August 2004 Archives

An organization has been started to inform the Catholic faithful and clergy about options for coping with celiac disease.

One of the more loathesome tendencies in American political life is the "gotcha" soundbite. The Democrats are jumping all over President Bush for supposedly saying "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. (See the transcript.)

The last time they reacted like this, it was when Bush said "We will double our Special Forces to conduct terrorist operations" in a major speech. Clearly, if you read the text and especially if you hear the interview, Bush was saying that we might not win the war on terror in four years, but he was interested in minimizing the conditions where terrorism can flourish.

I know, both sides play "gotcha." But it just turns people off of politics in general, and that's not good for anyone. Nobody seriously thinks that President Bush doesn't think we can win the war on terror -- he's said as much many times, but in his opinion, it will take many years. Nobody believes that he would send Special Forces troops on terror missions, either. It's insulting to our collective intelligence to play this kind of stupid game.

Oh, wait -- I'm sorry, my mistake: The guy who said we would conduct terrorist operations was Senator John F. Kerry in his own nomination speech.

The forces of diversity, tolerance, acceptance, peace, and love are on the prowl in Manhattan:

When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said....

As delegate buses arrived at the Garden yesterday afternoon, protesters who had gathered for a demonstration screamed obscenities and gestured rudely at them. When the police spotted Pete Coors, a Republican candidate for Senate from Colorado, walking near the group, they swiftly steered him away....

Some delegates seemed perplexed, even hurt, not because they did not expect protesters to be here, but because they did not expect them to get personal. "They were using foul language, getting real ugly," said Kim Kirkwood, a delegate from Amarillo, Tex. Her husband, Jim, said he could not understand it. "I have friends who are Democrats in Texas, and we talk about things, agree to disagree."

Does anyone else notice a (less violent) parallel between the secular Left and the Catholic Left? As their hold on seminaries, universities, chanceries, and other Catholic institutions wanes, they are getting ever more shrill and defensive. Here's a great example: look at the articles lamenting the orthodoxy of young priests. Even the New York Times has noticed that the typical ordinand these days ain't exactly Daniel Berrigan.

A small religious sect applauds the newest version of their imago dei, the idol at whose feet they worship. Some speculate that at the death of Stephanus Labores, the cult's founder, the sect's members may commit mass suicide.

Non-Catholic Elliot Bougis, a teacher over in Taiwan who's been standing in for Mark Shea at the CAEI blog, has announced that he's going to become either Catholic or Orthodox, with about a 90% probability for the Catholic option. It sounds like the decision has been under consideration for a long time, and it's happy news. Congratulations, Elliot.

I think Elliot knows his way around the Church already, but if there's anything we can do to help, do drop in!

The craftspersons who still make statues of saints for churches have discovered a remarkable way to keep overhead down. Iconoclasm. No, that was the heresy squashed centuries ago only to be given new life in the name of "progress" as part of post-Vatican II renovations. Some days I wish progress were declared heretical, though it's not as though the Holy Father would actually punish the heretical progressives. He would write an encyclical called "Rigiditatis Splendor" and leave it at that. But I digress!

Statuary and overhead. Think Barbie. Mattel keeps overhead down by just dressing up Barbie in various ways. Barbie has had exactly the same complex-inducing, disproportional body for how many decades? The thing is she has different clothes and accessories. One Barbie has that tool Ken with her, another has sold her soul to the music industry, still another homeschools and does a holy hour when the kids are napping. Homeschool Barbie. Really. She dresses very modestly and her kids do, too. But I digress again - the thing is Barbies just wear different clothes. It's genius.

Finally the statuary makers have caught on. There is a company out there just putting something different in the hands of each male saint. The statues look the same otherwise. Imagine Saint Andrew with a cross and St. Joseph with that thing he's always pictured with, but besides what they have in their hands they look the same.

We're sending the wrong message to our kids. They are going to grow up thinking they have to look exactly like the St. Andrew/St. Joseph clones in order to be saints. I'm afraid some might grow up to be like the angry lesbians who played with Barbie dolls when they were young and not angry lesbians. Perhaps I'm not making sense. Even so, when someone types in "angry lesbians" in google they are going to end up here. Welcome, seekers of angry lesbians. Let Jesus love you! Especially you, Margaret Cho!

But getting back to statues, let me leave you with a joke. Saint Joseph says to the Infant of Prague, "I don't care what your mother said, you're not leaving the house dressed like that!"

The communion song at St. Mary's took me back to college, and not in a good way. The song (not a "hymn," to be sure) was "We Are Called," one of the favorite campfire songs at our folk masses on campus.

Normally, since these songs can detract from basking in the presence of God, I steel myself to ignore them, but one lyric has stayed with me: "We are called to love tenderly."

Are we? I wondered. I've spent over three decades on earth and maybe I haven't loved tenderly enough. So I investigated the matter, and found that the phrase "love tenderly" is mostly found on Catholic Web sites, citing Micah 6:8 as the source text.

So the Bible tells us to love tenderly, eh. I immediately resolved to do so, and frequently. Yet I still had a nagging doubt. I went to the excellent (Protestant) English Bible Gateway to look at various translations of Micah 6:8, and after looking through most of them, I did not see "love tenderly."

I suspected that loving tenderly must be a Catholic thing -- you know, like translating Gabriel's words to Mary as "full of grace" instead of "most highly favored one." Yes, that must be it. I opened the New American Bible and found...

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

This is a small example of lex orandi, lex credendi, that how one prays determines how one believes. Haas took a strong, masculine passage from Micah about man's obligations to the God of Israel and made it into a wimpy suburban anthem to the God of Nice. Today there are Catholic organizations -- including at least one archdiocese -- that quote the lyrics of "We Are Called" as if they are the words of the Prophet Micah himself.

Plato regarded bad music as the biggest threat to an ideal society, because it appeals directly to the passions and can override the intellect. In contemporary American Catholicism, traditionalists often treat folk music as a symptom of many parishes' mediocre spiritual life. I wonder if it isn't a primary cause.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A cleaner in the Tate Gallery threw out a bag of garbage because, after all, it was trash. But -- you know where this is going, right? -- it was part of a work of art.

Eventually the material was found, but it had to be replaced by the artist because -- if you can believe this -- it had been damaged.

Isn't there something wrong with that concept: the notion of garbage being "damaged"? I don't know if I can wrap my head around that. ("I'm sorry, sir, that garbage is not in good enough condition to throw out.")

Anyway, the wire-service folks should save this story for re-use, since it tends to happen in some modern art museum every couple of years, and the piece will be just as good next time. All they'll need to do is change the names.

A parish in suburban Weymouth is scheduled to close Sept. 1, but the parish council is suing Abp. O'Malley to fight the closing.

I hope nobody really expects this case to accomplish anything. The parish council may not even have standing to sue, since it is a purely advisory body. I doubt that it has the power to represent the parish in civil disputes. If my understanding is right, parishes are incorporated separately from the Archdiocese, but each one has a corporate board controlled by officials of the Archdiocese.

And even if the plaintiffs were to win, the Archdiocese would just go through the closure again, dotting the i's and crossing the t's according to whatever legal form is necessary.

Hey, Steve Schultz, did you get a chance to sign on?

(via CWN)

Fr. Sibley asks what happens to the "extra" embryos generated in IVF procedures.

Apparently some of them are going to the new Mengeles of our day.

This month's Harvard Magazine stated, in an article about the stem cell controversy, that Boston IVF, a local fertility-procedures practice, had donated 344 frozen embryos abandoned by their parents to be used for research. The product of this effort was 17 new stem-cell lines.

344 victims, and only 17 of the experiments on them produced usable material for future research. And apparently this is considered to meet ethical standards!

Sal's post on Jews for Jesus reminded me that one of their members gave me a pamphlet today, and I want to send them a thank-you note. Although I'd rather they were Catholic, it's infinitely better to be baptized Protestant than not to be baptized at all, and I admire them canvassing for recruits in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House.

It also reminded me of the original Jews for Jesus:

I thought of this when I read Richard's link to the parody drug commercial: ever seen the ads for that birth control patch? They say it causes "blood clots, hemorrhaging, weight gain, stroke, etc." and they make no attempt to minimize it with a statement like "these effects were similar to other patients who received placebos," probably because nobody would want placebo birth control. ("I was in the placebo group? I'm not even married! I was just doing this for the two hundred bucks!")

Also, normal birth control pills contribute to osteoporosis and an increased risk of cancer. Ah, contraception: you gave us casual sex, rampant bastardy, and you strike at the very heart of marriage and family life. Is there anything you can't do?

Blessing for Beer from Shrine of the Holy Whapping. Mmmmm, beer...

Bill Cork has a link to a Washington Post article about how local radio stations are dropping the Evangelical group, Jesus for Jesus, ad.

The 60-second spot features two men debating whether Jesus is the Messiah and inviting listeners to "come, it's time to take a look, and think for yourself." They speak with "Yiddish accents" while klezmer music plays in the background, said Stephen Katz, Washington director of the San Francisco-based Jews for Jesus.

Joel Oxley, general manager of WGMS, dropped the commercial after a week, saying the station's "mission is not to offend." He added, "When people come to us, they want to be soothed and they want to hear the great classical music. It was not the case when they heard the advertising."

Not John Kerry. No. This has something to do with Catholicism. I went to a local parish yesterday for daily Mass and the Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist looked at me like I had nine heads when he saw that I was receiving our Lord on the tongue. I wasn't kneeling to receive or anything - I just didn't want to get Jesus on my unconsecrated hands. Is that too pious these days?

KERRY CHALLENGES BUSH TO WEEKLY DEBATES: In Anoka, MN, John Kerry challenged President Bush to weekly debates on the issues.

BUSH CAMP REAX: "There will be a time for debates after the convention, and during the next few weeks, John Kerry should take the time to finish the debates with himself. This election presents a clear choice to the American people between a President who is moving America forward and a Senator who has taken every side of almost every issue and has the most out of the mainstream record in the U.S. Senate," said BC'04 spokesman Steve Schmidt.

Gotta get me a prescription for some Proloxil!

Gosh, I haven't seen you since this morning when I looked at the news!

Democrats are urging Bush to denounce independent campaign ads against Kerry. The latest is Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who went to the President's Ranch in Crawford, Texas to deliver a letter. No one there would accept it. Max, you don't need to deliver the letter at all. Just get enough people involved with Kerry's campaign to scream like banshees about this and Bush will just see it on the news.

By the way, why is Bush denouncing all the activity of the 527's not good enough for the Kerry campaign? First, because they are a bunch of whining babies. Second, because they are a bunch of whining babies. And third, the 527's helping the Kerry campaign have spent more than 54 million big ones trashing Bush, while the swiftees have spent a paltry half a million. "Mother" Teresa Heniz-(Kerry) probably owns half a million in shoes.

The media has thousands of litters of kittens over one volunteer for the Bush campaign who has helped the Swiftees. What about all the connections Kerry people have with 527's like the perfidious ACT and the perfidious-er MoveOn.org?

Don't cry, Kerry staffers! Mommie will be along with your blankie, your martini, and your mutual fund statement any time now. Just know that it's your candidate who decided to run on his Vietnam record. Bush didn't make this an issue.

UPDATE: Letter to Kerry - "You can't have it both ways."

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it.

You said in 1992 “we do not need to divide America over who served and how.” Yet you and your surrogates continue to criticize President Bush for his service as a fighter pilot in the National Guard.

The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet complains that the WaPo put its Deal Hudson resignation story on page A-6 instead of some place more prominent:

Why is the resignation of the Bush's chief Catholic advisor -- a position of much greater power than the governorship of New Jersey -- getting so little attention?

My parents need a new toaster. The toaster they own at present is, in a word, retarded. On the highest setting it barely warms the bread. On the lowest setting I imagine it would be safe to have in the tub with you. The thing has a switch for either toast or bagel which, like Janeane Garofalo participating in political discourse, does absolutely nothing.

I tell my parents they need a new toaster. This is the same thing I have saying at every visit the past two years. Like the issue of above-ground nuclear testing, they say it’s just not a priority for them now. But they have piles of money – why not drop a bit of cash on a new toaster? I think it’s because my dad just can’t go and buy something, he has a special routine for any purchase over ten dollars. Let’s apply his method to the toaster problem.

First, he forms a blue-ribbon commission to investigate the alleged retardedness of the toaster. It consists of dad, mom, and the next-door neighbors, one of whom has celiac disease. She eats only jam, no toast. While I have years of toast-eating experience, I cannot participate in this phase of the project because, thankfully, I am leaving tomorrow.

When the blue-ribbon commission confirms what I have been saying for years, namely, the toaster needs to be taken out back, shot, pounded with a hammer, ground to a fine powder, and mailed to DNC headquarters, it will be time for phase two.

Phase two consist of the feasibility study. Dad painstakingly measures the space available in their newly-remodeled, positively cavernous kitchen for the new toaster, and compares the numbers to the dimensions of all the toasters in the last three decades of the Consumer Reports Buyers Guide. The new kitchen, incidentally, is large enough that one could conduct above-ground nuclear testing by the dishwasher and not even see the explosion at the oven. He compares features among the models that meet the space requirements, even calling manufacturers to ask them, “Does switching to bagel actually do something or should I toast my bagel in a pan like the British do?”

Dad then goes to every Walmart and Target in the tri-state area looking for the right model. He finds Janeane Garofalo working as a greeter at a Walmart in Camden, makes a hand gesture in her direction that only an Italian would truly understand, and drives off. He finally decides to buy the toaster via the Walmart website, his very first online transaction. Before entering his credit card number he’s on the phone with Walmart’s online customer service for three hours asking if some hooligan is going to make off with his credit card and donate money to the Kerry campaign. He is assured that online transactions are safer than making toast.

He buys the toaster but in order to save money on shipping he has it carried by hobos hitching rides on trains across America. Given that very few hobos ride trains anymore, I expect he’ll have the toaster just in time for my visit at Christmas. He’ll spend seven weeks studying the users manual and repeatedly tell my mom, “We have to move the kitchen – if this thing is plugged in too close to the bathroom it might fall in the tub.” The tub they use is upstairs and in a different area code.

That’s how I expect the new toaster purchase to go, if they even get through phase one. I could have built a new toaster with things lying about the house in the time it’s taken me to type this. I’d better go and toast my bagel in a pan or with some nuclear weapons.

The Woodstock for religious orders was held in Fort Worth last weekend. Dom has his usual insightful insights which are linked above. I urge you to read his commentary on this story in the Dallas Morning News - "Among faithful, mum isn't the word."

The irony of the title is plain. Faithful who? The unfaithfully faithful? The religious who openly defy the bugaboo of modernity, the Vatican?

"Security in our church has come to be identified with the controlling power of the clergy to the detriment of the people in the pews," said the Rev. Michael Crosby, a priest from Milwaukee. "We are perishing numerically because we have not been public enough in our protest of patriarchy."

The security Fr. Crosby mentions was of the false kind. Some Bishops thought they could sweep the problems of sexual abuse under the proverbial rug. We know what the result is. Fr. Crosby speaks, though, as one who would give more power to the laity. But power to do what? Elect a pastor? Force a priest out they don't like? There are many who like to make the Church into a democracy and they would make the immutable truths of faith and morals as flighty as the age.

Fr. Crosby’s subsequent statement about the cause of the lack of vocations is incorrect. He says they haven’t been public enough in their protest of the patriarchy. I say many orders are dying on the vine because they have rejected their patrimony, traditions, and the patriarchy of the Church. The orders that embrace them are flourishing, such as the Nashville Dominicans and the CFR’s. The Legionaries of Christ and Opus Dei are other examples of groups that are truly faithful to the Church and thriving. I was considering entering the Legionaries, actually, but my hair is parted on the wrong side and I’m no good at soccer. But never you mind that – what I’m saying is Fr. Crosby and his confreres don’t see the writing on the wall.

Take the traditional habit, for example. It’s a symbol, it’s not just a garment. A symbol always leads one to the substantial meaning it symbolizes. That’s why it’s called a symbol. Religious habits are made in the form of a cross. The religious who wears a habit is truly taking up the Cross, putting it on, making the Cross central to their interior and exterior life.

The Claretian martyrs of Barbastro would disagree with the “progressive” religious of today. The Spanish Marxists killed some fifty Claretian seminarians in 1936 because they were faithful Catholics in formation for the priesthood and because they wore the cassock. Their lives would be spared, they were told, if they took off the cassock. The Claretians, truly faithful to the substance behind the symbol, refused and went to their death.

Two excerpts from the Dvorak Stabat Mater concert I sang in a few weeks ago: first, the chorus alone on Tui nati vulnerati. Then tenor soloist Martin Kelly and the chorus on Fac me vere tecum flere.

Anti-Americanism has grown steadily since the end of the Cold War. A large part of this is resentment towards American economic success; some of it is resentment toward Hollywood's slime machine (no argument there).

An overlooked cause of anti-Americanism is our success in sports, particularly our surprisingly good showing in the 2002 Winter Games and our stellar medal count in this year's games. Remember a few years ago when the American team did really well in the World Cup? If we had won, we would have been hated with a furious passion by most countries when they realized that most Americans don't even care about soccer.

So to assuage this sentiment against our fine country, I suggest that instead of sending our athletic supermen to Beijing in 2008, we should send our Special Olympics team. Then the rest of the world can high-five each other when they beat the Americans. The Special Olympians will just be happy to compete. Everybody wins, and it advances the national interest. What do you guys think? Do we give them a chance?

I wrote something about this last Thursday, but the Prince of Darkness attacked my cable modem just as I submitted the post, and it was lost into the ether.

Continuing today's Latin theme (that's lingua Latina, not Enrique Iglesias), our parish had a majority-Latin Mass two Sundays ago. Father Poumade — parochial vicar, godfather to my younger son, and all-around sacerdotal superstar — was the celebrant. My wife was one of the four women making up the scola who sang most of the music, and they all sounded lovely.

I asked Father about the reaction from parishioners. "The response has been nothing but overwhelmingly positive so far," he said. "I received many compliments and not a single complaint after the Mass itself — except for those who complained that they wanted even more Latin and that we hadn't used enough of it.

"I was really surprised at the wide amount of enthusiasm — I expected some would be supportive, but [seeing] that there are so many people, both young and old, who are actually enthusiastic about it was a welcome surprise."

Someone asked me if I saw people walk out, and from my angle it was hard to tell, but I didn't see anyone leave. A large teenage girl standing behind me suddenly collapsed onto my back and then fell behind my pew, but I do not think it was a toxic reaction to the non-vernacular Eucharistic prayer. (She was fine by the end of Mass.)

Hopefully, St. Mary's will follow up with more Latin in the liturgy, because it does assist in giving a sacred atmosphere to the Mass. My older son Charlie described it as "holy language," which is a pretty good insight; I hope our fellow churchgoers share it.

Two articles from AP: Wheelock's Latin textbook gets an update, including a web site, audio clips, and racy poems.

John Kerry’s Two Vietnams - Mackubin Thomas Owens

As a correspondent pointed out to me in an e-mail, each episode of the HBO series Band of Brothers, begins with a voiceover in which the narrator says of the World War II soldiers portrayed in the program: "I was not a hero, but I was surrounded by heroes." In contrast, what John Kerry is saying in essence about his "band of brothers" is that "in Vietnam, I was a hero, but I was surrounded by war criminals."

A plastic surgeon who did reconstructive surgery on the King of Pop's nose actually said this, "I think Michael Jackson wants to change from a black man to a white woman."

Yeah, we've heard this before from stand-up comics, but from Jackson's own doctor?

Time for a trip to the ultimate religious-goods superstore, the Rome Depot!

Or for on-line convenience, there's avazon.com.

(via the Curt Jester, via me)

Link via Drudge.

Have a gander at this post by the Mighty Barrister.

I don't have a story of discrimination like RC's post below, but I did install Service Pack 2 for Windows XP yesterday. The install worked in the same way the Dallas Charter worked - it seems to be a solution to all the problems other than the most pressing ones. Here are a list of the ill-effects that's I've noticed already:

1. I have bed sores from waiting for it to download and install. I didn't consider using the time the to say, build a financial empire or construct a to-scale relief map of the United States.

2. SP2 installs another nanny-type program called "Security Center" that includes a firewall but also annoys with warnings about automatic updates and virus protection. Security Center sees Norton AV installed but says it can't tell if the software is working. I'm sure if MS start selling anti-virus software it would work just fine. IF you change the auto-update settings to simply notify you that new updates are available for download the visual changes from green to yellow and it says "C H E C K S E T T I N G S." I don't want to download something I don't know about, even if it comes from Our Dear Software Provider.

3. A "Windows Marketplace" icon appears in the links toolbar of IE. You click on it and surprise, surprise you're on Microsoft's website where you can buy, buy, and buy more stuff to improve your computing experience. Just keep buying, folks, it's what keeps the economy going.

Munch's Famous 'Scream' Stolen

A defense lab operated by MIT is getting into the news in a way it never wanted, with a religious-discrimination lawsuit.

A technician at Lincoln Labs claims that his bigoted co-workers harassed him for his Christian faith over a 15-year period, and that supervisors and union reps not only failed to take action, but participated in the mistreatment.

Y'know, if a company gets a reputation for condoning abusive employee behavior and anti-Christian discrimination, it will pay at least some price. Many religious believers who work in the high-tech sector (and there are many) can simply decide never to work there.

This lab, moreover, has a special need to be concerned with its reputation: it depends almost totally on the good will of Congress and the Air Force for its funding. I can imagine that some Congressmen would be outraged at a case of abuse that was ignored by management for fifteen years.

Plus a great pic of my wife!

This article was written about me for one of UMUC's online publications.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the SEC and Washington Post need to warn us about this:

Voice-Mail Stock Tips Are Phony

Still, it's in the family of obvious headlines:

"Christmas to Fall on December 25th This Year"
"Scientists Determine Cats Ignore Owners Until Hungry"
"Heinz Ketchup too Bourgeois for Theresa Heinz Kerry"

Some of the ladies in the parish had a little argument one day, because they couldn't agree about what was the color of the new minister's eyes. They asked one lady what she thought and she said: "I really don't know what color they are. When he prays, he closes his eyes, and when he preaches, he closes my eyes."

In this cynical age, some lies are unremarkable. Take, for instance, Iran's nuclear program, whose sole purpose is to create weapons of mass destruction.

They don't actually come out and say that. Tehran's Islamist regime continues the fiction that their nuclear program is for "peaceful purposes," so they can generate electricity. With a straight face, journalists repeat the claim at face value.

Yet news reports almost never explain that Iran has more oil and natural gas than it knows what to do with, and burning them is a lot easier, less expensive, and less complicated than building nuclear reactors. Omitting those facts amounts to perpetuating Iran's lies.

Within the next two years, "the world" will have to either accept Iran's new dominance over the Mideast, or find some way to neutralize its nuclear capabilities. I put "the world" in quotation marks, because really it will be the United States, Israel, Great Britain and its former colonies, and several of the less enervated European states. The effeminate Germans will not be with us, and neither will the French, who have been the allies of militant Muslims at least since the battle of Lepanto.

We may pray that something will avert this crisis without bloodshed; indeed, it is our duty to pray for that outcome. But in my opinion, there are four possible outcomes:

1. Israel or the United States carries out a massive surprise attack on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities before they are able to assemble a functioning bomb.

2. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. A coalition of states enacts sanctions and gives Tehran an ultimatim to disarm or face the consequences. The regime, incapable of giving up its mass-murder devices without suffering a mortal blow to its credibility, prefers to fight. The coalition invades, and after a few weeks and possibly hundreds of thousands of dead, prevails.

3. Students, intellectuals, and mid-level clerics carry out a semi-bloodless coup, staging massive demonstrations and daring the secret police and security forces to respond. After firing some perfunctory bursts of machine-gun fire into the crowds, the government agrees to hold elections and carry out liberalizing political reforms.

4. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. The United Nations passes a weak resolution, representing a compromise between a bitterly divided General Assembly and Security Council, enacting trade sanctions against Iran and any state that assists its nuclear program. Iran makes some conciliatory statements, but makes no move to disarm. Over the years, the sanctions are slowly ignored, and Iran consolidates its newfound position as regional superpower, gradually spreading its Islamist influence into neighboring states.

The first scenario won't happen even if President Bush is re-elected. Thanks to the hysterical Democratic opposition, political reality militates against a pre-emptive strike against Iran, no matter how much they threaten their neighbors. Scenario #2 is even more fanciful -- what country will voluntarily place its soldiers within range of a nuclear bomb? Scenario #3 is plausible, but the list of regimes that have voluntarily given up power without violence is short (including, ironically, the Shah in 1979).

As you might guess by the length, I'd bet on scenario #4. It plays off of human inertia, folly, and wishful thinking; it requires no real action on behalf of U.N. members; and it privileges the sovereignty of a dangerous nation-state over true peace. It has the added bonus of being anti-Semitic, as Iran's first announced target is Israel.

In a broader sense, I would love to see the Church's leadership take a strong stand against Iran's murderous ambitions, but I am not holding my breath. Even though nuclear-armed Islamic fundamentalists are a clear danger to millions of lives, the bishops will not speak out against them in any meaningful way. They do not wish to make things harder for Christians living in Muslim lands, who already live precarious existences. And they, as a group, have an ingrained predilection for dialogue rather than the use of force, which is an admirable and humane trait -- and a dangerous temptation.

For we live in an age when violent men with absolutist, non-rational ideas use Western ideas to further their own ends. Things like state sovereignty and nuclear technology are good in themselves, but they can be abused. Yet the central conceit of the United Nations is that all member states are pretty much like Belgium. (Modern liberal Belgium, not the Belgium of the 19th century that ran a quasi-genocidal slave colony in the Congo.) Everything can be decided diplomatically, just like members of a gentleman's club, as long as we all keep talking and respecting each other's borders.

The Church, more or less, plays along with this, out of the altruistic belief that an international system can restrain the worst impulses of man. But secular man's idolatrous belief in state sovereignty allows a Sudan to murder poor Christians and vulnerable black Muslims -- because although the whole world knows it, they cower at the thought of stopping these crimes that cry out for vengence, because to violate Sudan's borders would be an unseemly display of contempt for man-made lines on a map.

Borders have their uses, as do states, and I don't mean to diminish their importance. But surely borders and states are not absolute? If a state uses its status to develop weapons that have no conceivable defensive purpose, with the intent to eradicate another country, shouldn't they forfeit their rights as a state? Certainly they should not be allowed to commit genocide?

Questions like these must be confronted in the very near future. That's what frustrates me about the low level of our national debates. The Michael Moore Democrats want to convince you that if we can just dump Bushitler, all these problems will go away, because the rest of the world hates the president so much.

But no matter what happens in November, Iran will get nukes, al Qaeda will keep plotting the mass murder of innocents, Islamists will continue preaching their message of hatred and resentment. Europeans will continue their death-march toward demographic oblivion, thanks to their socialist regimes.

The Church hierarchy ought to speak out on these topics, not in a prescriptive way (that is not their competence), but in a way that illuminates these new threats in the light of the Gospel. What are the obligations of states toward the citizens of other states, particularly when they are in mortal danger from their own governments? Does a state have an obligation to remove weapons of mass destruction from a hostile state?

If an individual state does not have the right to interfere with genocide, or to deter international mass murder on an epic scale, what about states operating collectively? Is the United Nations the only conceivable entity that can decide such questions? Should the United Nations be reformed to better safeguard peace and justice in the world?

These are all things that we need to consider, as Christians and as Americans (yes, in that order). I know, it's more fun to think about Iraq and what Senator Kerry did a third of a century ago in southeast Asia. But these questions won't wait -- Iran will go nuclear in the blink of an eye, and Sudan is sponsoring genocide at this very moment. Immediate action is necessary, but we also need to think of a long-term way of ordering our world, since the Second Coming isn't upon us yet, at least as I write this.

US senator Kennedy complains of falling on anti-terror no-fly list

It wouldn't surprise me at all if a couple of watch-list people were just hanging around thinking, "You know what would be funny? If Ted Kennedy couldn't get on a plane because he was on the watch list. My dad always said he was a meanace to democracy...

What are typing over there? No way dude - we can't do this!

Ok... It's K-E-N-N-E-D-Y.

Dude. I hope you've got your resume on the street. We will go down for this. Laughing all the way of course..."

The Anti-Chomsky Reader edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.

Listen, I just wanted to tell you what we've been calling you for years. You're BLACK."

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.

Wildlife agents chased the bear away, but it returned the next day, said Broxson.

They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and two cans of Rainier Beer. It worked, and the bear was captured for relocation.

From "A Short Road to Perfection"

September 27, 1856

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first-Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thought to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God's glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.