A Different Kind of Episcopal Spine

Bishop Manuel A. Cruz is a new auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Newark and a Cuban expatriate. He's also a former hospital chaplain and he's not buying the party line about Cuban health care:

Fleeing communist Cuba at a young age, Msgr. Cruz is proud of his title as "refugee" and believes that living through the experience has strengthened him and deepened his faith. He recently arranged for medicine to be shipped to the island for a sick young woman. "The medicine is expensive and hard to get in Cuba. This situation really put things in perspective for me. You ask yourself 'Why am I here? Why am I so different?' As a refugee, you realize that everything you have is a gift."

He's no Louis

King Mswati III of Swaziland is under fire again, this time in the New York Times:

...Swazis have enjoyed decades of peace and are proud of their culture. But poverty has entrapped two-thirds of the people, leaving hundreds of thousands malnourished. And these days death casually sweeps away even the strong. The country has one of the worst rates of H.I.V. infection in the world. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years in 1997 to barely half that now. Nearly a third of all children have lost a parent.

“How can the king live in luxury while his people suffer?” asked Siphiwe Hlophe, a human rights activist. “How much money does he need, anyway?”

That question was as confounding as it was impertinent. In the government’s latest budget, about $30 million was set aside for “royal emoluments.”

Now it is the New York Times, but even so, the Queen of England manages to get by on £40 million or roughly $72 million dollars.

Now that's more than twice what Swaziland's King gets, but the Monarchy costs Britons only 0.003% of their nation's $2.137 trillion gross domestic product.

However, the King's emoluments are 0.5% of Swaziland's $5.63 billion GDP. Swazis are comparatively getting hosed, paying 167 times as much as a percentage of GDP. So it's not surprising that they're angry:

The rowdiest of the demonstrators flung rocks, looted goods from sidewalk vendors and even set off a few small explosions. Others made impromptu placards with torn up cardboard. “Down with 40-40!” read one, while another demanded, “Democracy now!” A few protesters chanted things meant to make rich people feel guilty: “My mother was a kitchen girl. My father was a garden boy. That’s why I’m a Socialist.”

The angriest of them went so far as to insist that the nation had little to celebrate.

It's a useful reminder that not every king is a Saint Louis.

To The King

A Wall Street Journal column defends the Whig view of history, but not with particularly brilliant reasoning:

"William of Orange's 'Declaration,' then, was an honest document, as his benevolent rule -- and that of his wife, Mary -- would prove. ... They founded the Bank of England, greatly increased trade and stayed out of war with France until Louis XIV rashly recognized James Stuart, James II's son, as England's rightful king."

So how did they keep England out of war? Louis XIV recognizing James Stuart is just maintaining the status quo. It's William's invasion that shakes things up. If he hadn't invaded England and tossed out James II in the first place, there would have been nothing rash about recognizing James Stuart.

Rich Leonardi also has a good post on the piece. Don't miss the commentator who's wandered in to point out that the Glorious Revolution was indeed glorious because it "ended the pernicious influence of the Papists in English history and freed England from being just another lackey of Louis XIV's France."

McCain Palin Video

This is from before she was picked, I believe.

(via The Corner)

Interesting Liturgical News From Bangladesh

The Bishops in Bangladesh take action:"Church Tries To Protect Traditional Hymns, End Loud Singing" Apparently, the melodies and lyrics are set, no new songs are currently being composed, and it's not clear if accompaniment other than the harmonium (?!) is allowed:

The program assembled 71 liturgical singers in charge of leading choirs, and parish liturgy committee representatives from the country's five dioceses and one archdiocese to learn the correct musical notes to be played and sung in the hymns, as well as how loudly they should be sung. ... Over the decades, Father Sima further noted, there have been developments such as using the harmonium to accompany hymns, and the recent seminar included instruction on the correct musical notes to be sung for those hymns.

Different music suits different times, he said, and for religious occasions, two types of music, traditional and band, or pop-style, songs are available, "but band songs destroy the beauty, depth and spirituality of liturgy."

The priest did concede, however, that band music could be used on certain occasions, "but not in liturgical celebrations."

...New hymns are not being composed, he added, but ECLP is now thinking of doing something to change that.

Heather King on the Saints

"Saints aren’t 'good,' they’re beyond good, they’re part crazy."

The Martyrdom of Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., Mexico City, November 23, 1927
via Internet Monk

"Doctors wrestle with South Dakota abortion law"

Emily Bazelon's confusing take in Slate Magazine:

"On the one hand, the organization doesn't want to put abortion providers in legal jeopardy, since failure to follow the law can be punished as a criminal misdemeanor. On the other hand, doctors have an ethical responsibility to give patients accurate medical information. The mandatory statement linking abortion to an increased risk of suicide isn't supported by reliable medical evidence. And the statements about the fetus as a human being are moral or philosophical rather than scientific at heart, in Planned Parenthood's view. So what's an abortion provider in South Dakota to do?"

Well it seems clear to me. If making the statement about the "fetus as a human being" is objectionable because it is "moral or philosophical" rather than "scientific" than it seems we can derive the principle:

S: Doctors should base their advice on science and not moral or philosophical principles.

Taking S as true, than the ethical responsibility to provide patients with accurate medical information is moot, given that it is a moral or philosophical principle and not a scientific one. So Doctors should ignore ethics and follow the law, for the punishments of the state are scientific facts.

Or we might see that we have arrived at an absurd conclusion and admit that it is not the case that a statement's being moral or philosophical rather than scientific disqualifies it as proper medical advice.

The Pennywhistlers

I've been thinking a lot more about Pete Seeger ever since I went to see The Power of Song when it was playing here in New York. I had known about his albums and concerts, but not about his TV shows. Which, not surprisingly are available on Youtube. Here's one with Johnny Cash and June Carter (not yet Cash herself...). Cash appears to be pretty strung out here, but the singing is still impressive.
And this is a group called the Pennywhistlers who I'd never heard of but apparently made a name for themselves with Eastern European folk songs.

"Socrates Heads It in and Leibniz Doesn't Have a Chance"

I was of course familiar with the Philosopher's Song, but I'd never seen this other Monty Python philosophy bit before:

"Maybe that's in the episode I didn't see."

Anderson Cooper's response to Kelly Ripa's comment "They're obviously a talented family" about Living Lohan.
(via TVNewser)

MySpace... It's Almost As Good As Napster

before we knew that Napster was wrong... I've been listening to songs from Spirit of the West that I've wanted to get my hands on for years, but were out of print.

God Bless America... and Don't Talk to the Police

(from Regent University School of Law via Metafilter)

It's Obviously a Practicum (check the instructor's name)

Should you settle?

Scott Croft and Candice Watters respond in Boundless to Lori Gottlieb's article "Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough" in the March 2008 Atlantic. Here's a sample, the same one Croft uses:

My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.



Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.

Croft and Watters both make many good points, but they both insist that what they advocate is not "settling". Croft writes:

What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.



Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.

Candice Watters writes:

Choosing to marry a man — whomever he is — inevitably involves compromise (on his part, and yours). That's why it's not truly settling. It's just making a decision. Something we do every time we pick one thing over another. In most areas, it's called being decisive. For some reason we've made indecision noble when it comes to dating.

Watters article is better about this than Croft's, but I think they give Gottleib too little credit for the insights at which she has arrived. Of course, she has a secular view of marriage, she's secular (at least so far as she describes herself in the article.) But she's right that there's a kind of settling here. Choosing is settling, settling is deciding. "I've considered chocolate; I've considered vanilla and I'm settling on vanilla." I'm not neccesarily taking a position on which is better, I'm just not holding out for butterscotch to come along.

Real Men Marry Rabbis

Or so says this t-shirt. On Sunday, I saw a man wearing one and walking with his wife -- presumably a Rabbi.

Safire on Dirty Words

William Safire pays tribute to George Carlin in his latest "On Words Column". He writes, in part:

In his incessant use of “the seven words you can’t use on television,” he gave us more than a good taste of bad taste. His defense, however, could be in the lessening of offense-taking: Carlin may have reduced the power of odious obscenities and puerile profanity by devaluing their shock value, which was a perverse kind of linguistic service, as far as I’m concerned.

But really is that a linguistic service? Leave aside the question of the morality of the use of profanity and it seems clear that by the dimunation of the shock value of these words the language is impoverished.

Right... 'cause now is the time to join the Anglican Church

Matthew Alderman reminds me of the move by Venezualans allied with—if not directed by—Hugo Chavez to create a Bolivarian church. Apparently its actual name is "Santa Iglesia Católica Reformada de Venezuela Rito Anglicano."

Most disturbing is the combination of these two statements:

"Organized along Anglican principles"

and

"Anglican, Lutheran and Roman Catholic clergy have consecrated three priests as bishops"

As far as I know, all the Anglican Churches still require Bishops to perform ordinations. Hopefully that doesn't mean there's a Roman Catholic bishop involved. As the Get Religion folks would point out, there's a lot of information lacking there... what exactly are "Anglican principles". The Anglican church proper recognizes the supremacy of the sovereign (and so in it's democratic polity does the Episcopal Church recognize the sovereignty of the people). Is this Church democratic? Subordinate to the state? "Revolutionary" and ruled by a cabal? What about other Anglican principles... do we have the Thirty-nine Articles? Hooker's three-legged stool?

Here's the AP write-up, including comments from a Venezualan Cardinal.

Here's another from El Nuevo Herald.

Some excerpts and comments:

"A former Roman Catholic priest, Jon Jen Siu Garcia, was elected coadjutor, and noted to the Venezuelan press that his mission is to 'liberate people from capitalist values.'

"...among the founders of the church are bishops who have arrived from Miami and several Latin American nations, such as Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica.

"Among other religious organizations, Miami's own Catholic Apostolic Church served as a model for the newly established church in Venezuela.

"Lückert [a Catholic Church spokesman] also denounced the ''scandalous'' pasts of the Venezuelan priests who will be ordained as the new bishops of the reformist Catholic church. One, he said, ''lived scandalously with a woman'' and they have a son. Another had left his ministry to get married a long time ago, Lückert said."

So sexual immorality is part of the history here. Why am I not surprised?

"Lückert warned Chávez that the creation of this movement 'is a terrible political error' that could have an electoral cost.

"'It never occurred to Fidel to make such a blunder,' Lückert said."

The journalist in me recognizes a great quote when I see one... that's a great quote.

Photo of Hugo Chavez from Agência Brasil under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil License.

LibraryThing

I've been slacking off on blogging. That's partly because I've been working on another internet project: entering all my books into LibraryThing.

Check out my library here.

In my current stable library there are 805 books. That's actually fewer than I thought. If you'd given me over/under on 1,000 I'd probably have picked ovmer.

Seraphic Single had the same thought I did when hearing Germany and Turkey were playing in the Euro 2008 semi-finals:

Oh Dear



Germany is to play Turkey in the Semi-Finals. And this means that one way or the other there will be riots in Germany afterwards.

Photo courtesy StewieD under a Creative Commons License.

Fountain Pen Info

This is a nice site with FAQs on fountain pen ink and other pen topics.

It's got a nice breezy style about it too:

If you think that fountain pen geeks are anal about their pens, just wait until you hear them babble on about their inks!

To hear most enthusiasts talk, you'd think that ink was some magic substance rained from heaven to be captured in little crystal bottles; like some idol that must be appeased, it loves some pens and disdains others, and in extreme cases can eat through an unsatisfactory pen like that icky green blood stuff in the movie Alien.

Some folks feel they must treat their ink like prescription drugs, throwing them out after a year lest they perform some sort of Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation in the bottle (or in the pen). Still others interpret the brand name as a sort of "blood type," and fear to use Brand A ink in a Brand B pen.

And yet, as a friend of mine (and frequent ink seller) sometimes confesses in unguarded moments, fountain pen ink is basically colored water, perhaps with some detergent or thickener thrown in. If you understand a bit of what inks are made of and how they work, you'll find them less mystifying and more trouble-free and enjoyable to use.

Fountain pen image courtesy of Bismac under a Creative Commons license.