Drive-by Posting

Well, it's been a while. So, what's new? Not much around here. Oh, we did have a double murder in the neighborhood. Gunshots awoke some neighbors in the wee hours. Guy shoots other guy and girl. Then first guy is found dead by his own hand in his own home in some other part of town. The mayor lives in the neighborhood, so naturally the press went to him for a comment in which he reassured his neighbors:

"I feel absolutely safe. Something like this can occur anywhere. It has nothing to do with the neighborhood."

Oh.

In other news, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ came to town. He entertained a crowd of followers and protestors from the amphitheatre in Lake Eola park. His name is Dr. Jose Luis de Jesus (see?) Miranda. Born in Puerto Rico, based in Miami, he "has a history of drug and petty theft charges and has admitted to being a recovering heroin addict." So he did suffer to get where he is. He apparently does not believe in the devil, because the original Jesus destroyed him, so the devil is now a myth. The exact nature of the ousia or whatever the word is between him and the original Jesus is not clear to me, but any of you who still do believe in the devil will be put off by the fact that he and many of his followers wear 666 tattooed on their forearms. (I guess the tattooist missed the mark.) I think you can see a video of him speaking on this page. If you had expected the second coming to be accompanied by charisma, this is not the Jesus for you.

That's about it from O-town. Except for the 200 fires burning in various places around the state. The air smells like smoke. On her drive to work the other morning, my wife saw the sun as a big red orb in a haze of grey. Looked like nuclear winter she said.

Oh, and happy Mother's Day to all you who merit the title.
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Here are some links and quotes that briefly got my attention, some of which should have been posted weeks ago:

Dylan's been up to some light posting lately. This is a sign of 'what's right with the world'.

He's been around a while, but his reappearance makes him seem new again. Which I hope will be the case in more ways than one. But if you need to check out an actual new blog, try this one.
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A commenter at Hilary's on this post:

"Are we not the stewards of God's creation? As 'Conservatives' does that not mean we 'conserve' and that includes nature and the earth. How is recycling cans or papers a communist conspiracy?"

Hilary: Stuff a sock in it, ya pinko.
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In the particular case in question I thought the objectionable thing was what was being taught to children, not how it was being taught. But upon reflection... even true ideology has the tendency to place abstract truth above the actual incarnate world. And that is backwards in terms of priority, turning the truth into a lie: truth at bottom isn't about What, it is about Who. - Zippy

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One realizes in reading this book that good leadership is an aberration. It is certainly not a "right". And reading this fills me with gratitude for them, for the very fact that they existed. If I didn't fully appreciate them at the time I do now. TSO on John O'Sullivan's The Pres, the Pope, and the PM

"I'm sorry" has been tested and tried and found wanting. Mea culpa's currency is falling faster than the German mark during the 1920s. The new gold standard seems to be job loss, since suspensions are seen as vacations. Perhaps Imus's biggest mistake was not going directly to rehab. - Same guy.
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Actually, I have heard elderly female relatives telling grown children that, not only do they wish they had had fewer children, they specifically wish that they hadn't had them (the child/children being spoken to). (It's usually a somewhat self-immolative trump card in a bitter dispute.....) - Donna Marie on a post at Alicia's.
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A few words on the second most interesting conflict in the universe:

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy.
- Henry Kissinger

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.- Samuel Johnson, 1781

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends- Benjamin Franklin

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. - Dave Barry

I could point out that, to judge from the covers of countless women's magazines, the two topics most interesting to women are (1) Why men are all disgusting pigs, and (2) How to attract men.
- Dave Barry

No man should marry until he had studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman. - Balzac

A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. - Don Quinn

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A commenter at Zippy's, concerning the Problem of Evil:

It seems that your arguments about self-contradiction (or in this case, nihilism) keep bringing in God-dependent variables.

Zippy - The POE is an assertion about God. Discussion of bicycles necessarily entails "wheel dependent variables".
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In his newest incarnation at Stony Creek, Jeff Culbreath is no longer just a farmer, but a farmer-poet. But he also keeps us abreast of the horror on the horizon.
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An insightful commenter (especially when he agrees with me) who goes by the Social Pathologist and inhabits the comboxes at Right Reason and What's Wrong with the World and probably other places also has a blog. He describes himself as a physician and a Catholic. That might mean he's a Catholic physician, but I'm not sure yet. A snapshot:

In the environmental movement, paradise was lost when God created man...I take the biblical view that man was put in the Garden of Eden to tend it, not worship it.
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That said, it is a good question what the natural functions of sexual pleasure are. I think the purpose of a kind of pleasure is to reveal to us a kind of good and, in most cases, encourage us to pursue that good again. A pleasure in something that is not in and of itself a good is an empty pleasure. Inducing sexual pleasure outside the context of sexual activity that is valuable on independent grounds is thus induction of an empty pleasure. This, I think, is wrong. Whether it is in every case a violation of (*) is somewhat unclear. In the case of orgasm, it looks like a violation of (*) since it is not possible for a person to have a veridical orgasm while having a non-veridical orgasm. - Alexander Pruss, in comments to this post.

You can't know what the (*) means without reading the post, but I'd just like it noted that horizontal orgasms are entirely possible.
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Commenter at What's Wrong with the World:

Can you give an example of what you consider to be a reasonable right/obligation pairing vs. an unreasonable right/obligation pairing?

Jeff Culbreath responds: If you have a right to abortion, a baby has an obligation to die.

If you have a right to free speech, I have an obligation to tolerate the revolution that comes about because of it.

If you have a right to smooch with your gay lover in public, my children have an obligation to watch.

If you have a right to pornography, I have an obligation to live in the sewer you are making of this country.
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Comment exchange on this post at the same place:

Maybe having that gay couple smooch in front of your family is God testing you to become the good parent that you are. -Aydreyin

Watching two men smooch in front of your kid is challenging you to be a better parent??? ...If you're going to say that, let's go the whole hog: "Watching a man and a woman have sexual intercourse on the TV screen is maybe challenging you to be a better parent...I mean, heck, why not buy a pornographic book, set it on your kitchen counter, pass it several times every day, and use this to "strengthen" yourself to "rise above your base desires"? - Lydia

I am not advocating anyone bring pornography or other sinful or uncomfortable things and events into their life, but when a free society challenges us with these things, that is the time we let our light shine. - Aydreyin

I'd like to let my light shine by outlawing pornorgraphy. - William Luse (hell, I had to get myself in here somewhere.)
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John Guillebaud, co-chairman of the Optimum Population Trust:

"The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet. The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

Dale Price:

Of course, Mr. Guillebaud could cut 100% of his personal carbon dioxide output simply by dropping dead. But like a Palestinian imam who encourages suicide bombers, his moment of personal sacrifice never quite comes around.
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Commenter on this post:

Even if you don't buy that, it does appear that fascism and communism, which caused most of last century's barbarism, have been culled out.

Zippy: So as long as you aren't the wrong sort of untermensch -- say an unborn child. (That sound you hear is modernity patting itself on the back with a curette).
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I think it is important to point out that a man acts nobly toward all women, even the basest whore, since women are that mysterious cradle of creation to which by nature we owe provision and defense. Zippy - who's been on a bit of a roll lately.
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Except maybe for this:

Or, paraphrasing William Luse of Apologia, what this comes down to is unwillingess to recognize any authority greater than one's own imperial self.

Which sent a lot of people heading this way in search of the post containing the immortal words - a post they couldn't find. Now, it sounds like something I might have said. It sounds like something I should have said. In order to avoid disappointing Zippy's readers, I wish I had said it. In fact, I probably did say it. A search of the archives has not turned it up, but I will try to create an opportunity to say it at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile, thanks for the hits.

Well, that's all for a while. I know I should have included more of you, but I'm trying to renovate the kitchen. If any of you have ever tried to get a woman to choose a color for the walls, you'll know what I'm up against.