JUS IN BELLO:

...Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

Only habeas corpus got Adel a chance to tell a federal judge what had happened. Only habeas corpus revealed that it wasn't just Adel who was innocent -- it was Abu Bakker and Ahmet and Ayoub and Zakerjain and Sadiq -- all Guantanamo "terrorists" whom the military has found innocent.

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...Fearful of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Pentagon officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a school for torture. That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.

The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE's teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantanamo went "up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile, high-value" detainees. General Hill had sent this list -- which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias -- to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.

Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture, but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month. ...

SERE methods are classified, but the program's principles are known. It sought to recreate the brutal conditions American prisoners of war experienced in Korea and Vietnam, where Communist interrogators forced false confessions from some detainees, and broke the spirits of many more, through Pavlovian and other conditioning. Prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, painful body positions and punitive control over life's most intimate functions produced overwhelming stress in these prisoners. Stress led in turn to despair, uncontrollable anxiety and a collapse of self-esteem. Sometimes hallucinations and delusions ensued. Prisoners who had been through this treatment became pliable and craved companionship, easing the way for captors to obtain the "confessions" they sought. ...

Within the SERE program, abuse is carefully controlled, with the goal of teaching trainees to cope. But under combat conditions, brutal tactics can't be dispassionately "dosed." Fear, fury and loyalty to fellow soldiers facing mortal danger make limits almost impossible to sustain.

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And Andrew Sullivan has a bunch of posts you should read (especially if you are on the Wall Street Journal editorial board...), starting here.

SOME LINKS... since I didn't post on Veterans' Day. The Imperial War Museum has a terrific website (and is an amazing museum). Here is the section on burial and remembrance; here is their complete listing of online documents and recordings on the theme of commemoration.

To grasp the significance of betrayal we must consider two independent dimensions: First, what is at stake, and second, what themis has been violated.
--Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam

GO, CHRIS SMITH. GO. (Via Andrew Sullivan.)

"MY FINEST DEATH WAS TWO CENTURIES AGO NOW." If you want a copy of the Doublethink issue with my first published short story in it, you can do one of three things:

1. You can go to the "Doubledrink Happy Hour" and pick up a copy: Tomorrow night (WEDNESDAY!!!) at the Black Rooster Pub at 1919 L Street NW from 6:30-8:00. Come say hi.

2. I heard a rumor that you can get the magazine at that newsstand right by the Farragut North K St. exit--the one at K and Connecticut. Let me know if the rumor is true!

3. ...Uh, you can email me, and I'll hook you up.

Don't be shy!

This monkey's gone to blogwatch...

Camassia: Isn't it nice when somebody else says what you were trying to say, only lots more eloquently? ...IOW, what you need Jesus for.

What Is a Christian Movie?--excerpt from new book from Act One, Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, and Culture, which I hope to read soon. Read the excerpt to know why you want to read the book! Via Church of the Masses.

Oh, and last but not least, Two Drunken Moose Invade Home for Elderly. Via E-Pression. I was nowhere near Sweden at the time!

When a leader destroys the legitimacy of the army's moral order by betraying "what's right," he inflicts manifold injuries on his men. The Iliad is a story of these immediate and devastating consequences. Vietnam has forced us to see that these consequences go beyond the war's "loss upon bitter loss... leaving so many dead men" (1:3ff) to taint the lives of those who survive it.
--Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Unmaking of Character

A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND: Following, five reasons the phrase "a good person" is bad and wrong, and often put into the service of evil. (No, I'm serious. The fact that this is a hobbyhorse of mine doesn't make it false!)

1. It divides the world into good people and bad people. "While there is a criminal element, I am in it. While there is a lower class, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free" (Eugene Debs; from memory, thus perhaps slightly misremembered). The "good person" phrase feeds complacency in those who think themselves good and despair in those who think themselves bad. Both of these responses are variations on the sin of pride.

2. It locates goodness in the wrong place: in the putatively "good person." This very cool article from Catholic Online (on hypocrisy) administers a swift slap upside the head: "It is Jesus who makes us good, not our 'goodness' that makes us Christians." And Pelagianism? Is, like, the least hopeful heresy ever.

3. It's almost always used the way "devout Catholic" is used: "I'm a good person, so I should get to do whatever I want." I pay my taxes! I'm in the PTA! So... Catholic morality doesn't apply to me. Yeah, no.

4. It cuts us off from the particular insights into human nature that are available to those who know that they are not "good people." It tends, always, to valorize conformity over alienation, go-along-to-get-along over radical personal transformation, and good-enough over sublime.

5. It sets us up for disappointment and cynicism when the "good people" are caught with their hands in somebody's till or somebody's knicks.

I think I actually hate this phrase more than I hate the bloodless, trivializing, politician phrase "the abortion issue." Growl!!!!

I'm sad to say I must be on my way
So buy me beer and whiskey 'cause I'm going far away (far away)
I'd like to think of me returning when I can
To the greatest little blogwatch and to Sally MacLennane...

Amy Welborn: School stories from New Orleans.

Colby Cosh: Best thing I've read on Paris burning. Le Corbusier and other villains.

Dappled Things: "One of my own practices, and one that I recommend to others, is to consider what particular temptations and sins we commit in life. Whether our own particular recurring sin is judgmentalism, or wrath, or pride, or this or that sin of the flesh, there are souls in Purgatory even now undergoing their purification for precisely those sins. I like to pray for those particular souls, doing my part to help them through, in the hopes that they will return the favor for me once they bask in the light of God's perfect charity. We're all in this together, and Christ has knit us together in a way that not even death can break." (more)

Plus many All Souls links.

Family Scholars: Lots of great stuff up now--reviews of Elizabeth Marquardt's excellent book on the moral and spiritual lives of children of divorce; Brad Wilcox on marriage in men's lives; an updated report on marriage in the social science literature; and much much more. Go! read!

Sed Contra: Two moving posts, one on penance and fasting and one on the nature of love.

And from USA Today, the House vs. Kelo: "The bill would withhold for two years all federal economic development funds from states and localities that use economic development as a rationale for property seizures. It also would bar the federal government from using eminent domain powers for economic development." (more) Awesome.

But it is Montecuccoli's fourth method which has the most convincing ring to modern ears, 'developing confidence'. Let the captain, he says, show that

he himself is lighthearted and full of hope by means of his facial expression, his words and his dress. His visage should be severe, his eyes intrepid and luminous, and his clothing flamboyant. He should banter with his men, be clever and witty. They will then deduce that their general could not jest and enjoy himself like that if there were any real danger, if he did not think that he was much stronger or if he did not have good reason to scorn the enemy. The troops are bound to take confidence.

'The first quality of an officer,' wrote the future Marshal Lyautey in 1894, 'is gaiety,' independently echoing the point that Montecuccoli makes.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

OH WON'T YOU STAY JUST ALITO BIT LONGER (...sorry): David Wagner on Aaaaaaaaaaalito: "If the legislature is sane, the court should refrain!"

And Balkinization has a very interesting post:

If successful, Alito's nomination will make Anthony Kennedy the median or swing Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In the past, Sandra Day O'Connor had held that powerful position, only occasionally displaced by Kennedy. Now it is largely Kennedy's, with occasional displacements by Breyer.

Put another way, to understand what Alito's appointment means for constitutional doctrine, instead of focusing on Alito's views (which one assumes are reliably conservative), one needs to focus on Kennedy's. We know that the new median Justice supports abortion rights claims a little less than O'Connor (Kennedy voted to uphold restrictions on partial birth abortion), supports gay rights claims a bit more than O'Connor (Kennedy wrote the opinion in Lawrence), thinks affirmative action is largely unconstitutional (Kennedy dissented in Grutter), thinks most campaign finance regulation is unconstitutional (Kennedy dissented (in part) in McConnell) and has been more likely to permit government endorsements of religion and state financial support for religion than O'Connor (Kennedy dissented in Mccreary County v. ACLU and joined Mitchell v. Helms). On federalism, it's a mixed bag: Kennedy joined Raich v. Ashcroft but dissented in the two most recent section five cases, Tennesee v. Lane and Hibbs. On Presidential power, the position of the new median justice, interestingly enough, appears to be unchanged. Although Rehnquist and O'Connor and Rehnquist are gone, the Administration would still have lost Hamdi, because its position was opposed by Kennedy, Scalia, Stevens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg.

more (plus comments)

GOOD NEWS: 1. Alito, yay! Am excited.

2. The final version of my short story, "Now and at the Hour," is available in the current issue of Doublethink magazine. This version is better than the one you might at some point have seen on my fiction website; moreover, I took that version down, so if you want it, Doublethink is the only place to get it. Summary: "Welcome to a future where the drugs make you think you're in West Berlin, and you can live forever if you really think you want to."

3. Tuesday is All Saints' Day. Go to church!

Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid blogwatch yellow! ...

Amy Welborn: "Welborn's Rule #1: When a person begins a sentence 'I'm a Catholic,' you know you have trouble on the way. When they begin a sentence 'I'm a devout Catholic,' you have disaster, guaranteed." (could not be more true.)

Cacciaguida: More on the Shakespeare Theatre's excellent Othello.

The Discernment Dilemma: "Maybe humor, definitely Faith, and hopefully Reason from the depressed mind of a suburban Catholic teen." Brings the Cacciaguida family blog stable to a robust four.

E-Pression: Make a mantis laugh!

And it's not every day that Alexander of Macedon writes to defend his (...okay, his namesake's) reputation from John Keegan's charges.

"Are you sure that's a blogwatch? ...Well, it's not very good, is it?"

Generalship is bad for people. As anyone intimate with military society knows only too well, the most reasonable of men suffuse with pomposity when stars touch their shoulders. Because 'general' is a word which literature uses to include in the same stable Alexander the Great and the dimmest Pentagon paper-pusher, perfectly well-balanced colonels begin to demand the deference due to the Diadochi when promoption carries them to the next step in rank.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

And Lorca the blogwatch poet they left 'til last...

Camassia: "But does the body have a vote on reality, as the mind does? In other words, if somebody insists that he's actually female and his body says otherwise, who do we listen to?" (more)

Jeremiads:

The fourth chapter of my book will wrestle with hypocrisy in Hollywood. I'm looking for two kinds of information:

1) Quotes by celebs condemning hypocrites or hypocrisy. If you send these in, please identify the source of the quotation.

2) Famous hypocrites in film. Obvious candidates include Captain Renault in Casablanca, Robert Duvall in The Apostle, and Steve Martin in Leap of Faith.

Have at it folks. My e-mail address is JEREMYAL123 -- AT -- YAHOO -- DOT -- COM.

(more)

I sent him this list: The evil preacher played by Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter"; Amerigo Bonasera, the guy at the very beginning of "The Godfather Pt I" who asks the Godfather for a favor on his daughter's wedding day; Sidney Falco in "Sweet Smell of Success"; the main character in "Election"--Matthew Broderick's character; Angela Lansbury's character in "The Manchurian Candidate" count; Bialystok and Bloom, from "The Producers"; and Jimmy Stewart's character in "Rope"--a reverse hypocrite, when the rubber hits the road he isn't a Nietzschean after all but an adherent of ordinary morality.

Mark Shea: "John Paul taught that the mark of original sin was the loss of the apprehension of God as Father. When a culture is dominated by original sin and gives in to the abandonment of God, they don't get nothing--they get the apprehension of God as Master." (more)

And the Wall Street Journal on what you have to do to get into the University of California system: "'Christian Morality in American Literature' is biased. 'Feminine Perspectives in Literature' is not." (oh yeah, you know you want more)

Last--but by no means least--why did no one tell me that I NEEDED THE POGUES?! "The Sickbed of CuChulainn" may be the best drunk-rock song ever recorded, ever. They actually made me love a song called "Sally MacLennane," which should have been an impossible task. ...Like an even-better-than-the-real-thing version of my most beloved pub, my personal version of George Orwell's "Moon Under Water," Anna Liffey's in New Haven. Where the vodka tonics are always fresh and sweet, the bar girls likewise, and nobody ever has to go home.

I'm a free-born man of the U.S.A....

America, it has been said, is a country dominated by the dimension not of time--as is Europe, trammelled by its history--but of space.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

If anyone has any thoughts a'tall on how this quotation might relate to the differences between Death in Venice and Lolita, please email me, as it's something I'm working on right now.

YALE'S FINEST PUBLICATION has a new and exciting website.

As [Wellington] pressed on closer to the retreating enemy, one of his staff urged him not to take any more risks. 'Never mind,' he answered. 'Let them fire away. The battle's gained. My life's of no consequence now.' About 10 his progress across the battlefield brought him close to La Belle Alliance. There Blucher, reeking of gin and liniment, was waiting to throw an embrace round him. 'Mein lieber Kamerad,' he exclaimed, 'quelle affaire.' The old Prussian's few words of French were the only language they had in common.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

IT MIGHT BE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS... BUT IS IT REALLY WORTH $16.95?: Comics reviews.

Finder: The Rescuers. The latest installment of the "aboriginal science fiction" series; two interlocking plotlines, plus one backstory (and a twist revealed at the end), all centering on children in jeopardy. One plotline mirrors the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, with all the attendant upstairs-downstairs drama and suspicion. One plotline concerns an aboriginal woman who has, in a development her tribe would consider disastrous if they knew, given birth to twins. The first link between the two stories is geographical: The twins' mother lives on the pseudo-Lindberghs' estate, as part of an encampment that serves as a kind of tourist attraction. Jaeger, the half-aboriginal (? I think) "finder" of the title, is the second link: a member (? again, not clear on the details) of the twins' mother's tribe, and a supernaturally skilled detective who hunts for the baby's kidnapper.

So, the good stuff: The plots are both highly suspenseful. You really want to know what will happen in the kidnapping investigation, whether the twins will live, and what will happen to their mother if they do.

Once again, the book has all kinds of intriguing, rough-edged details that make the Finder world feel real. My favorite from this book is probably the television kudzu that grows all over the city. It's visually striking, and it plays to Carla Speed McNeil's themes of celebrity, the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of human culture and technology, and the image of the city as another kind of wilderness. It's funny and feels right.

McNeil's loopy, organic drawings have a lovely movement, partly a vegetable or vine-growth and partly a dance. All her characters are distinctively drawn, and their facial features provide part of the clues we (and the characters surrounding them) use to fit them into the larger cultural picture.

The not-so-much: Jaeger continues to skate on very thin ice separating him from the deadly waters of Jaeger-Sueness. I'm pretty sure he's not supposed to be wrong even once in this book (which was not true in earlier Finder books). He's way too voice-of-hard-earned-wisdom. I still really like the character, but I'm also still afraid that McNeil is slowly succumbing to his charms; that would be bad.

More importantly, I didn't get the impression that this book added up. It felt like a jumbled heap of examples of "rescuers," but that's not the same as actually saying or showing something about rescuing. Am I missing something? Why is this story being told? I don't feel like I understand rescuing, or what it's like to be forced into the role of rescuer, or cultural differences, or any of the book's other themes, better than I did before I read it.

My recommendation remains what it's been for a while: Read Finder: Sin Eater I & II. Those are awesome. If you want more after that, try Dream Sequence. Unless I'm really missing something, I'd have to put The Rescuers somewhere further down the list, which is unfortunate since it does have a compelling plot and what should have been a powerful theme.

The Pulse, vol. 2: In which, in only the second volume!!!, Marvel/Bendis/whoever forgets what the point of this series is. Why does this series exist? To tell stories about the intersection of journalism and superheroics in the Marvel Universe. This series exists to show J. Jonah Jameson vs. Jessica Jones vs. the world. This is not a series about Nick Fury's random political troubles. I guess this was part of a crossover or something? It really felt like a story that could have taken place anywhere, with any characters, totally not distinctive to Jessica or to the Daily Bugle setting. Hulk smash, man.

Rising Stars of Manga vol. 5: So I actually bought this because the winning story, "Mail Order Ninja," is written by Friend of This Blog Joshua Elder. And "MON" is fun! It's a light, fluffy story about a kid who orders a ninja by mail, and the various troubles and hijinks that ensue. Like an ice cream frog from the Good Humor man: cool, sweet, a little geeky, fun while it lasts.

The runners-up are a mixed bag. None rise to the level of "you must buy this now!", at least not for me, but some were cool and I'll keep an eye out for other work by the creators. Here's the rundown:

"Baggage," by Roald Munoz: Guy can see, and carry, the "emotional baggage" carried by others. Super-angsty premise, lightweight plot; nonetheless the drawing style is all funky and what I think they're calling "kinetic," with lots of extreme angles and other stuff that I do find fun.

"Can I Sit Here?", by George Alexopolous: Teen-angst storylet about a guy who can't work up the nerve to ask if he can sit next to the girl he sees every day at the bus stop. I actually liked this a lot. The endearing, self-deprecating humor in both the writing and the artwork really worked for me. I hated the "lady or the tiger?" cop-out ending, though. Pick an ending and stick with it, doggoneit!

"Chibi Zombies," by Ashley Cope: Uh, I don't really know what a "chibi" is. I wasn't the target audience for this. I found it icky and dull. Possibly if you know what a chibi is, chibi zombies are hilarious.

"Modus Vivendi," by Jeong Mo, Yang and Andrew Yi: Parody of destined-hero-and-destined-sword fantasy schlock. Not my thing.

"Pop Star," by T. Campbell and Amy Mebberson: Fictionalized version of Britney vs. ...uh, some other pop star, not sure who. Very cute drawings, ultimately not nearly sharp enough satire to carry the premise.

"Seed," by Morgan Luthi: Cliched but painless story of two rival sisters reconciling as they try to fix the giant robot that provides their village with its sustenance. Giant robot in the rain = fun.

"Blue Phoenix: No Quarter," by Michael Shelfer: Sub-X-Men fantasy/sci-fi cliches a-go-go. (Can I use more dashes?) Really, I did not get why this was even a runner-up.

JUS IN BELLO: Via Andrew Sullivan, how people die in U.S. custody:

An Iraqi detainee (also described as a white male) died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad, Iraq, while being interrogated by "OGA." [= "other government agency," often, I think, CIA --Eve] He was standing, shackled to the top of a door frame with a gag in his mouth at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and blunt force injuries. Notes summarizing the autopsies record the circumstances of death as "Q by OGA, gagged in standing restraint." (Facts in the autopsy report appear to match the previously reported case of Abdul Jaleel.)

* A detainee was smothered to death during an interrogation by Military Intelligence on November 26, 2003, in Al Qaim, Iraq. A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of General Mowhoush, lists "asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression" as the cause of death and cites bruises from the impact with a blunt object. New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as "Q by MI, died during interrogation."

* A detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison, captured by Navy Seal Team number seven, died on November 4, 2003, during an interrogation by Navy Seals and "OGA." A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of Manadel Al Jamadi, shows that the cause of his death was "blunt force injury complicated by compromised respiration." New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as "Q by OGA and NSWT died during interrogation."

* An Afghan civilian died from "multiple blunt force injuries to head, torso and extremities" on November 6, 2003, at a Forward Operating Base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (Facts in the autopsy report appear to match the previously reported case of Abdul Wahid.)

* A 52-year-old male Iraqi was strangled to death at the Whitehorse detainment facility on June 6, 2003, in Nasiriyah, Iraq. His autopsy also revealed bone and rib fractures, and multiple bruises on his body. (Facts in the autopsy report appear to match the previously reported case of Nagm Sadoon Hatab.)

more

FOIA document dump here. (Via Hit & Run.)

That's why the Bush administration is wrong about this, and why it matters.

HOW LIVEJOURNAL WAS MADE: Fun stuff, including this: "There have been glitches along the road to success. Last year, LJ crashed for two days when someone at one of the offices pushed 'a big red button' that cut power to the servers. 'They thought it opened the door to the bathroom,' sighs Fitzpatrick." (more)

But simply because Alexander chose to pursue glory within the dramatic unities of time, place and action that warfare imposes upon those who practise it, the perfection of his performance should not blind us to the harshly limited nature of his achievement. He destroyed much and created little or nothing. The Persian empire, a force for order in the ancient world, to summarize its function at its lowest, did not survive the Alexandrian conquest. Within a generation of his death, it had been torn to pieces by the quarrels of his successors, the Diadochi. The conquest itself was made at the cost of great suffering to many, not only to the Persians who opposed the Macedonian invasion but to the disparate peoples of the empires whose lives were disrupted by it and who reacted to disruption in what Alexander called insurrection and rebellion.

One of his most perceptive biographers, N.E.L. Hammond, juxtaposes with a list of his good qualities a list of his bad: 'his overweening ambition, his remorseless will, his passionate indulgence in unrestrained emotion, his readiness to kill in combat, in passion and in cold blood and to have rebellious communities destroyed. He had many of the qualities of the noble savage.' And that, perhaps, is the 'real' Alexander that the mask of his command of himself conceals. There is the nobility of self-forgetting in his life--danger forgotten, fatigue forgotten, hunger and thirst forgotten, wounds forgotten. But they were forgotten with the amnesia of savagery, to which all who opposed his will were subject. His dreadful legacy was to ennoble savagery in the name of glory and to leave a model of command that far too many men of ambition sought to act out in the centuries to come.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

Stop your messing around,
Better think of your blogwatch...

Balkinization: Must-read (for right and left) post on the Miers maneuvering.

MarriageDebate: Me vs. gay marriage! Series of posts starts here; includes God vs. heterosexuals; the next St. Valentines; and atheist cathedrals. I strongly suggest you read the entire series of posts first, then hit the comments-boxes for various objections and my responses. I really think that strategy is the best way to get a sense of what I'm actually arguing, even if you still disagree.

The Cornell Society for a Good Time. Via Mark Shea.

Rosa Parks, R.I.P.

Alexander, we may guess from his later reactions, guessed from their attempt to strengthen their position that they had no stomach for a fight and could be devastated if brought under physical attack. Certainly it would be the case in all his subsequent engagements that he took any improvisation of field defences as an invitation to boldness and always attacked precisely at the point the enemy had sought to make attack most difficult.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

BLOGS FROM IRAQ: Iraqi citizens; US soldiers; other folk. Some defunct blogs. Still a good resource. Iraq Blog Count is another one, more comprehensive and focused on Iraqis rather than just anybody blogging from Iraq. Via Oxblog.

But theatricality was at the very heart of Alexander's style of leadership, as perhaps it must be of any leadership style. Throughout the Alexander story, acts of theatre recur at regular intervals. Daily, of course, he had to make sacrifice to the gods; in Macedonian culture, only the king could perform that central religious act. Bizarre though it seems to us, therefore, his day began with his plunging of a blade into the living body of an animal and his uttering of prayer as the blood flowed. Before Gaugamela, uniquely in his whole kingship, he performed sacrifice in honour of Fear.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

READ THIS BOOK OR I SHOOT THE DOG!: Two weeks ago I finished Elizabeth Marquardt's new book, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. You can read excerpts here. Basically, this book is amazing, and everyone should read it, right now.

The book is based on two interlocking research projects: a nationally-representative survey of 1,500 young adults, and the in-depth interviews on which the survey questions were based. She interviewed 70 young adults with at least a college degree: 35 from intact families, 35 from divorced families who had ongoing contact with both parents. By focusing on college graduates and people who had maintained relationships with both parents, she hoped to screen out most of the worst-case scenarios--she wasn't interested so much in the well-documented research showing that people whose parents divorce are at greater risk of low educational attainment, criminal involvement, etc. In the nationally-representative survey, respondents' families were divided into low-conflict intact, high-conflict intact, low-conflict divorced, and high-conflict divorced. Marquardt wanted to study how even "good divorces" affect children's moral and spiritual development: how children learn who they are, what is true, what is the right thing to do, how to understand and approach God.

What she learned is that there is, essentially, an undiscovered culture in this country: the culture of children of divorce. Their experiences, in general, differ from the experiences of children from intact families in a host of ways. They're much more likely to focus on and monitor their parents' emotions and needs from a very young age; much more likely to feel as though they were "a different person" with each parent; much more likely to have felt physically unsafe as a child. Beyond the abstractions and statistics, Marquardt really delves into how divorce is experienced--how children grow, and are strengthened by the challenges they face; but how even "resilient" children, "little adults," suffer, often very deeply.

Marquardt is very clear that she isn't saying all divorces are wrong. She isn't calling for legal changes to make divorce more difficult (at least not in this book--I don't know her position on such changes). She isn't blaming divorced parents. She has a strong relationship with her own parents, who supported her in her research, and it's clear that she loves them very much and knows that they both love her. But she does hope that by pointing out the often-hidden struggles children of divorce undergo, she will encourage more people in difficult marriages to work out their troubles and stay together.

This is a profound, moving book. A very good review is here if you need more before you spend your shekels.

GOOD, BASIC PIECE ON CHRISTIANS' RESPONSE TO DETAINEE-TREATMENT ISSUES:

President Bush faces a defining question of morality on which he has yet to receive any discernible guidance from the faith-based coalition that helped put him in office. The question: whether it is ever right for Americans to inflict cruel and degrading treatment on suspected terrorist detainees. ...

I do not know how others would advise the President theologically on these matters, but as a convinced Christian who has tried for 20 years to apply principles of evangelical faith to issues of human rights, here are three principles of a biblical worldview that seem applicable:

* The state has the authority to protect its citizens by detaining criminals and using force to restrain those who seek to destroy innocent life.

* All those whom the state detains retain the image of God and are due a standard of care required by God.

* Because the power of the state over detainees is exercised by fallen human beings, that power must be limited by clear boundaries, and individuals exercising such power must be transparently accountable.

Therefore, even if it is expedient to inflict cruelty and degradation on a prisoner during interrogation (and experts seem very much divided on this question), in my view, the moral teachings of Christ, the Torah and the Prophets do not permit it for those who bear the Imago Dei.

more (via Godspy)

My take here.

THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG: Kevin Seamus Hasson, head of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, has a new book out on the moral and metaphysical/spiritual case for religious freedom. I've read some of his speeches on which portions of the book are based, and if the book is anything like those speeches, there will be a lot of real, hardcore philosophical work being done, presented in clear and easily-grasped language. Hasson's work is deeply influenced by Pope John Paul II, especially Fides et Ratio and Veritatis Splendor, but he does not share the great pope's often Germanic writing style! Anyway, here's a small hint of what's in the book; I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Some people say they [Muslims] need a Reformation that separates mosque and state. I've argued that what they really need is a Vatican II: They need to discover within the roots of their own tradition the human truth that undergirds religious liberty: Coercing conscience is wrong, because human beings are born with an innate thirst for transcendence, a demand to search for the true and the good, and the need to express that truth in public, not just private. And that can only be done with integrity when it's done freely. That development within Islam would go a long, long way towards guaranteeing the religious freedom of people in Islamic countries. Muslims and Christians can't agree on who God is, but we can agree on who we are.

NRO: Do you think there's any real interest in this idea in Islamic countries?

Hasson: Well, I've been invited twice to make religious-liberty arguments on Al Jazeera. So yes, I know first-hand there is an enormous hunger out there, especially among young people, for a new vision about how one can build a democratic, stable, and free society without incorporating atheism into the heart of government. State-sponsored atheism is how many of them see the current church/state separation as typically promoted in the West. That's another thing we're trying to change, with this book, The Right to Be Wrong, as well as in a host of other ways at the Becket Fund.

more

Amazon link to the book.

MARRIAGE DEBATE: Maggie Gallagher is guest-blogging on same-sex marriage at the Volokh Conspiracy. Maggie--my new ex-boss, so if you want my resume, drop me a line!--may be the most brilliant person I've ever met. She's insightful, intellectually honest, steeped in the current research on marriage and family life, and... yeah, I could go on, but really you should just read her posts. The Volokh.com posts are kind of disconnected, a problem made worse by the blog-protocol of posts appearing in reverse chronological order, so I suggest that people read from the bottom up. (You can get just Maggie's posts at this link, but since a few other Volokhites have chimed in, you might not want to do it that way.) If you want more, there is an excellent debate between Maggie and Jonathan Rauch here. ...Next week, Dale Carpenter will respond to Maggie's posts, at Volokh.com.

Here's a small tidbit from an early Maggie post:

Here's my short answer: marriage serves many private and individual purposes. But its great public purpose, the thing that justifies its existence as a unique legal status, is protecting children and society by creating sexual unions in which children are (practically) guaranteed the love and care of their own mother and father.

The vast majority of children born to married couples begin life with their own mother and fathers committed to jointly caring for them. Only a minority of children in other sexual unions (and none in same-sex unions) get this benefit.

Sex makes babies. Society needs babies. Babies need fathers as well as mothers. That's the heart of marriage as a universal human institution.

Please note: Procreation is not the definition of marriage. It is the reason for marriage's existence as a public (and yes legal) institution. People who don't have children can still really be married (just as people who aren't married can and do have babies).

But if sex between men and women did not make babies, then marriage would not be a universal human institution, or a legal status in America. Yes, many people like intimacy--is that a good reason for the government to stamp the good housekeeping seal of approval on certain intimate relationships, but not others?

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KITCHEN ADVENTURE: I FIGHT TO THE FINISH...: This is very simple, but delectable and easily adaptable. I had never cooked spinach before; I cheated and used a bag of prewashed leaves. I strongly recommend cheating in this way. The alternative, apparently, involves filling your entire sink with water and spinach, and then eating the spinach that has been in your manky old sink. No thanks.

Anyway, I used: Various cloves of garlic, chopped; cheatingly prewashed spinach; olive oil; button (= plain old white) mushrooms, thickly sliced; Boursin cheese with black pepper. The Boursin is relatively pricey but utterly scrumptious: kinda crumbly, and intensely flavorful, rich and creamy and peppery-herby.

Basically, I sauteed the garlic and mushrooms in the olive oil until they were both golden. Then I added the spinach. I knew it would cook down, but didn't realize it would cook down so dramatically--next time I will use lots more spinach. You have to stir this constantly to prevent the garlic from browning, but your total saute time is only about two minutes, so it's not a big deal. When everything looked and smelled good, I dumped it in a bowl and added a big chunk of the Boursin, which melted and melded the dish together. It was rich, managing to be both homey and lustrous. I'm going to try this again with buttered spaghetti. You could probably also use it to top buttered toast, especially a thick and flavorful toasted French bread.

DEPT. OF WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE:

One of the reasons why I'm not particularly sanguine about our transhumanist future is that human ethical constraints are in large part a product of genetic coding. I do not buy the argument that rational self interest by itself provides enough basis to maintain a civilized society. Well, once biotechnology provides ways to enhance the ability to lie and the ability to feel less remorse or guilt won't some people opt to use this technology? Mightn't there even be a sort of mental arms race where people find it necessary to enhance their ability to deceive in order to protect themselves from other deceivers?

more (via Dappled Things, or maybe the Club for Growth....)

Heroic leadership--any leadership--is, like priesthood, statesmanship, even genius, a matter of externals almost as much as of internalities. The exceptional are both shown to and hidden from the mass of humankind, revealed by artifice, presented by theatre. The theatrical impulse will be strong in the successful politician, teacher, entrepreneur, athlete, or divine, and will be both expected and reinforced by the audiences to which they perform.
--John Keegan, The Mask of Command

GOOD BASIC POINT: "Don't underestimate the ISF. While much has been made over here about the paucity of Iraqi units that are both at battallion strength and able to function independently, these figures ignore the fact that plenty of Iraqi units are quite capable of holding towns with a little Coalition support." (Cacciaguida, on his son's tour in Iraq)

MICKEY KAUS VS. UNIONS: here and here.

JUS IN BELLO: Bad news from Nephew. "'It's not that we want to go beat Iraqis, it's just that you don't want to pass a law saying beating Iraqis is bad,' a senior defense official told reporters recently." Because humans avoid abuse of power in the absence of rules prohibiting same. It's why we're so peaceful!

Also:

As a Roman Catholic, I went against Pope John Paul II in arguing for the invasion of Iraq. This was not done in a fit of nationalistic zeal. This was done after careful deliberation, with an eye toward the liberation of the Iraqi people on humanitarian grounds. However, my support of the administration, and of the Republican Party, is tempered by my faith. I cannot, in good conscience, support the use of torture against our adversaries. It is contrary to the teachings of the Church; it is contrary to my sense of what America is and should be; it is contrary to the moral precepts around which I supported the war in the first place. More importantly for you, Senator, I cannot support an American politician that would vote in favor of a policy that includes torture.

Senator Cornyn, I have been a supporter of yours in the past. I will not abandon that support based on one inflammatory article alone. However, I cannot reconcile your vote with the moral needs of our nation. Without a suitable explanation, I am afraid I will have to work against you in the next election, and thereby encourage all Catholics in Texas to do the same.

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"WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT" was a ton of fun. Ratty and I saw it this past weekend. There definitely was more adult-directed and slightly naughty humor than in previous installments, but not to an irritating or coarse extent. The final chase scene was fantastic--I thought it was as good as the train chase from The Wrong Trousers. Yes, the plot is predictable, and the anti-hunting message is tiresome. (Unintentionally amusing, though: The "humane" methods of rabbit control are lifetime imprisonment, brainwashing experiments, and a "sanctuary" that seems to ignore the fact that bunnies burrow. With these options, just shooting the little blighters seems much more sensible!) But Wallace is sweet, as always; and Gromit is put-upon, dutiful, and possessed of the world's most expressive eyebrows. Go see it!

JUS IN BELLO: By now, you already know that the Senate voted "90-9 to approve an amendment that would prohibit the use of 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held." The nine nay votes are
Wayne Allard, R-Colorado,
Christopher S. Bond, R-Missouri,
Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma,
Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi,
John Cornyn, R-Texas,
James M. Inhofe, R-Oklahoma,
Pat Roberts, R-Kansas,
Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama,
and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.
Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey, didn't cast a vote.

Thomas Nephew has lots of rule-mongering on what happens now, in the House, plus suggestions on what can be done to ensure the restrictions aren't gutted.

THIS IS THE ONLY LIST I'VE RUN ACROSS with relief links for the terrible earthquake in South Asia. So obviously, I don't endorse all these organizations. But consider finding one that you can support.

They had it coming
They had it coming
They had it coming all along
I didn't blogwatch
But if I'd blogwatched
How could you tell me that I was wrong?

Hi, honey, I'm home.

HispanicPundit: Good economic articles. You know, Friedman, Bastiat, and "I, Pencil," and all that fun stuff. And Paul Krugman! Via the Club for Growth blog.

Holy Office: "Jesus Rescued in Daring Commando Raid." Plus best response I've seen to "WWJD?"

CNN/Money: "How will eminent domain be applied in the Gulf Coast?" ...Probably via Hit & Run.

The British Library has this huge, amazing Shakespeare resource page. Not just all the plays in quarto, so you can go all compare-and-contrast-y on different texts; but archival recordings of, for example, John Gielgud as Puck (?!) and John Barrymore as Richard of Gloucester. (Find the recordings by going here and clicking on the play you want to hear.) Enjoy! (via Angevin2.)

DOLPHINS SING "BATMAN" THEME. Actually I'm very anti-dolphin--those smug, smiling Hippies of the Sea--but even I have to admit that this is awesome. Via DLB.

LIVING MEMENTO: IS HAPPINESS WORTH LOSING YOUR MEMORY?

URGENT--ANTI-TORTURE VOTE EXPECTED TONIGHT

more.

If you want background, try this and this.

WEEKLY STANDARD ON DETAINEE TREATMENT:

FOOL ME ONCE, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. When it comes to detaining prisoners seized in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the other fronts of the terror war, the Pentagon's "just-trust-us" mentality continues to undercut American strategy. Thankfully, Congress is at last on the verge of doing what the administration clearly cannot: set clear standards for the treatment of detainees. ...

...[T]he Pentagon is itself currently in the midst of a drag-out fight on Capitol Hill to stop Congress from enshrining the same Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for its interrogations. The relevant legislation--proposed by Senator John McCain and supported by a who's who of retired military and intelligence officers--would go a long way toward ending the climate of confusion and uncertainty that has contributed to abuses at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere.

In opposing the legislation, the Pentagon argues that it is not Congress's place to be arbiter of the rules for treatment of detainees, insisting that it alone should wield that power. It also warns, as spokesman Lawrence DiRita put it in a recent op-ed in USA Today, that by establishing a clear standard for interrogations, the amendment would "hamper the country's ability to readily adapt and update interrogation methods from Al Qaeda detainees who we know are trained to resist known interrogation techniques."

NEITHER OF THESE ARGUMENTS ARE PERSUASIVE.

more (via The Corner, I think)

WHO'S YOUR DADDY? My column in the National Catholic Register:

Who are a child's parents?

It seems like a simple question--the kid's mom and dad, right? The people who made the baby.

But for decades, legal and technological changes have been reshaping families, as reproductive techniques like sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogate motherhood become far more embedded in our culture than most of us realize.

Now we have kids with two moms, four moms, or none at all.

These technologies, and the legal tangles they create, have shifted us to an understanding of family that pretends bodies don't matter, and denies children's need for their own mother and father. Here are only a few examples of how what we might call "third-party reproduction" is reshaping our culture; hundreds such stories emerge every month.

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If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a bloooooooooooooooogwatch!

Amy Welborn: Really good post on seminary visitation stuff.

Flos Carmeli defends Keats's poetry and says he did have a philosophy. I dunno man, still not convinced, but have reached the limit of my own understanding of my initial claim, so perhaps should draw back....

Harriett Miers nomination stuff: Ramesh Ponnuru has a few questions. Rick Brookhiser looks on the bright side. Ninomania on the dangers both of Bush's nominations pose for those seeking to strengthen a conservative legal intellectual movement. Todd Zywicki of Los Volokh on changing the legal culture, and why Miers probably won't.

And this article alerts me to the best title ever for an academia novel: Eating People Is Wrong. Hee. The article identifies the typical subject of an academia novel as "the limits of liberalism" (or something like that--have already closed link and can't be bothered to reopen)--would be interesting to see how many campus novels from the students' perspective take the same theme. You should read The Secret History. For example. Though that's more about the limits of modernity than about the limits of liberalism specifically.

The candles blew and then disappeared;
The blogwatch blew and then he appeared...

Unqualified Offerings: "So the Department of Defense wants to get rid of homosexuals who want to serve and keep the ones who don't. They are our shock troops in the War Against the Mirror People, perhaps." Also, best title so far for post on "don't ask, don't tell."

Mike Walsh replies to my post on philosophy and poetry. I can't tell if this cuts in favor of my suspicions or against them:

Interesting post on the Romantics. A writer whose name I should remember but escapes me now once referred to Romanticism as "spilt religion." I've always thought that what the Romantics with all their lushness were trying to do was effect a kind of pagan eucharist, a transcendent made immanent by means of symbols (which Voegelin describes as the definition of magic). To do, perhaps, what Wallace Stevens was trying to get at in "The Emperor of Ice Cream": "let be be finale of seem."

Ah! It was T.E. Hulme in "Romanticism and Classicism."

And you can still enter my contest! I'll post the entries early next week, I think.

SIM SOLIDARNOSC: Kinda cool. Ultimately via Dappled Things.

THEY'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!: "First Giant Squid Captured in Wild (on Film, That Is)." A picture here. Via CM and IKM.

WHAT HAS ATHENS TO DO WITH PARNASSUS?: So Ratty and I were yapping last night (when I should have been asleep, but instead was up bothering her) and she told me about a course she's taking on the Romantic poets. Now, I actually find Romanticism interesting in theory, but the Romantic poets generally boring; nonetheless our conversation sparked a very small thought, which is that poets typically do poorly when their poetry is unsupported by some kind of underlying philosophical spine. It doesn't have to be a rigorously worked-out philosophy, or even an especially strongly-held one, but there has to be something there, some set of ideas and beliefs, to prevent the poet from wavering off into gassiness. I think you can see a set of beliefs in Shakespeare's sonnets, for example, and obviously in Emily Dickinson. Keats, on the other hand, strikes me as a talented poet severely weakened by a tendency to lushness in absence of philosophy. (And this weakness of Keats in turn weakened Anne Carson's interesting mess, The Beauty of the Husband.)

Here are some other poets I do like, but whose work lacked (in my opinion) a philosophical spine--in rough order of how much they overcame this weakness:
Christina Rossetti
Robert Browning
Philip Larkin

Other examples, counterexamples, related thoughts, disputes?

Tell me that you blogwatch,
Sort out this confusion...

MyCatholic.com--nifty thing you can use to follow the liturgical calendar, Catholic news, blogs, and much more.

The Bible Literacy Project, for which I worked briefly, has released their textbook for a Bible course suitable for public schools. Some comments:

"The volume is well done. ...I was quite taken with the abundance of supplementary materials included in the text--the artwork (highly variegated and well-chosen), the insets about the Bible in subsequent literature, the Bible in political life, etc. All this, I think is likely to help students see concretely how the Bible is not just a set of ancient documents or something confined to pulpit and Sunday school, but a series of powerful writings that have had, and continue to have, profound effects on a whole range of our cultural institutions and on the way we think about the world."
--Robert Alter, Ph.D., professor of Hebrew and comparative literature, University of California at Berkeley

"This text is a feast for the mind, the eye, and the heart. Instructive, beautiful, and engaging, it promises to keep THE seminal works of the Western tradition alive for generations of young people."
--Amy A. Kass, Ph.D., senior lecturer in the humanities at the University of Chicago and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute

"Let me say how impressed I am by this ... It is clear that much hard work and good scholarship have gone into the text. The instructional design is excellent. This promises to be an outstanding resource for public schools."
--Charles C. Haynes, Ph.D., senior scholar, First Amendment Center, Arlington, Virginia

"The influence of the Bible on Western culture in every respect--arts and literature, politics and justice--is immeasurable. Thanks to this volume, students can begin to get some sense of the range of that influence. Despite the sensitivity of the subject matter, this volume succeeds in being admirably balanced and fair, and yet accords full respect to sincere religious faith. Too long the Bible has been selectively ignored by educators afraid of giving offense. This volume makes it possible to once again bring into the classroom the book which has had the single greatest impact on Western civilization."
--Frederica Mathewes-Green, M.A., author and commentator

"It is, on the whole, an excellent job. It will serve as an excellent and even-handed introduction to the Bible. Without question, it can serve as the basis for a constitutional course about the Bible in the Nation's public schools. It is therefore a signal achievement."
--Marc D. Stern, general counsel, American Jewish Congress

"This text provides an extraordinarily helpful background--the Bible's impact on literature, the arts, and life. If anyone is looking for a comprehensive academic understanding of the roots of modern civilization, this book is an indispensable resource."
--Chuck Colson, author and Founder, Prison Fellowship

"To be considered fully literate in the arts and letters of Western culture, one needs to know the Hebrew Bible, one of the cornerstones of this culture. This volume provides students with the necessary tools to attain such literacy."
--Ellen Frankel, Ph.D., CEO and editor-in-chief of The Jewish Publication Society

lots more here!

And Michael Baldwin, a fellow Yalien life form and former contributor to Yale's Finest Publication, tells me about his new project, CommonCensus, which sounds interesting:

It recognizes the fact that the political borders of the US today often have very little to do with the actual distribution of people in the country, and how "undemocratic" this can be viewed as. However, until now, no one has been able to put together a map of the US made "by the people, for the people."

This new website relies on tallying the voting results from hundreds of thousands of participants to "redraw" the map of the United States. Once it has this participation level, it will show exactly how people within the US segment themselves.

The maps will answer questions like, where exactly is the line between people who see themselves as part of NYC, and those who see themselves as part of Upstate NY? If it were up to the people and the places they identify with, how many states would the US have and what would they look like? Do the people within the same county feel like their local government represents them, or do they feel like they should belong to another area?

site is here

IF YOU HAVE A SENATOR, now might be a good time to get in touch:

Sen. John McCain, decrying new allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, on Sunday backed an amendment to force the American military to live up to its international obligations under the Geneva Convention and "not engage in torture" of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain (R-Ariz.) was responding to complaints by Army Capt. Ian Fishback and two sergeants, who all served with the 82nd Airborne Division. Their description of routine harsh treatment of captives in Iraq parallels the abuse caught in photographs at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad and was contained in a Human Rights Watch report issued Friday by the advocacy group. ...

"I don't know if these allegations are true," McCain said. "But they have to be investigated. We've got to make it clear to the world that America doesn't do it. It's not about prisoners. It's about us."

Fishback and the sergeants said prisoners taken during the siege of Fallouja were kicked and beaten, their bones broken and skin and eyes doused with chemical irritants. In addition, some prisoners were forced to form human pyramids, and others were made to hold heavy water jugs with their arms outstretched. ...

McCain, himself a victim of torture while a prisoner during the Vietnam War, made it clear Sunday that he did not believe that the military, including Pentagon leaders, had gotten the message that the United States must obey the Geneva Convention and abstain from torture.

He said he and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another committee member, were proposing an amendment to a defense bill requiring the military to abide by the Geneva dictates. ...

Told that the White House was opposed to such an amendment and that the president might veto the bill if the amendment were included, McCain said he was unsure whether there were enough votes in the Senate to override it.

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KATRINA: Times-Picayune says reports of murder and mayhem at Superdome and Convention Center were greatly exaggerated. Excellent news, if true. Via SRD.

Prisoners left for days in chest-high water, without food.

ETA: Especially in light of the first link, there, I should note that the report about prisoner treatment has been questioned as well. I tend to believe that people will abandon prisoners just about whenever the opportunity presents itself, because it so often happens; but still, I wasn't there and certainly hope this report was exaggerated.

MORE SEMINARY STUFF: Dappled Things: "The second problem with this line of thinking is, as Fr Fox again points out, that even though you spend five years in an all-male environment, you end up spending the rest of your life in an environment that surrounds you with vast numbers of females."

"THE SINS OF THE SEMINARIES": Amy Welborn talks sense in the NY Times.

...A seminary has a dual responsibility. It owes the future priest preparation for a life of sacrifice, unique witness and engagement with other human beings at moments of joy and pain in a society that has no respect for his vocation.

But a seminary also owes us, the people in the pews, psychologically mature priests who aren't engaged in an eternal and ego-driven struggle with their own problems, who are prepared to serve, to teach and preach--with integrity and honesty.

more

...For my part, I wish I had something constructive to say about the Gay Stuff which has gotten all the press, but really, I don't. You can read David Morrison's comments here and here. (ETA: Cacciaguida presents a good case-for-rumored-regs here, but the first two comments make the points that I would've made.) All I got is this:

1. I didn't become Catholic because I thought the Vatican always got everything right. I mostly agree with Morrison's take on the whole "blanket ban on same-sex attracted seminarians" possibility/probability/rumor. So if they go with that idea, I think that's lame. If you think it's lame and it really bothers you (I can't tell if it really bothers me or not, because I'm stressing out about a lot of other things, several related to this issue, already), there are things you can do:

2. You can pray. I'm thinking a novena to St. Joseph. I've never prayed a novena before, so hey, opportunity. Lame, changeable Vatican regulatory decisions shouldn't mess with your spiritual life.

3. You can remind yourself of the possibility of heroism and sanctity. For me, this probably means Netflix'ing "Therese" and watching it again. Other people will have other means. But the point is, embrace the Cross. You'll have to do it anyway, so might as well do it now and with as much good grace as you can muster.

4. Relatedly, you can attain perspective. I find three hours at the pregnancy center helps a lot with this one. God asks all of us to do terribly difficult things. Many lives are slow martyrdoms or intermittent ones, with intense sweetness but equally intense pain and bitterness. Find the sources of sweetness--for me, with Gay Stuff, it's generally friendship, insight, and creative energy--and offer up the rest to God.

5. You can go to Confession and receive the Eucharist.

BALKINIZATION has a guest blogger focusing on torture and detainee treatment. You should read this.

If you blog
I won't watch
I won't waste one single day...

Angevin2: 10 reasons why a leek is better than a member of the English Nobility, with extra bonus reasons. "12) Nobody insists that Shakespeare's plays must have been written by leeks."

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has a blog! ...Via someone I forget.

Unqualified Offerings: Exciting news about Finder--an awesome, awesome "anthropological SF" comics series. You should be reading this. More when I finally get a chance to hit the comics shop, probably later this week.

Gone and Forgotten: "...A TINY PLANET FULL OF HIGH-STEPPING, ALL-SINGIN', ALL-DANCIN', ROOTIN'-TOOTIN' COWPOKE MONSTERS!!!!" Yes, it is that much fun.

National Review editors: "But President Bush must endorse a serious, realistic set of budget offsets, and the most promising area is corporate welfare."

Reporters Sans Frontieres:

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.

Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.

more (via Hit & Run, I think)

Nancy Pelosi offers to give back already-approved San Francisco highway and transportation monies to support hurricane relief. Via the Club for Growth blog, which I'm blogrolling.

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT: It's time for another fabulous installment of Internet Searches I Have Known. These searches brought weary travelers to this blog's rocky shores. Shouldn't we try to make the landscape more inviting for these pilgrims? So--a contest! Write me something bizarre and amusing based on any of these search requests.

Tell me about the significance of a dead cricket. Summarize an episode of Looney Tunes de Cholos. Write a Smiths song about Hilaire Belloc (or write a Belloc cautionary poem for children about the Smiths!). The best entries will be posted on this blog, winning you fame more evanescent than broody Goth rock bands. It will be awesome! Here are your possible topics, in chronological order:

possum sexual habits
non-sexual weird pictures
Human sympathy has its limited and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city limits
looney tunes de cholos
morrissey belloc smiths
zero mostel cheetos
what to look for in a man
living in sewers
really dead pro-life
jealous inadequate undersexed [...I resemble that remark.]
worm in jalapenos
weird stuff
Excellent. The Arkham Asylum shower cam is operational.
What is the significance of a dead cricket
celibacy contest fun
is The Annunciation still relevant
songs about constitutional rights
british dream research cheese gouda
asterix karma chameleon [Lovin' would be easy if the Gaulois were like my dreams???]
ghede passport [Ghede don't need no stinkin' passport!]
gayer lineage hacker

NEW FROM iMAPP: NEW RESEARCH ON FAMILY STRUCTURE AND CRIME. Hey look, it's research I did!

Are children raised outside of intact marriages at increased risk for crime and delinquency? iMAPP's latest policy brief, "Can Married Parents Prevent Crime? Recent Research on Family Structure and Delinquency 2000-2005," looks at empirical research from the United States published in peer-reviewed journals since 2000.

All but three of 23 recent studies found some family structure effect on crime or delinquency. Seven of the eight studies that used nationally representative data, for example, found that children in single-parent or other non-intact family structures were at greater risk of committing criminal or delinquent acts.

download the brief here (PDF)

"THE LONG CONVERSION OF OSCAR WILDE." Powerful. Totally worth reading even if you already know the outlines of the story.

I AM CALIGULA. Triple-hee! Which Julio-Claudian Emperor Are You? Via Angevin2, who reminds us of the immortal lines from Pinky and the Brain:
"Caligula was no Boy Scout;
He did things we can't even talk about.
The Romans knew he was off his head
When he filled a vacant Senate seat with Mister Ed!"

"THE GILDED AGE": STRANGEWAYS HERE WE COME. Next section of current short fiction. Um... some notes. 1. I didn't know the plot of this story when I started. So it's much too cryptic, and many things will be made clearer in the final draft.
2. This episode, apparently, is my big tribute to envy and resentment. Woohoo!
3. (related) No characters are me. No characters are entirely not-me.
4. I'm still not sure what to think about this story. It may be useless, and I'll end up junking it as an interesting experiment but nothing more. But I really like a lot of what I've written for it, even while mistrusting the basic idea of the story (alternate-history Victoriana, the trial Oscar Wilde never had).

Click here for story so far; here for most recent episode. I think there are one or maybe two more segments in the rough draft, though I'm sure I'll change that around in the final version. Your comments, questions, howls of execration always welcome.

I grabbed you by the gilded beams--
Oh, that's what tradition means!

WHAT'S A GIRL LIKE YOU DOING IN A NICE PLACE LIKE THIS?: So I wrote a thing for the Yale Free Press's 2005 commencement issue, about how my Yale education had shaped my career or later life. The YFP hasn't put that issue online yet, so I'm posting what I wrote, with a few sentences excised because I don't think they work as well for the general blog audience. (That's one reason it ends so abruptly.) Enjoy, or not, but keep in mind I was trying to summarize what I think about Life, the Universe, and Everything in as few words as possible, so this piece is suggestive but not exactly a treatise.
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When I first came to Yale--not that I realized this at the time--I was trying to understand three questions: Why is poetry meaningful? Why is sex meaningful? Why is estrangement meaningful? Other people can talk about market economics or national security; I can only sketch how investigating these three questions led me away from left-wing subjectivism and into what you could call conservatism.

Poetry--I apologize for belaboring the obvious--uses images to convey meaning. The swan in Yeats's "Leda and the Swan," the sparrow in Hamlet, the vulture in As I Lay Dying, all evoke different reactions and longings; one can't be changed for another. ("There's a special providence in the fall of a vulture" is awesome, but not really what Shakespeare was getting at....) And most writers can tell when they find the right image, the one that means what they want to say. But where do these images get their meaning?

Human culture is the most obvious answer. We have various associations with sparrows and vultures because the people around us do. But if this is the whole story, we can only say what our culture allows us to say, and we can use images to speak only about our culture, not about human nature as such. Investigating the possibility that poetic meaning extended beyond the limits of particular cultures led me to a belief in a universal, abiding human nature, and a belief that objects in the world have intrinsic meaning. These beliefs can ultimately only be true if humans, and objects in our world, are "words spoken by God"--but that’s a discussion for another time.

Of sex I'll say only this: Fun is fun, sometimes. (And sometimes it isn't.) But the more I thought about why sex would be meaningful--rather than just, you know, nice--the more I suspected that sex attains its greatest philosophical and symbolic (poetic) richness when the union of lovers creates a new life. And yet our current culture seems to view things exactly the other way around, as if sex becomes less interesting, less sexy, when it makes babies. As if the kind (or less-kind) feelings of adults toward one another were more interesting than the beginning of a new human. Bizarre!

As for estrangement... I've always had, and I think most reflective people eventually encounter, a sense that something has gone wrong: a sense of exile. Humans are strange creatures, trapped between our aspirations and our acts, between what we are and what we know (or at least believe) we could be. We're creatures of the subjunctive tense, the might-have, could-have, should-have. A liberal education deepens the longing for beauty and wholeness, while sharpening the pain felt at their absence.

In high school I tried to shrug off this sense of exile: I tried embracing relativism (relativism means never having to say you're sorry). I tried locating the source of my alienation in my sexual orientation, and identifying "heteronormativity" as the problem (ah, the cultural Left, constantly seeking to create the People's Republic of Misfit Toys!). But neither solution satisfied; I was avoiding the problem, not addressing it.

All three of these questions shape my work after Yale.

NINOMANIA has a host o' posts examining John Roberts's Senate testimony, from a Scalialicious perspective.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST STAGED IN KABUL. Played to packed audiences. I forget where I found this.

TOO TRUE:

I have said that jobs can force men to wear proper shoes. One of the most demanding jobs for women is sexuality, for which the proper footwear is high heels. The informal summertime substitutes for these are flip-flops. Some women may believe that high heels and flip-flops are functionally equivalent, since they both show skin. Flip-flops may even seem more effective, because they alone show toenail polish. This belief is deeply mistaken. High heels give you lets like Angelina Jolie in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith poster. Flip-flops give you legs like a Steinway. High heels make the compelling, aggressive tattoo of castanets. Flip-flops sound like water belching from a fire hydrant. Following a woman in high heels up out of the subway is like discovering America. Following a woman in flip-flops up out of the subway is like riding the subway.

--Richard Brookhiser in the 7-18-05 National Review; via The Rat

EX CORDE ECCLESIA, MY @##:

...STUDENTS AND STAFF at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., seemed more shocked by their school's place on the anti-gay list. Staff and alumni at Holy Cross said they were at the forefront of supporting gay students' rights at Catholic colleges. Holy Cross administration recognizes its two gay student organizations and one support group.

"I think Holy Cross was the first Catholic school to officially recognize and support a Gay-Straight Student Alliance," said Jeannie Seidler, an alumna who founded the campus group in 1995.

Now Seidler runs a support group for Holy Cross gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students. Several have difficulty reconciling being Catholic and gay, she said. ...

Even though support and advocacy groups do exist at Holy Cross, and the religious department incorporates gay liberation into a liberation theology course, gay students may still feel isolated, she said. ...

Daniel Corrou, a gay chaplain at Holy Cross who advises the gay student clubs, said that the ranking doesn't reflect how supportive the administration is.

"I don't think it's anywhere close to reality," he said. "For us, it's a question of perception. There's a misunderstanding of Catholic teaching on sexual orientation that tends to pervade popular culture."

more

2 LINKS: That Heritage list of where to stick the knife in the federal budget. Via lots of people.

Amy Welborn, characteristically, talks sense in re Vatican coming to turn US seminaries upside-down and see what falls out of their pockets. Be sure to read the comments as well--many powerful personal stories and worthwhile thoughts.

When you were mine
Used to let you watch all of my blogs...

Oxblog:

Persecuted Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji has been perversely and cynically returned to prison by the Iranian government after he broke a four-month hunger strike in hospital after being told he would be given his freedom. The journalist, whose reportage in 1998 connected former President Akbar Rafsanjani and other leading conservatives with the murders of five writers and intellectuals and was thought a decisive factor in the conservatives' defeat in the February 2000 parliamentary elections, is presently being held in solitary confinement; he has been in prison since April 2000, except for a brief 12-day period of leave in advance of the 17 June 2005 presidential elections. ...

I call the attention of readers to sample letters of protest to the Iranian government drafted by RSF and PEN. The first is suitable for nations without diplomatic relations with the Iranian government; the second for nations such as Britain, Canada, Ireland and Australia which accredit Iranian ambassadors.

(more)

The Corner: "Tom DeLay, as Andrew noted, said that government has been 'pared. . . down pretty good' and that nobody has been able to identify any spending cuts to make in exchange for Katrina-related spending. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation emailed me a long list of evidence that DeLay is wrong." (list) More here.

RELIEF CONNECTIONS: "The mission of Relief Connections is to provide a forum where community, religious, and civic groups affected by Hurricane Katrina can connect with similar groups across the nation and world who can aid in their recovery."

And BeliefNet has a weblog compiling "inspirational stories of hope in the wake of Katrina." Lots of really moving posts.

Both links via Amy Welborn, I think.

BLOG/RELIEF: ARE YOUR DOORS LOCKED? David Wagner, alias the Ninomaniac, gave to the Red Cross and requested a post about Iago. This was timely, as I recently saw the taut, utterly fun Shakespeare Theatre production of "Othello." It's showing now and you should go see it!!!! The actors are at the top of their game; the director is the amazing Michael Kahn; the show evokes a wartime, cultural-mixing atmosphere swiftly and believably, using the cultural specificity of Venice and its wars to add to the production's power rather than distracting the audience; the show maintains its suspense even though we know exactly what will happen. When I saw it, those in the audience were visibly on the edge of our seats.

So perhaps talking about this production's Iago--Patrick Page--will allow me to wind slowly into my subject like a snake. I was worried at first: None of the moments that define Iago, for me, were underlined. (This post's title, for example.) There seemed an over-credulous emphasis on Iago's various undermotivations--his thwarted ambition, his fear that Othello had cuckolded him. There were some fun bits--Othello comes across as much more of a salesman or politician than usual, his playing on Desdemona's emotions (girls love hurt/comfort narratives!) nicely paralleled with Iago's machinations--but I worried that we would get an Iago reduced to comprehensibility. Fortunately, as the play rolled on, the sociopathy began to show: a barely-human, racking laugh; an affectlessness that only snapped into appropriate emotion when someone was watching. Any Iago has to keep the character's ending in mind: that ferocious denial of intelligibility, "Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:/From this time forth I never will speak word." Patrick Page earned that line, and slammed it home.

Because Iago is the unintelligibility of motive; specifically, the unintelligibility of evil. He is the disconnection between our professed motives and the evil actions we take. He's the place where your eyes don't go. For him to make sense as a character, we need a visceral sense of the distance between our motives and our actions; we need a visceral sense of, "But that's not good enough!"

Every day we do terrible things for reasons that aren't good enough. This is especially evident from a theological perspective: You gossiped, or slept around, or stole, or lied, even though it's against God? I don't care what your reasons are, they're not good enough! Even from a temporal perspective, it's so easy to see how often we give up some immensely important and good thing for a small, cruel pleasure.

We have reasons--but the reasons aren't enough, and at the end of the day, I suspect the reasons don't really matter. What matters is, Do you love God, or not? If you do, if you try to, no reasons for wrong actions will even appear to be worth it. If you don't, as I think most of us don't most of the time, even the pettiest reason for wrong actions will be enough. You'll find an excuse for your favorite, cherished wrong. (I guess it should be obvious that the same person can choose for or against God several times a day, in the doubletongued and guilty way we do.)

Iago isn't about his reasons. But then again... really, neither are we.

Are your doors locked?

REASONS TO LOVE MONDAYS: Reading Fr. Tucker's homily-blogs.

...But notice that when we say the Creed, we don't say "I believe in hell, in the fires of everlasting torment, and the punishment of sins." None of that makes it into the Creed, even though we do believe in that. Rather, we say, "I believe in... the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." God's justice is real, in other words, but it is His mercy that is more impressive.

...Our motivation is meant to be one of love, keeping the commandments not because we're terrified of God squashing us, but rather because we want to do what is right and obey our loving Father. That's why we say in the act of contrition that, yes, "we dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell," but that our sorrow for sin springs "most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love."

(more)

FAMILY SCHOLARS has the usual smorgasbord of blogging goodness, centered on the technologies and legal battles that are reshaping our understanding of family (PDF). For example: what makes men feel like dads?; "I feel that I came into this world for the sake of my mother"; sometimes I feel like a fatherless embryo; and much more.

MORE COMEDY FROM OXBLOG: WORLD TURNED UPSIDE-DOWN DANCE REMIX.

There's a lot of not-funny stuff up there now that's also very much worth reading.