Apologia

Music Experiment

2009-12-05T03:51:00.000-05:00

I need to know if everyone can see this:

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T16:18:00.004-05:00

To all you givers of thanks, which you ought to do even if you're an ingrate.

Update: And to get you in the mood for the upcoming season (starring Elizabeth, of course, from a 2000 dress rehearsal for the School of Performing Arts, choreographed by Russell Sultzbach). Slightly larger version here.

Volume I, Issue 3

2009-11-23T14:09:00.003-05:00

The new issue of The Christendom Review is up, with stories by John Farrell and Rick Barnett, a variety of poetry, photography by Todd McKimmey, and introducing Lydia McGrew, literary critic, who ponders Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. And in our Signs of Grace column, Kateri Howard of Atlanta's 40 Days for Life campaign tells us why we ought to keep praying and never lose heart.

Sunday Despair: Is Doggie Heaven a Boondoggle?

2009-11-22T04:55:00.004-05:00

So Catholic Aristotelian-Thomistic philosopher Ed Feser puts up a post considering Plato's argument in the Phaedo for the immortality of the human soul. I'm always up for reassurance on that score, so I checked it out. Plus, I've actually read the Phaedo. A long time ago. So long ago I can't remember what was in it.

Dr. Feser's purpose was to point out that many modern philosophers don't think much of Plato's case, but ought to. He's probably right.

Once I got there, it turned out that - though I like reassurance - I'm pretty well convinced of the soul's immortality, and instead of examining Plato's soundness (responding, in other words, to the post's actual subject) I got distracted by other thoughts. I think it's called threadjacking. But not before some other guy beat me to it. Said he:

What comes to mind is Francis of Assisi, who no doubt observed the following in nature, as I certainly do in dogs, but not so intensely in people..."Love is patient, love is kind, etc..."

I submit it is just these noble qualities in the essence - the soul – of dogs which has made them man's best friend. I am inclined to think that what Aquinas so scholastically asserts to be the high moral value setting humans apart and superior to the other creatures – knowledge, or intellect – subordinates the sublime to the clever.

To which Dr. Feser responds:

To love someone, in the deepest sense, is to will what is good for him. But will is something only beings with intellects have. Furthermore, the fulfilled intellect is one which is wise, not one which is merely clever. (Lots of intelligent people are clever; very very few are wise.) So, it seems to me you're selling Aquinas short.

To another commenter he points out that Aquinas says

that "the souls of brutes are corrupted." What he means is that though forms per se don't perish, nevertheless the particular instantiation of the form or soul in this particular brute disappears when the animal does (while the human soul, by contrast, does not).

The original doglover responds:

I think, like Hartshorne, the anthropomorphic bias inherent in Aquinas' system as well as that of plain humanism "does not do justice to the creatures."

Could you give a succinct definition of this will and intellect?

That's where I jump in, asking

Is this a necessary conclusion of A-T metaphysics, or might there be some attributes in the sentience of certain creatures that would allow us to entertain at least the possibility of immortality, and which would not be incompatible with that metaphysics if certain knowledge of the attributes were available to the A-T'er.

Says Dr. Feser to the first guy:

Intellect is the power to grasp abstract concepts and reason on the basis of them. Will is appetite moved by intellect, by what the intellect grasps. Non-human animals cannot grasp abstract concepts -- the most they can manage are something like general mental images (but a general image of a man, say, is not the same as the concept "man"). And since they cannot, their appetites are mere appetites, not governed by reason. This is why they cannot love in the strict sense. They can manage affection and the like, but that is not the same thing.

Oh. And then to me:

William, Yes, I'm inclined to say that it is a necessary consequence, at least given that brutes carry out no activities that involve an immaterial power. Unlike intellectual activities, sensation and imagination (which animals do have) are from an A-T point of view entirely dependent on matter. So lower animals have nothing which might carry on beyond the deaths of their bodies.

"Brutes", huh? My feeble response was to note that I didn't know how to break this to my daughter. She has a chihuahua...

Go for launch

2009-11-17T03:56:00.001-05:00

The shuttle Atlantis took off yesterday. Two more flights and she'll be retired.

Absence

2009-11-16T15:21:00.003-05:00

Been finishing up Issue 3 of TCR. Should be out in a day or two or three. Will announce here, of course.

Meanwhile, check out Lydia-the-horse-lover's post at W4 and the accompanying video.

Mallory Code, RIP

2009-11-11T03:13:00.002-05:00

Bernadette sends me this link to a Golfweek story noting the death of a girl Bern used to play with in the Florida Junior Golf Association. Her name is Mallory Code, and she was afflicted all her life with cystic fibrosis. She was cared for in the bosom of a strongly Christian family, her stout heart admired by all who knew her, and only 25 when she passed away. Unexpectedly, I should add. God bless her.

Life is Cheap

2009-11-07T03:17:00.003-05:00

I always thought it was supposed to be safe, legal and rare. That's what Bill Clinton told me, but I should have known better than to trust The Great Prevaricator. Well, it's not rare and, of course, it's never safe for the baby. But 'safe' for the woman surely meant that the murder would take place in a sterile atmosphere, such as a hospital or clinic surgery, with a fully qualified and state-licensed killer doctor on hand. An accomplished accomplice nurse might come in handy too. But enterprising American human beings are always on the lookout for a way to save a buck. And even though this particular kind of murder is legal, most women who avail themselves of it seem to want to hide the fact from everyone else. So, with both these goals in mind, a 7 months pregnant 17 year old Utah girl hired a thug to beat her up, the primary target being her belly. The cost of hiring a pregnant belly-beater: $150. She later "entered a no contest plea in May 2009 on charges of second-degree felony criminal solicitation of murder." This was subsequently vacated by a judge who ruled that her actions "fit the state's definition for an abortion and, therefore, she 'cannot be held criminally liable for'" them. So she walked. The guy who beat her pled "guilty to second-degree felony attempted murder."

The irony? The baby survived and is currently in foster care. His mother is trying to get custody.

Everything happens for a reason

2009-10-27T04:05:00.002-04:00

Well, no, says one of my students. She wrote a story about losing her father last year. That means he died. She was real close to him, and has come to a denial of the wisdom she'd grown up with (imparted in the title to this post): there was no good reason why her father should have died. Death separated him from those who loved him and depended upon him. Plus, he was a nice guy. Everybody liked him. He did a lot of good and had more to do, etc.

Which led me to wonder: if he died for no reason, was he also born for no reason? Or are those different questions?

Pansy...

2009-10-12T04:07:00.002-04:00

...of The Two Sleepy Mommies needs your prayers. You can read why over there. I can't bring myself to describe the situation.

Sunday Command: "Come with me. I want to show you something."

2009-10-11T01:41:00.007-04:00

And a question, which I'll get to in a moment. A passage came to mind from a book I read a long time ago (don't ask why; things just come to mind, okay?). It's a long passage, so I'll try to summarize a lot.

There was this fellow, middle-aged or thereabouts I'm guessing, afflicted with bronchial asthma and emphysema, who got into a coughing fit and ruptured a disc which left him in agonizing pain. He was eventually referred to a neurosurgeon who put him in the hospital and into traction. He needed surgery, so a lung specialist was called in to help strengthen the patient. The anesthesiologist didn't want to put him under, but finally consented. The operation was scheduled for Friday. On the previous Monday

I went to sleep and had a restful sleep until sometime early Tuesday morning, when I woke up in severe pain. I turned over and tried to get in a more comfortable position, but just at that moment a light appeared in the corner of the room, just below the ceiling. It was just a ball of light, almost like a globe, and it was not very large, I would say no more than twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, and as this light appeared, a feeling came over me. I can't say that it was an eerie feeling, because it was not. It was a feeling of complete peace and relaxation. I could see a hand reach down for me from the light, and the light said, "Come with me. I want to show you something." So immediately without any hesitation whatsoever, I reached up with my hand and grabbed onto the hand I saw. As I did, I had the feeling of being drawn up and of leaving my body, and I looked back and saw it lying there on the bed while I was going up towards the ceiling of the room."

As he left his body, he felt that he had taken on the same 'form' as that of the light. He experienced it as mostly circular in shape, of the substance of "a wisp of smoke or a vapor...like the clouds of cigarette smoke...illuminated as they drift around a lamp." And yet he knew that the form had certain attributes, for he had taken the light's hand with his own. After this, he and the light begin traveling - through walls and down corridors - with a sensation of motion but not speed. Instantaneously, it seemed, they arrived at the hospital's recovery room, the location of which the patient had not known. Below them, doctors and nurses in green uniforms went about their chores.

This being then told me, "That's where you're going to be. When they bring you off the operating table they're going to put you in that bed, but you will never awaken from that position. You'll know nothing after you go to the operating room until I come back to get you sometime after this."

The light's voice, by the way, was not an audible one. But the patient insists that it was "vivid" in form and unmistakable in content. Then the light revealed the reason for this little trip: that he didn't want our patient to experience any fear when the time came, because "he", the light, would not be there at once, though he "would be overshadowing everything that happened and would be there for me at the end."

They returned to the patient's room and he to his body. He knew now that he was going to die, but was "not in the least afraid," and entertained no questions, such as "What can I do to keep this from happening?" When shaving before the mirror, he "noticed that my hand didn't shake like it had been doing for six or eight weeks before then." On the day before the operation, he began writing letters to his wife and adopted son, a nephew, with whom they were "having some trouble." While writing he began to weep, uncontrollably, and again felt the presence. No light this time, but it asked him, "Jack, why are you crying? I thought you would be pleased to be with me." And Jack said that he very much wanted to go with 'him,' but that he was worried his wife wouldn't "know how to raise" their nephew, and thought that his own presence might have done the boy some good. The presence replied that "Since you are asking for someone else, and thinking of others, not Jack, I will grant what you want. You will live until you see your nephew become a man." And then he was gone.

The operation went flawlessly, and Jack woke up in the same bed that the presence had pointed out. The anesthesiologist was there when he regained consciousness, with all kinds of fancy equipment on hand, but was amazed that he didn't have to use any of it. Jack had recovered like a man with normal lungs.

It was three years after the event that he gave this testimony. Up to that point, he had told only his wife, brother and minister of his encounter with the presence. He felt no need to proselytize, or to convince others. He claimed that the encounter was as real as any waking experience in his life, even more so, though he could not explain why. And further, "I don't have any doubts anymore. I know there is life after death."
---------------------

Taken from Raymond Moody's well-known book, Life After Life, 1975.

My question is: Is this sort of thing possible?

Todd McKimmey...

2009-10-09T22:54:00.002-04:00

...without whose talents The Christendom Review and my own book would probably not be available, has won the "Photo of the Month" at this site. Congratulations to him.

Saturday Evening in Orlando

2009-09-30T03:27:00.004-04:00

Homeschooling article...

2009-09-30T03:20:00.002-04:00

...in Salon of all places, gotten via Chris Lugardo (but off his Facebook page), who is doing the same thing to his kids. Homeschooling, that is. I think.

Not being one myself (a homeschooler, that is, except for some religious stuff) I don't vouch for anything in it. Just find it interesting because the parents appear to be lefties, and it maybe exposes a little of the liberal hypocrisy: now that they've made the public schools safe for multiculturalism, religious indifference, and moral chaos, they want their own kids kept away from it.

Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

2009-09-28T16:23:00.001-04:00

Lydia asks the question at W4. I hope somebody can come up with the right answer.

Sunday Prayer: for Bernadette

2009-09-27T04:02:00.002-04:00

Not mine. Lydia's told me about a little girl she knows, 4 years old, Catholic, and named Bernadette, who "has some kind of major blood clot in her abdomen that the doctors can't find. I guess she's had this since she was a preemie and something went wrong with an abdominal IV they had to give her. You can imagine that this causes a lot of trouble, including internal bleeding from time to time...She's going to have surgery...October 14th or thereabouts; I didn't write down the exact day. This surgeon says he's going to try to actually find the blood clot and remove it. I guess other surgeons haven't been able to do that..."

Bernadette has a twin sister (unafflicted), a two year old brother, and their Mom's expecting. Bernadette could use your prayers. When I hear the outcome, I'll let you know.

In Concert

2009-09-23T19:22:00.001-04:00

Bern's at one of those tonight, listening to this group.

2009-09-18T03:14:00.001-04:00

I'll be gone for a while.

Good Luck, Mr. Snedeker

2009-09-16T02:49:00.010-04:00

Upupdate: Haymes finished tied for 7th. When I find out where he's playing the first stage, I'll post it.
-----------------------------------
Update: after 3 rounds, Haymes is in 10th. That's fine. He hasn't shot a round over par yet. Today's the last day. If you scroll down the leaderboard, you'll see in 18th place Andrew Giuliani. Yup. Rudy's son.

After pre-qualifying come two more stages of qualifying (about 6 rounds per stage) followed by the final stage. In terms of mental stamina, it may be the most grueling experience in professional sports.
---------------------------------

I played golf this past Sunday at Disney's Magnolia Course with Bernadette and her partner from Big Break X, Michigan, Haymes Snedeker. Winning the Big Break qualified Haymes to play in Disney's November PGA tournament, The Children's Miracle Network or something like that, so he was out to get familiar with the course. Since I used to play that course on the mini-tours back in the 90's, they've lengthened it to keep up with technology. There are now four 500 yard par 4's, not to mention a few more in the 475 to 85 range. It's hard to relate. So I was worried about his length, but even with that funny swing, he seemed to me to be averaging between 290 to 300 yards per drive. So no problem there. And he can play all the other shots too. I only worry about how quickly he plays. (A refreshing change, actually, since I've gotten into the habit of taking a nap while waiting for Jim Furyk to line up a shot.)

This particular round of golf, and even the Disney tournament itself, was not all that important compared to where he was going after the round was over: to Dade City to play in a PGA Tour pre-qualifying tournament. Yep, he's going to Q-School. So wish him luck. Yesterday was the first day of competition, during which he shot 67, putting him in third place. The top 43 after four days of golf will move on to the next stage.

I should add that, though we've corresponded, this is the first time I've met him, and he's just what he appeared to be on TV: a gentleman with an impish sense of humor. The baby his wife delivered during the filming of the Big Break is now 14 months old.

Here's a Facebook video golf tip featuring Bernadette and Haymes.

Below is some wildlife seen on the golf course. Sorry I forgot to get the wild turkeys. I'll shoot one next time. The Disney tournament's just before Thanksgiving.

Be sure to click on the image to enlarge.

Remember 9/11...

2009-09-11T21:26:00.006-04:00

...it's victims, that is, in your own way, but do remember. Many have chosen silence and prayer, and that's good too. Poor at silence while bereft of insight, I can only offer this thing from three years ago. Three years, for God's sake. I often wonder if a day goes by that memory of that day does not cross my mind. I don't think so.

A few others who have put something up: Susan at Lilac Rose, Dylan of Dark Speech...(with a Dylan Thomas poem two posts above that which seems appropos); Elena, who reminds us of Project 2,996, offering her own contribution from 3 years ago; and Paul Cella at W4.

BTW, I saw this show last night. Don't know if they'll be replaying it any time soon. If not, the DVD is worth the money. The History Channel did good work yesterday.

School...

2009-09-04T04:49:00.002-04:00

has begun. First week now under the belt. Beyond that I don't really have anything to say, nor time if I did. Oh. Reading mss. for TCR.

Sunday Remembrance: Robert Schindler, RIP

2009-08-30T02:28:00.003-04:00

Lydia tells me, and posts about it, that Terri Schiavo's dad has passed away. She got it from Wesley Smith.

I can't say I'm surprised. How long would your heart hold out after watching the legal organs of the country you love - the very organs you count on to keep you and yours safe from harm, and to seek redress on your behalf should they not - murder your child? "Judicial homicide," he called it. He gets the last word. Now he can hold his daughter again.

Girl stuff

2009-08-27T18:10:00.003-04:00

Marie, a commenter to the previous post, has a blog, TwoWaysofRenouncingtheDevil. Dot Wordpress. Dot com. You should read her about page. She's also written a couple of books and some poetry. My favorite line from a recent post about her C-section experience in a Catholic hospital: "I started to wonder if there was something about me or my other two kids that made them think I’d better not procreate ever again."

In other female links (or is it links to females?), Micki beats up on the sickaholics who denounce women with lotsalittluns as bumpaholics. Favorite line: "some truly messed-up women have children for all the wrong reasons. i've met some of them. and "wanting something to love" tops the list of really rotten and self-indulgent ideas -- and it isn't just immature and misguided teens who are saying this -- but educated, professional, single women facing mid-life all alone. thank you, betty friedan."

Peony rants rationally on health care. Favorite line: "If the choice to kill my child in the womb is a matter between me and my doctor, why isn't the choice to undergo a tonsillectomy a matter between me and my doctor?"

Sunday Exercise: The Hastings Center Makes Waste

2009-08-23T13:16:00.004-04:00

I have a question, which I'll offer after giving, briefly, the appropriate background.

In a recent Hastings Center Report (you may have to register to get the complete article), a Rebecca Stangl puts up a thing entitled "Plan B and the Doctrine of Double Effect." Plan B is an "emergency contraceptive" that sometimes has an abortifacient effect, preventing implantation of an embryo in its mother's womb. It may also prevent pregnancy by inhibiting ovulation or fertilization. (How it does this is not well understood.) Assuming that intentionally procuring an abortion is always wrong, the first of these three mechanisms is the one that concerns us. She asks: "Suppose that emergency contraception works exactly as its opponents claim. Would it follow that taking emergency contraception is morally equivalent to intentionally procuring an abortion?"

She answers: "Perhaps surprisingly" [actually, Rebecca, it doesn't surprise me at all], "I shall argue that it would not. If one accepts the doctrine of double effect, there would be circumstances in which the former is permissible even if the latter is never permissible."

She defines double effect as follows:

The doctrine makes a crucial distinction between harm that a person merely foresees will be the result of her action, and harm that she intends either as a means or as an end. According to the doctrine of double effect, it may be morally justifiable to perform an action that one foresees will result in some harm even if it would be unacceptable to aim at that very same harm, either as an end or as a means. Whether this is so in any particular case depends on whether the good to be achieved is proportional to the harm that is foreseen. I will argue that taking hormonal contraception can be justified by the doctrine of double effect even if it is true both that it can have an abortifacient effect, and that one may never intentionally obtain an abortion.

She attempts to "prove" her thesis as follows:

Someone who obtains a first trimester surgical abortion directly intends to secure the death of the fetus, either as an end or as a means to some other end. But someone who uses emergency contraception need not intend the death of any particular fetus...She may believe that, under exceptional circumstances, the contraception will fail to prevent the conception of a fetus. And in a proportion of these cases, the changes in her body brought about by the use of emergency contraception may mean that the fetus will not be able to implant itself in the womb. But she need not intend for that to happen...Not every effect of a person’s action need be intended.

She employs an analogy:

An example from another area of bioethics may help here. Opponents of euthanasia generally concede that we may give dying patients high doses of morphine even if we know that such treatment may hasten death. What we may not do, they claim, is directly intend the death of the patient and administer the morphine as a means to that end. So the same action—administering morphine—has a different moral status depending on the structure of our intentions. Because this one action has two different effects, it is possible to directly intend one of the effects and merely to foresee the other. If we take the morally good end (the relief of suffering) as the object of our intention, the action may be permissible. But if we take the morally bad end (the death of the patient) as the object of our intention, the action will be impermissible...if this distinction works in the end-of-life case, it seems to me that it must also work in the case of emergency contraception...We can then agree that directly intending the death of any particular fetus, either as a means or as an end, is impermissible, while allowing that if our intention is merely the morally good end—the prevention of a pregnancy—then the action may be permissible...Indeed, it seems to me that opponents of emergency contraception must accept something like the intend/foresee distinction.

She employs another analogy:

It appears, for example, that breastfeeding causes changes in the endometrium that are similar to the changes brought about by the use of emergency contraception. If such changes can have an abortifacient effect in the former case, then there is no reason to think they cannot also have an abortifacient effect in the latter. But no one takes this to be a reason not to breastfeed...A breastfeeding woman does not intend the death of any particular fetus by breastfeeding. Even if there is an extremely rare risk of this occurring, it will occur only as a wholly unwanted side effect of her action...

She then deals, in conclusion, with the problem of proportionality:

One might object that such a good [preventing pregnancy], while important, could never be proportional to the foreseeable possibility of the harm of the possible abortifacient effect. If the embryo really is a person with moral rights, perhaps only the risk of the mother’s death would be proportional to the foreseeable possibility of the death of the embryo. But this doesn’t seem right. Even on the interpretation of the empirical facts most favorable to opponents of emergency contraception, the chance that it will result in the death of an embryo, in any particular case, is very small.

In essence, "I claim that women who use emergency contraception need only intend the contraceptive effect of the medication, and not any possible abortifacient effect it may have."

My question is: what's wrong with her argument?

The Dancing Queen...

2009-08-22T04:28:00.005-04:00

is now employed by this Chicago company, called NoMi LaMad. I forget how the name came about, but can find out. More contemporary than classical, but still plenty of pointe work, I've been led to believe. And yes, that's her (excuse me, 'she') on the front page.

For you Chicago people, there's a performance in mid-September at the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium, which appears to be a part of the Harold Washington Library on State Street.