Only six weeks into the new year, and we've nearly set things up appropriately with our new annual insurance policy. Though we have a doctor we have no intention of abandoning, we have both also had to acquire an in-network "primary care provider" who has authority to issue a hall-pass for any specialists we may need to see. The PCP already has done yeoman's service getting me clearance to have my right-eye cataract dealt with by an out-of-network surgeon. I thought, for the left eye, we might try to pre-clear with the insurance company and avoid the fire-drill and drama.
No dice. The PCP's office can't start the approval/exception process until I schedule the surgery. OK, sez I, I'll schedule the surgery and then find out if insurance will pay for it, though it seems a bit odd. By the way, for the right eye, the surgeon sent me to a local doc for post-op care, which was very convenient, but she wasn't on the list of out-of-network exceptions, so could you add her to the list this time, see what the HMO says?
Oh, good heavens, is the reply, why do you have to see her instead of driving an hour to go back to the surgeon's office? Well, obviously, because it's nice not to have to drive an hour to go back to the surgeon's office. Well, why can't you see someone else in network for the follow-up? I can, but their in-network people are an hour in the other direction.
More guff about the theory of managed care and why they run the network the way they do--at which point I gently interrupt to point out that this is a financial arrangement, not a medical one. I'm not turning over the management of my medical care to an insurance company with whom I'm likely to have a maximum of one-year contact. May I humbly request that you simply ask the HMO if the local follow-up care can be added to the list of exceptions, secure in the knowledge that if the answer is "no," I'll cheerfully go to the local doc anyway and pay her fee out of pocket, in order to avoid the two-hour round-trip?
This precipitates another several rounds of concerned explanation that the insurance company may say "no," and the PCP won't know what to answer if the insurance company asks "why," and managed care means . . . . I gently interrupt again to repeat that I'll accept a "no," and will still do it my way, but I'd appreciate it if they'd just ask. If the HMO asks why, the simple truth is best: the surgeon is an hour away and trusts this local doc to do the follow-up, and the patient prefers to avoid the round-trip. If that's not convincing, fine. It's "no." I'll live. But isn't it worth asking? They may say "yes."
I swear: another round of "but they may say no, and managed care means . . . ." And yet, I also swear, I did not (for once) erupt in a tirade about Obamacare. I'm making a real effort not to offend these people, even though I realize that every time I go out of network, they pick up the message that I lack confidence in professionals who would agree to be in the network. There's some justice in that, but on the other hand some of the doctors we chose independently are in network, which we try to emphasize in order to avoid the unpleasant implication. We've also emphasized that there are some kinds of doctor--such as long-time dermatologists and gynecologists--that we're unlikely to be willing to change every year just because we have to go with a new insurer. Nothing personal against you guys or anyone else who's agreed to be in this year's network.
It sure takes a lot of negotiation and discussion.
This Week in Unlikely Stories...
...Vox explains that what we need to fix America is more corruption in politics.
There's a paper that came out last year called "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy."... Author Jonathan Rauch argues that deals, rewards, and favors are all essential parts of actually making the government work.This is apparently the latest in their series on why you should support Hillary Clinton. Earlier parts included theorizing that Clinton would be the most effective President because she feels unrestrained by law and ethics, and an article on how the fact that Hillary Clinton doesn't trust you proves that you need to change.
We Should Not Be Having a War Over the Supreme Court
I do not mean to say that we won't have one, or that we could possibly avoid one. Where we are, a titanic struggle is all but inevitable. The sides have too much to lose. A political compromise would in principle be easy -- the Senate could advise the President whom they would find easy to confirm, and the President could nominate one of those people.
In practice it is impossible.
For the Left it is impossible because with the opportunity to create a 5-vote progressive majority bloc on the SCOTUS, the Left has in front of it the opportunity to dispose of the Constitution as an objection to their program. From now on, they would be able to simply wave away any suggestion that a policy or institution or regulation was unconstitutional because the bloc would vote to endorse it. Laws contemporary to the Constitution, which have coexisted with it for hundreds of years, will continue to be found to be unconstitutional even though neither the generation that wrote the Constitution nor any of its descendants to date have seen any conflict. It will be the end of the Constitution as a limit on government power, in other words, as long as that government power is exercised in a progressive direction.
For Republicans in Congress it is impossible because the rise of such a bloc would put an end to their major reason to exist. They would no longer be able to legislate as a party, because any legislation a Republican Congress passed would be set aside on appeal. So too Republicans in state houses, and indeed Republican governors. At a time when the Republican Party holds both houses of Congress and the vast majority of state houses and governors' mansions, this one person -- this one seat in one of three branches of government -- could effectively strip their entire power base of legitimacy. They could no longer proceed as the loyal opposition, raising procedural or legislative bars. They would be told what they could and could not do at every level of government, having their achievements thrown away and their concessions enshrined in Constitutional law.
Nothing could be clearer than that the Federal courts have become too powerful. Admittedly, this is an old argument for me. I've been arguing it probably since I've been writing here, certainly since 2006 (see "The Judiciary" here). The most important work we could do right now would be to strip the Federal courts, and the Supreme Court, of much of their authority. The Supreme Court's ability to amend the Constitution on the fly has risen at the same time that increasing diversity in the nation has made amending the Constitution legitimately, through Article V, more and more difficult to accomplish.
The Supreme Court has become much like the One Ring. Instead of trying to use that concentrated power to defend our position, we need to destroy the power lest it fall into other hands.
Win or lose this current fight over the seat on the Court, Governor Greg Abbot's suggested Constitutional amendments should become the #1 priority of the conservative movement. They are not extreme. They are not even radical. They impose only the kind of super-majority controls the Founders often invoked as guards against concentrated power.
It is in the interest of nearly every American to disperse this concentrated power, which is a threat to the peace and stability of the Republic. Unfortunately, I suspect the siren song of power -- of finally being able to force the other side to submit and obey -- will prove too strong.
The song is an illusion. No submission will be forthcoming. Beware that road that leads only to war.
In practice it is impossible.
For the Left it is impossible because with the opportunity to create a 5-vote progressive majority bloc on the SCOTUS, the Left has in front of it the opportunity to dispose of the Constitution as an objection to their program. From now on, they would be able to simply wave away any suggestion that a policy or institution or regulation was unconstitutional because the bloc would vote to endorse it. Laws contemporary to the Constitution, which have coexisted with it for hundreds of years, will continue to be found to be unconstitutional even though neither the generation that wrote the Constitution nor any of its descendants to date have seen any conflict. It will be the end of the Constitution as a limit on government power, in other words, as long as that government power is exercised in a progressive direction.
For Republicans in Congress it is impossible because the rise of such a bloc would put an end to their major reason to exist. They would no longer be able to legislate as a party, because any legislation a Republican Congress passed would be set aside on appeal. So too Republicans in state houses, and indeed Republican governors. At a time when the Republican Party holds both houses of Congress and the vast majority of state houses and governors' mansions, this one person -- this one seat in one of three branches of government -- could effectively strip their entire power base of legitimacy. They could no longer proceed as the loyal opposition, raising procedural or legislative bars. They would be told what they could and could not do at every level of government, having their achievements thrown away and their concessions enshrined in Constitutional law.
Nothing could be clearer than that the Federal courts have become too powerful. Admittedly, this is an old argument for me. I've been arguing it probably since I've been writing here, certainly since 2006 (see "The Judiciary" here). The most important work we could do right now would be to strip the Federal courts, and the Supreme Court, of much of their authority. The Supreme Court's ability to amend the Constitution on the fly has risen at the same time that increasing diversity in the nation has made amending the Constitution legitimately, through Article V, more and more difficult to accomplish.
The Supreme Court has become much like the One Ring. Instead of trying to use that concentrated power to defend our position, we need to destroy the power lest it fall into other hands.
Win or lose this current fight over the seat on the Court, Governor Greg Abbot's suggested Constitutional amendments should become the #1 priority of the conservative movement. They are not extreme. They are not even radical. They impose only the kind of super-majority controls the Founders often invoked as guards against concentrated power.
It is in the interest of nearly every American to disperse this concentrated power, which is a threat to the peace and stability of the Republic. Unfortunately, I suspect the siren song of power -- of finally being able to force the other side to submit and obey -- will prove too strong.
The song is an illusion. No submission will be forthcoming. Beware that road that leads only to war.
Kerry: Refugees an "Existential Threat" to Europe
A change in the administration's position that refugees aren't a threat to anyone? The recognition is pointed at the threat to Europe's political fabric, which simply can't absorb further mass migration until (and unless) it can assimilate the mass migration it has already encouraged. The United States hasn't encouraged mass migration from the Islamic world in the same way, but it certainly has from the Third World writ broadly. We're better at assimilation, usually, but I wonder if the administration isn't going to decide that the real answer is for us instead of Europe to take on more Syrian migrants.
My opinions on Trump
So I've made it fairly clear in the past that I did not like Donald Trump as a candidate for President. His ego, narcissism, and tendency to take everything critical of him as a personal affront or insult reminds me of the current President, which is not a feature, but a bug (in the IT parlance). And in the past, he has made statements that got under my skin (and before you point out hypocracy here, I will first point out that the statements were not criticisms of me but of others, and second I am not running for President), such as his vile personal attack of Senator John McCain's military service. While there are many things to dislike about Senator McCain, frankly I find nothing remotely questionable about the conduct of Captain McCain. And to insult him because "he got caught" is a slap in the face of all POWs, which a better man than Donald Trump would be ashamed of making. But he's not a better man.
Well, over the weekend, he crossed yet another line. With his slander of former President George W. Bush as having lied us into war, I think the mask has slipped again. I have wondered previously, but after this and along with his defense of Planned Parenthood, I am becoming more and more convinced than ever that Donald Trump has gone through no Road to Damascus moment. He was a liberal Democrat, he is a liberal Democrat, and he will continue to be a liberal Democrat. Whether he is a Clinton stalking horse or not is frankly immaterial. He is no conservative, regardless of his stated stances on immigration. He has directly insulted all of us who supported President George W. Bush during his difficult administration by saying we were supporting a war-mongering tyrant (which would make us culpable, as we supported him). I am not ashamed to admit that there were actions taken and decisions made by President Bush that I felt were misguided. But at no time did I (nor do I currently) believe he was anything other than a good man doing his level best to protect this country. And once again, I think the accusations Donald Trump made at the most recent Republican debate were such that a better man would be ashamed of making. Or at least a better conservative would be ashamed of making them. A liberal would likely feel little to no shame in making those accusations.
Well, over the weekend, he crossed yet another line. With his slander of former President George W. Bush as having lied us into war, I think the mask has slipped again. I have wondered previously, but after this and along with his defense of Planned Parenthood, I am becoming more and more convinced than ever that Donald Trump has gone through no Road to Damascus moment. He was a liberal Democrat, he is a liberal Democrat, and he will continue to be a liberal Democrat. Whether he is a Clinton stalking horse or not is frankly immaterial. He is no conservative, regardless of his stated stances on immigration. He has directly insulted all of us who supported President George W. Bush during his difficult administration by saying we were supporting a war-mongering tyrant (which would make us culpable, as we supported him). I am not ashamed to admit that there were actions taken and decisions made by President Bush that I felt were misguided. But at no time did I (nor do I currently) believe he was anything other than a good man doing his level best to protect this country. And once again, I think the accusations Donald Trump made at the most recent Republican debate were such that a better man would be ashamed of making. Or at least a better conservative would be ashamed of making them. A liberal would likely feel little to no shame in making those accusations.
After Him, The Deluge
Rest in peace Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the last, best guards of the Revolution. In myriad ways, we will miss you.
UPDATE: A private reflection on Scalia's great heart.
UPDATE: A private reflection on Scalia's great heart.
Mark Steyn Has Guts
Facing a ruinous, lingering lawsuit for defamation and slander from Michael E. Mann -- creator of the famous 'hockey stick' global warming graph -- Mark Steyn has assembled a book-length assault on the same fellow. Entilted A Disgrace to the Profession, he obtained a blurb for it from one Laura Rosen Cohen:
It's probably the longest, funniest, most savvily organized and meticulous "screw you" in the history of Western literature.I suppose we know what he thinks of the lawsuit now, if there was ever any doubt.
Not Quite
Allahpundit thinks Ted Cruz is just being symbolic in his language against gay marriage:
That's important because, for now, Roy Moore is a single guy using his office to hold the line. Everyone expects him to lose. If a President of the United States were to endorse his position, though, it could cause similar moves in other states as well. That could eventually put some teeth in the frequently-proclaimed Republican position that marriage is a state issue, not a Federal issue. A future President who disagreed would have to do more than remove Roy Moore. He or she would have to take on a bloc of states rejecting Federal jurisprudence. They might, or they might back down. If they did take on the bloc, they would do so from a relatively weakened position compared to the position that President Obama holds now.
Here’s the strongest language I’ve found from Cruz on Obergefell:That's not true, though, in states like Alabama where the State Supreme Court's chief justice is advising clerks not to stop enforcing Alabama's constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage. In that case, whether or not Federal enforcement will occur is really important. Keeping this pledge would allow states like Alabama to nullify the SCOTUS ruling, at least for the term of the President making the pledge.“My response to this decision was that it was illegitimate, it was lawless, it was utterly contrary to the Constitution and that we should fight to defend marriage on every front,” he said, before promoting constitutional amendments to overturn the ruling and put justices up for retention elections, along with legislation “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.”
Cruz conceded that none of his proposals are politically feasible at the moment. Once he is elected president, however, Cruz said he will make sure that “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.” He also committed to only appoint Supreme Court justices who would not “legislate from the bench” like the justices did in Obergefell.
Okay, but the president’s role in enforcing or not enforcing Obergefell is unimportant. It’s a matter of the states enforcing it, since marriage is a creature of state law. Here again you find Cruz laying down rhetoric that makes it sound like he’s preparing to do something bold when really it’s just symbolism.
That's important because, for now, Roy Moore is a single guy using his office to hold the line. Everyone expects him to lose. If a President of the United States were to endorse his position, though, it could cause similar moves in other states as well. That could eventually put some teeth in the frequently-proclaimed Republican position that marriage is a state issue, not a Federal issue. A future President who disagreed would have to do more than remove Roy Moore. He or she would have to take on a bloc of states rejecting Federal jurisprudence. They might, or they might back down. If they did take on the bloc, they would do so from a relatively weakened position compared to the position that President Obama holds now.
We All Have Our Bad Days
Madeleine Albright writes:
I HAVE spent much of my career as a diplomat. It is an occupation in which words and context matter a great deal. So one might assume I know better than to tell a large number of women to go to hell.
Common Ground: What about War?
As Grim has pointed out, Jim Webb's exit from the presidential race leaves us with a field of candidates who have never served in the military. What reading would you recommend to our next commander in chief, or a voter who has never served but who is tasked with picking a commander in chief?
Who Are the Good Guys?
Kevin Williamson writes.
He doesn't mention Chicago, whose police department is infamously corrupt -- and whose culture, at least in South Chicago, is astonishingly deadly. The question he doesn't consider that probably needs to be asked is whether the corruption of the department is a product of the struggle with rampant gang violence, or a contributing factor to it. In other words, would a more scrupulously honest and law-abiding police department enable the gangs by being too restrained to stop them? Or would it prove to undercut the gangs, by improving trust between the police and the community in which the gangs operate?
He doesn't mention Chicago, whose police department is infamously corrupt -- and whose culture, at least in South Chicago, is astonishingly deadly. The question he doesn't consider that probably needs to be asked is whether the corruption of the department is a product of the struggle with rampant gang violence, or a contributing factor to it. In other words, would a more scrupulously honest and law-abiding police department enable the gangs by being too restrained to stop them? Or would it prove to undercut the gangs, by improving trust between the police and the community in which the gangs operate?
Common Ground: Books under Copyright
The following are books people mentioned that are still under copyright and so generally can't be legally downloaded for free. The book links lead to Amazon.com, and the author links lead to the author page on Wikipedia, if there is one.
Public domain works have already been covered in previous posts, which are accessible by clicking the "Common Ground" label at the bottom of this post.
Public domain works have already been covered in previous posts, which are accessible by clicking the "Common Ground" label at the bottom of this post.
Drive In Movie Review
So apparently there's a story today where Ted Cruz's campaign hired an actress named Amy Lindsay, but had to pull her ad because she was involved in something called "softcore porn." I wasn't sure what this category was supposed to mean. R-rated movies these days are sufficiently explicit that it's hard to imagine any territory lying between them and real porn.
Well, it turns out the lady has a page on Rotten Tomatoes that lists her filmography. I tried to find an online clip from "Timegate: Tales of the Saddle Tramps" because the name was long enough that I figured it would be easy. All I found was a movie review without clips. I did manage to locate a couple of clips from "Bikini Airways," which I'm not going to post not because the clips themselves were offensive, but because the YouTube editor had added an intro piece of his own that might be too racy. Nobody in these clips is even unclothed, although the jokes are obscene (and very stupid).
The one she seems proudest of is a comedy called "Milf," which I'm not even going to try to find because I have a feeling I know what will appear if I should plug that term into the Google search box. The description the movie gives is, "Four horny college boys discover that older women have a ravenous sexual appetite to rival their own, and ditch their snooty co-eds to seek out ladies who know what they like in the bedroom."
Based on this brief bit of research, I'm beginning to think the real thing that distinguishes 'softcore porn' from R-rated 'romantic comedies' is low budgets and bad writing. Amy Lindsay is at least having honest fun with her work, or gives every indication of being so. Confer with Amy Schumer's high-budget 'romantic comedy' "Trainwreck" -- of which I have only seen clips of about the same length as the ones from "Bikini Airways," but which looks to be just as much a sex comedy -- and nobody minds having her show up to stand next to her cousin Chuck Schumer to talk gun control bills in Washington, D.C.
Chuck Schumer was right on this one. Cruz is competing for voters in the Bible belt, and I guess he thinks they'll hold it against him that he consorts with 'loose women' or something. If you find out he's having an affair with a racy actress, sure. If you find out he's a friend with a racy actress and likes to talk over political ideas with her, so what?
If you find out that a group of people he employed to make ads happened to employ her once without the two of them ever even meeting in person, come off it.
This concludes tonight's Drive In Movie Review.
Well, it turns out the lady has a page on Rotten Tomatoes that lists her filmography. I tried to find an online clip from "Timegate: Tales of the Saddle Tramps" because the name was long enough that I figured it would be easy. All I found was a movie review without clips. I did manage to locate a couple of clips from "Bikini Airways," which I'm not going to post not because the clips themselves were offensive, but because the YouTube editor had added an intro piece of his own that might be too racy. Nobody in these clips is even unclothed, although the jokes are obscene (and very stupid).
The one she seems proudest of is a comedy called "Milf," which I'm not even going to try to find because I have a feeling I know what will appear if I should plug that term into the Google search box. The description the movie gives is, "Four horny college boys discover that older women have a ravenous sexual appetite to rival their own, and ditch their snooty co-eds to seek out ladies who know what they like in the bedroom."
Based on this brief bit of research, I'm beginning to think the real thing that distinguishes 'softcore porn' from R-rated 'romantic comedies' is low budgets and bad writing. Amy Lindsay is at least having honest fun with her work, or gives every indication of being so. Confer with Amy Schumer's high-budget 'romantic comedy' "Trainwreck" -- of which I have only seen clips of about the same length as the ones from "Bikini Airways," but which looks to be just as much a sex comedy -- and nobody minds having her show up to stand next to her cousin Chuck Schumer to talk gun control bills in Washington, D.C.
Chuck Schumer was right on this one. Cruz is competing for voters in the Bible belt, and I guess he thinks they'll hold it against him that he consorts with 'loose women' or something. If you find out he's having an affair with a racy actress, sure. If you find out he's a friend with a racy actress and likes to talk over political ideas with her, so what?
If you find out that a group of people he employed to make ads happened to employ her once without the two of them ever even meeting in person, come off it.
This concludes tonight's Drive In Movie Review.
Jim Webb Out
With respects to Joel's different opinion, I regard that as a shame. He was the last candidate with significant foreign policy experience except Clinton, and the only candidate to appear with military experience, at a time when the world is increasingly on fire thanks to the weak President we've had for eight years. Now the best we can hope for is someone with no experience at all, as the one remaining candidate with any is the worst candidate in the race. She has treated national security as disposable for her personal convenience, as shown by her treatment of classified information. She has treated the people who conduct national security as disposable, also. Prima facie evidence from comparing weapons sales to donations to the Clinton Foundation suggests she has also treated these matters as being chiefly about personal enrichment rather than the furtherance of American security in the world.
Thus we shall have to place our hopes on a novice, or someone not even a novice, at a very dangerous hour.
Thus we shall have to place our hopes on a novice, or someone not even a novice, at a very dangerous hour.
Cactus Wood Clock
For Douglas, a few old snaps of the cactus wood grandfather clock built by my Dad's great uncle, Eddie LaPlant.
I found some notes from my Dad - he owned a brick yard in Tuscon andbuilt worked on (I don't have much information on this) many of the older brick buildings at the University of Arizona. There's also a snap of a newspaper article from the late 60s - sorry, I don't have a larger version handy - it's somewhere in my files - on the cactus clocks.
I can't even imagine the patience it took to design and build this (and he built five of them!). Photos below the fold.
I found some notes from my Dad - he owned a brick yard in Tuscon and
I can't even imagine the patience it took to design and build this (and he built five of them!). Photos below the fold.
The Past and Future are Always Changing
Mark Steyn:
Steyn goes on to note that the police in Cologne denied for a week or so that the attacks on women by migrants actually happened. That's a very important question of fact. A friend of mine who is of Soviet Jewish extraction -- from the USSR to Israel, tour of duty in the IDF, eventually to America and citizenship here -- was greatly concerned by the story because it reminded him of antisemitic stories the Nazis told about Jews ravishing German women. These were apparently part of the justification for the suppression of Jews in the Fatherland. It matters a great deal whether or not these stories are true.
We are forced to judge that from a distance both in time and place. It seems as if they did happen, from what we can tell by reading open sources. Is it plausible that they are a paranoid myth by Germans to justify a reaction against the refugees? It's not impossible, I suppose. However, it is also true that the structure of Islam's approach to women makes it more plausible than the old antisemitic story ever was. Likewise the recent demonstrations during the Arab Spring, especially in Egypt. Laura Logan was an eyewitness to similar violence, and it was reported on a wide scale even by Egyptian women talking about Egyptian men. Neither antisemitism nor anti-Islamic sentiment is indicated there, nor xenophobia either.
The past seems to be trying to change before our eyes, though. Just as Steyn says.
I get a lot of mail complaining that I never feature Beatles songs in our Song of the Week. Okay then:I'm of the James Bond school of thought about the Beatles, myself.I read the news today, oh boyI also read the news today, oh boy. And it tells me there won't be any Beatles songs on the radio in Blackburn in a few years time, nor theatre in the West End of London, nor pubs in the East End, nor uncovered women in Birmingham, nor mixed swimming pools in Manchester, nor bacon butties in Sheffield, nor the teaching of the Crusades, the Holocaust and other problematic matters in schools... There might not even be Sheikh Speare - whoops, sorry, Shakespeare - at Stratford-upon-Avon. Because when you lose your future, you lose your past, too.
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire...
Steyn goes on to note that the police in Cologne denied for a week or so that the attacks on women by migrants actually happened. That's a very important question of fact. A friend of mine who is of Soviet Jewish extraction -- from the USSR to Israel, tour of duty in the IDF, eventually to America and citizenship here -- was greatly concerned by the story because it reminded him of antisemitic stories the Nazis told about Jews ravishing German women. These were apparently part of the justification for the suppression of Jews in the Fatherland. It matters a great deal whether or not these stories are true.
We are forced to judge that from a distance both in time and place. It seems as if they did happen, from what we can tell by reading open sources. Is it plausible that they are a paranoid myth by Germans to justify a reaction against the refugees? It's not impossible, I suppose. However, it is also true that the structure of Islam's approach to women makes it more plausible than the old antisemitic story ever was. Likewise the recent demonstrations during the Arab Spring, especially in Egypt. Laura Logan was an eyewitness to similar violence, and it was reported on a wide scale even by Egyptian women talking about Egyptian men. Neither antisemitism nor anti-Islamic sentiment is indicated there, nor xenophobia either.
The past seems to be trying to change before our eyes, though. Just as Steyn says.
Sedona
Let us probe the silent places,
Let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
Mardi Gras
I have a friend out in New Orleans whom I keep intending to visit before he moves on in his life. I'd love to see the parades once in my life, and to celebrate the occasion with him.
Tonight is the last few hours before the beginning of the Great Fast of Lent. One of the tremendously healthy things about the Church is its maintenance of this concept of a yearly fast. Feasting and fasting are both healthy, if they are done in their right hour. Lent is a time to tame passions, to regulate habits, and to reconsider the ways in which you are not living in a virtuous way.
For that reason it can be unpleasant. After all, you are giving up pleasures for a relatively long time, especially if they are habitual pleasures. I'm going to give you Kant's remarks on this matter this year. He was writing against "monkish asceticism," of which I have a different opinion. But he also gives you cause to focus on cheer [Ak. 6:485]:
In doing so, we recover our freedom.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. There remains one last feast first. Go enjoy it.
Tonight is the last few hours before the beginning of the Great Fast of Lent. One of the tremendously healthy things about the Church is its maintenance of this concept of a yearly fast. Feasting and fasting are both healthy, if they are done in their right hour. Lent is a time to tame passions, to regulate habits, and to reconsider the ways in which you are not living in a virtuous way.
For that reason it can be unpleasant. After all, you are giving up pleasures for a relatively long time, especially if they are habitual pleasures. I'm going to give you Kant's remarks on this matter this year. He was writing against "monkish asceticism," of which I have a different opinion. But he also gives you cause to focus on cheer [Ak. 6:485]:
But such punishment [as asceticism] is a contradiction (because punishment must always be imposed by another); moreover, it cannot produce the cheerfulness that accompanies virtue, but rather brings with it secret hatred for virtue's command. -- Ethical gymnastics, therefore, consists only in combating natural impulses sufficiently to be able to master them when a situation comes up in which they threaten morality; hence it makes one valiant and cheerful in the consciousness of one's restored freedom.That's a big part of what we are doing in the season in the wilderness: discovering a restored freedom from habits that threaten virtue. As Tex says, the locus of control is the self. For an hour -- for forty days and nights -- we demonstrate it to ourselves.
In doing so, we recover our freedom.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. There remains one last feast first. Go enjoy it.
Noli Me Tangere
This video includes a long reflection from Benjamin Franklin on an early symbol and motto adopted by American Marines. But don't forget the older connections: to the national motto of Scotland which gave us the Declaration of Arbroath, and to John 20:17.
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