Obama and Notre Dame: Profiles in Courage

Please remove the comment containing Presidential quotes in regard to Guantanamo Bay which as stated in my previous request I have since discovered were bogus comments never made by the President and accept my apology for the inaccuracies.

Please accept my apology re inaccurate quotations attributed to the President. I took then from an article by Scott Ott Examiner Columnist | 5/22/09 4:57 AM assuming because they were in quotation marks they were verbatim quotes not realising it was a satirical piece containing fictional quotation. Please delete the previous comment

So I start with, "What is a Covenant?" Of Course When Masons made mark upon the High Mossad, they lay with cross bearing the signias of clothes they robe themselves in eat, the bread for pursuit of life, and dates and forsake there for grace what ask we may - thee, what is nothing more than "SARAH PALINS VIEW OF SEX AND PARENTHOOD", Mothers uopn the STars of DECEMBER 23rd En Gedi ask if the perfection the church theirin UPON that day, such that Davids star is True, is reclament in the breadth of a Summers Spanse that a tree grows and 'whisps to those BEARING LIFE-FORCE nearest-them such as the Lutheran wholesome "Luke Skywalker thesis" that these chiomis of Water hravesting and the pillars of the sky, none perfect at 32 degrees, the smoke pillows outside of Palins backyard at AUREA BREALIS, a sign seen between a man and woman in mode for either What?!? BELIEF WE ARE NOT CHEMISTRY BEWEEN THE FLESH, BUT TO DRINK OF THE WATERS AND BONE, orr MUTUALLY INCLUSIOVE, GODD BETWEEN US ARE FLAILING AOUR SPIRIT OF THE BEAR TO BELIEF THAT THESE MIDSUMMERS NIGHTS DREASM that the means could mean so much, IMPartially imoperfect, with so much imperfection in all of us in growth as the trees sway acoutric, holding this The means of Sarah Palins rise to Holy Feel SHE indeed would have it any ohter way, IM SIGNIAS fervently sure... In AMerica Today, The BEar is alive in me more than the dragon... FOR ME... but the mode of the Templars meet at the Mossad, could the Church ring smoke true, above it rises, and falls, and Cardinals shine so bright, TO DEFINE MYSELF... and Our Ladies Believe... I NEED TO BELIEVE IN MYSELF... see the skies... and thats all... a roaring Simba to post 80s mothers, and im a 29 RyanOfCOlumbia South Carolina! Stay True to Fiath In America Barack, IS ee it!

I start out with, "All the kings Men" as to the wide open spaces that might be construed in the disembalance of the past 9 and a half months. They included all the Accopunting majors "How many and I want to know the legacy behind the son of evolutionary-law!" Such to say Texas Tech alum Darvin Ham would be fed from earth fare on a veggie diet, yet not win a slam dunk title and make it to the prose. The Umbilicle chord is wholeheartedly from brother to mother, from the daughters to Michelle Obamas taught words to those who wish to see Angels and Demons and the pre-positioned slideshows 'Stating: Education, Career, enjoy the smile of a child for life, and GROW AS YOU! I, too speak of experience beyond the Spinoza clamor of Assyrians cross the eco-parralel from Chiapas. Mothers Rights due... Barack may give mothers the rights to make good fathers, but the father inspires the childs heart that is the mothers to own, in the childs site, and the child Sends a Cherub to confide in the olfaction that fiction in the eye of the beholder is a capture to the circulate that ~ Sotomayor, and Roberts allows the Chaos to Chaos, as Chi-O Tea - to let Spnioza and Renee Deceive and Mislead anInstitution like this on Papal divine preceopt of doused water? Peoples of the world faith is not affrontry on one concerned forecept is faith to faith is the prime mystique for a momma's exchange of water to sanguine rights of God almighty. Run away from the redbull, but take lightly, the dark knight and the rider on the white horse "PRIDE IN RELXATION WITHOUT CHURCHES KINGGDOM OF TEMPLE TO CRAWL IN LAY OF FATE ... 'Miraculaous David signs true...'

Courage? He knew he was receiving an honorary degree He knew the Secret Service and Notre Dame would keep protestors at bay where was courage needed? Confidence in himself yes but courage?

make that:

they are certainly ways by which intelligence communicates itself

Farnaz1 wrote:

"Good grammar is not, IMHO, a sign of intelligence."

I disagree. But, for the sake of argument, even if I agreed I would still claim that good grammar and writing are ways by which intelligence is easily recognized -- or disproven!-- and they are certainly are ways by which intelligence communicates itself.

Daniel12 wrote:

"the barrage against being able to just sit and think a thought"

I am unaware of such a barrage. Do you have evidence to support your statement, or is this just another of your paranoid flights of fancy?

Frankly, the more I read of your 'writings', the more convinced I become that mere citizenship is not a sufficient qualifier for the right to vote.

Have you ever been institutionalized?

Daniel12 wrote:

"Have you not wrested with something Doug? Have you not worked on a car, leaned in and said to a friend "I'm getting able to grasp that damn starter but maybe I can get a better grip by going under the car"?"

No.

Hi Daniel12,

I am sorry if you think I've put your head on a platter. I thought I'd simply responded to your question. Good grammar is not, IMHO, a sign of intelligence.

The biggest problme is with the construct of intelligence, itself. I highly recommend Howard Gardner's work on Multiple Intelligence Theory. The first book is all you need to read. Forgo the rest,/I suggest, as they merely rehash the first. Lotsa dough for Gardner, MI brought.

Here are a couple of links:

http://www.howardgardner.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#The_definition_of_intelligence

All criticisms listed in Wikipedia are well-taken, IMHO. Still, the theory is interesting, and in conjunction with recent work done in what is now lumped together under "learning styles," useful for didacts, suto, and other.

Dunn and Dunn are the key figures in recent learning style theory. Below, I paste the link for search results so that you can pick and choose.

http://search.aol.com/aol/search?query=Dunn+and+Dunn+learning+styles&s_it=keyword_rollover&c.userid=448251303402700803

Question: What happens to a seventeen-year-old-very-inner-city-seriously-remedial-writer-and-reader college student, whose father abandons her mother, her sister, and her, whose mother, then decides she wishes to leave as well?

Consider that the said teen knows nothing of paying rent, bills, etc., nor does her fourteen-year-old sister?

That she has had a very poor education, is becoming increasingly hostile to her teachers, and shows no signs of GENIUS, whatsoever?

What happens (a.) if she is in an institution which follows your "standards of excellence model, and (b.) if she is in an institution which follows a talen delvelopment perspective?

On writing: It can be taught, is taught, is taught very well. Many of our finest writers today have been through creative writing programs, although they aren't necessarily the only way.

Their is assistance on the web, an endless array of books, workshops almost everywhere in the country.

Farnaz

"but it is implied that he was looking for a real human being "

Actually, like true Cynics, he was searching for men who could live their lives with reason and in fidelity with nature.

I think it was also he who added a guiding principle to cynicism: that any act that is not shameful when performed in private is not made shameful merely being also performed in public.

"...except that Diogenes was not looking for an honest man. He was looking for a human being."

True, but it is implied that he was looking for a real human being (e.g., moral, honest, etc.) but found only rascals and scoundrels.

Arminius2 wrote:

"Looks like Diogenes can put out his lamp, the honest man has been found"

...except that Diogenes was not looking for an honest man. He was looking for a human being.

Daniel12 wrote:

"why not get me into contact with a good editor and publishing company?"

You know, if you really want a good editor and entre to publishing houses, I'd say a good place to start would be with Susan Jacoby. She could probably give you some very good, and current, information. She must know dozens of editors.

Looks like Diogenes can put out his lamp, the honest man has been found - Daniel12.

I am not sure anyone gets "trained" to be a writer or a good writer, or a good communicator.

Everyone says that Ronald Reagan was the "Great Commumicator." But that is really a misnomer. There is not much that he ever said that is memorable or repeatalbe. He was a man full of plattitudes and cheap plastic cliches. He was a friendly communicator, or a soothing communicator.

What is a good writer and a good speaker? Someone who has good or interesting ideas that he can say them or write them.

Bush? ideas? not so much. What ideas? If he had anything worth saying, he could say it or get someone else to write it for him. But he did not.

Obama, in the communication of his ideas, is much more subtle, complex, and changeable than Bush; he is more flexible and subject to the mutations of the moment, and he is full of courage and vision. Bush was rigid, narrow, small, confused, and backward looking.

Bush was Jefferson Davis and Obama is Abraham Lincoln.

THat is how I feel. Does that make me a dishonest lefty liberal loathesome, dishonet Democratic herd animal? I guess I am guilty.

Farnaz gets my head on a platter this week. The reward is Farnaz's. Just read what she has written below.

Daniel12:
"Bush not speaking well as Obama necessarily signify Obama is more intelligent than Bush?"
No. In fact, we have no way of knowing who is more intelligent since we cannot satisfactorily define "intelligence." What we can say is that the latter brought us into a pointless war, costing one-and-one-half million lives, led an administration that contributed heavily to the current sick economy, had the lowest approval rating in recent history of a president leaving office.
What Obama has done so far is encouraging.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | May 21, 2009 5:33 PM

Good grammar equals intelligence not, sayeth moi.
Neither does a Ph.D.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | May 21, 2009 5:39 PM

Farnaz, instantly recognizing after I criticized it, that for all the Democrat's chortling over Bush's bad sentence structure and Obama's wonderful gifts of speaking, that Obama speaking better than Bush does not necessarily mean Bush is less intelligent than Obama, took a different course in trying to determine which of them is more intelligent.

Farnaz did not try to wiggle out of it by saying...well, by trying to prop up the failing argument that speaking well necessarily has a connection to high intelligence.

Farnaz gets my head on a platter. And her reward is my admission that when all the factors are taken into consideration, yes indeed Obama is more intelligent than Bush--in fact significantly more intelligent. And I would add to that that Obama has more integrity.

Farnaz, now that you have my head on a platter can you occasionally turn my head around so I do not have to face forward to the same view all the time? And please every now and then put a tissue up to my nose so I can blow my damn nose...Thanks.

To Doug, who criticized my sentence structure...My saying "getting able to grasp things"...my sentence structure was only too accurate. To grasp things whether by hand or mind one often does not learn to grasp things or become able to grasp things. One often has to grapple, as in get a grip on things Doug. Have you not wrested with something Doug? Have you not worked on a car, leaned in and said to a friend "I'm getting able to grasp that damn starter but maybe I can get a better grip by going under the car"?

If you want to read really bad sentence structure Doug, I refer you to that terrible writer Shakespeare. His writings are full of what we today would call missing words, connecters such as of, what, we--connecting words in general. I read the other night Marc Antony's funeral oration in Shakespeares Julius Caeser and was struck by all the missing necessary words. Or rather, they were not that necessary...In fact if you are Shakespeare they are not necessary at all. In fact they are probably a hindrance. But of course I am not Shakespeare I hasten to add...

But if it still bothers you Doug, why not get me into contact with a good editor and publishing company? I have a hell of a lot of writing and I have put a lot of time into learning how to write when really I have no talent for it at all. In fact I quite often state I do not know how to write. Instead it seems I know how to think and the only thing I can think of to communicate the thoughts are words. But I am really not that good at writing.

Farnaz,

I recalled you recommending this Celan poem once before. It definitely rang a bell. I checked the link and then I remembered the graves in the air where it's less cramped, the ashen hair, blue-eyed tyranny, and that terrible ascension of smoke.

It's beautiful and terrible. True alchemy, gold from coals.

From Song of Solomon 3

1
By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I found him not.
2
'I will rise now, and go about the city, in the streets and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loves.' I sought him, but I found him not.
3
The watchmen that go about the city found me: 'Saw ye him whom my soul loves?'
4
Scarce had I passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
5
'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field, that ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please.'

Onofrio,

Paul Celan, "Death Fugue"

http://mason.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/deathfugue.html

Felstiner's translation, IMHO, is the best.

This poem is so much studied that the last Celan Conference call for papers barred "Death Fugue" papers.

This was the first Shoah poem I read, and I read it by chance. I'd resisted this body of work. What poetry could come of ash and bone and gas?

But I was wrong. So much of the language we hear is noise that one forgets that words were meant to mean, that meaning miners keep them going, triumph from time to time.

Onofrio,

Do you know the poetry of Paul Celan?

dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Shulamith

Yes, that Shulamite woman, whose own vineyard she did not guard. Who could shun her, she who roamed in search of her beloved and brought him to her mother's house?

Song haunted, am I.

Hmm, ambiguity wins yet again. Huzzah! Well, regardless of that textual rub, Onofrio is very keen on the loveliness of darkness, whether figurative or epidermal!

I imagine, after all, that the Shulamite "walks in beauty like the night".

Dan of the lions,

Just caught up with the verse. Zesta! I especially like the Nilotic nod (surprise, surprise).

The feeling states it evokes - all so true-to-life. Yes, and yes.

Muse on...

"Is this "but" an accurate reflection of the Hebrew?"

That's just it. There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer. One Tanakh (not OT) translation reads, "for I am dark and comely." Here darkness is an attribute. Another translation simply comments on the ambiguity. The OT translations I've seen all seem to read something like the Revised Standard.

Farnaz,

Re the Shulamite's darkness,

A lot hangs on what is placed between *dark/black* and *lovely/comely*. English translations deploy the contrast of "but", i.e. "black BUT comely", "dark BUT lovely", as if darkness were typically excluded from the notion of loveliness.

Is this "but" an accurate reflection of the Hebrew?

Dan's muse is in the den. The lions dream tonight.

To sleep peacefully beneath the ground
Surrounded by the sea and sky;
And see no more the sun that shines
And seek no more the answer why...

To fly away from this cold speck
Upward into dark of space,
To float among the stars that fleck
Accross the vault of midnight's face...

These thoughts I sometimes cast about
With heart that wants to beat no more.
But then I put the garbage out;
Take all I know of peace and war
Back upstairs to our marriage bed,

And watch you sleep in mystery,
And touch my lips to your forehead.

I cast my soul on the winds of time
To drift carelessly, I know not where;
As I wait for life's last weary sigh,
My soul's begun its journey there.

Like birds that glide in the twilight chill
My heart shall send its grief to fly
On winged words, through the night, still
Of endless stars, and a moonlit sky.

Like a windswept hieroglyphic inscription,
My lost love for you shall be
More ancient, still, than some Egyptian
Tomb locked tight, without a key.

Grammar Poem :)

Grammar

Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.

Tony Hoagland

Onofrio:

*dark and comely*

Interesting, no. The OT often translates "dark[ness]," as a liability. The Tanakh translations either suggest ambiguity or see "dark[ness]" as a positive attribute.

Wonder. What do you think?

Dear Daniel 12

I don't deny that you are intelligent. If my playing with the idea of intelligence has bothered you, it was unintended. Basically, your interests and my interests go in different directions. So I don't give your posts a lot of thought; this seems to be mutual.

Notice the criticism of your sentence structure was not made by me. If you changed your thought in midsentence and then forgot about it and didn't proof read it, I can see how that could happen, since I do it all the time.

Ah, Asenath, now there's a name to conjure with...

Speaking of Egyptian ladies, I like to imagine that the *dark and comely* beloved of Solomon's Song was the daughter of Pharaoh.

Onofrio,

Should have written: BFF=Best Friend Forever.

Onofrio(n),

"I do know Potiphera. He thinks highly of Joseph."

Well, speaking for my BBF, Asenath, I should hope so! :)

DITLD, Onofrio,

Everywhere, I hear mention of this seemingly nebulous group, which can be neither tried nor released. I (would like to) assume there are criteria, but before we go much further with Obama's "preventative" statute, I'd like to know what they are.

The last such statute, I believe, allowed for the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Not good, we all agree.

Daniel12 wrote:

"If you are not getting able to grasp things now you never will."

Getting able to grasp things? Surely a real writer would have written "If you are not learning to grasp things now you never will."
Or at worst, "If you are not becoming able..."

I think you protest your supposed genius far too much, far too often.

Danielinthelionsden,

a.k.a. Darius' main man, Dan,

"All of us get that way sometimes, don't we?"

Who? Me? Never! ;^)

As for *Doux*, I salute your French!

Farnaz,

"I seem to be adding an N, of late, to your last name. Wonder what it means...: "

Nasalising francais pronunciation?

On, Off, Free, On?

Or an echo of the On of which Joseph's dad-in-law was high priest (Genesis 41:45)? On = Iwnw (Eg.)= Heliopolis (Gk.), city of Re, now beneath the concrete of Cairene sprawl.

Light encrypted, sun entombed.

I know Joseph but little; I do know Potiphera. He thinks highly of Joseph.

Dear Onofrio

Is it Daniel Douze? Or Daniel Doux?

I think I got that right, didn't I?

I am not mad at him, because he seems a little distressed about something besides what I have been posting.

All of us get that way sometimes, don't we?

Farnaz,

Re Guantanamo

Seems many-who-can-decide want to keep the screams stoppered.

At this stage, after all the hype and faux-might and lies, only transparency will atone and heal. I think Obama knows that, but knowing it and implementing it are, well, like grain to galaxy.

Lance the boil; loose all the poison. Can a government be that *weak*? Apparently not.

But that's too easy for mere me to say...

"Farnaz hit the nail on the head with this:

"On another note, namely Guantanamo, could someone please explain to me the criteria for determining who must be detained but cannot be tried?"

Hundreds of the prisoners have been released already, under Bush. I assume some of them were held and are being held by mistake.

Our Constitutional rights are predicated on a doctine of "human rights." If you don't believe on human rights, then our Constitutional rights are just
technicalities to be overcome by tyrants, a la Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld?

The assumption is that all of the prisoners in Guantanmo are guilty of terrorist activities. I do not believe this to be the case. Whose word do we have on this? We have the word of untrustworthy people.

I am aware of terrorist animosity directed against the United States, my home where I live, and where all of my family loved ones and friends also live. Yet, I do not live every waking moment in fear of what the terrorists may do to us, and it is not because I am naive or foolish.

In fact, a person must be brave to be in the world. Being in the world takes courage and grit. Danger is everywhere. A hidden cancerous cell in your body, or even just riding in a car to the store is a greated danger than the prisoners held in Guantanamo.

Daniel12,

Herdism is the order of the day, it's true. One cannot get away from the mentality, and, painful, though it may be for you to hear, I've seen it once or twice in you. And, from time to time, I am downright stupid, myself, moi.

Beware contempt, nonetheless. The genius myth is a crock. There are certain people, some, perhaps, genetically gifted, others not, who are at the right place at the right moment. That is it.

Glad of it. There are no doubt, many others, unsung, from whose song we might yet benefit. But for a moment, let us recall some of the sung, Rommel, for instance.

Wisdom is what there is that counts, that really counts. Seek a wise person. I have met only onesuch in my life. One other that came close. That is it. Worth more than rubies.

IN humanity, in some humans, it is there. Be open to it.

Hi Farnaz - I don't think we can get to the bottom of the bucket - although a famous Zennist once said that when he experienced satori, it was like a gushing experience, when the bottom of a bucket falls out.....after that, there was really nothing more to say.

It seems that this is a physical experience - impossible to describe.

The aftermath is precarious - you are someone, but then again, you are everyone. I remember having that experience that first time I roller skated.....

Hi Onofrio,

Thanks for the post. I seem to be adding an N, of late, to your last name. Wonder what it means...:

Yes, it was a good speech. Now, we have Guantanamo to deal with. Reality, although the petty pols would make it other than.

Dan-le-Douze,

Not convincing, this shrill insistence on your own genius.

There's been a change in your posts, like you've got hold of the One Ring or something.

What has Niccolò M done to you with his clearly too-strong medicine? You're edging from misplaced "hier stehe ich" into the outskirts of "Mein Kampf".

It's not too late, le Douze. Throw it into the fire!

Dear Daniel 12

I do not understand why you are so mad at me. I think you are reading personal insults from me to you, that I have not intended.

I get a "vibe" that President Obama is smarter than President Bush. In general, who cares who is smarter then whom? But for the President, I care.

I realize that a vibe is not a black and white fact that can be analyzed under a glass. But basing my opinion on a vibe does not make me wrong.

Hi Farnaz,

Re Obama's speech.

Yea, certes, listened to it. There's no doubt he's a bridge-builder. Sorely needed in these times.

Nothing objectionable about what happened at ND, *in my book*; rather, reason for hope.

Cher Persiflage,

Earlier, I wanted to say that from what I've read here, I think you very wise. Now, that Onofrion has said as much, I believe I can.

I wish Daniel12 could understand that wisdom is a far greater gift than "genius" although, for all I know you may be a genius, as well.

Maybe, one day, you will tell us about Hui Neng.

Farnaz

Persiflage,

Vous êtes un sage

"I was looking out my back porch just now, and realized that everything in my view was due to my own awareness ........ and nothing more."

And nothing less, Selah!

I trow a trace of bodhisattva, Fogerty inflected.

Meet ITTA. It, ah, brought your good Self to mind t'other day when it popped into my less-than-mindfulness.

Is this all there is?

This is all there is.

This is All.

All.

Pour vous.

Farnaz - you grasped it.....just now. There is and never will be anything more substantial. Religion refuses to see it.....the problem with smart people is imaginging more.

The 6th and last Zen patriach Hui Neng - often considered to be the inculcation of transitional Zen - was considered to be enlighened to the full degree - no different than Gautama Sidarrtha's view of reality.

He said there was nothing whatsoever, when he viewed his own Mind in it's essence.

There was simply awareness..........and there is every reason to believe it. Although we don't consider this option....

Persiflage,

Farnaz and Onofrio - you guys are incredibly entertaining and I must say, impressive! Lord knows, I love Francois!
I was looking out my back porch just now, and realized that everything in my view was due to my own awareness ........ and nothing more.
There is simply no other way........
____________
Bonsoir Persiflage,

Merci. Also,I believe you, that is, on the only way. Just wish I could grasp it!

Farnaz

Farnaz and Onofrio - you guys are incredibly entertaining and I must say, impressive! Lord knows, I love Francois!

I was looking out my back porch just now, and realized that everything in my view was due to my own awareness ........ and nothing more.

There is simply no other way........

part two

The last thing I have to say is this: You are a thief and not just pretentious. You are a thief because you are no Daniel in the Lion's Den. You are a hopeless democratic herd animal. You do not stand alone. You do not face the lions with courage. I am the Daniel in the Lion's den not you. I stand alone. I face the lions whether of the right or left. You thief. Give me back my place. You do not deserve it. Change your name when you post if you have any honor and honesty.

Or do you deny that I am the one facing the lions? I would like to see you explain that when the fact is I not only do not belong to but despise both the right and left of today. I base myself on something quite simple. The bookstore and library. I read, I think, I write. I work a security guard job on the late shift to do the previous sentence. I read when I was about 20 about Russian writers in the 19th century taking jobs in boiler rooms--because all they had to do was watch the boiler and all time was to write. I reflected for a moment and decided that a security guard job is the best modern equivalent, but...Nothing more to say. If you are not getting able to grasp things now you never will.

I will say this though in conclusion: I am not you and I am not what you typically hate. I am something worse. I am a man who thinks. And history is full of examples of just one man rendering the herd thinking obsolete. All the greatest things that have come down from history have not depended on the herd, no, the herd which is so vacillating and frivolous--the greatest things have come down by the effort of the truly valuable few.

Ah, why bother...I can spend my time on better things.

Part one.

To Daniel in the Lion's den from Daniel. You truly repel me. I offer a concisely written, historically accurate response to your repeated insults toward Bush to the effect that he "babbles incoherently, cannot construct or speak a sentence properly" and you respond with what? Nothing? Exactly nothing.

You are a sterling example of the mirror of the worst qualities of the Republican party. Republicans are often blowhards, greedy, warmongering, bigoted, sexist, racist--I need not continue, your wrath no doubt can supply endless faults--but you are oh, so intellectually superior, progressive, enlightened, etc.--all that arrogance of the Democratic party.

The proof is right on the table. Again, I demonstrate my intellect and learning on the problem of whether speaking well has anything to do with intelligence and you reply with nothing. Not a single argument backed by historical understanding. Simply your typical left wing shallow thinking and glee at what you impatiently rush to to support your beliefs. I certainly do not see you being particularly intelligent. And still you reply to me as if I am a republican or something. Your petty paltry worldview simply cannot admit anything other than the Republican Democratic war.

The truth is the vast majority of either party are quite low, not particularly intelligent, and certainly a disgrace to this nation. Both parties mixed with all the typical media BS, the barrage against being able to just sit and think a thought, have destroyed any possibility of a true thinking person appearing on the scene.

Daniel - I redacted a very long post to you by asking a simple question - why are you offended by Obama's presence at Notre Dame? You haven't really made your position clear.

I ask you this as a person (you) who has declared his lifestyle as one who has removed himself from society - how you have managed to do this is your own business.

On the other hand, your ability to empathize with other people is severely limited by this choice/circumstance. You can formulate opinions all day long, but you don't have to live with them - a social isolate has no lifestyle to speak of, and certainly no values that are tested day by day. In other words, change is not happening in the normal sense.....

You may be a brilliant person and are perhaps an autodidact (self-taught) - as I suggested awhile back.........

Your opinions are deeply influenced by your circumstances - I say that because I know people (including recognized savants)
that live this lifestyle.......

Perhaps you need to take your special cirumstances into account when you formulate your very strong opinions.....

Tennis, anyone?

And then we have paganplace supporting Obama getting an honor from Notre Dame by saying the Bushes received the same while they supported capitol punishment--and that supporting capitol punishment is worse than supporting abortion and in general supporting typical Democratic party beliefs. First, supporting capitol punishment is not worse than supporting abortion. Second of all, the Democratic party is more at odds in general with Catholicism than the Republican party is. Third of all, it is idiotic, typically childish, and says a lot about the supposed intellectual superiority of Democrats to say essentially that because the Bushes received honors Obama deserves such too--in fact deserves more than the Bushes...

Good grammar equals intelligence not, sayeth moi.

Neither does a Ph.D.

Daniel 12

To answer your question, YES!

Obama is obviously more intelligent than Bush. When I say he speaks better, I am not referring to oratorical skills nor voice tone. I am referring to his vocabulary and his BASIC mastery of SIMPLE English grammer.

What is obvious to me may not be obvious to you, but I cannot explain to you why that is.

Daniel12:

"Bush not speaking well as Obama necessarily signify Obama is more intelligent than Bush?"

No. In fact, we have no way of knowing who is more intelligent since we cannot satisfactorily define "intelligence." What we can say is that the latter brought us into a pointless war, costing one-and-one-half million lives, led an administration that contributed heavily to the current sick economy, had the lowest approval rating in recent history of a president leaving office.

What Obama has done so far is encouraging.

Dear Daniel 12

My critique of some problems of the Catholic Church was not a reply to you. It was a general comment, more directed to Doug White, who complained about my messy thinking.

Notre Dame University offered an honorary degree to President Obama. He accepted. This bothers you. Ok, I get it. So quit dishing your insults to me. I have nothing against you; you are just reading that into my posts.

Daniel12,

Why not write to Notre Dame and express your objections to their "watered down" Catholoicsm, presentation of an honorary doctorate to Obama?

Kindly also write to the Rev. Theodore Martin Hesburgh, CSC, STD, President Emeritus of Notre Dame, who is widely considered a non-watered-down Catholic and who clearly approved of ND's conduct regarding Obama.

There is an allegory concerning a cave.

It turns out, speaking of religion and politics, that the FBI has had informants at the Newburgh Mosq, where the would-be terrorists were congregants, for seven years.

Why, I wonder, is there an FBI, and NYPD presence at so many mosq's? Here, in Brooklyn, that presence is ever present.
One does not find it at churches and synagogues.

There are Islamic organizations seeking to end this insanity. I sincerely hope they succeed. It will not be easy. All over Asia, Euroope, and the Middle East, mullahs, imams spew antisemitic and anti-Western violence-inciting hatred.

One cannot have religious institutions serving as hate mongers. In this, mosqs are not alone, I very much recognize.

However, thus far, in recent times, to the best of my knowledge, churches have not been the home of terrorist plots.

Religion and politics--an unholy mix, no matter the issue. Any religion. All politics.

justillthen wrote:
"They were not the only part, or the most important part. The air time that they were given on cable and television coverage was unwarranted but standard for sensationalist media."

I clarified my post with the one below yours...again, the controversy was the story, which the protesters highlighted. The news is the news, that you and Susan felt there is a more important part is superfluous. Any discussions about the furthering of the abortion debate or the number of protesters would rightly be discussed and written about in the body of the story, certainly not the lead.

On whether Obama is a big shot for being able to speak better than Bush.

First of all, speaking well was probably the primary art of man--if we can take seriously theories that it was fundamentally language which separated man from the animals. This means speaking well is the art must closely aligned with man's basic nature, which is to say the temptation to give in to vanity, to become corrupt by the power, is greatest with speaking well than any other art. There is definite proof throughout history that speaking well has done as much evil as good. No other art has that dubious track record. In every age we have this orator (supposedly the good) pitted against that orator (supposedly the bad). The blueprint example is perhaps Demosthenes against Aeschines.

And if you need another and more modern dubious example of speaking well, one only has to state used car salesmen--salesmen and advertisers of all types--suave ladies men, etc. And of course we have the sterling example from the greatest orator of the 20th century, the competition to him not even close, Adolf Hitler.

Moving along, the next question is whether speaking well corresponds to intelligence. First of all take all the famous orators of history. How often are they referred to in modern times? Is their record greater or less than the written record? Can anyone state something intellectual--a significant piece of intellectual history--learned from an orator? I think the record will show that speaking well really has nothing to do with being particularly intelligent.

More proof that speaking well does not necessarily signify intelligence. Take a look around you. Notice the light bulbs. Notice the refrigerator--anything mechanical really. Did the invention of such things depend more on language, speaking well, or gifts other than language? The answer is obvious. The matter before you--all that was manipulated to arrive at machinery--was not and is not composed of letters, not some sort of Campbell's alphabet soup. In fact most of what we call civilization did not arise from the gift of language, no matter how important language has been.

In plain English, one person speaking better than another does not necessarily signify that the person speaking better is more intelligent, creative, etc. In fact a person can be vastly more intelligent than a person speaking better by possessing any number of types of gift other than that which the person speaking better possesses. In fact writing well does not necessarily mean speaking well and vice-versa. Most of the great orators of history have left nothing worth reading on the written page. And as for writers supposedly being able to speak well, some might, but others cannot--and the latters inability does not at all mean being unable to think and write well.

Conclusion: Bush not speaking well as Obama necessarily signify Obama is more intelligent than Bush?

Let an honest person answer that question.

Terrorist plot worse than reported in AP. Is being covered right now on New York City local news.

Religion and Public Affairs

From the Associated Press:
--------------------------------
Feds: NY bomb plot suspects 'eager to bring death to Jews', disappointed couldn't bomb WTC

By JIM FITZGERALD
Associated Press Writer

Watch Related Video

FBI Nets 4 in Terror Plot Targeting NYC Temple

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- Four men arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near two New York City synagogues were disappointed that the World Trade Center wasn't still around to attack, a federal prosecutor said Thursday as the men appeared in court for the first time....

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEMPLE_PLOT?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

It never ceases. No matter what I say, people seem to just erupt with either their ridiculous Democratic party beliefs or ridiculous Republican party beliefs.

We have Arminius asking if I would approve of Bush receiving an honor from Notre Dame--presumably because I object to Obama (if I MUST be against Obama I MUST be for Republicans BS reasoning. Herd reasoning.). But for the record, yes, Bush is more in line with Catholic teaching. Of course he is not a Catholic but an Evangelical, so some objection can be made there, but he is clearly against abortion. Of course Bush could not be honored with a law degree...Do I really have to continue?

It seems everyone thinks I must be a Republican here. It seems everyone is hearing only that I am against Obama in this instance when I have equally criticized the Catholic institution. For the record, about Obama, it is indisputable he not only received an honor for which he did not work, he received it from an institution with which he is fundamentally at odds. Or if you want to hear it in a different way, it is as if Obama agreed to speak in the way he wishes, left wing of course, at an institution with which he is fundamentally at odds, and while he was there agreed to pick up an honorary degree. How difficult is that to see?

Apparently very difficult. Difficult because among the other absurd replies to myself we have a long discourse from Daniel in the Lion's Den, pointing out that the church is fundamentally at odds with modern times, etc., that it changes with the times, etc. as if bludgeoning me about the wrongs of the church somehow makes Obama right. Apparently Lion's Den does not see that his tactic is well known to the average teenager, a tactic such as "but dad, everyone is going there". One of those corrupt reasonings. Or to put it clearer, Obama must be right whatever he does because the Catholic church is offensive to Democratic party beliefs such as abortion.

The conversation will be continued in the next post where I will address the supposed superiority of Obama over Bush because Obama can speak better than Bush, does not mangle sentence structure like Bush.

Women have been given the provinence of future generations - that is their fate and their role. They must have total control over this decision-making process, as both Obama and Hesburgh understand.

Unfortunately the anti-choice protesters don't comprehend the magnititude of the issue - it's really too complex for simple minds.

Men make their seminal donation, and women decide what happens next - it's really very simple. My view is that life everywhere is vast beyond imagining - life on this tiny planet needs to be under the control of intelligent life.....how else??

On another note, namely Guantanamo, could someone please explain to me the criteria for determining who must be detained but cannot be tried?

If persons must be detained, why, then, can they not be tried either by the military or by the government?

I ask, given that Obama's closing of Guantanamo has, as you know, suffered a serious setback.

Hello FH123,

"The protests were obviously "the" story."

It seems a good thing that you are neither a reporter or an editor. This whole thing was of such interest, you ought to know, because President Obama was invited to Notre Dame. The protests were a manifestation of the degree of controversy around him being invited to give the commencement speech at that Catholic institution. One manifestation. They were not the only part, or the most important part. The air time that they were given on cable and television coverage was unwarranted but standard for sensationalist media. Unfortunately commonplace. This may have been more Susan Jacoby's point, which seems self-evident.

Doug_White wrote:

"That is not obvious to me. I paid no attention to the protesters. I was amazed that a catholic (and presumably pro-life) university would invite a pro-choice president to give a commencement address. What do you imagine protesters either added to or detracted from that story?"

The protesters highlighted the story, which was that a pro-choice President was invited to give a commencement address to a pro-life catholic university. By leading with the protesters you are humanizing the controversy, giving it a face if you will. When I say the "protesters" I mean the controversy was the story.

FH123 wrote:

"The protests were obviously "the" story."

That is not obvious to me. I paid no attention to the protesters. I was amazed that a catholic (and presumably pro-life) university would invite a pro-choice president to give a commencement address. THAT was the story so far as I'm concerned. What do you imagine protesters either added to or detracted from that story?

Susan wrote:

"I'm not saying that the protests weren't part of the story and shouldn't have been covered but that they weren't the most important part of the story."

The protests were obviously "the" story. Without the protests the headline is: "Obama gives commencement address", which is hardly a story at all. He's giving 3 of those and the one he gave prior to this one was hardly news. Good thing you're a reporter and not an editor.

The following is the latest posting on Stevens-Arroyo's thread. This, IMHO, goes to religion and politics. Indeed, Ireland, which I heartily congratulate for this investigation, has been one of the bloodiest casualites that unholy mix. But NB, this is the country in which American Catholics raised money to make abortion illegal, to prevent doctors from discussing it, to muzzle them, to stop censor (literally) all foreign magazines, newspapers, mainly from England that contained information on abortion.

If you go there, you will find information written on trees, notes in doorways, etc.

NB: The entrenchment of the Church in politics has a long history, full of twists and turns, much of it revolutionary, comparable to what we see among some segments of the populations in the Middle East. Revolutionary/Reactionary.
_______________________________________
"Religious people torture? No?

NYT Today: A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades -- and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.

It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers.

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential..."
.
Posted by: Frank57 | May 20, 2009 1:44 PM

Onofrio,

Have you listened to Obama's commencement address?

Farnaz

Hi Onofrion

Simple "proletaries," we (nous, chez nous). We are all one another's reflections, refractions, echoes, je crois--nos sembables, nos freres. Very Baudelairean bright! Pre-internet portent, perhaps.

Thanks very much for the de la Mare. Have always been fond of "The Listeners," the ones we did not save, should have saved, could not, but cannot accept that they were simply taken.

Not fool's gold, those lines, but methinks beneath the anthologized ore, one often finds better metal.

Farnaz

Oh, and désolé pour mon mangled Franglish!

:^)

Dan-de-Lion,

Salut, ami. Merci infiniment de ce bon mot de Mathieu 6.

Dans le ciel est mon trésor, et ma terreur aussi.

Le soleil, il est - un voyageur sublime et infernal.

Quelle joie ! Quel cauchemar !

Dear Onofrio

Ne vous amassez pas des trésors sur la terre,

où la teigne et la rouille détruisent

et où les voleurs percent et dérobent;

mais amassez-vous des trésors dan le ciel

où la teigne et la rouille ne détruisent point

et où les voleurs ne percent ni ne dérobent.

Car là, où est ton trésor, là aussi serra ton Coeur.

Dear Onofrio

Ne vous amassez pas des trésors sur la terre,

où la teigne et la rouille détruisent

et où les voleurs percent et dérobent;

mais amassez-vous des trésors dan le ciel

où la teigne et la rouille ne détruisent point

et où les voleurs ne percent ni ne dérobent.

Car là, où est ton trésor, là aussi serra ton Coeur.

Part I of II Parts

These are some of the problems of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church promotes hostility towards gay people. This creates a climate of social maladjustment for Catholics who are born gay. It sets up people for a life time of guilt or else a life time of resentment against the culture that bore them. It disrupts family relationships, even breaking up families.

At the same time, the Catholic Church forbids its Priests to marry. And since it also forbids sex outside of marriage, it therefore forbids Priests to be sexually involved with women. This goes against the modern ethos that sex is good, but that it is more than good, that a satisfactory sex life is part of good health. Therefore, fewer and fewer men are choosing to take up the Priesthood as their life’s calling. There is therefore a shortage of Priests.

At the same time, the Catholic Church forbids women to be Priests, despite the fact that there is a great yearning among Catholic women to be admitted to the clergy. One thing that the Catholic Church has in common with the Protestant Churches is that many more women attend church regularly than men, and seem to take the Christian faith more seriously than men. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church persists in reserving the Priesthood for men only.

At the same time, the prospect of being a celibate Priest is attractive to young Catholic men, who are gay, and who are ashamed of being gay, and who seek to keep their sexual orientation secret. For by being a Priest, one can atone for the disorder of being gay, and also conceal it, and in some way appear normal. However, this is far from a normal choice. It is a choice that is corrupted by a Church imposed maladjustment.

At the same time, because of the shortage of Priests, the screening of candidates for the Priesthood is lax, and there are therefore many gay Priests who have complex psychological problems that go far beyond mere sexual orientation.

To solve some of these problems, the Catholic Church should promote love for gay people instead of revulsion. This would enable gay Catholic men to be more satisfied with themselves, and relieve the pressure on so many of them to seek a safe refuge in the Priesthood.

At the same time, the Church should lift the requirement for Priestly celibacy and allow Priests to marry, and it should allow women to become Priests. This would immediately relieve the problem of the Priest shortage.

However, the resolution of these problems would then lead to new problems. If Priests marry, some of them will be unhappily married, and will want a divorce. Therefore, this problem of divorce also needs to be examined. There should be a way for unhappily married Catholics to get divorced and remarried. What is the sense in enforcing marital unhappiness, and family maladjustment?

And if Priests are allowed to marry, they will also want to practice birth control so that they can manage the size of their families, in a modern an practical way, just as almost all Catholic Americans now do.

These are just a few problems with suggested solution. Nothing I have said is radical or immoral. It really and basically amounts to a modernizing overhaul of the Church. There is nothing wrong with doing away with traditions that are bad, and there is nothing wrong with being modern. Few of us would choose to go back in time and live in a previous age, if we could. Few people would give up indoor plumbing, labor saving devices, ease of travel, vaccinations, antibiotics, television, recorded music, and political liberty and freedom. These are all modern things, which people of previous epochs did not have.

Chère Farnaz,

Le bourgeois gentilhomme...c'est moi

(:^U

Le non, sur des doutes, peut-être le bourgeois prolétaire est plus correct...

Justillthen,

Mon semblable, mon frere

"Don't blame Obama for his attempt to fix this mess. At least he is attaching strings to the money that he is pouring out. He hasn't got the buddies in the financial, industrial and military sectors to butter up.
Maybe that will make this cheaper in the end. Price of butter has gone up along with everything else."

A Butter Perspective

That buttered-up battle cluster

primed for blam! by biblic bluster

shall rattle bare as windblown bones

fallen on future's forgetful stones.

The best the biggest bomb can blast

is but a divot of desert, glassed,

a dish dashed bare, a baffled eye

that cannot help but mirror sky.

In appreciation for the righteous ire...

"Maybe that will make this cheaper in the end. Price of butter has gone up along with everything else."

People do a lot of complaining about the prices we are forced to pay for food, even the basic stuff.

I've lived in places in the world where food, of the same high quality we get in this country, is so exorbitant that it makes the prices we pay seem as though we get food free in this country. And in wealthier countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the prices for the same quality of food are unreachable: I've paid $35 for a nice steak that would have cost me $8.50 at Kroger.

When we criticize what we are paying to fix our economy, we should consider what the word 'economy' means in other countries, and try to imagine what it is costing them to fix their own.

Hello Globalone,

"There were a number of failures during the previous administration, but that doesn't excuse the current President from trying to find new and bigger ones."

If you would like to indict President Obama for throwing $$$'s at current problems you can not honestly do so without giving the greatest weight of failures as well as the whole of the environment of current economic paralysis on "the previous administration". Bush literally burned money by the billions in his focus on "military solutions" to what was and is essentially unwinnable militarily. A grown up kid, able to be President himself like daddy did, still playing war. At the same time allowing free rein to corporate society, industry and financial markets to the extent of letting them self-police. 'Free market economy will take care of itself best'.

Indeed.

Do recall as well that it was the Bush Administration that started the billions of free cash handout to the financial sector, no questions and no strings. I am disgusted at the buddy-buddy corruption of the Bush Administration that virtually insisted on this debacle by it's fixation on it's own agenda. Validation that transparency, particularly at the top eschelons of government, is essential to the health of the republic.

Obama by comparison seems a bloody friggin' saint, and to me at least has earned my 'faith'. I never had faith in Bush except that he would in the end esch crew us.

He did.

Don't blame Obama for his attempt to fix this mess. At least he is attaching strings to the money that he is pouring out. He hasn't got the buddies in the financial, industrial and military sectors to butter up.

Maybe that will make this cheaper in the end. Price of butter has gone up along with everything else.

Doug,

Thanks very much! Will check it out, not far from where I live, not at all!

Farnaz

PS. From previous thread: Do you mean to say these immortal words move you not?

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis

Btw., Longfellow was one amazingly learned, erudit fellow, as you probably know. Contributed much to the growth of American letters, not via his poetry, one snickers, or err many do!

Poor Ojibway, poor Hiawatha. Great people, great myth, religion, etc.

Thanks, Arminius, will do.

Farnaz:

If you are interested, the monastery I am associated with, Mountains and Rivers, maintains an in-city Zen center, the Fire Lotus Temple on State Street in Brooklyn. They have daily practice groups, Saturday retreats and Sunday programs. If you want to look, here's the link:
www.mro.org/firelotus/

FYIColumbiaMD,

Thanks very much for the post. "Hesburgh is an impressive fellow," she mused, "justly respected."

Farnaz,

Go here: www.neilyoung.com and click on Living With War. Amazing stuff there.

He who filleth him self hotly with air soon floats skyward, wither the elemental returns unto itself. (Sid 41:24)

Comment on the foregoing: "The Sid speaketh true, as we see fulfilled in M. Jourdain." (Emet h.c.)

On the history of honorary doctorates, which, to my knowledge, no American president has ever declined, see:

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Honorary_degree

For Obama to have done so would have been a grave insult to ND.

Frankly, I can't see the relevance of this to either Susan's essay or the question.

Doesn't mean there is no relevance, of course, merely that I can't see it.

Doug

The problems of the Catholic Church are many and they are intractably interlocked. Therefore, it is difficult to dissuss any of these problems coherently in isolated snippets. A thousand pages would probably not be enough.

What the Catholic Church actually needs is a Council to discuss the structure, program, and future of the church.

Why am I so interested in this? I am not sure why; I just am. In my life, I know alot of Catholics, and they talk about it alot. How could a person not notice what a problem the Catholic Church is?

I have many criticisms of the Catholic Church, but they do not matter, because nothing I say or do will make anything change. I am just venting opinions.

I think the Catholic Church is a tragedy, and for some reason, I seem to be a little worried about it.

DITLD wrote:

"My arguments are often a mess. But that is because the Catholic Church is an incoherent mess. "

Do I understand that your own messiness is a result of what you perceive as messiness on the part of the RCC?

Thats very interesting. If you recognize yourself as a mess, is there nothing you can do to make yourself unmessy?

Ahri-Dan and Ahura-Maz-Dan

Dan-de-Lion et Dan-le-Douze

Dan-amic duo's better far than

who will trump and who must lose

Thank you Farnaz, for the de la Mare heads-up.

Daniel12,

"Reminds me of Soloman the wise threatening to halve the baby but here it seems no gives a damn about the baby. This is not to say I really give a damn. But the principles in this discussion are without principle..."

....

Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
from 'All That's Past', W. de la Mare

"I like most of what has happened so far, and believe we are headed at least approximately in the right direction, somrewhere forwards"

Sure, if the right direction was to throw an endless supply of $$$ at every problem. Or, even better, withhold $$$ from any state that chooses not to succomb to the whims of the President.

There were a number of failures during the previous administration, but that doesn't excuse the current President from trying to find new and bigger ones.

It ain't *courage* to blog-bother 'bout some honorific degreemongery in Academe, O Dodeka-Dan. You're coming across all *hier stehe ich*, and for what?

Too much Machiavelli-via-P.K.Dick, good sir, and nowhere to put it...the knowledge that puffeth up, eh.

Certes.

This mere Midgard and its flocks too wee for thee? Then best get starward, presto. After all, *space* is the find-all-fun-here, or so the pulp sayeth. Plenty of room, even for your IQ, O rival of Nous, wrapped up in Cesare B.

Thus sprach Doktor Verismus, Dolte Farce Extraordinaire.

Gramercy!

Daniel 12

You call is "squeamishness." I call it "humanity."

You could do with a little more humanity.

Violence does make me squeamish. I don't like to sit and watch bloody violent movies. But if you were to be involved in an accident involving alot of blood, you would be lucky to have me help you, because I am not squeamish at the site of real blood. I have seen alot of it in my life.

Daniel 12

What do you think the Catholic Church is? Is it the theological and poliical hierarchy that seeks to compel people to believe what they do not believe? Is it the people who hold their hands out for money which they feel they deserve, and which they spend according to their judgements, to maintain their own positions in the world? Or is the church the Catholic laity, who attend mass and donate their own money?

Of course such a question implies that there ought to be some sort of democratic mechanism in the church. But that is not going to happen any time soon, becsuse the Church hierardhy operates from a Medeival paradigm of entitlement for the ruling elite.

Catholics in large numbers do not believe in the Catholic doctrines that are being promoted by a system that is in many ways corrupt. Because you cannot force people to believe what they do not believe, that does not make them lazy.

What is the purpose of Priestly celebacy? Apparently no one knows. There are many opinions, but one would assume that the Catholic ruling elite would know. But they will not say. They either do not know, or it is a secret which they do not wish to reveal.

What is the purpose of the Catholic Church? It is an opinion expressed by many people, but which the Catholic ruling elite will not reveal. If the only purpose of the church is to maitain the ruling elite in their traditional positions of power within the churh, then it actually has no good or worthwhile purpose. If the Catholic laity wish to participate in a church that is democratic and self-reforming, then is this not a more legiticame motivation?

If the ruling elite continue to give a cold, cold shoulder to their "flock," soon there will be no flock left. There will be no priests, but that will not matter because there will be no more laity.

However, what is in fact happening, is that as the ruling Catholic eliet weaken their position more and more, by failing to adapt, the movements of cf change within the church become relatively more powerful.

As someone born and raised in a democratic republic, and raised on heroic tales of the Revolutionary War against Britain, it is incomprehensible that there could be any objection to legitimate reform of ANY organization that needs reform, including the Catholic Church.

Of course, the objection to reform in the Catholic Church is that Cathoic doctrine and dogma, from day one until now, is really God's rules and God's laws, and to wish for reform is to go against God. I, of course, do not believe this. I believe that the Catholic Church, is a human institution, with rules devised my man, and theology devised by committes of men, in reaction to the political expediencies of the day, war, power, military conquest, and the acquisition of wealth.

The Pope is the man at the top But for hundreds of years, even for thousands of years, the man at the top gets toppled, if his rule is unwise. That is a fact, like it or not.

"On a religious level, the controversy over the invitation to Obama from Notre Dame is on an intra-Catholic struggle for control of the American church."

Yes, and more specifically it highlights the fight between the Catholic Church and Catholic universities (especially those in the US).

The Land O'Lakes statement in 1967 - primarily attributable to Notre Dame President Theodore M. Hesburgh - contains the following guidance:
'To perform its teaching and research functions effectively the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.'

In reaction to this, the Church has attempted to promulgate Ex Corde Ecclesiae - a more conservative statement of the relationship between the Church and universities that significantly reduces the academic autonomy championed by Hesburgh.

Part 2 of reply

Reminds me of Soloman the wise threatening to halve the baby but here it seems no gives a damn about the baby. This is not to say I really give a damn. But the principles in this discussion are without principle...I have no desire to discuss this further. Obviously more than a few people here have no integrity.

Let me give a slight lesson--what I coined tonight (if it is not original please tell me the origin apart from myself). General intelligence--the intelligence of most people--is not worth anything unless propelled by courage. Only courage can raise general intelligence to where it can catch a glimpse of genius. Many geniuses have a particularity which does not depend on courage to manifest (such as in math or music). But for the average person to approach genius he must have courage or be worth nothing. Another coinage from long in my past: Geniuses are the only true rebels. All other rebels are merely rabble.

Certain people here seem to me to be without courage and therefore their analysis is nonsense. One person actually said it is fine for Obama to accept the honor because he never asked for it. Apparently that person has never heard of a person declining an honor because he feels he does not deserve it. In short, the person is precisely without honor and therefore the words of the person cannot be taken seriously.

Another person here was vehement in denouncing torture when that subject was on the table. But now feels there is nothing wrong with Obama accepting an honor at Notre Dame. I say to that person I do not believe your objections to torture came out of principle, morality, but rather out of squeamishness, like a person afraid of heights. I say that probably you confuse cowardice for morality.

Once an average person betrays he really has no sense for honor, courage, standing alone, honesty,--all those good qualities--his words mean nothing. If you are at all intelligent you will grasp now how I have become something. I never rested on my high I.Q. I knew that only courage can really do justice to the giftedness it announced. I knew this because for all my high I.Q. I had no talents whatsoever. Only courage could be the route to living up to what a test announced.

And I am all the happier for it. If the average person does not want to elevate himself through courage, well, so much the more for me. Thank you for helping me to exist. But what a pity. Probably virtually everyone here can write better than me, has charms with which to work with people and be successful, but infuriatingly just does not take that bold step forward when so much is in sight to be taken. I mean the world of insight.
Well, that is all for now.

Part 1 of reply

To those who think my position on Obama and Notre Dame is incomprehensible, I can state it no clearer than this: Notre Dame inviting Obama is like Notre Dame asking "please put me to death oh, modern liberalism, or if those words are too strong, please abort me..." Quite simply Catholicism has been in decline in Western civilization like all religion in this part of the world and neither has any sense anymore about what can preserve it nor the sense to recognize "enemy" action against itself.

I was raised Catholic (somewhat) but those days are long gone. I could care less about Catholicism. But I will not pretend that an action such as inviting Obama for an honor is not harmful to itself. It clearly shows that it is bending with the times--and the most repellent thing about it is that most Catholics seem to agree with the decision to invite Obama. (As if to no longer be Catholics but to alter Catholicism to reflect their own lazy desires).

If anyone knows any history at all here (and at the moment I am reading book 10 in a series on great moments of eloquence--a book I picked up at a used book store, one printed in 1928--and have read so far Pericles, Socrates at the trial of his death and Demosthenes) you will notice that the Catholic church now is in something of the position it was in the Renaissance when it went through a phase of degeneration. Unlike the Renaissance, we are not certain we are having a Renaissance...

As for Obama, if no one can see the lack of integrity in his accepting the honor let me explain it to you (Especially to the person who thinks an award can be accepted simply because it is offered...Farnaz...). Obama has no position which can be called comparable to the Catholic religion. He not only took an award he did not earn (did he earn a law degree from Notre Dame?), he took it from an institution with which he cannot agree. His own words were something to the effect of meeting in the middle, compromising, etc. etc. Does he mean the church and himself will agree to halve the abortions in the U.S., Obama being for the abortion side, the Church obviously for...

In His Own Defense

I KNOW 1 not, O Athenians, how far you have been influenced by my accusers; for my part, in listening to them I almost forgot myself, so plausible were their arguments; however, so to speak, they have said nothing true. But of the many falsehoods which they have uttered I wondered at one of them especially, that in which they said you ought to be on your guard lest you should be deceived by me, as being eloquent in speech. For that they are not ashamed of being forthwith convicted by me in fact, when I shall show that I am not by any means eloquent, this seemed to me the most shameless thing in them, unless indeed they call him eloquent who speaks the truth.

Socrates

I did not mean to imply that I think Obama is perfect. I like most of what has happened so far, and believe we are headed at least approximately in the right direction, somrewhere forwards, as opposed to the last, sad eight years. But Obama has not yet been really tested.

Arminius,

What I mean is, it was, of course, a very good speech. But these young people gave me hope. Among the twenty-seven hundred, many are surely adamantly against abortion, but they stayed with him, stayed with the message: Seek common ground, although you will never agree with your opponents, not only on this, but on many other issues.

Yes, if we do not seek it, we shall all hang separately.

Arminius,

"We are very fortunate to have him as president."

I have learned to be very cautious, so I will qualify my agreement: At this point, it would appear that we are fortunate, indeed.

As for the address, I was very, very proud, as an educator, as an American, of how the ND graduates responded to him.

Farnaz,

I watched the speech, and thought it was excellent. The people who criticized him for not setting forth an ironclad position are wrong, because that would have reignited the culture wars. By his own admission he realizes that he cannot solve the problem, but we can learn to lessen the tension and also work to make the problems smaller. We are very fortunate to have him as president.

"Johnny does have a way of finding his way home, too, regardless of where people are told to look."

The casualty count of Iraqis and Afghan people is well over 1,000,000, PaganPlace.

On the plight of Johns and Janes since March 2003, in Iraq alone:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4296 3444
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list) 4157 3336
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3835 3138
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3437 2811
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 68 39
American Wounded Official Estimated
Total Wounded: 31249 Over 100000
______________________
The poem is taken from a book by a servicemen who served in Iraq. There's a link on my previous post, if your interested.

Globalone

Obama won; McCain lost.

I am pleased.

So?

I wonder if anyone has actually watched Obama's Notre Dame commencement address and/or read the speech.

Not only was the speech impressive, but so were the students, very much so.

Here is a link to the full text of Obama's speech and the video.

http://www.huffingtonpost

Daniel 12

In my expression of joy that we have an articulate President, I meant no slight towards anything Catholic. I was merely ironically and implicitly comparing Obama to President Bush who mostly babbled inchoherently, but sometimes could raise his unlettered discourse to a third grade level. I have no objection to third-grade-speak, just not in our President. I assumed that my implication was obvious but I evidently assumed wrong.

I do not think in terms of "watering down" the Catholic Church. I think more in terms of overhauling and reforming an antiquated Medeival monarchy that is pretty much out of step with Catholic laity. I have every right in the world to express my obserations of the Catholic Church. Catholics are the ones who do not have this right; THAT IS THE PROBLEM! Get it?

My thoughts on what is wrong with the Catholic Church and what should be done about it come almost exclusivle from disgruntled Catholics; for it is my experience that even devout Catholics are disgruntled.

I am not sure why you think I am dishonest. I thought your comments seemed excessively cynical and curmudgeonly, and I was trying to be a little light hearted and cheery. Why? Because, to me, honestly, the whole affair was came out pretty good.

Of course if you think that anythibg Catholic should be sealed in a time caspsule and untouched by anything since the thirteenth century, and if you automatically disapprove of honorary degrees and all kinds of dubious ceremonies that crop up in all our lives, that may or may not mean much, but must still be "absorbed" in our experience of life, well then of course, I can see how this whole thing might give you indigestion.

But my digestion is just fine.

As the poem goes, Farnaz, well, pretty, but Johnny does have a way of finding his way home, too, regardless of where people are told to look.

Oh, actually, that's my mistake in part, I thought someone was talking about DITLD-Daniel.

Whoever this dude is, well, that's something else. :)

Arminius,
__________________

Ashbah

The ghosts of American soldiers
wander the streets of Balad by night,
unsure of their way home, exhausted,
the desert wind blowing trash
down the narrow alleys as a voice
sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call
reminding them how alone they are,
how lost. And the Iraqi dead,
they watch in silence from rooftops
as date palms line the shore in silhouette,
leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

Brian Turner
-------------------
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92771250

"It is Joyous to see our President, the President of the United States, speak not only in complete sentences, but fairly complex sentences, and who is also able to string those sentences into some kind of coherent message above a THIRD grade level"

Hmmmmm. I've heard this somewhere before. Wait for it. Oh yes, his name was Warren Harding. How did that turn out again?

Good grief.

Arminius, PP,

I can't really follow Daniel12's argument. Regarding honorary doctorates, he seems to be objecting to them in and of themselves.

A woman who acted in ER, playing a doctor, got an honorary medical degree. The list of recipients is long. I find a lot of this quite silly, myself, but it is largely beside the point here.

No offense to ND, but in the present case, in light of Obama's stellar academic record, his acceptance of the honorary doctorate was as much his compliment to ND as it was theirs to him.

Can't follow Daniel12 this time around, nohow.

Susan,

No matter how much you preach, there will always be slimy dirtbags on this blog.

I am out of here, cause I simply can't take any more of the crap!

Regards,

Gaby

"A question: would you have objected if George W Bush had received an honorary degree from Notre Dame?"

Actually, Arminius, Daniel, as a rare critter, *might* have, if for some reason the mass media chose to tell the story in the same way.

Particular fear of lions and all. :)

Daniel12,

A question: would you have objected if George W Bush had received an honorary degree from Notre Dame?

I mean, really. I'm not particularly any happier about it than you are right now, 'self-righteous Catholics,' but I was *raised* in your religion and heard it all. Demonizing opponents is pretty routine, but there's always at least supposed to be a pose of 'truth' about it, and what you accuse Obama of is *not the truth,* not by any standards.

It's stuff someone made up to get you passionately-confused about and vote Republican.

They. Made. It. Up.

To manipulate you.

We may disagree on a lot of things, but let me be chivalrous here and mention that some of the weapons you seek to employ may well be as good as any to stab someone with, but are flawed in their forging and won't hold up in a fight.

Getting in a twist about it won't help.

Maybe you should hear the speech.

Maybe you should figure out that if it's *really* about respecting life, falsely accusing others of 'murder' won't help.

I still don't get the appeal. I figure it's terror of your Hell.

But it's not helping a single mother or baby, or 'baby' ...to lie.

There *are* mutual goals we could accomplish together. And I think if your God is *really* all that smart, he'd probably wonder why you were messing around with Republicans while there was real work to be done.

So chill. Check your facts. This ain't a 'war' as much as your preachers like the metaphors. War never helped a child in the womb of any kind.

"The stone cold facts are these: Notre Dame decided to present an honor to a person whom if you look over the entire history of Catholicism is a person (how shall I put this?) not Catholic in belief or action. That Notre Dame has done so means just another watering down of Catholicism and its increasing irrelevance."

Actually, Notre Dame presented both Bushes: who were *more egregiously flouting Catholic doctrine by advocating and exercising capital punishment... with honorary degrees.

Those who claim Notre Dame was somehow suddenly going against Catholic policy cause he doesn't go about trying to reduce abortion in a *religiously-authoritarian* way....

Are ignoring the fact that the same statements 'On Human Life' quoted to try and bash Obama ...also condemn capital punishment on equally-strong terms, yet the Church persists in claiming there's a special reason to favor executioners over people who aren't sufficiently-punitive toward women as a matter of 'moral absolutes.'

It's hypocrisy on the face of it.

Especially considering the Obama policies some types seek to criticize are *not* his policies, but rather stuff the GOP *made up.*

Beware 'false witness' before you call someone a baby-killer.

Even if it feels good.

Catholics.

Daniel12:

My position on the RCC has been consistent, nuanced, and complex.

I am not one-dimensional in my thinking, praise Whatever, my mother, father, and genes.

The rest of your posting is incomprehnsible to me. Again, the issue is not "watering down" Catholicism. If it were, you'd have to condemn all the changes within Protestantism, the development of various sects, since Martin Luther.

Admittedly, change has been slower in Catholicism than it has been in Protestantism and Judaism, largely due to centralization. Nevertheless, liberal trends go back centuries and, hopefully, they will continue. May I remind you that Hesburgh is, shall we say, Catholic?

Religions are not monolithic. There is no "pure" vs. "impure" religion, pesent from time immemorial.

"The stone cold facts are these: Notre Dame decided to present an honor to a person whom if you look over the entire history of Catholicism is a person (how shall I put this?) not Catholic in belief or action."

I don't know how to break this to you, but ND has a diverse faculty, many of whom are not Catholic, indeed, are atheists.

Ditto, Georgetown, which also attracts a sizable Jewish and Muslim population.

As for honorary degrees, they are a convention of the academy. Presidents get them all the time. Oprah got a couple. If you don't like it, write to the major accrediting organizations. Don't personalize this with Obama.

I don't think of myself as a flaming liberal, but, you Daniel12, are simply flaming.

I fail to see much in the way of a point.

Farnaz, I fail to understand your reasoning on this issue. But I suspect the reason why is the following: Anyone who is liberal or even has the slightest grudge against Catholicism will view what has occurred as positive. Lion's Den who posted to me is a flaming liberal. You have expressed, shall we say, a difference with Catholicism in the past.

The stone cold facts are these: Notre Dame decided to present an honor to a person whom if you look over the entire history of Catholicism is a person (how shall I put this?) not Catholic in belief or action. That Notre Dame has done so means just another watering down of Catholicism and its increasing irrelevance. I could care less about Catholicism but at least I am honest about what is occurring. You, Farnaz, Lion's Den, Jacoby are not honest about this. You three are happy about what is occurring but without the courage of saying you approve of the increasing diminishment of Catholicism and that Obama was a step in that direction.

As for Obama himself, well he is without integrity at all on this issue. He chose to accept not only an honor which required no work on his part (or did he go through the required courses at Notre Dame? Of course not!) he accepted this honor from an institution with which he is fundamentally at odds. He does not subscribe at all to Catholicism. In fact his religious leanings in general are...well, just that: general--and by general I mean in the worst sense of that term, which is to say a watering down of religion and essentially more typical left wing lazy thought and attitude.

And none of this is surprising because many writers over the years have remarked that the more technology we have, the more leisure becomes possible, the more humans lose integrity, honor, discipline, courage for high deeds, feel the sting of necessity. To put it clearly, people are soft.

How ironic: religion is being overcome but precisely our modern age makes thinking a necessity for relatively few people. Our modern age makes religion less and less necessary--but also makes thinking less and less necessary. Society comes to need relatively few people to run it. Or if needing more, needing more not to think.

Daniel12:

A postscript to my post to you (scroll down):

For insight into the liberal elements in Catholicism, you might read some of the essays of Thomas Reese, S.J.

Farnaz

Part two on what time is.

Such a human by this method would be able to move into the future more rapidly than the average method which is of course everybody's general experience of time. In other words, the human under Einstein's effect would be changing much less rapidly TIMEWISE than usual compared to the things around him so he could theoretically be maybe a few days older physically, but things will have changed around him so fast that when "time" comes back to normal he would be, for example, a hundred years in the future.

This might sound fantastic, but this is what we can derive from Einstein. But it should be noted that it is not so fantastic when we reflect that if a person were to be slowed down TIMEWISE relative to the things around him he would be far more deeply into the future than he would have been experiencing "normal time"--which is to say he would be in the position with respect to the future as, for example, a 17th century man would be in if he were catapulted by Einstein's method into the 21st century. Of course such a person would be horrifyingly behind the times, completely out of touch, pretty much useless in our modern economy.

So enjoy the time you have, and reflect seriously on changes that may be possible to oneself timewise and with respect to other people. Reflect wisely whether one wants to move dramatically into the future or not. I like the time here I have to myself.

Part one

On what time is.

Time does not flow, is not a flowing of some thing apart from matter readily at hand. Rather what time is is things growing and changing--that is, the changes in things as marked by man.

What we have fundamentally (among other fundamentals) is an obvious change in things with no evidence for anything eternal. And these changes in things can go relatively unnoticed although they exist, as in animal consciousness, or they can be noticed in a variety of ways depending on one's ability to "mark time", calculate changes in things.

What we humans call time is nothing but our capacity--and no other beings' so far as we know--to calculate changes in things. Animals cannot do it as well as us. There could very well be beings superior to humans who are more acute in their calculations, more capable of grasping minute differences as well as gulfs of time (gulfs between various events, which are upsurges of change by which we can calculate change in the first place).

The above is the basic understanding of time by a materialist--general scientific--understanding. Now on this basic understanding--working with it as foundation--we have been told about more interesting materialistic aspects of time. The most famous of course is time according to Einstein's theories.

Einstein postulated that according to his special theory of relativity and general theory of the same that, respectively, time would contract, slow down, as an object (animate or inanimate) approaches high speeds--or if an object finds itself in a powerful gravitational well, such as the pull from a black hole.

To accelerate and move at high speed or to be accelerated and moved at high speed by a powerful gravitational pull are identical according to Einstein. Now what this all means is that two methods--being moved at high speed by a propulsive force or moved at high speed by being sucked by a powerful gravitational pull--have the same result of slowing the TIME of an object within the field of other changes around the object.

In other words, according to Einstein two methods at least exist by which an object can be slowed down in its TIME changes while everything else races ahead with its TIME changes relative to the object. So if a human were under the effects of either of Einstein's two new notions for humans about time, the human would be seeing "time" rapidly moving apart from himself--which of course would be simply changes in things apart from himself.

Daniel12,

I really can't follow omes of your reasoning. I will agree that Obama's speaking at Notre Dame did not speak to a "fearless" nature. Pleez. This is the President of the United States, we're talking about, not the 2009 equivalent of Shirley Temple.

Let us get real: Right-wing Catholics did not bring out an armed militia. As for Susan's swipe at Bush, he did speak in front of audiences in which protests could be expected and in which they occurred. That is a simple fact, not to be read as an endorsement of Bushism.

You are correct about the diminished discourse of the public sphere, hyperbole, hysteria, etc. The media's discourse level sinks by the second.

As for honorary degrees, Obama did not seek this one, has, indeed, sought none. The man, as you know, has earned degrees, from institutions ranked significantly higher than Notre Dame.

Watering down religions? Religions adapt, change over time, accept plurality. That is what many Catholics are struggling for. Hesburgh, et al represent the best in the liberal Catholic tradition.

I, myself, could have done with significantly less Christian faithiness from our president, but we are who we are, live where we do, when we do, in the US. As well, he was speaking at Notre Dame.

Calling for common ground was/is the way to go on the choice issue. He did that. But, thankfully, he concentrated on addressing the ND graduates in a way suitable to commencement. It was a fine speech, calling for the graduates to reject privatism, seek common ground to solve the world's most serious problems, etc.

A good speech. Notre Dame was fortunate to have him.

To Lion's den from Daniel12. Are you really that dishonest? Are you really that corrupt? I could care less about Catholicism but at least I have the honesty to state clearly what is occurring. The faith is just getting more and more watered down. Furthermore I do not think as you do that the movement away from religion is necessarily leading to "People speaking with a more coherent grasp of language--speaking more complex sentences".

On the contrary, I see a public square that has reduced for fear an actual person might exist all conversation to flattering one another about their quite trivial pronouncements. But perhaps you can prove me wrong by stating an original idea--or even one from your liberal friends.

I myself will try now to post on Jacoby's site a small but clear piece called "On what time is"--a piece I have posted on the main site on the celibacy question this week. How do you reconcile the fact that I can speak and write complete sentences--more complete and complex than our current president--even though I never even graduated from high school and pretty much disagree with you on this whole Obama, Notre Dame issue? Or are you going to say I might be able to speak complete and complex sentences but my ideas are all wrong? Probably.

Hi Arminius,

LOL!! I was just about to write you about Lear's essay and the song!

Farnaz

Dear Daniel 12

An "honor" like most everything else, has no real meaning, except the psychological meaning that we project onto it.

If you, personally, were being honored with an "honorary" degree from some big University, you might think differently about it.

Alot people say, "The Queen is a horse's posterior." Yet if the Queen came to call on them, they would be pretty excieted, I think.

I think you are too cynical. From one point of view, all of the things we do in life are just ways to mark time, until we die. Or, you could think of your life as a collecton of experiences and events to form your personality, and make you a story for others to read and know.

I think the whole Notre Dame affair turned out well; at least all the participants were constructively occupied for a whole day, if nothing else.

To Susan Jacoby. Your piece this week was quite dishonest. There is nothing courageous about Obama or Notre Dame. What has occurred is the watering down of the Catholic faith so that essentially a modern democratic president, one clearly to the left when it comes to religion in general not to mention Catholicism or Evangelical Christianity, has achieved parity in the public's mind with Catholicism.

In short all this is a sign of Catholicism becoming more and more a spent force. But neither will the Catholics admit this nor Obama. It seems Catholics prefer their religion altered toward the left so they can indulge their modern desires without feeling guilty before the alter. As for Obama, he probably has the brains to know that his "healing of the wounds of the culture wars" is actually having all cultural differences between left and right just congeal in a bland public square.

In general we have more and more a bland general public which in order to distinguish one person from another resorts to hyperbolic statements--and quite often a mutual flattering about trivialities. For example we have left wing pundit E.J. Dionne jr saying "Obama brought out the most devastating weapons in his political arsenal at Notre Dame". Then Dionne proceeded to describe essentially his approval of the corruption on both sides--the watering down of the Catholic faith and its invitation of Obama, and Obama's acceptance when really he does not subscribe to much of Catholicism if anything at all.

How repellent the media has become. Essentially the public square is dominated by quite mediocre persons who are engaged in the delusion of puffing up their differences to the point that they think they are brilliantly original. Meanwhile they betray their triviality by licking their lips daily before the television about murders, kidnappings, disasters of all types.

Personally I could care less about the Catholic religion. But I never pretend about what is happening before my eyes. Strange, for a person who complains about, well what you do complain about (lack of reason, etc.)...

Dear Daniel1 12

I don't think it stinks.

I think it smells WONDERFUL!

It is Joyous to see our President, the President of the United States, speak not only in complete sentences, but fairly complex sentences, and who is also able to string those sentences into some kind of coherent message above a THIRD grade level.

It is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, to have such a man as Obama for President.

He is not leading us exactly where I would have wanted to go. But he is still a leader, whom I respect VERY much, and I would still follow him.

To me all of this seems depressingly trivial--on all sides I might add. First Notre Dame. What is this self-importance of institutions of higher learning that they feel honorary degrees in general let alone from themselves are worth a damn? And then this controversy at Notre Dame over whether to honor Obama. Would you not think that if a controversy were to erupt over something so trivial in the first place as an honorary degree that the whole thing would be called off? But no, Notre Dame not only had to wade into the controversy, they called into question their entire integrity (and is there any other?) about whether or not they are a conservative not to mention Catholic institution.

And then we have Obama. I see no integrity from him at all on this matter. You would think he would reflect a bit on whether he deserves such a thing for the simple reason why would any man be eager for an honorary degree, would feel deserving of such without having done any work for such--no matter if in the first place the whole notion of honorary degrees is trivial. Then we would ask why a man would be willing to accept one if a controversy exists about whether or not he should be so honored. You would think at least the person receiving the honor would question himself as to whether he was ever such as to receive the honor without controversy, and generally you would expect the person receiving the honor to state that he will modify his behavior (or whatever) to be worthy of the honor without controversy. But no, Obama just steps forward and accepts the honor.

Who is more corrupt, Obama or Notre Dame? Then we have the students of Notre Dame without a shred of integrity themselves, more a pack of noisy animals than anything else, although I suppose Notre Dame can be blamed for corrupting them--for they are corrupt, not at all thinking about what is taking place. It just stinks on all sides. Not least because I am reading Machiavelli with his descriptions of VIRTU and all the astounding character traits and decisions of great military leaders. In Machiavelli's terms, Notre Dame is not an army worth joining, and Obama is not worthy of being in any army. However, ironically, he might be worthy of Notre Dame. Yes, Obama and Notre Dame deserve each other.

Farnaz,

Please read Norman Lear's essay, and don't be fooled by the title. Then take the link to www.bornagainamerican.org and watch the video. A protest song, and it's a good one.

DTLD,

My last posting was a bit muddled. The matter of proselyzing, conversion, etc., certainly does go to theology and activism. And insofar as the RCC does adhere to conversionism, it can and should be held accountable for the consequences of its conversionist acts, as should all conversionist religions and sects.

But it would be difficult to make such an argument with respect to the RCC and clerical celibacy. Not with respect to contraception, etc.

Farnaz

DITLD,

Of course, you are right that there are "elephants" in many rooms at the Vatican.

But there are elefants in Judaism, Prostestantism, etc. We could connect various religious precepts to ideology, activism, etc., in all the major religions, but this would be a very difficult, painstaking task in most, but not all cases.

A notable exception is Hinduism, whose sacred texts are unmistakeable on the matter of caste, responsible for the ongoing enslavement of nearly one hundred seventy million people. Some among this group are limited to doing a kind of labor that ends the lives of many before they reach thirty.

There are signs of change, but it is happening much, much too slowly. Although an obvious issue for OnFaith, it has yet to take it up.

Farnaz

DITLD,

Thanks very, very much for your post. I do understand you much better now. I would imagine you know that there are several liberal Catholic organizations that would like to see changes regarding birth control, choice, etc.?

Within the RCC, itself, there are activist priests and nuns, seeking female ordination, etc.

On this blog, Fr. Tom Reese has got my attention. Have done some research on him during the last few days: intellectual heavyweight for damned sure, courageous, just, etc., or, at least, so it appears.

Not the case throughout the RCC, I grant you. The RCC has a lot to do with regard to its having a political agenda, fully opening its archives on the Holocaust to public scrutiny, as has been requested for more than half a century by Jews, Roma (who are Roman Catholic, btw.), Protestants, Catholics alike. Religio-politics in Africa are rapidly increasing the spread of AIDs, adding AIDs babies to the starving populations, etc. And I could go on. And on and on.

In short, there is much to discuss with respect to the RCC and politics, just as there is with respect to the other major religious institutions and their interference with legislative processes, etc.

I think that here is where we need to concentrate. I do not set myself up as Fidor Defensor!

Thanks again for the posting!

Farnaz :)

For probably the first time ever in On Faith, I agree with R Albert Mohler over Susan Jacoby.

President Obama didn't say anything courageous. He didn't even talk about abortion. He talked about talking about abortion.

He hasn't changed my mind one bit that his greatest asset is making speeches that sound good without saying anything.

Farnaz

Since all of the attention in this question cycle has been drawn to John Mark Reynolds, I feel free to make one last comment about the previous question.

I admit, on the subject of the Catholic Church, it is difficult for me to be coherent. My arguments are often a mess. But that is because the Catholic Church is an incoherent mess.

There is a disconnect between the Catholic hierarchy and the Catholic laity. Sometimes, I forget that my criticisms are of that hierachy and not of the laity. In fact, I get almost all my opinions about the Catholic Church from my Catholic friendds and relatives.

I have a Catholic friend who is divoceced and remarried (a sin) and attends mass regularly. I have Catholic friends who practice birth control (a sin), yet attend mass regularly. I am friends with a young Catholic copule that live together even though they are not married (a sin), yet attend mass regularly. I have a gay friend (a sin) who attends mass regularly.

None of them ever go to confession. Why not? I have asked. Because they feel no need to confess these things to a priess who does not understand the lives and their problems.

These are all elephants in the room. Most people can tolerate a certain state of denial, with ONE elephant in the room. But the Catholic Church hierachy trundles merrily along, with elephants, elephants, elephants everywhere, which they pretend not to notice.

The Catholic Church will not even consider relaxing the requiremnt for Priestly celibacy because it will not solve any problems, it will only make more problems. For, if Priests are allowed to marry, what of unhappily married Priests who want a divorce? What of Priests wno practice birth control because they cannot support, and do not want, a large family?

More elephants in the room. More contradictions to sort out, And on and on it goes, in a seemingly endless confusion.

My main goal in crticizing the Catholic Church is to point out how utterly misguied and wrong they are on matters of sexual orientation. That is an issue that I am interested in, and an issue in the Catholic Church which I question.

This post may seem to be off the subject but, I think, my thoughts do dovetail with Susan's thoughts about the changing attitudes of Catholics in the modern world.

The problem with Catholicsim is that there is just too much of a tempatation for people to be normal.

Globalone,

I wonder if you read Susan's piece on Obama's address and if you watched his commencement address. If not, and you would like to, scroll down. I posted a link to it.

Would be interested in your opinions on both.

Also, on de la Mare! :)

Farnaz

Globalone,

Yes, "anti-choice" is a good counter to "pro-life," which is meaningless, I agree--that is, if that's what you mean. However, I should warn you beforehand, I'm not going to enter this debate with you.

It's pointless. We will never convince one another. IMHO, Obama's common ground approach, is the only way, as there is, at least, some common ground.

Have a nice day!

Farnaz

Hello Globalone,

Here are the search results for Christian fundamentalism. Take your pick. If you have access to an academic data base, you will find more sources. As for your other question, I don't know what you are referring to. You will have to be more specific.

In the interim, I recomend the poetry of Walter de La Mare, one whose merits have been much overlooked. Scroll down.

query=define+christian+fundamentalist&s_it=client_searchbox&c.userid=448251303402700803

Hey Farnaz,

What is a "Christian Fundamentalist" anyway? I'm not sure I even know what that term means. Is is somebody who disagrees with you?

Nice use of "anti-choice" rhetoric. What phrase should we give someone who engages in an activity, with full knowledge of its possible consequences, who then gets disgruntled by the results, and subsequently disavows all responsibility and accountability for those actions?

The Listeners

‘IS there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champ’d the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Lean’d over and look’d into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplex’d and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirr’d and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starr’d and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
’Tell them I came, and no one answer’d,
’That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Walter de la Mare

Have not heard the speech yet - I will.

Turns out there are a ton of Iraq protest songs, including one by Neil Young that I am dying to hear. But the copyright police are shutting them all down. Hell.

Arminius,

Yes, well, those bloggers would do well to listen to Obama's speech. It's really something. Have you heard it?

Farnaz

I checked out the Reese and Reynolds discussions. Firestorm is too weak a description. I've been on this site over a year, and both those threads surpass any outpouring of hatred and ignorance I have ever seen.

Alles,

Here is a link to the full text of Obama's speech. Also, has video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/obama-notre-dame-speech-f_n_204387.html

Tom Reese and J.Mark Reynolds have created storms with 90-mile an hour winds. Have frequently been struck by the quality of the former's posts, so did some research. Intellectual heavyweight. Appears to be couragous, just, fair-minded, impressive.

Can't quite figute out JMR. How does a philosopher pen such essays?

If interested in reading these two very different essays, bring along an big umbrella for use on the threads.

Hi, James!

What? :)

This is an Armoured Column. A Pillar of the Post.
how do we handle Columns?:)

Paul! often pleaded "with" Civility. He was an artist and one could only surmise that he had a great Love,for the Church! or perhaps several churches.

James David Whitall II

Farnaz,

"...do you think the music may have helped, in some way, to raise consciousness?"

That must be answered with a very loud YES! All that great music from that remarkable era did just that, especially if the audience was not too high to figure it out.

As to my search, apparently there is a lot of protest stuff out there about Iraq, but what I have found is not very good at all. One group put out an anti-Bush album, but since they were a not-so-good punk band, the words could not be understood. If ya wanna get yer message across, ya gotta be very clear! Country Joe sure as hell was.

"Yeah, Paganplace, Susan does post good stuff, but it is also open season here on Christians too."

Arminius2

Well, I try not to cull the really strong ones. ;)

(Joke! :) )

As for 'protest songs,' well, you've kind of got to go looking. Can't expect record labels to compete with their own mass-media agendas by having a diversity of voices: why, someone might start to doubt the idea that there's nothing but Puritanism and empty decadence out here. :)

Arminius,

Just watched video. Very impressive. Am fond of Sheryl Crow, thoughty lyricist, serious artist. These words speak to thoughts I've had for many years:

Everyone I call up doesn't have the time to chat
Everybody is so busy doing this and doing that
Something has gone missing

And it makes me kinda sad, oh

God bless this mess
God bless this mess
God bless this mess

Somehow, during the seventies, we began a period of privatism. Don't know what will fore its end.

Farnaz

Hi Arminius,

"I am starting a web search anyway, must be something. The reason there so many good ones in the 60's is that there was a very large audience for them, and the music/rock revolution was a fertile source. God, what a time that was!"

I'm looking forward to see what you come up with! Do you think that although the sixties provided firtle ground for protest music, the music may have helped to enrich the soil? That is, do you think the music may have helped, in some way, to raise consciousness? All art is not "quite useless." That is my view, at all events....

Farnaz

I found this one, by Cheryl Crow, "God Bless This Mess". A pretty ballad, a lament really. But for sure not something to get people fired up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nalDfAP8IYY

Hello Emonty,

Of course, "Pro-Life" is "useless." As propaganda, however, it has been very effective.

A good counter for those of us who are for choice, is "anti-choice," a term I use frequently.

These things, IMHO, are strategic. Many "pro-lifers" know this.

Farnaz

Farnaz,

I did catch your post about 'Four Dead in Ohio'.

Looks like there are not any protest songs for the current era. I am starting a web search anyway, must be something. The reason there so many good ones in the 60's is that there was a very large audience for them, and the music/rock revolution was a fertile source. God, what a time that was!

The 70-some bishops who commented publicly against Notre Dame are a minority of the number of bishops in this country. The 300,000+ who signed petitions are a minority fo Catholics in the country, assuming all the signees were Catholic. This is another case of a small minority screaming loudly because most people don't agree with them. I agree with Susan that 'pro-life' is almost a useless term unless further defined.

Arminius,

Thanks for all the links. I don't know if you noticed, but on the last thread, I mentioned that I have heard "Four Dead in Ohio," am familiar with the album, etc.

I wonder, where are all the protest songs for this period? Aside from yours, I mean, which I still think should be recorded.

I think we could use some more!!

Farnaz

A Musical Interlude

Song

Where has Onofrio gone
Where is Pseuuudoo
Where has Onforio gone
And where is Pseuudo

Where have all the Pagans gone
And why does Pseudo not come home
O, where has each Pagan gone
O, when will Pseudo come home.

Apologies to Pete Seeger, J. Hickerson, PPM, Joan Baez, Marlene Dietrich (first to sing it in French), and to all other persons.

Susan,

In the simplest terms, are Christian fundamentalists, who oppose gay marriage, are frequently homophobic, sexist, are anti-choice, want to thwart stem cell research the way they are because they marry and are sexual?

Are marriage and a sex life responsible for their positions and conduct?

DITLD,

Wherever you are, I replied to your post to me on Susan's last thread.

Farnaz

Susan,

Let me put this another way. Many Christian fundamentalists marry, multiply, are sexist, oppose gay marriage, oppose abortion, etc. And certain sects in Islam?

Connections among priestly celibacy and the above characteristics and connections may or may not exist.

Your argument, however, suffers from the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Much, much more evidence is needed before we can establish correlation, with certainty, let alone causality.

Btw., to use a favorite phrase of yours, my objections are not a matter of wishing to make the Catholics "feel good." I hope you see my point, and its more general applications.

The 360,000 signatories of a petition to ban Obama from speaking at Notre Dame, the seventy out of 300 bishops in the US who joined the protest, including New York's Archbishop Timothy Dogan, now, that, IMHO, is worth discussion.

The point is that this is a secular country with diverse views. Notre Dame gets taxpayer dollars. This conduct on the part of Catholic clergy and some laity is a matter of religion and politics, not Dogan's sexual activity or lack thereof.

"Insistence on priestly celibacy is one manifestation of the church's general attitude toward human sexuality, including its anti-choice stance on abortion, its condemnation of homosexuality, and its efforts to impede all international public health programs that promote birth control."

You make this assertion about celibacy and then then go on to Islam and women's rights. Islam does not promote celibacy.

The problem with your comments is that they merely lump several issues together without establishing any logical connections among them.

For me, the Church can be criticized and roundly for its efforts to intrude in the laws of this nation regarding, for instance, gay marriage, choice, stem cell research.

The relations among these issues and celibacy is a matter for antrhopologists of religion to take up. I could not care less who does and does not sleep with whom, so long as relations are consensual.

When, as a religious institution, you seek to legislate, then, well, you've got my attention.

Yeah, Paganplace, Susan does post good stuff, but it is also open season here on Christians too.

"Do you have a lot of trouble with people who comment?"

She does, actually, Gaius. Whatever she speaks on tends to become a forum for atheist-bashing and general melee. Which is a pity, cause hers is a valuable point of view.

Do you have a lot of trouble with people who comment?