Bill's Notes

I was once telling a story about a pie-eating contest to a group of friends.

As soon as the phrase "pie-eating contest" was out of my mouth, two of them immediately said at the same time, "Pie Eating Contest? Stigmata! I win." and held up their hands, which didn't have stigmatas by the way.

So one starts to explain the in-joke. Apparently, back at the Jesuit college they attended, a spring picnic had a pie-eating contest. When it was announced, a classmate of theirs jumped up from the table and made the "Stigmata" comment. I was still clueless.

Finally, someone at the table clued in me: "Piety Contest."

Such is the nature of in jokes: You had to be there. At least one of the times.

Chris at Work in Progress starts out an excellent essay with this contention:

[S]o far as I'm concerned the salvation through faith alone people are a bunch of heretics (damnation through faithlessness alone is the necessary corollary to salvation through faith alone).

Heretic? I haven't been called a heretic in a long time. Last time I checked, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Orthodox saw Protestants as heretics. Maybe I've got that wrong.

I think heretics, I think Gnosticism, Pelagianism, Docetism, Arianism, Manichaenism, and the like. I don't think Protestants.

Protestants are the people who led the world out of Dark Ages and brought about the flowering of Western Civilization, leading to the advancement of science, reason, freedom, democracy and prosperity — interrupted only multiple wars conducted by Catholic countries.

:)

UPDATE: A note lest anyone be offended or misunderstand my sense of humor above. Yes, I'm being silly in the last graph. :)


UPDATE 2: We may be experiencing technical difficulties in the comments section. You can always e-mail me at industrialblog at hotmail dot com.

UPDATE 3: Chris comments at Work in Progress and I learn a new word: Soteriology. The study of salvation as it relates to Jesus. I'll follow up later with a response on another post.

A UCLA Law Professor does a great job of getting at the heart of the matter on the Massachusetts recent travesty decision on gay marriage. His concern, like my concern, is how this cultural battle is being fought.

If it's in the legislatures, that's one thing. I have a vote and thus some say, so there's a certain satisfaction even if I lose. But if we're all reduced, as it says in this article, to "spectators in a courtroom," we're flat-out disenfranchised.

If they can declare that our entire cultural heritage at this point is irrelevant in light of a sudden intellectual fashion, then the judges can simply do anything and there's nothing the rest of us can do about it ('cept starting hanging judges. Not that I'm favor of that.)

The nation is moving more and more to a judicial oligarchy.

Hat tip: Mark Shea.

I also think the next generation of Americans will see these decisions as a good thing, similar to the laws against miscegenation. They'll be wrong, but that's how they'll see it. It allows them both to feel good about themselves and feel better than their elders. Almost impossible to resist combination. Just as many young people today believe, thanks to Roe v. Wade, that they have a right to abort a baby if the timing of the pregnancy is inconvenient. It's a monstrous, depraved position, but what are you gonna do. The courts have spoken.

Remember the world, the devil and the flesh are all enemies of faith in Christ, and to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. But our victory is in Christ. It is for us to be faithful, even if the world loses faith, and even if a generation turns to degradation and depravity. Rejoice and be glad, as the Good Book says.

You know, too bad the hippie movement wasn't right, and human nature wasn't so intransient.

Too bad we couldn't do a little acid, smoke a little dope, hang out on communes and have meaningful conversations and completely open ourselves up to anyone who comes into our path. Too bad the result of all that was not a change in human nature, but a morphing of selfishness into different directions. I could've done the hippie thing for a while, become D.H. Lawrence's literary Indians, leaving in peace and harmony with our neighbors and the environment.

And too bad communism doesn't work and ends in murderous tyranny everywhere it's tried. Imagine if man could perfect himself by building the perfect system.

I had a college professor who summarized the three world views of Western civilization as:

1. Pre-modern: Adam and Eve, expelled from the Garden of Eden, wandering around trying to regain paradise.

2. Modern: Adam and Eve, losing faith in religion not believing there ever was a Garden of Eden, trying to build paradise through science, reason and technology.

3. Postmodern: Adam and Eve, lost faith in religion and truth and losing faith in science, reason and technology, not trying to do anything in particular.

But we're still trying to regain paradise, even the postmodernists, I believe. Some hold on to old ideas like Marxism or morph it into identity-as-a-social-construct and if we can control the social constructs, we can invent a new man. And thus paradise.

Or some people seek tastes of paradise through wish fulfillment of the ego, or the pleasure of the senses. Most of life is greed or grievance for either more of those two or frustration at denial of them.

Even prayer life. My Christian life frequently leads me into dangerous spiritual traps. I sometimes pray because it feels good and determine the efficacy of my prayers based on chemical changes in my body, not the response of God. Thus, I'm just doing relaxation techniques at best — or looking for another drink at worst. And here's the trap part — by determining success or failure of a prayer by feelings, I deify my feelings and place them in front of God. And I make myself like those hippies, who placed their feelings ahead of reason in the hope [a virtue] that mankind would change if only people would release themselves from attachment [true].

But releasing yourself from attachment wasn't so easy, was it?

The only one who can lead me through safely is Christ, my savior [I hope]. And the fellowship of other people of good will.

So the little ferrets on Massachusetts Supreme Court went and done it. Declared that the Massachusetts Constitution says whatever they want it to say, regardless of the text of the Constitution, the legislature or the people's views. Not to mention the traditional interpretation of the state constitution, or the values held by the people.

No, the justices say, that's all rot. What's important is our enlightened viewpoints. And who's in charge: The judges. Now, lawmakers, go make us a law we can live with.

Huh. This judicial tyranny keeps getting worse.

0001 0100
28
40

In binary, hexadecimal and decimal.

In honor of computers and all ...

Never felt better. I'm in better shape than this computer, which runs Win98 like it's 98 (decimal).

Regarding the protests in London over George W. Bush's visit. Andrew Apostolou of National Reviewcovers the material well here.

Now that I think about it, Maggie Thatcher got us involved in Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. That has caused us no end of grief throughout the 1990s. Now Apostolou says Blair got us involved in the current conflict in Iraq.

So there's no Jewish conspiracy, there's a British one. The British are using us to conduct their foreign policy again. We had to bail them out in WWI & WWII & the Cold War. Now, they're using us to straighten out the mess their empire left in Palestine and Iraq.

And we don't like it. It's expensive and not our mess.

I think the answer is the merger of the U.S. and England. England can formerly conduct foreign policy. We'll conduct domestic policy. They can have the Queen but she won't be head of state over the U.S., only her territories. Should be a lot of fun.

Then we can go back to being LEFT ALONE.

Just a thought.

Two of my co-workers are well-mannered leftists who believe, in all seriousness, that Howard Dean is far too conservative. They are likable guys, and like a people who read too much politicized material, you can tell that they read and stew and get pissed off and let it build up and then they just want to go out and throttle a political opponent.

They whisper in the cubes, and you can almost follow the conversation just from overhearing key words, "Bush ... neocons ... they really are ... fascist... oppressive ... control."

The Leftist Romance
It's gotten to the point where I wish Bush would cancel the elections in 2004 because THEY WOULD LOVE IT. It would be a dream come true — living under a strongman Bush government.

It would confirm everything they ever thought about Republicans, as well as their romantic fantasies about themselves as progressives' bravely challenging the social and political orders. It almost seems cruel to hold the elections and deny them all that wish fulfillment. But they'll survive on hope if the elections are held.

Then there's Red Ted
Meanwhile, Ted Rall has written a perfect satire of the leftist point of view. As a New Critic, my belief is the author's intentions are irrelevant.

It is a pitch-perfect ironic rendering of the romantic fantasies (i.e., the wish fulfillment of the ego) at the root of most leftist thought. Enjoy. Shame they won't get the chance to live out the fantasies.

I didn't expect this to have a second post on this topic, but Meryl Yourish has defamed* me.

I have never, ever defended Yanni, nor took exception or offense to criticism or ridicule of Yanni. These allegations are false and Mme. Yourish knows that.

My objection was her inclusion of Yanni as somehow representative of Greeks. Nonsense. (And I have no interest in his wimpy, New Age music, so don't start) I merely pointed her to other aspects of Greek culture that are more indicative of Greece. I didn't even know Yanni was Greek!

UPDATE: Guess what? Mme. Yourish's column ain't about me. There I go again, making it about me.

Meanwhile, Laurence Simon, with whom I've already had one unpleasant tussle in the blogosphere, here defames the Greeks even further.

And he gets his facts wrong. Ataturk didn't rule Greece. Greek food is not some amalgamation of Turkish food and other Mediterranean influences. Defending attacks on Jews doesn't require attacks on Greeks.

* Not in a legal sense.

UPDATE: I've been informed Simon has included a non-apology for his factual errors here. Non-apology accepted.

Tough publication to put out this week, and of course I'm behind even after swearing to myself I wouldn't allow myself to get behind. Like a thousand other times. But I'm not in terrible shape.

Have a good week.