second assignememt! Please, please, go sign up and honor a person who died on 9/11. Maybe as a native of New York City I feel particularly moved to do this. I will honor the person assigned to me, as well as some other people to whom I have a connection.

When I was a student at New York University back in the late 70's, I remember how the Ladies Garment Workers Union and the local fire station would gather at NYU's Greene Street building on the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The fire took place on March 25, 1911 - yet the people still gathered to remember the young women who lost their lives that day and whose death led to legislation that led to the installation of sprinklers in buildings.

I also remember reading obituaries placed in the New York Times for Richard III on the anniversary of his death.

My point is that people should not be lost to time. I am disappointed that many people will not honor 9/11 as Patriot Day and many have seemed to forget what happened on that day. I won't. I will be a lady - hopefully - of advanced years someday and I will still cry as I recall that morning, as I am now typing this.

Rat bastards. By forgetting, they win.

Chapel in the Woods

My son is always fascinated with old churches. This is an old Methodist church in Cades Cove, in the Smokies, and when Patrick sat down at the piano, he began striking keys such that - for a moment - it sounded as if he were about to play "Amazing Grace."

Cabin in the Woods

Another photograph from Tennessee - I joke and let people know we're buying this as a guest house and y'all come up and visit!

Amish On Vacation

I still cannot get over the fact that Amish take a break from their farming to have a breather. I would be willing to bet, however, that chances are good they would NOT be spotted in Puerta Vallarta. This is atop Lookout Mountain in Georgia.

Crocodile Hunter, RIP

I was saddened this morning to open my browser and learn of the death of Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter. I enjoyed his shows and his enthusiasm towards God's creatures. I admit, I am also one of the many people who had my own version in impersonating him, although I never got quite right his Australian accent.

My prayers go out to his wife, Terri, and their two children.

Thanks, Steve, for the humor you brought to nature programs.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual Light shine upon him; may the souls of the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Vatican City Ghost

Okay, I admit - I check in with CoasttoCoastAM now and then, ever since I first heard it on late night radio while driving home after a looong evening of law school back in the day. Found this piece about the Vatican City Ghost.

The truth is out there. Trust no one. You decide.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

GO VOLS!!

What a fine way to start out the college football season, with University of Tennessee's Volunteers' victory against Cal's Golden Bears. Hopefully, this bodes well for them since I have made the Vols my Team to Cheer For This Season after visiting their delightful state.

Highlights included:

Mr. Jack Lives! I recommend the tour at the Jack Daniels' distillery in Lynchburg. I know it's the most popular whiskey in America, but I assumed it was made at several large processing plants. Not so - every bottle is made in Lynchburg, a tiny hamlet. And the kicker is, they can't serve any samples because the county it's in is a dry county. For visitors, one must make reservations for the lunch served by Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House in Lynchburg for an experience of genteel dining and Southern hospitality.

Amish on Vacation? Who knew that the Amish in Kentucky actually take a holiday from work on the farm to SEE ROCK CITY? Anyone who has driven through Tennessee and the states near Chattanooga know that there are a plethora of signs to SEE ROCK CITY or VISIT RUBY FALLS (to be accurate, Rock City is located just across the border, in Georgia, atop Lookout Mountain). We went to SEE ROCK CITY and ran across a group of happy Amish on vacation. And whattaya know - Rock City was actually fun (as was Ruby Falls)!

Hooray for Dollywood! The kids loved Dollywood. I loved Dollywood. It's one of the cleanest amusement parks I have seen and the rides are fun, including The Thunderhead, one of the coolest wooden roller coasters I have been on. The park is geared to wholesome, family fun, with even a dress code enforced, to make sure no one is walking around with some vulgar t-shirt or their boobs/cheeks hanging out (hello, Disneyland, can you do the same?). We are going to visit Tennessee again this Thanksgiving holiday and I am looking forward to seeing Dollywood decorated for Christmas.

No Fish Story. The Tennessee Aquarium is wonderful. It has two buildings - one for the standard saltwater flora and fauna, but also one dedicated to the rivers, creeks, lakes and tributaries of the world, with emphasis on Tennessee. The riverfront area of Chattanooga is a delightful grassy park, perfect for strolling along the Tennessee River.

There's Gold in Them Thar Hills! And the "gold" of the Great Smoky Mountains is its natural beauty. We went driving through the popular Cade's Cove and fell in love with the scenery. What was particularly exciting for the kids was sighting both deer and black bears - the latter a Mama Bear with her three cubs! Even outside the national park, the mountains are beautiful. We also came across the wee town of Cosby, TN which is . . . um . . . the moonshine capital of the U.S., according to locals. And as an officer of the court here in California, I will not answer any questions as to whether I actually purchased any of the stuff, although that Mason jar does make a handy pencil holder!

The Secret City. Oak Ridge, TN DOES NOT EXIST! Do you hear me, IT DOES NOT EXIST! Or, at least it did not during WWII where it was the site of the genesis of the Manhattan Project, whose handiwork was seen at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oak Ridge today is a booming technology center and a fun visit is to the American Museum of Science & Energy. It sounds like a geekfest, and for geeks it is pretty darn cool, but anyone would enjoy it and learn a little about our energy sources, as well as see some great demonstrations. We did not take the tour of the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but that is available too.

We drove around the University of Tennessee and Neyland Stadium, as well as downtown Knoxville, but did not have enough time to stop. We also did not get a chance to see: Knoxville Zoo, Three River Rambler, a paddleboat cruise, the Cumberland Gap, Nashville, Clarksville, Memphis (and Graceland, momma baby!), fainting goats, Tennessee walking horses, and even more of the Great Smoky Mountains. So . . . we'll just have to go back.

Go back? Actually, the Digispouse and I also used part of our trip to check out more mundane stuff, such as real estate. And we have decided - we are moving to Tennessee. It's just a question of putting things in place to firm up a timeline when that will be, but it will happen within a year's time. The amount of equity we have in our California home is obscene, and that will allow us to purchase a nicer home in the Southeast. I have already sent in my Notice of Intent to sit for the February 2007 bar examination. We are excited about this and feel it is the right thing to do for our family. Your prayers are requested that things fall into place sooner rather than later!

What The Hell Were They Thinking?!

I read about this on Gerald's The Cafeteria Is Closed blog, but I was just exposed to it on my television this evening. I am speaking about the nauseating Ford commercial that ends with the weekend Dad being let out of the "family" van in front of his condo complex, hugging his kids goodbye while saying to the ex-spouse sitting in the driver's seat, "Thanks for inviting me this weekend."

Bold moves for Ford? How about showing a Catholic family pulling into a crowded church parking lot and unloading their five or so under-10 kids from their Ford family van, with a soupcon of humor thrown in whereby they manage to rush into their pew, squeezing past the priest who is standing in the back, ready to process towards the altar, but who gives them all a happy smile, knowing that for a family of that size, it's hard making it to Mass on time and realizing that God has blessed them indeed. The good padre can even ruffle the hair of the youngest gap-toothed tot as he passes in the processional as the final shot, with the voice over, "Bold moves - they happen every day."

Five Persons Meme

Amy Pawlak, She Who is In the Club (as the Eastenders of London say of pregnant women) and Pundit of Modern Commentaries, tagged me with this meme. I finally have the time to respond, what with trying to catch up on work after my vacation, so here goes:

If you could meet and have a deep conversation with any five people on earth, living or dead, from any time period, who would they be?" (Explaining why is optional.) Name five people from each of the following categories: Saints, Those in the Process of Being Canonized, Heroes from your native country, Authors/Writers, celebrities.

Saints

Blessed Virgin Mary - naturally . . .

St. Thomas More - we would, as lawyers often do, exchange war stories about our respective practices.

St. Peter - I want to thank him for helping me not feel so bad when I do something bone-headed or put my foot in my mouth, since he did and still managed to be the first Pope.

St. Brigid - and sure if we didn't have a wee drop o' Irish mist together.

St. Monica - for parenting tips.

Those In the Process of Being Canonized

Bl. Miguel Pro - I read about him Fr. James Martin's book about saints and think he'd be a hoot at a dinner party.

Bl. Pope John XXII - another jokester at the table.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen - more laughs and wit.

Pope John Paul II - jak sie mas, your Holiness! I'd like to think my deceased Polish grandmother would join us with a giant tureen of her fantastic mushroom soup . . .

Dorothy Day - her conversion story is compelling.

Heroes From My Native Country

My father, Francis Xavier Martin, and his brother Rangers

Benjamin Franklin

Ronald Reagan

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia

Writers

Jon Krakauer

Harper Lee

Chaim Potok

Anthony Burgess

Count Leo Tolstoy

Celebrities

Vincent Price - believe it or not, he was a very, very urbane and educated man. His conversation would be wonderful.

Stephen Colbert

Ben Stein

Dolly Parton - I had the opportunity to meet her and converse with her while waiting for a flight at Los Angeles Airport (LAX) and she has to be the warmest, sincerest celebrity I have ever met.

Barbara Bush

Tag: gosh - anyone who hasn't done this already!

"Talk is Cheap"

Today at St. Joseph's, we had one of my favorite guest priests, the incomparable Fr. Jude Lucier from the parish of St. Callistus in Garden Grove. His parents were long-time parishioners at St. Joseph and we are always glad to have him. I especially like the way he gives context and historical perspective to the readings, taing advantage of the situation to do a little scriptual teaching to the congregation.

I especially liked his comments today, talking about James' epistle that we heard today in the second reading. Fr. Jude made sure we knew that this is the part of the New Testament that one Augustinian monk named Martin Luther called, "the epistle of straw" that was fit only for feeding the dairy cattle. Why? But of course, Luther objected to the language: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." As Fr. Jude added - "To understand this, you will have to dig down deep into your Catholicism. This is not something you will get over at Calvary Chapel - talk is cheap!"

The question he posed he took from the Gospel line: "This people honors me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me." Asked Fr. Jude, "How close is your heart to the Divine?"

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for their strict adherence to procedure, as expressed in their condemnation of Christ's disciples for not following ritualistic handwashing. Are our hearts following our hands? Or can we get so consumed about "tradition" that we become disciples of straw, neglecting the substance of our faith? Tradition is a good thing, so long as we allow it to connect to what is sacred.