I think commissar might be OK as it has connotations of political oversight of the military or in this case their business counterparts, but maybe the German word gauleiter or regional leader might be more appropriate with its National Socialist background. This is what the highest authority among the residents was called in a certain Boston hospital in the 60s and perhaps still is, though I doubt it with the spread of politically correct words and phrases in recent years. The only problem is it doesn't rhyme or alliterate. Maybe "motor gauleiter." Too clumsy.
My friend Bill McNamer has been writing this nice little book for several years now. It was worth waiting for. It is part Apologia Pro Vita Sua, an apology or defense of one's life, with a touch of Baltimore Catechism thrown in, and in closing, a sincere, thoughtful and sensitive invitation to his children and really all of us younger folks who have tended to drift away from Mother Church, wittingly or not, to re-think the situation."Keep the Faith is a series of letters from a Catholic father to his five young adult children, and by extension to all young adult Catholics who are at risk of losing their faith, or who have dropped out. The author presents the theology underlying Catholic teaching at a level appropriate for thinking adults, addresses the common hangups to faith, and concludes with an extended treatment of Catholic spirituality.
In Keep the Faith, the author meets the problem of belief and doubt with understanding and common sense, questions the adequacy of secularism as a philosophy of life, and insists that both faith and reason -- and a little poetry, beauty, and prayer -- are necessary to live a life of meaning and purpose. These can be found in the Catholic faith."There are defenses of this and explanations of that as a lawyerly way of laying the groundwork for his final summation which is the Great Commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Maturity has not blunted his ironic wit: “The sacrament of Reconciliation was formerly known as Confession to you regular sinners. But we don’t hear much about sin and Confession anymore. Somehow, sin has [had] done a [total] makeover so it’s hard to recognize. Or else we’re all getting holier as we grow older.”
In addition to the Scriptures and Joyce, a little Blake and Belloc leaven the whole thing, and in addition he makes good use of some of the dissenting 20th century Scribes of the Church, though he mercifully puts those references into some compact endnotes. This slim book is worth more than a quick read as I found on my second reading. Highly recommended.
From the pen of J. Bradford DeLong unblushingly comes this mellifluous portion of a paragraph, see Cato Unbound ". . .the magnitude of the liquidity discount should be roughly equal to the technologically- and organizationally-driven rate of labor productivity growth divided by the intertemporal elasticity of substitution." Doesn't that kind of talk give you a thrill, maybe even a shiver running up or down your leg? That is a picture of Friedrich August von Hayek to the left. He must have done something right as he lived into his 90s, dying in 1992. He was one of the very few members of the intelligentsia who said that socialism could not work. Hayek's Road to Serfdom is one of those 20th century classics that our teachers seem never to have heard about. Can a teacher be sued for negligence posthumously?In The Road to Serfdom (1944) and in subsequent works, Hayek claimed that socialism required central economic planning and that such planning in turn had a risk of leading towards totalitarianism, because the central authority would have to be endowed with powers that would have an impact on social life as well, and because the scope of knowledge required for central planning is inherently decentralized. Advisers to both Reagan and Thatcher were among his followers. I wonder if President-elect Obama has ever heard of him? Wouldn't it be fun for Katie Couric to ask a question like that.
Winston Churchill is supposed to have said: "If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions." We may be hearing again from this fellow or at least from some of his disciples in the universities, i.e. Krugman, Stiglitz, Summers, Geithner & Romer.
But just right for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated at noon at St Patrick's Co-Cathedral this day, December 8th. The neat thing about this celebration was that it included a requiem mass for a beautiful and strong 92 year old lady. Her daughter, a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth nun, said that she would be thrilled to know that her requiem mass was celebrated on this day.
Chanticleer, a group of 12 guys, is really something special. This is an Ave Maria that seems kind of low key, perhaps more suited to a Jewish peasant, not so showy as other versions. Thank you Mr Franz Biebl. And you too, Chanticleer, and YouTube too.
This is a nice summary of Advent for the non-liturgical.
We commented on the neurosurgeon's plate, Brain, and the pulmonary physician's plate, Chest. And then he thought for a few seconds and said: "I'm going to get a plate for myself, Tits."
I wonder if Mussolini had people making words using his name? Or Peron? Or Chavez? Obamanomics. Obamelot. Obamamama. Olabama. Obamanufacturing. Obamarine. Obamanation. Isn't this fun?
