classical pelican

CC has been with me for 1 year

2009-07-06T14:22:00.012-05:00

CC was adopted June 22, 2008 and has been such a joy!

Here she was June 28, 2008.

And here she was July 13, 2008.

Her name CC stands for Cher Chien, French for dear dog.
CC loves people!

Here are some of CC's friends:

Kate-lynn, Kayla, Sabrina, "the artist", and her best furbuddy Petunia.

A few months ago CC got her inner cheek swabbed for a genetic test to see what breeds she might have in her. This is the result:

It's hard to imagine that CC has Newfoundland in her!

Whatever this sweet dog, originally from Tennessee,

was made from, the result is a precious and loved CHER CHIEN.

George

2007-09-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

My faithful dog, my wonderful little buddy, George passed away Sunday afternoon.

I would like to remember the day I adopted him from the County Kennel. That was the first time I saw him, about 3 months old, small, mostly black with brown feet. I never knew what breed he was, although he had characteristics of a Border Terrier, and ears like a Beagle.

He has been my companion since Feb. 22, 1994. Yes, his name was eponymous.

I remember as a growing young dog, how easily he could catch a tennis ball on the fly.

I remember taking him for walks up and down the drive.

Around the house you cannot imagine a more gentle dog. At his heaviest he was about 30 pounds.

He liked to go for rides. After Chris died in 1998, his was the passenger seat in the Plymouth. He came to Catechism with me. Occasionally he went with me to visit shut-ins, especially the ones who gave him pizza.

He reached maturity. He was always an even-tempered dog. He responded to the "r word," especially the question, "Is there a rabbit?"

Occasionally he had to let me know that there was a deer in the yard at 3:00 AM.

He remained very graceful through his declining years. I remember getting "senior" dog food, some extra trips to the vet, and eventually a canine cardiologist. The last year of his life he was getting nine pills a day.

He went peacefully at home. He knew I was nearby. He lay down in the living room and did not get up. I often referred to him as "my little trooper."

George was almost 14 years old when he slipped away. I like to think of him as romping through a celestial meadow.

The Rockford Institute

2007-07-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

I spent a very pleasant week in Rockford, Illinois, in mid July. Evey year at that time The Rockford Institute conducts a program, officially called The Regnery Lectures, but everyone involved refers to it as "Summer School."
This year the topic was The Stuarts and the English Civil war. Readings involved The Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, David Hume's history, poems of the time, Lord Clarendon's history, Hobbes and Locke.

There were some parallels with the American experience. The Puritans settled in New England, while the Anglicans tended to settle the South. Yet one wonders how much the Scots had to do with the whole thing, and whether the Jacobites could have brought about a different kind of England.

Was the English Civil War the first "philosophical" rather than "religious" war? One could ask a similar question about the original jihad, in which another iconoclastic movement tried to convert the world to abstraction. It did not succeed. The Puritans did. Their decisive victory over Christianity led to Hobbes' Leviathan. Yes, I did mean "Christianity," because after that war Christianity ceased to be a factor in English public policy. Hume would never have accepted such a philosophy, because reason can provide no values. Like all philosophers, Hobbes imported his values from pre-reflective sources, whether custom, revelation, personal interest, or projected common interest. Unlike Hume he did not acknowledge that.

The first king to be beheaded was not Louis XVI, it was Charles I, one of the better monarchs.
It is impossible to view Cromwell in a positive light. You don't have to be Irish to find him abominable. I'm glad that most people know little of him except for the brief comment in Gray's Elegy. It is a fitting one.

The evening meals were provided, Tuesday shish kabobs at the Institute office, Wednesday a buffet at the Irish Rose Saloon, Thursday another buffet at the Arboretum, followed by poetry readings, and Friday an Italian dinner at Altamore's. Saturday evening we were at Thomas Fleming's house for a cook-out.

We had wonderful presenters, in fact some of you may know Aaron Wolf who gave the talk on Bunyan. He is a Lutheran home-schooler.

On critical thinking

2007-07-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Do our schools teach children to think critically? I have heard some rather bizarre accounts, including one in which students were taught "kindness" as a form of critical thinking. To set the record straight, kindness is a value, not a thought process. So let me outline what true critical thought consists of, so we may discuss the matter with common definition of terms.

There are five parts to critical thought:

1. Consistency, which asks:

a) Does this hapopen every time?
b) Does everyone tell the story the same way?
c) Does this word always mean this?

2. Relevance, which asks:
a) Can we use all of the given facts?
b) Are we using the right tool?
c) Are we in the mainstream?

3. Structure and sequence, which asks:
a) Does A depend upon B?
b) Do we have to do something else first?
c) What will happen if we do this?

4. Authority, which asks:
a) Who says so? Where?
b) Why should we believe this authority?
c) Does another authority contradict this?

5. The last part is interpretation. It doesn't exactly ask questions, but seeks to integrate known facts, theories, and opinions into systems. If no existing systems seem to include them, one should attempt to construct a new system based on them. We might summarize interpretation with the question, "What does this mean?"

Texas Trip

2007-06-19T16:13:00.000-05:00

It was a four day weekend. I flew down on Friday, and back on Monday, both afternoon flights so there was no rushing.

I stayed at the Best Western in Lake Worth, 15 miles from my niece's house. She had her father and step-mother, her step-daughter and her husband, her son Robby and his wife, Carolina, whom I had never met, and thier 5 month old daughter, Carolita. Robby's brother and sister, Wayne and Angel, my niece's former ward, Nicki, his wife, Misty, and their one year old son, Dylan. Then there were the step-daughter's children, Adian and Aria Holland, seven and two respectively. Craig and Cheri had all these people there.

We had the Baptismal ceremony at Hope Lutheran Church in Reno, just west of Azle. It was at 2:00 in the afternoon. The people weren't there, nor was the pastor. Cheri had made preparations, and I had brought my hymn to make copies for everybody.

There were four candidates: Adian and Aria, Dylan, and Carolita. I did the agenda from memory, since the only resources available were LBW. Four children received the Sacrament of regeneration. Afterward, Cheri had ice cream punch and cake for everybody.

In one of those inexpressible moments, I, the senior family member, held Carolita, the youngest family member, in my arms. She was the only blood relative that I baptized that afternoon. Dylan is Cheri's grandson in all but blood, and the others are her step-grandchilren. It was too bad that Dick and Peggy couldn't be there. They would have loved it.

Good reading

2007-04-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

I want to urge everyone to read Srdja Trifkovic's column, A Tale of Two Cabals, in thos month's Chronicles.

I am not writing this to summarize the article. No summary could do it justice. But there are some practical things to be said, of which I would like to alert you.

First, our emphasis must be on our Christian - European identity. That identity can be found more frequently in the U. S. A. than any other place. We cannot tolerate multi-culturalism, which is a slap in the face to true Christianity.

Second, we must be aware that in anything that really counts there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. We must rise above the secondary and tertiary "issues" which they insist on debating, and focus on what they will not allow to be debated. George Bush knows what words will push the buttons of "conservative Christians," but in what really matters, he has nothing but false platitudes.

Third, understand that Islam worships the devil. The god of the Koran is known mainly by negation, by violent opposition to all that is incarnational of God, by rejection of the Gospel and the history of Israel, by substituting an abstract particularlity for the concrete, incarnational particularities of Judaism and Christianity. One of their god's attributes is "the merciful," no doubt, but remember, the false prophet has horns like a Lamb but speaks like a dragon.

Fourth, understand that main-line Christianity also worships the devil, which is why it has so little opposition to Islam. Main-line Christianity has no more love for the Gospel than Islam. When it mentions the word "Gospel," it usually means something Marxist.

Fifth, and finally, understand that "evangelical Christianity" also worships the devil, rejecting all that is incarnational in the Church and her history, emphasizing hyper-individualism, ignoring all the centuries between the New Testament and the present, which is why it tolerates female clergy, seeks "growth" at the expense of truth, experience at the expense of clear witness, and post-modern subjectivism at the expense of knowing the reality of the cross and resurrection.

New RML Season

2007-03-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

Next week the 2007 RML season begins in earnest. The Pelicans are ready with a fairly good team, although we are in a tough division.

Our starting pitching is solid with John Lackey, Aaron Cook, Cliff Lee, Aaron Sele, Horacio Ramirez, John Lester, and Brett Tomko. The closer is J. J. Putz, with a bullpen that includes Mike Gonzalez, Josh Hancock, Scott Downs, Latroy Hawkins, Dan Kolb, and Tomko.

Our line-up is better than it has been for quite a while. At first we platoon Sean Casey and Wes Helms, we have Ronnie Belliard at second, Ronnie Cedeno and Abraham Nunez at short, Mark Bellhorn and Omar Infante at third, Melky Cabrera in right field, Gary Matthews in center, Brady Clark and Bobby Kielty in left, Miguel Olivo and Ryan Doumit behind the plate, dhs are Frank Catalanotto and Ryan Garko, and extra outfielders are Gabe Kapler and Chris Denofrio.

But as I said, we're in a tough division.

The war goes on

2007-02-18T18:33:00.000-05:00

I told you so. Back in 2003 I warned everyone through my congregation's monthly publication that we had attacked a country that had done nothing to us, for reasons that were far from clear. Within a couple of months the perpetrators of this aggression had already changed their ostensible reasons for going to war. I am not blaming the troops. But I could never counsel any young person to join the military as things stand now.
So where can we go?
If we must "build a nation," the cheapest way out now is to build three. The southern one can become part of Iran. The other two should be independent states, the Kurdish state and the Baghdad state. Alas, the latter has no oil. But then neither does Spain, or Bulgaria, or Switzerland. Oil isn't the answer to everything.
Neither is democracy. In Muslim countries, democracy is simply a bit of sophistry, a ploy to "legitimize" the hierocracy which always follows. Not that democracy worked that well here when we had it. The first American Republic came crashing down in the War for Southern Independence. The second was slowly eroded away by foreign entanglements and Imperialistic adventuring such as Wilson's opportunistic intervention in the Europen war, just three years after he had his battleships bombard Vera Cruz. That republic was finally destroyed by the Great Depression, and replaced with an authoritarian regime organized around income tax. It still holds elaborate rituals called "elections," to give the appearance of democracy.
Am I a cynic? Not really. You have to admit there is some personal satisfaction in saying "I told you so," but I am not a cynic. I believe that the returning Christ will solve all of our problems.
Who could put any confidence in mankind? That is nothing more than putting confidence in sinners, and thus in the devil.
But the end will come. Forsan et haec olim meminisse ivabit.

Sixty-four

2007-02-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

The birth date that I share with Felix Mendelssohn and Horace Greeley was my 64th. There is so much to look back and behold. I can remember the house on Franklin Ave. in New Orleans where we lived with my grandparents from 1945 to 1956. The last time I saw that house was in late spring of last year. The trees in front were gone, and it had been painted pink. I did not see the house I lived in after 1956, out on Prentiss Ave. in Gentilly. I wonder if it's still there. But there was no reason to go that way. The last time I visited Valpo, many of the buildings that used to be West Campus were gone. That was the heart of campus activity in the early 60s. Passenger trains used to stop in that little town, at least the locals. I am now the senior member of my family. Sooner or later that had to come about. The seminary has also changed. There is a large chapel, and the wilderness which occupied the western third of the campus has been tamed. I have been pastor at Christ Church for 28 years now. I was circuit counselor for twelve of those years. And we maintain our traditional worship. That, at least, I consider an accomplishment.

Holidays in opera

2007-01-17T16:38:00.000-05:00

Can you name the holiday celebrated in, or perhaps by, the following operatic works? La Boheme (sorry, it won't let me used ASCI symbols), Amahl and the Night Visitors, La Traviata, Cavaleria Rusticana, Die Meistersinger von Nuremburg, Nabuco, and Pagliacci.

Materialism is irrational

2006-12-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

Materialism contradicts itself by rejecting the teleological, yet claiming to base all science on empirical evidence.There is overwhelming empirical evidence that much human activity, and human speech, are teleological. Evolutionists cannot even describe evolution without resorting to teleological terms such as "adaptation." Every time anyone considers alternatives he is not only exercising liberty, as Allen Bloom correctly points out, but he is also exercising teleology. Even the semi-quantifiable hedonistic principle, which Pragmatists accept as their one axiological postulate, assumes human teleology. The pursuit of happiness is teleological. In nature, outside of man, one finds no teleology, no morality, and only passive reason in the form of patterns, which the observing mind perceives (some would say "imposes"). Is man something other than nature? In any case, whence does he derive teleology, morality, and reason? Not from subhuman nature. Many have sought it there and found nothing. We might suggest the supernatural, which cannot be studied by the inductive method which man uses to examine subhuman nature. However, even if the supernatural cannot be scientifically described, by default of any other explanation for the source of teleology, morality, and reason - in other words by the process of elimination - we can categorically state that the supernatural exists, and if we are honest, we must also claim that its existence is a scientific fact. Furthermore, if there were another explanation, that would merely present us with alternatives. It would not disprove the existence of the supernatural.

Non-smoker

2006-12-13T16:38:00.000-05:00

When they came for the smokers, I did not speak up, because I was not a smoker. Let's not let any more dominoes fall. Liberty is priceless. We must speak up if we want to keep it. The health-nazis are on the march. What good is health without liberty? It only prolongs the misery.

Dialogue

2006-12-06T14:14:00.000-05:00

For all we can see, this dialogue can only take place on the level of politics. We have truth which the Muslims can never accept. They have the Koran, which enlightened people can never accept as anything other than heinous evil. They cannot put away their anti-semitism because it is an integral part of their revelation. The best we can hope for is that they agree not to emphasize it, or make it a priority. Nor can we deny that Jesus is God Incarnate. He is, and that is absolutely true, whether anyone believes it or not. What we can do is agree to tolerate one another on the political level, which is possible in the West because of the ascendency of secular progressivism. It cannot be done in Muslim countries because there are no checks and balances. There is only the rule of Satan's minions who follow the Liar (whom they call "Prophet"). How sad it will be for them on the Day of Judgment! Incidentally, it is correct to use the pronoun "she" when referring to Allah. Because all subsequent Arabic has been influenced by the Koran, Arabs have become accustomed to thinking of Allah as a masculine noun, but grammatically it is feminine. Allah was the moon goddess in pre-Muslim Mecca. That is why the moon quickly became the logo of Islam.

2006-12-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

There are in the world three nature religions -- animism, Paganism, and Hinduism. Wiccanism is a branch of Paganism. Then there are three philosophical religions -- Taoism, Buddhism, and Stoicism, although the first has some nature elements in it. There are two historical religions -- Christianity and Judaism, which spring from the same root of Moses and the Prophets. There is the apocalyptic religion of Zororaster, the atheistic religions of Humanism and Communism, and the charlatanry of Theosophy and Scientology. Finally, there are the destructive religions -- Santeria, Satanism, and Islam. For political purposes it is better not to think if Islam as a religion at all, but as a political movement designed to overthrow the Constitution and replace it with the barbarism of Sharia. It should not be protected by the First Amendment because it has an evil political agenda, devoted to the destruction of the host republic.

Dialogue

2006-12-06T13:56:00.000-05:00

Do you wonder just what kind of dialogue Christians can have with Muslims? To have anything at all to dialogue about, there must be some mutual-accepted truth. While secularists have their philosophy by which they can judge both Christianity and Islam, there is no such common ground between Christians and Muslims. The problem is the Koran, which to Muslims is a sacred volume of revelation, while to Christians it is a completely evil volume of Satanic deception, designed to destroy all that is good.

Muslim sects

2006-11-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

There they go again, killing each other. I suppose many Christians relax a little, relieved that as long as they are killing each other, they aren't killing us. I could have some of that weakness myself. But it is a weakness. It is really a terrible thing that the Muslims are killing each other. We don't want them to kill us, or the Jews, but we definitely don't want Muslims to kill each other either. They are, after all, children of God, made in His image, worthy of the ultimate respect that one can give to any creature. All Christians are saddened when Muslims kill each other. There is plenty of blame on both sides of the conflict, but it could end if both sides were determined to end it. As a Christian I cannot take sides in the sectarian conflict, but I can plead with both sides to stop killing each other. You are not pleasing God when you kill people, any people, for we are also in the image of God, as are the Jews. That sectarian difference goes back to the 7th century AD. For 1400 years killing each other has solved nothing. Why not shame each other by trying to do the most good to the other? I cannot predict that such a movement will solve your problems, but isn't it worth trying? At least you won't be killing your fellow Muslims then.

Neo Cons out

2006-11-16T00:22:00.000-05:00

Have we reasons to be optimistic? So much depends on definitions. I am glad the neo-cons are out. They call themselves "conservative," but are really 60's liberals who have been reconciled to Wall Street. I cannot call Rush Limbaugh "conservative," for example, because of his constant retreating to "safe" politics. As for W, he seems to be still fighting the Cold War. The times we are living in will not support safe positions. The devil is very active. The only thing I have any desire to be optimistic about is counter-revolution. There are hardly any models for that. There was a time when the Democratic Party was the more conservative. During its Populist phase, it was far more friendly to the past than the Whig/Republicans. But it was hijacked by progressivist elitists during the Wilson Administration. John Dewey led it into anti-Christian hatred, and J. K. Galbraith led it into socialism. And local labor leaders, who didn't understand how the party had changed, kept turning out the troops. The Democrats lost the "solid south" under LBJ. While 1968 was a transition year, conservative voters actully had George Wallace as a choice, from 1972 on the traditional South was red. It included a large group that has become known as the "Christian right," which is probably as mainstream as they come. It certainly isn't on the right in my book. While it includes some rather wooden interpretations of the Bible, for the most part it is consumerist, and above all safe. I give it credit for standing strongly against sodomy and abortion. But it is very foolish to have "faith in democracy," which means faith in humanity, a completely untrustworthy entity. This year the traditional South has turned purple, although a reddish purple. The media like to scream that the Republicans ought to move to "the left," but the Democrats made the gains they did because they moved to the right. The media will never admit it, because they hate the truth above all. What made the Republicans lose was the war, the war, the war. I am more optimistic that we will get out of that than I was a month ago.

When will it end?

2006-11-04T00:22:00.000-05:00

It will end soon. Next Tuesday. Until then the phone calls, he junk mail, the ridiculous commercials, the even more ridiculous claims will go on ... I did see one other person who is voting for Bill Pierce - no, not the pitcher. He's the Libertarian candidate for Ohio governor. Somebody had a letter in the Plain Dealer supporting him. He will get those two votes at least. As for all those judges, the only one who seems at all familiar is Dick Ambrose, former Browns linebacker. I can't vote for DeWine because he voted to extend the Voting Rights Act, which is so far below my line. Brown is a tax and spend liberal, although at least he voted against the Patriot Act. If there's a third choice for senator, that will be mine. Whoever is running against Kucinich has that going for him. Once again we see the axis of evil - the Republicans and the Democrats.

Cousin Lucius

2006-10-27T15:15:00.000-05:00

I have been reading I'll Take My Stand, a reprint of the 1930 essays by Southern agrarians at Vanderbilt University. Most of the writings in that collection are essays, all of them are very good. But my favorite is John Donald Wade's narrative, "The Life and Death of Cousin Lucius." This story describes the curriculum vitae of a classcially-educated Georgia farmer, who was about ten years old at the time of the War for Southern Independence. It is an account of how he coped with the misfortunes of the South, and warned against the siren song of industrialization. He had a very meaningful life. He lived until just before the Great Depression. Of course Cousin Lucius is fictional, but he is also a metaphor for how the agrarian can bend but not break, how he can continue to love the land when all around him are becoming something alien to what he always knew. His classical education makes him very reasonable, very courageous, and impeccably honest. This story stands before all of us as an example of what could have been had our educational system not deteriorated into its present state.

Geopolitique

2006-10-23T11:51:00.000-05:00

One question was posted: how do we get Russia to be our ally? Good question. Good and complicated. But I would say we begin by acting like an ally. We should support Russia in its war on terror against Chechnya. We should not be too critical of censorship -- considering how paranoid our government is to any suggestion of harming the president. We should support pan-slavic efforts, such as the Serbs in their struggle against Jihad (i.e. Kosovo). Russians like other Slavic peoples. It would probably take a few years of this to gain Russia's friendship. And finally, we should support other Orthodox peoples in their struggles against Islam, for example, the Greek Cypriotes, the Armenians, and the Lebanese Christians. At the very least we should give Christians economic support, and it is not too much to add diplomatic as well.

Stressful Events

2006-10-22T16:55:00.000-05:00

I was reading the Plain Dealer, and came across the story that Secretary Rice went to Russia and immediately started in to make trouble. What an incompetent oaf! Considering the chief geopolitical faultlines in the world today, we need Russia as an ally. We don't need NATO. We don't need Brits. We don't need Saudis. We need Russia. And India. We also cannot afford to lose Israel or Japan. Please don't send Rice there. She'll find some way to insult them and alienate them. I see the axis of evil very clearly -- the Republicans and the Democrats.

All-time college football coaches

2006-10-15T18:08:00.000-05:00

Time to react to things I heard on WKNR while driving from place to place. I heard a number of rankings of the best college football coaches, but most of them were meaningful to people half my age. I have my own list to propose of the top 16, beginning with the 16th an counting down: #16 -- Bobby Dodd, Georgia Tech, 50s/60s
#15 -- Earl Blaik, West Point, best military academy coach
#14 -- Ara Parseghian, Northwestern and N.D.
#13 -- Darrell Royal, Texas, 60s/70s
#12 -- Lou Little, Columbia, 20s
#11 -- Duffy Daugherty, Mich. State, invented the multiple offense
#10 -- Bob Neyland, Tennessee 40s/50s
# 9 -- Woody Hayes, Ohio State, 50s/60s
# 8 -- Bob Devaney, Nebraska, 60s/70s
#7 -- Paul Dietzel, L.S.U., South Carolina, invented the wing-T
#6 -- Joe Paterno, Penn State, still an active coach
#5 -- Bo Schembechler, U. of Michigan, 70s/80s
#4 -- Steve Spurrier, Florida, 80s/90s
#3 -- Bear Bryant, Alabama, 60s-80s
#2 -- Knute Rockne, who won one for the Gipper
#1 -- Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma, 50s/60s, invented the split-T.

Yes, a case could be made for about 70 other guys. And any of these could put together a terrific team. I saw nearly all of thes guys coach, in fact, all except Little and Rockne.

classical pelican: Here we begin

2006-10-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

classical pelican: Here we begin

Here we begin

2006-10-12T16:21:00.000-05:00

This is the first posting, Thursday, October 12, 2006. Today, 514 years ago, Columbus made a landfall on Watling's Island in the Bahamas, discovering a populated - though very sparsely - section of the world that was theretofore not part of most of Western Civilization's reckoning. Thanks to him, Western Civilization expanded to the Western Hemisphere. Yes, we call them both by that adjective, in one case meaning Christendom, in the other a physical location.

2006-10-11T18:16:00.000-05:00