Life Out West

After a short and intellectually unfruitful summer, I was thrust back, almost unwillingly, into the non-stop intellectual life that is the life of a student at TAC. I'm slowly remembering why it is that I decided to come here, and why it is that I loved it so much last year. You see, it's quite difficult to independently search for the truth. I suspect that it is easier to listen to a wise man lecture for an hour and a half than it is to argue in circles with 16 mostly stubborn students. There is the constant feeling of not ever getting anything done. In fact, I feel as though last year I didn't really learn anything, insofar as I didn't learn a catalogue of facts. But last night I realized what I had been told: the end of freshman year is to teach the student how to think, and to think for himself.

It started with a passing comment. My roommate mentioned "Mystic River" as one of his favorite movies and I asked him why. It turned out that neither of us had a very definite idea as to what we meant when we called a movie "good". We began to make distinctions and clarify what we meant by a certain word - artist, for example. That word brings with it a multitude of ideas that aren't necessarily related to the nature of an artist. We tried to get to the most precise meaning of the word.

Two more friends came in and we made analogies of art to philosophy, artists to philosopers, artists to rhetoricians, and tried to make sense of the inherently hazy subject of art. Is the end of art to move the emotions? or is to move the emotions rightly? or is it ultimately Beauty? If the first, then the ugly would be more effective in art, since people are more easily moved by the grotesque than by the sublime. If the second, than art would be merely utilitarian. If the last, then skill and technique would be relatively unimportant. Which is the noblest end of art? Does the artist have a duty to society?

I do not here intend to reiterate the entirety of our conversation nor our conclusions; We talked for over three hours. I merely wish to portray how fortunate I am to be at this institution of higher learning. We got together to discuss what we would do that night: go to a movie, go to town, go to the jazz club, whatever. We ended up discussing things that we had probably taken for granted. We may not have come to any definite positive conclusions - I believe we did - but we certainly came to some negative conclusions, not least we concluded that we had not thought about such an important aspect of life as thoroughly as we ought to. But at least down the road I'll be better prepared to defend the truth to a friend, a stranger, or even my own child, not simply with facts, but with principles and axioms.

More Touchstone

Thanks to JENE, I remembered that I like Touchstone Magazine, too, though I don't read it too often. (You'll notice the new link to the website.) But here's an article that I've sent to just about everybody I know. Enjoy.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.8docs/16-8pg20.html

On the Female Side of Things

This is me taking pity on our stranded editor and posting as a roving freelance writer currently holed up in St. George, UT (I just realized I don’t know how to spell Utah’s postal abbreviation because I’m a freak and don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Utah.)

This is actually going to be a very meaningful post, honest, because I’m going to quote Frederica Matthewes-Greene. I like her a lot, because she’s female and really intelligent and also Greek Orthodox. She writes books about facing east and stuff, and also frequently writes articles in my favorite magazine of all time, Touchstone. This is an excerpt from her article Bodies of Evidence: The Real Meaning of Sex from the July 2005 issue:

My generation has spread the idea that sex is about power rather than vulnerability. While there has always been a pattern of men treating women as conquests, the sexual revolution led women to think in the same way, that making men desire them was evidence of their power.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with love; it can even be the opposite of love. I recently read a review of a book titled Strip City, written by a woman, Lily Burana, who traveled across the nation working at strip clubs. She says that we’re living in an era of “sex-positive feminism.” She calls herself a “gender warrior,” and says that when she dances, she can feel “all the hearts in the room gathered into the palm of my hand.”

Well, that’s a lot of power. Yet she doesn’t feel tenderness toward those gathered hearts. The reviewer says that Burana “relished taunting men because she is revolted by their erotic neediness.” It’s a battle, for this “gender warrior.” Make war, not love.

Here’s something else. Burana says that her work represents new liberation for women’s sexuality. She says we live in a period when “the notion of female desire is being re-evaluated.” But does stripping have anything to do with the woman’s sexual desires? It looks like it’s all about male desire, provoking and despising and ridiculing that. Once again, sex means male desire. For women, stripping isn’t about a deeper understanding of their own sexuality, but about a substitute thrill: the experience of power. A power that doesn’t have much to do with love.

And it’s a funny kind of power. Dancers work in depressing places that stink of mildew and ammonia, exposing themselves to seedy old men. It’s no great achievement if you get a guy to look at your body. Any girl could do that. The dancers are all interchangeable, and nobody cares about their name or history or personality. Nobody looks at their faces. An ex-stripper once told me, “I had to ask myself, if I had all the power, why was I the only person in the room with no clothes on?”

After reading these few paragraphs, I did what any self-respecting woman would do when faced with these charges: quickly evaluate her history with the opposite sex -- and I discovered that, uh, yeah, I fit exactly into this model. My "romantic" past has been of the flavour that Matthewes-Greene exposes: with exactly one exception, it's been about desiring a guy to desire me, and not about any legitimate desires on my part.

This is extremely embarrassing to me.

My embarrassment turned to horror, however, when I discovered that one of my male friends espouses what he calls "pro-burqa" views -- that is, that it's really every sensible female's duty to swath herself in four hundred yards of black material because men shouldn't be responsible for controlling themselves, right?

Ironically, this seemingly conservative view is essentially the same as the one Matthewes-Greene notes in the stripper community: it's the belief that the world ought to be keyed to male desire, and women's responses to their Y-chromosomed counterparts -- whether of the sort that Chrisitan would call "moral" or "immoral", the philosophy tragically does not care enough to differentiate -- ought to keep that in mind.

The horror at the philosophy, doubly ironically, didn't come from my friend's view (I've come to expect it from intellectuals who fear their own fleshly ties) so much as the universal reaction of the female friends with whom I've shared this information. They have, universally, been "flattered" by his mandate because it makes them feel "powerful".

What a fabulous power indeed, that requires them to order their lives in reference to a man's sex drive and dictates that any meaningful correspondence between the two genders be carried out on a sexual plane from square one: it's clear that anyone, male or female, who adopts this mentality isn't thinking about the brain or soul of a woman on first contact, even the supposed "intellectuals" who ought to be able to abstract beyond the corporeality they fear so much!

(...Discuss.)

Stuck in a Desert Town, NM

After making it all the way to my brother's in Albuquerque, NM, our adventurous road trip across the country has met with disaster. About 2 hours west of Albuquerque, the first car in the two-car-caravan broke down. We were towed to a small, very mexican town in New Mexico and had the car checked out by some mechanics. (I soon noticed that the town's economy seemed to be based almost solely on car repair.)

Turns out the the 97 jeep Wrangler blew its fifth gear. Won't be fixed until Saturday at the earliest and we dropped it off Wednesday. The other three -- not me -- continued on in my car. So I've been hanging out here in Grants, NM on my own, walking up and down the main street finding ways to entertain myself. Spent last night in a super cheap motel. I chained the door, kept a small light on, and watched a James Bond marathon from about 5 to 11. Then bed. Since, I've been wandering, trying to find a non-existent bus station that supposedly exists in a McDonald's. It doesn't. Luckily my brother lives nearby and will be out to pick me up some time tonight. Hope I make it until then.

Then I have to drive the 14 hours to Ojai, CA on my own and through the night. I believe I start classes on Monday, which means I need to get there Sunday at the latest so I can unpack, buy all my books, then read all my books. Wish me luck.

Quotable

"The first rule of survival: Never look like food."

-Park Ranger, Smoky Mountain National Park

Pound Says...

Here's a rather long excerpt, though it is worth much thought.


In Europe, if you ask a man to define anything, his definition always moves away from the simple things that he knows perfectly well, it recedes into the unknown region, that is a region of remoter and progressively remoter abstraction.

Thus if you ask him what red is, he says it is a 'colour'.

If you ask him what a colour is, he tells you it is a vibration or a refraction of light, or a division of the spectrum.

And if you ask him what a vibration is, he tells you it is a mode of energy, or something of that sort, until you arrive at a modality of being, or non-being, or at any rate you get in beyond you depth, and beyond his depth.

*****

But when the Chinaman wanted to make a picture of something more complicated, or of a general idea, how did he go about it?

He is to define red. How can he do it in a picture that isn't painted in red paint?

He puts (or his ancestor put) together the abbreviated pictures of

ROSE, CHERRY, IRON RUST, FLAMINGO

*****

The Chinese "word" or ideogram for red is based on something everyone KNOWS.

- ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound


It's tempting to tell you -- or to write an essay, rather -- but if you'd really like to know how this relates to literature, you're really going to have to pick up this book. It and Guide to Kulchur are easily two of the most important influences in my aesthetic, cultural, and philosphical life.

Best of the Web Today

BY JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3:51 p.m. EDT

Catholics Need Not Apply
No one seriously argues anymore that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. Rather, pro-Roe advocates rest their case on policy grounds (warnings about coat alleys and back hangers, etc.) or, when they must argue the law, on the power of precedent. Of the five Supreme Court justices who more or less upheld Roe in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, three went out of their way to avoid endorsing the decision, emphasizing instead the allegedly high cost of the court's admitting a mistake:


"A decision to overrule Roe's essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy, and to the Nation's commitment to the rule of law. It is therefore imperative to adhere to the essence of Roe's original decision, and we do so today."



A jaw-dropping op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe suggests that these three justices got it exactly wrong. One Christopher D. Morris, "a writer and critic in Northfield, Vt.," argues that the Senate Judiciary Committee should subject the Catholic Church, and Catholic jurists, to special scrutiny:


"Catholic bishops threatened to exclude Senator John Kerry from the Eucharist because of his support for Roe v. Wade. The Senate Judiciary Committee is now fully justified in asking these bishops whether the same threats would apply to Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberts, if he were to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade.

The bishops have made this question legitimate because Americans no longer know whether a Catholic judge can hear abortion cases without an automatic conflict of interest. . . .

Asking the bishops to testify would be healthy. If they rescinded the threats made against Kerry, then Roberts would feel free to make his decision without the appearance of a conflict of interest, and Catholic politicians who support Roe v. Wade would gain renewed confidence in their advocacy. If the bishops repeated or confirmed their threats, the Senate Judiciary Committee should draft legislation calling for the automatic recusal of Catholic judges from cases citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent."


In other words, in order to preserve the bogus constitutional right to abortion, it is necessary to disregard the actual constitutional provisions for church-state separation and against religious tests for officeholders. It's yet another reason why Roe must go.




read more

here

UnConstitutional Constitution? (hat tip to NGM)

Apparently, sources indicate, neither the 16th (re: the Income Tax) nor the 17th (senators elected by the people) Ammendments to the Constitution were legally or constitutionally ratified.

see

here

RE: Madden '06

There may very well be a video game addiction epidemic here in America, but at least it's not as bad as this

here

Hypocrisy and the Media Bias

The irony

here

is disgusting, not even slightly humorous. NARAL, in this ad, will supposedly play on the gore of an abortion clinic bombing in an attempt to link Supreme Court nominee Roberts to the bomber. Regardless of the truth of this claim - it's judged to be completely fabricated - the hypocrisy of this decision is truly incredible.

Of course the bombings are indefensible, but that's not the point. NARAL created a gorey, bloody commercial showing victims of the bombing in this ad, and CNN has agreed to air it. And yet, would CNN ever allow an ad depicting the horrendous and inhuman barbarity of an abortion? Imagine what flak any mainstream media outlet would receive if it were to air The Silent Scream. NARAL intends to play your emotions like a violin using intense footage of the reality of the bombings. They will probably be hailed as "heroes" for pushing the envelope in search of truth. Pro-life activists who dare to show images of aborted babies are venomously criticized for deceiving impressionable minds, using nothing more than propaganda to push their agenda.

Until there can be honest debate in America concerning abortion, both sides will continue to be condemned as either murderous or insensitive and medieval, (An aside: Which would you rather be called, a murderer or insensitive?) nothing will be done about abortion, and an issue that deeply worries many will be left unapproached, festering in the background until it, like a latent dut deadly virus, explodes in a systematic break down of the body. A healthy body with the proper medical care might, perhaps, survive the illness, but a sickly one? In politics, health is determined by truth and honesty, medicine by leaders in decisive times; What is the state of the Union now?

Ezra Pound Says...

"Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles"

-Ezra Pound

Madden '06

"He's getting too old for this. That's what he tells himself. Every year, George Tennant Jr. ponders giving up Madden; every year, he finds himself back in line, pre-order slip in hand. The game has that effect on people. So does crack cocaine."

Patrick Hruby, ESPN Page 2

Horoscopes

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) - This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, age of Aquarius, uh ooooooo.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) - The old greeting, “Why are you setting my house on fire?” will take on a whole new meaning for you next week.

Aries (March 21-April 19) - Your growing suspicion that things have gone horribly awry back home are not unwell-founded.

Taurus (April 20-May20) - After a careful evaluation of your life, the stars have decided that, “you’re all right!” and we concur.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) - “We are Siamese if you please. We are Siamese if you don’t please.”

Cancer (June 21-July22) - Though it's true, the stars wish you to stop referring to them as “gigantic balls of burning gas”.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) - Quick, look behind you!!! Oh, never mind.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) - Though having eyes in the back of your head gives you an advantage in basketball, it will reduce you to unsurpassable depths of terrified despair in the County Fair’s Maze of Mirrors.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) - Do not be alarmed when the otherwise cold and aloof Mr. Darcy expresses feelings towards you that seemed completely unlikely after his behavior at the Netherfield Ball.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) - Your impromptu encounter with a mountain lion while hiking to the punch bowls will leave you, though physically unharmed, emotionally crippled.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) - Your research during the last five years about the absolute speed of light will mean almost nothing when you wake up as a UPS worker and realize it was all just a dream.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) - It will never rain again.

Road Trip

Tentative route across the amber waves of grain:

Day 1: Leave Lancaster, MA Sunday the 14th and arrive in Goshen, IN. 863 miles of driving and about 14 hours on the road.

Day 2: Goshen, IN to Tulsa, OK, which is almost as long as Day 1 - about 800 miles and 13 hours.

Day 3: Tulsa, OK to Albuquerque, NM, where I'll be staying with my musician brother. 650 miles

Day 4: Albuquerque to Flagstaff, AZ. Here we'll stop a while at the Grand Canyon. 323 miles - not bad.

Day 5: Flagstaff to Santa Paula, CA. 500 miles. The End.

In all, 5 days of driving, maybe 45-50 hours on the road, one stop at an aunt's, a friend's, a brother's, a motel and the Grand Canyon, and then TAC, and 3,136 miles all for about $250 for gas, $100 for motel, and miscellaneous expenses for food, Red Bull, and cigarettes. Not bad at all. Let's just hope the car makes it, eh?

"I'm a ramblin' man, ramblin', oh yes, ramblin'. R-a-m-b-l-i-n---apostrophe."

"Realism" in the Mainstream

Sure, the media will probably jump Ms. Lopez for her statements - Larry Summers was ruined for saying something almost as obvious - but at least someone in the limelight has said something real.

http://www.examiner.ie/breaking/story.asp?j=126737900&p=yz673849x&n=126738589&x=

James Taranto: Best of the Web (Opinion Journal online)

You Don't Say
"Amphibious Vehicles May Not Be Suited for Deserts"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 4

Hello, Columbus
"The world's global. We can't fight it anymore."--Patrick Bauer, Democratic leader of the Indiana House, on a visit to Japan, quoted in the Indianapolis Star, Aug. 4

Usually They're a Lot Older
"Scan Finds Mummy Between 4 and 6 Years Old"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 3

100%, We're Guessing
"Fitness Level Predicts Likelihood of Death"--headline, WebMD.com, Aug. 3

One Nation Under Guard?
"Tragically, two years ago, we came to realize we had let our God down. We became lost in our hubris and learned once more the terrible price that must be paid for our failures."--Discovery astronaut Charles Camarda, on the loss of the Columbia, as quoted by Reuters, Aug. 4

Why Titan Lacks Intelligent Life

"Official: Drinking Improves Thinking"--headline, Guardian (London), Aug. 4

"Scientists Deem Saturn Moon Titan Dry"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 3

The Kielbasa Browser
"Mozilla Creates Profit Arm: It Will Promote, Polish Products"--headline, San Jose Mercury News, Aug. 3

What Would We Do Without Democratic Pollsters?
"Democratic Pollster: We Don't Stand for Anything"--headline, NewsMax.com, Aug. 3

Aw, Can't They Wait a While Longer?
"It is time for Democrats to stop moaning about John Roberts and John Bolton and start doing something productive--such as figuring out how to win elections."--Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe, Aug. 4

Classical Education (hit tip to EM)

"Therefore the one great benefit of the "grand old fortifying classical curriculum," as far as it went, was that on one's way through it one saw by centuries instead of weeks, by whole periods instead of years, the operation of the human mind upon every aspect of collective human life, every department of spiritual, industrial, commercial and social activity; one touched the theory and practice of every science and every art. Hence a person came out from this discipline with not only a trained mind but an experienced mind. He was like one who had had a profound and weighty experience. He was habituated to the long-time point of view, and instinctively brought it to bear on current affairs and happenings. In short, he was mature. "

-Albert Jay Nock Atlantic Monthly May, 1931

Top-Ten Ways to Get Your Point Across in Section

10. Begin every sentence with, “Well, when I was studying at Oxford...”

9. Quote the original German text and then say, “well I think that clears it all up.” (Nod expressively.)

8. Sit on a phone book so that you are a head taller than everyone else.

7. When contradicted, cross your arms, stare at the table, and refuse to speak. That will really show them.

6. Say, “Look, I’m just saying what Aristotle said. You don’t want to contradict Aristotle, do you?”

5. Speak softly and carry a big stick.

4. Wear a coonskin cap and a buckskin jacket.

3. Say, “As my mentor professor Leaky at MIT used to say...”

2. When interrupted by a classmate, smile magnanimously, while slowly reaching down and removing your shoe. Hurl the
shoe at their head, missing by inches and scream, “I didn’t have to miss!”

1. Stand up and scream, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

Back Issues

So all of our new readers can see something of what we're about, we'll be posting a few small items from our previous hard copy issues. Enjoy!

Et /et/ in Arcadia Ego

Please ignore the previous declaration of “this is my space!” because this is obviously now my space too. (Or at least this post is me scrambling for a spot to stick my flag on the mountain because in theory I now can.)

Besides, between Ambitious and Contingent needs to go something that starts with ‘B’, like either belligerent, bull-headed, or something else kind of bellicose.

Uh, JH, you can delete this is if it annoys you, since I now know it works.

Under Construction

My intention for this blog is somewhat ambitious and wildly contingent. I hope for this to be the online edition of my newspaper that I founded with a few friends at Thomas Aquinas College.

Ambitious: We managed two issues of Into the UnOrdinary during the last few months of school and none during the last few weeks. We intended to publish twice per month.

Contingent: Have not even mentioned the possibility of this to me co-founding editors. I'll be back in SoCal in a few weeks and we can start talking then.

Until then, this is my space.

Just Moved

Moved here from LiveJournal which, compared to this, is like Atari compared to PS2. Will not be updating too much for the remainder of summer, but will pick up again when school begins.