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Dark_Innocense
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Name: Jonathan
Country: United States
State: Oklahoma
Metro: Norman
Birthday: 4/8/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: People, Music, History, Religions, Other People, Philosophy, Poetry, etc.
Expertise: I can scare people by singing "Like a Prayer".
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Morophile
Member Since:
8/4/2005
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| Be warned, this is not whining about my personal life, but rather a political rant (which to most people is worse).
Throughout most of my life, I did not think that it would be possible for Republicans to field a candidate who could makeSen. Hillary Clinton look principled. With all of her carefully crafted answers fit to please the widest audience of her party while appealing to enough independents certainly comes off as stilted, she at least deserves credit for generally maintaining her positions throughout most of her political (and non-political) career. Moreover, when here positions have changed, they have evolved in light of information and/or circumstances. Even though her positions seem far too "positioned", there is at least the nobility of continuity of those positions, allowing at least a modicum of principle to be imagined.
Not even this could be said of Gov. Mitt Romney. He of course had his major conversion on abortion rights to the anti-abortion side sometime after he was elected Governor and before he decided to run for President. Nothing new under the sun here: such conversions to the various ends of the spectrum are the norm for candidates for the presidential or vice-presidential nominations in either party, regardless of their disingenuousness. In most cases, it doesn't really matter, as there is little actual policy implemented on the abortion issue by any public figure outside of the courts. I am more trusting of his approach to gay rights, as he says that he strictly opposes gay marriage (thus not elminating past defense of gay rights, in the sense of non-discrimination in the workforce, at school, etc.).
His most damning policy change came this last week, shortly after the announcment of compromise legislation on immigration reform. The reform had the backing of a wide group of Senate Democrats and Republicans, as well as the Administration. The bill is far more penalizing than the bill which passed the Senate last year, increasing in scope and magnitude the idiotic provisions which that "liberal" bill retained. For instance, a $2000 fine which most Americans cannot afford was increased to $5000 for every head of household who has entered the country illegally. Moreover, the guest worker program of the current bill (let alone the fact that we shouldn't have a guest worker program, but should simply allow far more people to enter the country legally) requires that those who enter the country on such a program should leave the country, with no path to citizenship (one can only assume that the lack of a path to citizenship is to create more illegal immigrants in the country so that we can have an issue for the nativists to rant about). Romney supported the reform bill of 2006, while opposing the current bill I will admit, the current bill does make one long for the former bill. Nevertheless, Romney's ciriticism of the current bill amounts to the meaningless puerile statement that he "opposes amnesty" and thus is an opponent of the current bill.
I will admit that it is not to be unexpected that politicians will change their positions, as Romney's opponent for the presidential race Sen. John McCain put it, "in even years" (i.e. election years). However, to have such a reversal of positions on an issue which affects so many people within our country purely for the sake of winning the support of the party base (perhaps better described as that which is most base of the party) in a move which could crush the hopes and dreams of millions within our country and millions who yearn for the shining city on the hill of which President Reagan spoke so eloquently is not merely unconcionable, but despicable.
The recovering Marxist Christopher Hitchens once wrote that, on the eve of the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative victory in the UK, he could not bring himself to vote for Labor. He knew that, ideologically, he was averse to voting Conservative. Nevertheless, he could not in good conscience vote for Labor. Some two decades later, he was able to admit that his abstention was revelation both of his tacit approval of the transition to Conservative rule and admission of his abandonment of ideology.
I have, for as long as I can recall, been drawn to the conservative wing of American politics and to the Republican party. I have not always agreed with the positions of the party, but I have been in closer agreement on those issues which I consider most important with the avowed position of the Republican party. Namely, I favor localized over national handling of most issues. This is not only practical, but the form envisioned by our Constitution. I have favored a government which does not spend beyond its means that it might be able to afford what its country needs. I believe in a country which is more than land, but an idea: a country centered on the idea that all persons are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that our country is a beacon of hope to all of those who would seek to have these rights recognized. The party has abandoned limited government and fiscal restraint in practice, and it appears to be abandoning the great hope and promise of America to the world.
I had always imagined that Lady Liberty looked out upon the ocean as a beacon for all who sought, as Toqueville described the nation, "the last best hope". She proclaims "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Our nation closed the golden door to any number of people over the last century or so, particularly by means of a quota system, and by severely limiting the number of people who may enter the country legally versus the number of jobs available. Nevertheless, the most determined of the world's homeless, tempest-tossed refuse have broken through the gate embracing the Liberty the nation has sought to deny her. Romney apparently once saw that we should join with Liberty herself in welcoming people to our country, and allowing those among us to share in our dreams, and even pay taxes.
I have lately imagined a presidential debate between Gov. Romney and Sen. Clinton. One would see a now familiar face of a "Massachusetts flip-flopper" in the debate, though he is now a Republican rather than a Democrat. However, I cannot help but envision the senator saying "that's my position, and I'm glad that the Governor agreed with me until he decided to run for president." Part of me, sadly, relishes this thought. But the more positive side of me simply hopes that Romney will not be the Republican nominee.
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| I lay upon a couch with a kitten sleeping upon my shoulder and another
sleeping on the top of the couch overlooking me. I realize that
life is good.
Life has been a mixed bag of late. It has not gone well for my
sister, who is currently going through a divorce. I was living
with her until things went bad. Thereafter, I quickly moved in
with my brother. I don't think he likes all of my habits, but he
appears to enjoy my company, and I his. He likes my cooking, and
the only rent he charges is my helping him around the house (which
usually involves my climbing on the roof, since "I'm the skinny
one"). He has taken to dubbing my kittens, Gabrielle, and
Persephone, as Shithead and Pisshead, respectively. Gabrielle has
black/brown markings on white and Persephone has a yellow or cream on
white. Hence their affectionate nicknames.
Speaking of which, my kittens were born on March 25. Being the
Solemnity of the Annunciation, I chose one to be named either Gabriel
or Gabrielle. As it turns out, I named the proper cat, as she
likes to make announcements, either vocally or by actions.
Perseophone, on the other hand, has a tendency to disappear. She
is named due to the proximity of her birth the the Equinox.
I have viewed a number of movies lately, as part of my perks of working at Blockbuster. Most recently I have watched Venus,
in which Peter O'Toole plays an old actor who is a dirty old man trying
to find decent acting roles. That is to say, Peter O'Toole plays
himself. However, the movie is incredibly sweet, while also being
very angering and not a little heartbreaking.
The Fountain was also worth
the wait. It's great when you can watch a movie where there is a
symbol in every scene, and where even some scenes are symbols in
themselves. It may not be Citizen Kane, but at least there is a new movie out there which seeks to touch our minds, hearts and souls.
Notes on a Scandal was also
done rather well. It's interesting to see a movie where you find
a person who engages in statutory rape as a sympathetic character and
not the ogre of the film. God bless the English for being able to
make a movie which is so literate, so human, and so cold.
I finally got around to watching Tideland.
An excellent take on childhood and the resilience and innocence of
children. I could have done without the disclaimer at the
beginning, however.
As far as books go, I've read much Thomas Merton Lately, including New Seeds of Contemplation and The New Man. Perhaps they deserve a separate entry. I am currently reading Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth.
It is the first part of the work, and covers the period from the
Baptism in the Jordan until the Transfiguration. The foreword, a
discourse on the scholarly method of studying the figure of Jesus is
well worth reading on its own. I agree with his assessment of the
historical-critical method as being necessary but not sufficient for
studying the Scriptures, though I certainly believe that if one is
engaging in a purely historical work, it is by far the best method to
use. He does criticize many historians for building
reconstructions of Jesus that reflect themselves more than the figure
which they study (and he does so rightly), but the problem may not be
so much with the method as that they aren't satisfied with the fact
that the method doesn't provide the answers to all of their
questions. Sometimes, we need to accept a certain agnosticism
about the past. However, people in the Humanities do need to get
tenure somehow.
I've been teaching myself Greek lately. Admittedly, I am
slacking. I will need to begin a more regimented push to
assimilate the language. I should be at least half complete with
the text in two weeks. Thus, I should have a command of at least
the most essential elements of the grammar. The book which I am
using is much more accessible to the linguistically inclined. I
have a much better understanding of the Aorist tense now than I did
from my previous book. Much was explained by a simple graph of
the various tenses as the applied to both time and aspect.
Suddenly, I had a conceptual concept of the difference between the
Aorist and Perfect tenses that I did not previously have. In many
ways, I believe this same understanding has aided my understanding of
Latin.
There are now two kittens laying upon me. One moved from my
shoulder to my arm, and the other took her place upon my
shoulder. Life is good.
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| The Gospel of Judas was an
incredibly important discovery in many ways. It is the first
major find of Gnostic writings since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi
Library, wherin four codices of material which we had never seen before
was discovered. The codex in which is contained The Gospel of
Judas similarly had three other works included, with Judas being the third of the three works. Unfortunately, there was also the Book of Allogenes
which we do not have either and which constitutded the third of the
four works in the codex, which has been lost due to the abuse upon the
text by those who kept it after its discovery.
There is not really any new doctrine to be found in the text of Judas itself.
It mirrors that of other Sethian Gnostic groups. We find that
human existence and our bodies are bad, that there are those who have
sparks of the divine within, while others do not and thus cannot truly
achieve salvation through knowledge of this state, and release to
Heaven. Nevertheless, the discovery is significant because we
know most (some passages and even pages were lost due to mishandling)
of what the text actually said. Previously, we only knew what Irenaeus wrote against it in his Adversus Haereses.
Also, since the doctrine contained within is rather in keeping with
that condemned by Irenaeus, we can generally date it to the second
century. This is important in learning the development of Sethian
Gnostic thought, as we have a relatively sure date for this Sethian
Gnostic text, versus those in the Nag Hammadi library, which we know
were composed earlier in Greek (rather than in Coptic) than they are in
their current versions, but we can often only guess as to their actual
date of authorship.
Even if you are not interested in the general scholarship regarding the
Gnostics, I would highly recommend reading the essays concerning the
history of the manuscript itself. It is more entertaining and
heartbreaking than anything to found in a Dan Brown novel or an Indiana
Jones movie. It shows the sad state of affairs in which we live
where major archaeological discoveries suffer destruction due to desire
for exhorbitant pay from their discoverers, and how we foolishly keep
paying them these prices just so we can get the works in some form
close to being intact. It makes you want to join SAFE (Save
Antiquities For Everyone), who take on the auction houses in New York
and elsewhere where these items are put up for sale against all reason
and morality.
If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it. It's a rather thin volume, but with a fair amount of information.
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| I suppose it is time to give my review of Peggy Noonan's John Paul the Great.
I've long been a fan of John Paul, and I have always been impressed by
Peggy Noonan when she has been interviewed on television, so I was
rather looking forward to reading this book.
The book is clearly intended as a piece of hagiography, as should be
obvious from the title. However, while the book often sings the
praises of "how wonderful John Paul was," it is very much more about
Noonan herself, as she saw herself in relation to John Paul II.
Indeed, there is a point where she refers to him as having been a
spiritual father to her, and speaks of her many personal experiences in
encountering him, either as a reporter or as a pilgrim. She
generally seems to delve greatly into her own life, taking a brief bit
about the man and what he taught and using it generally to talk about
herself or about things more genuinely the concern of Americans.
Many of these passages are quite beautiful, as she pours her own soul
into the work. Many are well-argued recommendations to deal with
problems, and clearly state what some of the problems are and now they
have arrived, and what allowed them to flourish (especially in the case
of the clergy sexual abuse scandal).
In the meantime, she also sometimes talks about John Paul II. In
the rather slim volume, she touched a few rather important
points. As a conservative author (indeed, as someone called the
prose laureate of the conservative movement in the United States) she
speaks at great length about John Paul II challenging Communism, and
about his non-violent resistance and call for restraint in facing the
tyrants. She touches on how he was a supporter (and perhaps the
primary influence behind) Paul VI's decision to write Humanae Vitae,
which upheld the traditional condemnation of artificial means of
contraception. Beyond this, she shows what his thinking was in
this matter, and how he arrived at this conclusion. She never
takes issue with any of his moral pronouncements, though she does take
issue with his lack of administrative oversight (much of which she
believes led to the sex abuse scandal). She also touches on the
depth of his prayer, and how he would forget that people were sitting
next to him for a great length of time, as well as his great Marian
devotion, and about the loss of his family at an early age.
However, as an editorialist, perhaps, she feels the need to throw in
pieces of Malachy's prophesy.
Generally, the book is a fast, and very touching, read. The facts
are rather accurate. If one is looking for a biography of John
Paul II, they might be looking in the wrong place. However, if
one is looking for a moving piece of literature, and about an author's
spiritual journey that is written in delicious prose with the backdrop
of the life and ministry of John Paul II, then this is a quite good
book. I must say that I enjoyed reading it.
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| Long has it been since I have posted herein. I spoke recently to
a friend that I would begin reposting here, and have proceeded to
procrastinate. Such procrastination is at this moment
vitiated.
i bring the great news of a great joy. I live with my sister for
the first time in my life. We live also with her husband and
daughter, and occasionally his son, who is here for the weekend.
I have thoroughly enjoyed living with them, and Isabella brings great
joy to me as she learns new things every day. She reminds me that
the mundane is magical.
I have recently acquired a new car, the gift from my parents for
graduation. I graduated last year, but it is not really
late. Rather it is early, because I was supposed to get the car
sometime in the Summer. Due to the loss of my old car to the vile
guard rail on a snowy winter's eve, it was necessary to get one
sooner. Now all I need is to get a job and resolve the apartment
situation.
My job search is so far not very fruitful. In the next hours I
will adjust my resume according to new information that should be
present upon it. I will then proceed, either tonight or tomorrow,
to apply to as many Tulsa call centers and other potential employers
online that I can. The fruits of this should be apparent by early
morning on Monday.
While being jobless and carless and essentially being a babysitter, I
was also able to read a number of books. I have finished The Spirit of the Liturgy
by Joseph Ratzinger (now more commonly known as Benedict XVI), which I
began a few years ago and then didn't pick up again. I also
read John Paul the Great
by Peggy Noonan, once a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, and often
called the prose laureate of the American Right (and certainly far more
deserving of the title than the low humor of Rush Limbaugh or Ann
Coulter). The recently published Gospel of Judas
rounds out my reading. There isn't much new in the text as far as
Sethian Gnostic teachings go, but it is worth getting the book to learn
about the torrid history of the manuscript (the actual text is only
about a quarter of the volume, with much of the rest being commentary
and background).
On a recent trip to a nearby used bookstore, I also acqured Dubliners by James Joyce, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and The Phenomenon of Man
by Teilhard de Chardin. I was shocked to find such a good Classic
Literature section at a bookstore in a town like Sand Springs. I
was equally amazed to find a work by Teilhard de Chardin, particularly
as he believes in the reality of evolution (indeed weaving it into his
philosophical ideas, as his work is rather a synthesis of knowledge),
in the Religion section of the bookstore (Darwin, however, was in
Anthropology rather than in a Science section, so there might have been
an error on the part of the owner). I hope to bring reviews of
these works as well as those listed above in future postings.
With the recent arrival of Lent, I have taken on the practice of
praying the Rosary daily. I have never been much engaged in this
prayer in my life. Much of this is due to the fact that I did not
pray it as I ought to have prayed it. The verbal prayers of the
Rosary are a mantra, and as such, they are aids to meditation,
essentially being aids to the meditative prayer. In accordance
with the suggestions made by John Paul II in Rosarium Virginis Mariae,
the Apostolic Letter he wrote toward the end of his Pontificate seeking
to redevelop devotion to the Rosary, I use relevant readings from
Scripture after a brief moment of silence following the announcement of
each mystery. I also use his suggestion of adding the new five
Luminous Mysteries for meditation (the Baptism of the Lord, Wedding at
Cana, Proclamation of the Kingdom, Transfiguration, and
Eucharist). However, his suggestions for rearranging the days for
the celebration are not sufficient for me. The original pattern
was that the Joyful Mysteries would be meditated upon on Mondays and
Thursdays, the Sorrowful on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Glorious on
Wednesdays and Saturdays, with Sundays varying depending upon the
season. He suggested to move the meditation of the Glorious
Mysteries to Sundays, leaving Thursdays (the day of the giving of the
Eucharist) to the Luminous Mysteries. However, Wednesdays have
traditionally been a day of fast in Christianity, so I have sought to
move Sorrowful Mysteries to this day, and the Glorious Mysteries to
Tuesday, as a further amendment to the traditional pattern.
I have found that I enjoy being a mere ten miles from a
Cathedral. The Tulsa Cathedral of the Holy Family is particularly
beautiful. The Bishop is celebrating tomorrow, and I look forward
to attending. Depending on what my new job is, it would be
interesting to attend the celebration of the Easter Triduum in such a
setting. It is also nice that they provide a Daily Mass at
numerous times of the day: 7:00, 12:00, and 5:00 Tuesday through
Friday, as well as 12:00 on Monday and 8:00 on Saturday.
Hopefully my job will allow me to attend to a daily mass as well.
Near the Cathedral is Cherry Street (also known as 15th Street).
There are numerous bars on this street which I have yet to attend, and
many of them look promising. Usually, I can pry my sister out
once a week if someone is able to watch the baby. Kevin is
usually unable to do so, due to his work schedule, and is only awake
while he is home for a few hours.
I have reentered my keeping of the Liturgy of the Hours. I have
found that it can bring enormous peace to one's day. As Lent has
begun, the Scripture readings for Matins (otherwise known as the Office of Readings) come from the books of Moses, particularly from Exodus.
This should conclude my ramblings for now. I hope to post more in the future. Stay tuned.
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