Chant for Gregory's feast day

At mass today, we chanted the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus dei in honor of the feast of St. Gregory the Great. In that same spirit, here's another piece of Gregorian chant.

Ego sum panis

I hope it's not cheating, but I put a mild reverb on it because the flat acoustic of my computer corner grows wearing.

The Last Picture Show

I don't know about you, but when we sit down to watch a DVD we have to go through a set of delicate maneuvers with the wire that runs the video from the DVD/VCR player to get the picture to come in. The contact is so loose that we've had to brace the plug with CD cases to wedge it in. The jack is located right under the screen, so the whole setup gives our living room an air a certain air of trailer-park elegance.

If we just want to watch t.v. we have to go through the same procedure, since the contact for the cable on the back of the television was ripped out in one of the several incidents in which some young thing stood on the cabinet and tilted it enough to allow the t.v. to slide off. Both television and children have emerged relatively unscathed from these shenanigans (except, of course, for the cable contact). Not so the heirloom coffee table on which the t.v. landed full force.

Of late it's become more and more difficult to get the picture to resolve, and yesterday the contact finally gave up the ghost. There won't be many tears shed when the shell is put out on the curb. We didn't have a t.v. in the house when I was growing up, and Darwin's family rationed t.v. time sparingly. The girls can imitate the youthful example of their parents and find other things to occupy their time, like walking to school in the snow uphill both ways.

And then in a few months we can get one of those spiffy wall mounted t.v.s that won't take up valuable floor real estate, which we couldn't justify while the old t.v. still worked. Now if only the vacuum cleaner would finally die...

Politically Incorrect Truths about Human Behavior

Psychology Today tells me what I always knew:

Physical attractiveness, while a universally positive quality, contributes even more to women's reproductive success than to men's. The generalized hypothesis would therefore predict that physically attractive parents should have more daughters than sons. Once again, this is the case. Americans who are rated "very attractive" have a 56 percent chance of having a daughter for their first child, compared with 48 percent for everyone else. (emphasis mine)

Here are some of the other "politically incorrect" truths:

• Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
• Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
• The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of
• Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

Found via Arts and Letters Daily, which I found via Reconnaissance of the Western Tradition.

Thy Kingdom Come...

When I saw several weeks ago that the parish bible study was going to be tackling Revelation, my first thought was: Well, maybe I'll sit it out one more time and see what they're about next time around.

I'd never found Revelation particularly interesting reading. However, on further thought, it occurred to me that perhaps the fact that I found the book so uninteresting would be a good reason to go to the bible study. After all, it's part of the bible. I assumed that there must be something I was missing. Plus the study was being given by our new assistant pastor, fresh out of seminary and a really solid and enthusiastic guy. So I've been going.

It's still not my favorite book of the bible, but I think I'm beginning to "get it" more than before. Last night, covering chapters 4-7, a section struck me as in a sense reflective of some things I'd been thinking about lately.

In the second vision, the scroll with seven seals is brought forward, and it is asked who is worthy to open the scroll.

One of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed, enabling him to open the scroll with its seven seals." Then I saw standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and the elders, a Lamb that seemed to have been slain.... He came and received the scroll from the right hand of the one who sat on the throne. When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones. They sang a new hymn: "Worthy are you to receive the scroll and to break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests for our God, and they will reign on earth." I looked again and heard the voices of many angels who surrounded the throne and the living creatures and the elders. They were countless in number, and they cried out in a loud voice: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing." (Rev. 5: 5-12)

As the lamb opens the seals on the scroll, terrors are released upon the world to tear down the established order. In the context of last first/early second century, what is being discussed here is the chaos that doubtless must take place before the old pagan order of the ancient world can be remade according to the Christian faith. Part way through the various calamities described:

When he broke open the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the witness they bore to the word of God. They cried out in a loud voice, "How long will it be, holy and true master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?" Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to be patient a little while longer until the number was filled of their fellow servants and brothers who were going to be killed as they had been. (Rev. 6: 9-11)

Here those who have given their lives for the faith and ascended to the heavenly kingdom are saying "faster please" -- asking when the reign of God on earth will begin. The answer is that they must wait until the suffering of the Church on Earth has reached its conclusion. Taken imminently, that might be taken to mean until a Christian society is established. Perhaps that's what the original readers saw it as. Or perhaps they saw it as the point when the temporal world was brought to its conclusion. Looking back, we can certainly see that despite the conversion of the Europe and beyond, a truly "Christian world" is necessarily illusive. And so we too continue to wait for the time when all will be rolled aside and true justice will reign throughout the world.

Perhaps this is a case of applying what you're thinking about at the moment to what you're reading, but it struck me that this speaks to a permanent tension within the Christian mind.

On the one hand, we believe that through Christ's Word we've come to understand how humans are meant to live their lives, and believing that we know that there's a natural desire to want to re-order the world to function more according to that truth.

On the other hand, Christian teaching pertains to how each one of us ought to lead our lives in order to one day be united with God in heaven; it does not describe a specific end state for earthly society. As such, attempts to perfect earthly society have distinct limitations.

The question of how much one should strive to perfect earthly society (and in what areas and by what means) versus how much one should hunker down and focus on one's own progress towards God remains a fertile ground for argument between Christians.

Wake up and smell the vocation

Last night Darwin and I were trying to have an adult conversation of the type that involves discussion of the day's news, philosophical speculation, analysis of current projects, and a bit of innuendo for spice. Unfortunately, our dazzling display of linguistic and intellectual prowess was wasted on the ravening hordes, who tumbled off couches and pushed each other and slid down the banister and interrupted every few minutes to complain that their sister had taken their hat. After the conversation was shelved yet again when a particularly percussive incident resulted in everyone being banished upstairs to take baths, Darwin shook his head and said, "Wake up and smell the vocation."

As the girls get older and more able to occupy themselves, it seems that we ought to have more free time for conversation and leisure. And in some senses that's true. But it seems that our role has expanded now, not contracted. Instead of just keeping babies from hurting themselves, we're finding that we need to keep big girls intellectually and physically engaged. We're not allowed to hoard our free time or our spare energies for our own purposes. We knew, of course, when we started that parenting was an absorbing job, but sometimes the reality of being on call all the time is daunting. It's fine when one can send the older ones off to make their own fun; not so fine is when it succeeds all too well and one finds they've been entertaining themselves with makeup or a pair of scissors.

God provides the grace necessary to handle the challenges of one's vocation. These graces, however, work on His terms, not ours. Having a truly Catholic family life doesn't mean that the children will be utter cherubs and never cause their parents a moment of worry or frustration. It means that when the water pours from the ceiling fan or someone wakes up the baby or throws a tantrum or takes a permanent marker to the carpet that one can step back and take a deep breath and refrain from beating the children or yelling (more than is necessary to make the point) just long enough to pray for that grace. Or even just long enough to let an earlier prayer for grace, said at a more peaceful moment, take effect.

In some situations, a line must be drawn. Take, for example, a purely hypothetical situation in which a five-year-old learns to pick the lock of her parents' door with a penny. It seems to me that the proper response to that sort of hypothetical invasion of privacy is swift and sharp, so that it is impressed upon the child that Mommy and Daddy are adults and need their privacy and that five-year-olds may never pick locks. Ever. Hypothethetically.

That's when you really wake up and smell the vocation.

GNXP: Ten Questions for Greg Clark

GeneExpression Classic has one of its Ten Questions interviews with Greg Clark, whose Farewell to Alms (about "economic evolution" and the creation of wealth in western society) was discussed a little bit here and on Examined Life a couple weeks ago.

In his new book A Farewell to Alms, Greg Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, contends that "[t]he New World after the Neolithic Revolution offered economic success to a different kind of agent than had been typical in hunter-gatherer society: Those with patience, who could wait to enjoy greater consumption in the future. Those who liked to work long hours. And those who could perform formal calculations in a world of many types of inputs and outputs...."

Clark also provides archival evidence that in medieval Britain (and to a lesser extent in China and Japan) the wealthy-who presumably had those "middle class" skills in abundance-raised more children than the average person. If you put these pieces together-a system that rewards a new set of abilities, plus greater reproductive success for those who have those abilities-then all you need to get some form of selection is one more link: A transmission mechanism. On the nature of the mechanism, Clark leaves the door wide open. Could be parent-to-child cultural transmission, could be genes, could be both.

While much of the discussion of Clark's book has focused on his "survival of the richest" hypothesis, Clark himself appears to be equally devoted to demolishing the widely-held view that economic institutions are the key to modern economic growth. He notes that the British people had solid property rights, limited government, and sound currency for centuries before they had their Industrial Revolution. Drawing on early work by Nobel Prize-winner Douglass North, he argues that economic institutions are largely endogenous and relatively efficient, at least when we're talking about time horizons lasting a century or more. If institutional change wasn't the driving force behind modern economic growth, then what was? In Clark's view, the driving force was change within human beings themselves.

The GNXP interviews are always high quality, and this one sheds some interesting light on Clarks research and what he thinks it shows. This makes me even more curious to read the book.

What Mr. Bennet Read All Day

The monkeys have become attached to watching the 1980 BBC dramatization of Pride and Prejudice (to my mind, by far the best of the various dramatizations). It's certainly better than most things kids get into watching, though it results in some interesting questions. (In response to questions about Lydia's running off, I've explained to them that it's always very bad to run away from your family with a stranger.)

Lately, this got me into wondering what exactly it was that Mr. Bennet spends all his time reading. He always seems to be hiding out in his library, book in hand. It seems out of character for him to be reading novels, and besides, Austen was writing in the very earliest days of the English novel: there weren't many to read. So what was he reading? (Pride and Prejudice was written in the late 1790s and published in 1813, so I'm putting the time period as about 1800.)

There are a few things I've read which I know were fairly popular at the time. Samuel Johnson's The Rambler (a series of periodical essays originally written in 1750-1751, which became highly popular once collected in book form) is a very enjoyable read, and seems Mr. Bennet's style. Also fun to read (and still popular though nearly 100 years old by 1800) were the collected essays of The Spectator.

The best thing I could hit on was doing a search on Advanced Book Exchange with the publication date range of 1750 to 1813 and using the vaguest possible keywords (I used "leather" cover and "good" condition). Here are the results. (There are 16,000+, so enjoy. But a few pages worth give a good feel.)

So what looked like good Mr. Bennet reading? Well, collections of essays seem to have been quite popular, the less famous cousins of The Spectator and The Rambler.

Histories also seem quite plentiful, such as this one: THE HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: AND A VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, FROM THE RISE OF THE MODERN KINGDOMS TO THE PEACE OF PARIS, IN 1763. IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM A NOBLEMAN TO HIS SON. That sounds like the right sort of thing for Mr. Bennet.

You also have collections of letters and published diaries such as Letters of the Late Lord Lyttleton or Letters [Lettres} of the Marquise du Deffand to the Hon. Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Oxford, from 1766 to 1780. To which are added Letters of Madame du Deffand to Voltaire, from 1759 to 1775.

There are quite a few collections of sermons and general theological works (even a fair number of copies of the Imitation of Christ, mostly printed in Ireland) but I don't see Mr. Bennet as going for those as much, though I'm sure Mary read sermons of the more dull sort.

There's also quite a bit of poetry, but again, I don't see that as Mr. Bennet's cup of tea, unless it was satirical, translations of the classics, or perhaps a trifle ribald.

One also sees a certain number of biographies, some more or less colorful-sounding (of both real and imaginary people), which I could definitely picture as something Mr. Bennet would enjoy. Memoirs of Frederick and Margaret Klopstock or LIFE OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI, Called the Magnificent.

And finally, we see others among the early novels, such as the Vicar of Wakefield. I'm not sure this would have been Mr. Bennet's normal reading, though.

Hey there, Baby!

Jennifer at Et tu, Jen? is about to add some more excitement to her life, as she's headed to the hospital today to deliver her baby. Please pray for a safe, uncomplicated labor and delivery for her.

And speaking of babies, the Opinionated Homeschooler has finally emerged to report that she had a fine baby girl on July 16, and provides an excellent quote from her baby's namesake:

I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.

Mmm, lake of beer...

Both these ladies are local to us, so I'm looking forward to the chance to meet the new arrivals.

Reading the Signs

Michael Yon (who is spending some time reporting from Fallujah on how things are currently going in Anbar Province) writes about the signs that platoon level troops and higher level commanders have a good game on:

Many people know the old adage about restaurant kitchens: to know if the kitchen is clean, check the bathroom. The same holds true for Soldiers, only it calls for checking windows. If you are going on a combat mission and Soldiers have not cleaned all their windows to a sparkle (during times when it is possible to do so), do not go with them. Soldiers with dirty windows are not watching for tiny wires in the road, nor are they scanning rooftops. They are talking about women, football, and the car they will buy when they get home. I will not go into combat with Soldiers with dirty windows.

I also look at the state of their weapons and ammunition. Does the machine gunner have lubricant? Before going out with them, does someone tell me what to do if there is any drama? Or do they just drag me into combat like a sack of potatoes? It’s usually very simple. A platoon sergeant will say, “Sir, you stay next to me and do what I tell you, we’ll probably get you back alive.” Although there are always exceptions, most of the Soldiers fall into the “ready, prepared and alert” category.

On the command level, there are other indicators. In counterinsurgency, as our Vietnam veterans will vouch, press has both strategic and tactical influence. Commanders who are afraid of the press or who cannot handle it cannot win this fight. They are often the same people who alienate Iraqis. I remember one captain who had allowed his men to ransack an Iraqi home, much later shouting in my face while his lip quivered with anger, “You are a piece of shit!” He could not handle having press around, and resented the very air they breathed, and he made sure they knew it. Of course anyone whose idea of winning is to bully Iraqis would not want media around. I watched him for months as a study in how not to do certain things. Tactically, he was competent and knew how to win the gun battles, but he was incompetent and inadequate for counterinsurgency.

Dealing with the press is just a reality, like the weather. We would never put a commander in the field who refused to make plans for fighting in the cold or heat. Although it’s just a reality, cold weather, for example, could destroy a unit overnight if they had not prepared for it. As with the weather, the press also influences the enemy. Cold weather freezes everyone’s toes; bad press stalls progress. In either instance, he who is better-suited and more adaptable has a supreme advantage. There was a time when many of our enemies in Iraq were beating us in the press, both their press and ours, but now that is changing.

If all reporters knew as much about the military (and put as much work into doing good reporting) as Yon, I'd be a little more optimistic about that last line. But for all that the mainstream press makes a good punching-bag for conservative pundits, I don't doubt he's right that good ability to deal with the press is essential to being a good commander in Iraq these days.

Things That Don't Bother Me: Other People's Wealth

There's a fellow on my team at work who every so often reads a news story that sets him off on a familiar refrain: "Do you know what would happen if we imposed a 50% tax on the world 50 richest people? We could pay for national health care without costing anyone else a dime! Can you imagine that? Fifty people sitting on enough wealth to give healthcare to everyone in the country. There's something wrong with the world... Why should they have all that money?"

I'm sure there are indeed lots of things wrong with the world, and this may be one of them, but try as I might I honestly can't work up any worry over it. Once and a while I half-heartedly reply, "Well, it is their money. That's why they'd generally expect to keep it." Generally I just keep my mouth shut.

I'm hesitant to say that this kind of exercise is simply a matter of envy. Christ discussed the injustice of the rich man who does nothing for those in need at his very gates in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. However, unlike many modern progressives I don't think that Jesus envisioned setting up vast government systems to redistribute wealth.

It seems to me that there rests on those who have earned or inherited great wealth a duty to use that wealth wisely, to store up treasures in heaven as well as on this earth. And yet, it doesn't strike me as worth worrying too much about it from my position. I rather question how much good it would do to take the money from the richest people in the world and give it to the richest government in the world, in order to "do good". Rather more important, it seems to me, is what each of us is doing with our own small bits of wealth, or lack thereof.

In the end, rich or poor, we're all headed in the same direction. At the end of Barry Lyndon, perhaps Stanley Kubrick's best film in my estimation, there's a quote which I can't seem to find at the moment that runs something like this: "All the players in this story, good or bad, rich or poor, all are now equal."

Or as Shakespeare put it rather bluntly: "The worm is the great equalizer."

Conditor alme siderum

The schola is working on some Advent hymns, including Conditor alme siderum, better known in English as Creator of the Stars of Night. Father J., our director, advised us to lighten up in our singing, and that's what I've tried to do here.

Conditor alme siderum

What Book am I? Funny you should ask.

Oh, rock on! Based on everyone else's answers, I thought there were no good answers to the What Book are You? quiz, but here's what I got, first try:

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!

by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have
changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've
also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to
persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you,
but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you
whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I don't know that I agree with the conclusions about me, but I like the book.

I was tagged by Entropy, who thinks this test is "#@$*".

In honor of one not named Bartholomew

In Cincinnati, in August, it is hot. The combination of intense late summer heat and of the Queen City's situation on the Ohio River creates an oppressive humidity that presses on one from all sides. It's not a pleasant time or place to be nine months pregnant, but 14 years ago my mother was just that.

We had visitors at the time. The parents were staying in a hotel, but the kids were wedged in with us in our minute bedrooms. There were lots of bodies packed in a very small space, which made the heat seem more intense. I had given up my bedroom and was asleep on a couch in a small living room upstairs. There were not enough windows to open to cool the place down.

At 6:15 in the morning, my mom poked her head through the door and said, "Honey, my water just broke."
"Okay," I mumbled, and rolled over and went back to sleep. The midwives were on their way, and at 14, there wasn't really anything I could do about it.

The midwives arrived, and eventually everyone started to wake up. None of us kids knew much about labor. We'd attended a sibling class at the midwives' office, at which we learned that when a baby came out, it felt a bit like if you opened your mouth as wide as you could and then stretched the edges out with your fingers. We'd all tried it; it was kind of uncomfortable and it looked silly. Anyway, babies didn't come out of your mouth. Even our two-year-old sister knew that.

At some point someone must have said that the baby was coming, because everyone in the house who was not giving birth or assisting that process was jammed into the doorway, spectating. I don't know what my mom thought of this; it's probable that at that point she didn't care. There was baby's head, and then his head was out, and then goosh! there he was, on the bed. I was impressed. It was my introduction to labor, and my mom made it look so easy. Two hours, start to finish, and then the baby just popped out. It wasn't until I had my first that I realized that it is a misconception to base your ideas of what labor will be like on watching your mother deliver her sixth child. But at 14, I felt I had one up on the rest of the world, and afterwards, whenever I saw a movie or TV show in which a woman gave birth, I was superior. That wasn't what it was like -- I'd actually seen a birth.

My brother was a bit blue, but had a healthy set of lungs. (Still does.) Someone with a sense of propriety finally kicked us all out of the doorway, and we set out to make calls. The baby had been named Nathanael, in honor of the day's saint. But St. Nathanael is also known as Bartholomew, and one of the visiting kids decided that we should tell people that the baby was named Bartholomew Barabbas. This was about the funniest idea ever, and it was quickly put into practice. My parents were fielding calls for hours afterwards from concerned friends.

So, to not-Bartholomew Barabbas, I say: Happy birthday, old chum! You're just as loud and as good-looking as you were 14 years ago today.

Cost Hikes Get College Students Pregnant

And it's President Bush's fault. Pro Ecclesia relays a Chicago Sun-Times story that seems short on the facts of life, and on financial perspective. The theme is supposed to be that the removal of birth control subsidies for colleges are getting college students pregnant. The story opens with a 20-year-old pre-med student who is having to miss her planned trip to Costa Rica because she stopped using birth control when her prescription cost at the university clinic went up from $10 to $35.

I assume that it wasn't simply ceasing to use the birth control but also some other extra-curricular activities that ended the young lady in her current condition, but as she's a pre-med student I guess I can figure that one out for herself even if the reporter can't.

Now, as someone who at age 20 got through each college semester on around $250 in spending money: color me unsympathetic. By age 20, you should be able to do some basic math and use your brain a little. If you're planning a trip to Costa Rica, you have at least some money. And yet the sum of $25 (best measured in college as two pizzas and a six pack of beer) was apparently enough to encourage this student to stop taking birth control, but not stop having sex. Without consideration for the fact that raising a child is generally an expense of more than $25.

If people can't be virtuous, you'd think they could at least think.

Marriage Under Pressure

Some good friends of ours got married under circumstances that a lot of people would consider unpropitious. They were pregnant, they are and interracial couple, the husband is ten years older than the wife, and the wife was 19. That was about seven years ago, and (allowing for the extent that one never truly knows what's going on in someone else's life) they seem to have really got it together. They've grown in their faith, have three kids, and generally seem like a very happy and stable couple. Certainly, I never would have guessed that things had started with such difficulty for them if they hadn't told us about it later.

Thus, I was surprised when one of them was telling me a while back about how difficult it was for them to find a priest who would marry them. Apparently they'd tried to get married a year or two earlier, but no one wanted to marry then: the wife was under 18, and between the age and race difference, all the priests they talked to thought they should wait a while. When pregnancy made them search much more urgently for someone willing to marry them, they were slightly older, but had the pregnancy against them.

"Don't you know that getting married under these circumstances is perfect annulment material?" one priest asked.

"But we don't want to get an annulment, we want to get married," they said.

Now I should stop here and say that I see the priest's point. There is certainly a divorce and annulment crisis in the Church today, especially in America, and one doesn't want to make that worse. When a couple in their situation, who weren't even from his parish, walked in some priests door seven years ago, I can see why he'd be hesitant.

However, it also seems like there are certain points in life when reality gives you a good hard kick, and some people respond by getting their lives in order, coming back to the Church, etc. Sometimes getting pregnant is one of those times. Realizing that you're about to have a family has a way of making your life stretching out ahead of you come into a bit more long term focus.

So while I certainly understand not wanting to set up yet another divorce and/or annulment, it also seems like putting down the door entirely on people who want to get married because they have got pregnant is not necessarily a good idea. Call me old fashioned, but although I don't think a woman should marry someone she doesn't think would be a good husband just because she's pregnant, if a couple get pregnant to who want to be married, it strikes me as better to get it done before the baby is born than after.

Fortunately, our friends eventually found an older priest who, after spending some time talking to them, decided to take a risk on them. The risk paid off. With God's grace, things work out sometimes.

The Fallacy of the Sex Life

A couple weeks ago I wrote a bit about bonobos, the "sexy ape" which is sometimes referred to as the kinder, gentler counterpart to the sometimes violent chimps. A commentor later pointed out an article written by primatologist Fraans de Waal in the eSkeptic (an organ of the Skeptics Society) taking exception to the New Yorker article which inspired my post, in which article he was presented as something of an outlier, reaching exciting but perhaps somewhat exaggerated conclusions based on research only on bonobos in captivity.

It seems that Dinesh D'Souza had written a blog post based on the New Yorker article, and this had pretty much convinced de Waal that the entire thing was a conservative attempt to co opt discussion of his "sexy" apes. The Skeptics brought their own ax to grind to the table, remarking in an editorial note, "it is interesting that so many people wish to deny the undeniable relationship between humans and chimps, and at the same time cannot seem to help finding political meanings in primate behavior that supports either a liberal or conservative agenda."

The de Waal article is marginally worth reading, but it stikes me that in his overall defensiveness (perhaps a combination of his less than flattering treatment in the original article and the fact that D'Souza, whom he clearly despises, picked up the story) leads him to engage in some poor rhetorical moves.

For instance, he says that all the examples of purported violence among bonobos are from captivity, and yet two of the examples in the article are recounted by Hohmann as having occured in the wild.

On another occasion, he dispenses with what strikes me as a legitimate question as to whether or not all of the activity between bonobos which is usually described as group sexual activity for social bonding purposes is actually sexual (as in, whether the bonobos are relating to each other sexually, or just touching each other in what to humans would be sexual ways) by quoting the Bill Clinton/Paula Jones case. Clearly, that's not answering the question as to whether actions which would be sexual among humans actually carry that connotation among bonobos, and it's unfortunate to see that kind of unseriousness in response to what struck me as a pretty balanced, well researched article.

However, all this talk about whether the "hippie primate" who "makes love not war" is indeed the sort of gentle, oversexed creature that it is reputed to be got me thinking about the whole question of a "sex life".

You see, the thing that makes bonobos seem a bit unusual compared to many other animals is their tendency to engage in mating behaviors when not "in heat". While a tiny bit of this has been observed in chimps, chimp males are usually only interested in females when the females undergo the physical changes that indicate they're fertile.

In this sense, one of the things that has excited people about bonobos is that they seem to be interested in sex all the time -- just like many humans. While those of us who use NFP often note that Topic A becomes a bit more compelling during fertile periods, the signs of fertility are not widely observable among humans, and as a species we're pretty open to mating behavior at all times (headaches aside).

It's pretty common in popular culture these days to talk about the necessity of a "good sex life", a somewhat vague term which I take to mean having the openness and opportunity to have sex fairly often and enjoy it a lot. Well, that sounds pretty nice, doesn't it? And here's the bonobo to show that it's not just a human thing, it's a way that primates can get along and relieve tension so they don't fight all the time.

This fits pretty well with the human-as-mental-creature picture which has dominated our intellectual landscape since the Enlightenment. Here we've got this great thing we can do that forms close personal relationships and is a lot of fun as well. Shouldn't we all make sure to fit regular practice of it into our schedules?

Sounds like fun, but I think it fails to take into account our existence as physical creatures with biological systems that have specific purposes. There's a reason why they call them "reproductive organs", and it doesn't have to do with xeroxing.

Now this works out fine for creatures like the bonobos. Most species have a pretty scattershot approach to keeping the species going: every time you have the chance to conceive, you do; and if there isn't enough food or parental care to go around, the child dies. Most animals, left to their own devices, will get pregnant just about as often as their bodies and nutrition will let them. Pop 'em out, let 'em go.

However modern, first world, human society has managed to work itself in expected pregnancy to be very rare (and never to come unexpectedly) at exactly the same time it's decided that everyone needs a healthy and active sex life. Basically, we want to mate like bonobos, but not have every female going around the jungle either pregnant or with a small baby clinging to her back.

Modern birth control (and abortion) has made this possible to an extent, but holding mother nature in check with technology tends to add other complicating factors. It seems moderately hard-wired in humans for sex to create emotional pair-bonding, of the sort that you need between a pair of mates raising offspring that take 13-17 years to reach biological (much less intellectual) maturity. Taking the reproduction out of sex reduces the need for pairbonding, and so we provide ourselves with all sorts of ways to make ourselves unhappy why pursuing the "sex life" ideal.

I'm not saying that biological realities mean that sex should simply be a matter of closing ones eyes and thinking of England (though a vacation sounds like a good idea now that you mention it), but it seems to me that from a creature point of view we put ourselves into awkward places when we try to focus on having a "sex life" without admitting that we're really talking about a "reproductive life".

The Limits of Double Effect

For those who aren't Catholic moral theology geeks (really, some people don't spend their spare time this way?) the "principle of double effect" goes like this: It may in certain circumstances to do something which has a result which would normally be a sin, if your object in performing this act is some other good of which the bad results are a foreseen but unintended side effect.

The classic example is, in a case of a falopian pregnancy (something which often fatal to both mother and child, and from which the child is pretty much guaranteed to die) it is possible to remove the falopian tubes in order to save the mother's life. This has the foreseen side effect of the unborn child dying, since the tubes in which the child has implanted are removed. However, it is not considered as a similar moral act to an abortion because the object is to remove the tubes and save the woman's life, not to kill the child.

Now, I think it's pretty clear to anyone that this is a useful form of moral thinking. Many acts have consequences (known or unknown) that are not what we intend. And I know that I've seen a few people (generally in mentally vulnerable times like late high school) get themselves all tied up in knots of paralyzing worry over what the unforeseen results of their actions might be.

However, just as the possession of a good hammer does not turn everything into a nail, so the possession of a fun piece of moral reasoning does not mean that it should be applied everywhere. Case in point, I recently heard someone argue that it is inherently immoral for a soldier or police officer to intentionally use "lethal force". Rather, this fellow argued, that such a person uses force in order to achieve an objective (self defense, defending another, etc.) and might as a result "accidentally" kill his opponent.

Now, I understand what he's getting at here. Standard US rules of engagement specify that shooting an armed opponent is acceptable, finishing off a successfully neutralized wounded enemy with a shot to the back of the head is not.

But I think that attempting to use the principle of double effect in this kind of situation is deeply misguided. Attempting to argue that someone who sends a number of metal slugs in the direction of another human being at over a thousand feet per second doesn't mean to do them harm is just plain unrealistic. And by making the argument, I think one fails to deal with the moral facts of the issue and makes moral theology sound foolish into the bargain.

It seems to me that the argument that should instead be made is that certain circumstances justify the taking of life -- to the extent necessary to resolve the circumstance. A soldier, policeman, or an ordinary citizen defending his family may need to use lethal force against an aggressor in order to preserve his life or the lives of others. The taking of life is justified by the situation to the extent (and not beyond the extent) necessary to achieve that objective.

In that sense, the use of lethal force is a matter of justice. However, as Christians we believe that justice and mercy must always go hand in hand. And there is indeed a place where mercy kicks in.

While justice sometimes makes the use of lethal force to achieve some good necessary, mercy emphasizes the difference between the person and the objective. The enemy who is no longer in a position to threaten you must cease to be an enemy. The justification for using lethal force is gone when the objective is achieved.

Operationally, this may not be terribly different from the double effect explanation. But I think it is much more intellectually honest and morally sound.

Love Conquers All

Jen has a thoughtful post that asks whether it's a problem that Christians in America aren't renowned for their austerity. Here's an expansion of the comment I posted there.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict, in examining the Beatitudes, meditates on the verse "Blessed are the poor". That's from Luke; Matthew's account says "Blessed are the poor in spirit". Benedict reflects on the tradition of poverty in the scriptures:

The poverty of which this tradition speaks is never a purely material phenomenon. Purely material poverty does not bring salvation, though of course those who are disadvantaged in this world may count on God's goodness in a particular way. But the heart of those who have nothing can be hardened, poisoned, evil -- interiorly full of greed for material things, forgetful of God, covetous of external possessions.

On the other hand, the poverty spoken of here is not a purely spiritual attitude either. Admittedly, not everyone is called to the radicalism with which so many true Christians -- from Anthony, father of monasticism, to Francis of Assisi, down to the exemplary poor of our era -- have lived and continue to live their poverty as a model for us. But, in order to be the community of Jesus' poor, the Church has constant need of the great ascetics. She needs the communities that follow them, living out poverty and simplicity so as to display to us the truth of the Beatitudes. She needs them to wake everyone up to the fact that possession is all about service, to contrast the culture of affluence with the culture of inner freedom, and thereby to create the conditions for social justice as well.

Benedict emphasizes the humility of the "poor ones of God":

These are people who do not flaunt their achievements before God. They do not stride into God's presence as if they were partners able to engage with him on an equal footing; they do not lay claim to a reward for what they have done. These are people who know that their poverty also has an interior dimension; they are lovers who simply want to let God bestow his gifts upon them and thereby to live in inner harmony with God's nature and word.

Being "poor in spirit" transcends the material to be a spiritual asceticism -- which does often find its expression in a material simplicity. Still, the hallmark of Christianity is not poverty or asceticism or austerity. At the Last Supper, after dismissing Judas (the disciple who rebuked the penitent woman for wasting perfume on Jesus instead of selling it and giving the money to the poor), Jesus gives a poignant last charge: "My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, 'Where I go you cannot come,' so now I say it to you. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:33-35).

Note the construction: "This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Love is the prerequisite: all Christian life stems from that love.

Your Catholic Snark for the Day

Darwin: Why is it we only have adoration in the parish chapel two days out of each month?

Nice Old Lady: Well, Father said it would be too much work to have it every day.

Darwin: Did someone tell him that he's not the one required to sit in the tabernacle all day and see everyone?

Is it almost fall already?

Some people are all organized about their school stuff. Here, it's only just dawned on me that it's almost September and I haven't even thought about the coming academic year. So much for spring dreams of a planner and a system and a schedule.

In a sense, though, I'm not sure what good plotting out our school year would do at this point. E. is only 5, and at this point we tend to base our educational ventures around whatever interests her that week at the library. The library is our best friend, and I'm sure that we're the library's best friend, judging by the amount of fines we just paid.

We've been using the Italic handwriting system. It's not imperative to me that the girls adhere strictly to the Italic system, but I like the letter forms and I feel that it's an attractive and easy font to learn with. J., who is almost four, likes to sit and trace letters while E. works on her handwriting. E. isn't necessarily interested in copywork, but she enjoys dictation, such as writing out a shopping list.

It's harder to work with J. because E. wants to come over and show off her superior knowledge by telling her all the answers. They're close enough in age that they like to work together, but it's hard to practice letters or reading with J. when E. keeps piping up from behind my shoulder. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a problem if J. wasn't content to let E. answer for her. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons doesn't seem to be doing it for J. She seems to prefer reading in context, such as the Bob books or Hop on Pop.

Both girls are having fun with flash cards (alphabet and math), but the difficulty there is in keeping the baby out of the fray. She has fun with flash cards too -- she loves to fling them across the room. It's frustrating enough to try and keep her out of the big girls' hair (and crayons and flash cards) that we've found it hard to get much of anything done lately. Fortunately she enjoys sitting and listening to read-alouds, so that's what we've been focusing on.

As for read-alouds, we're working our way through The Secret Garden. This has so seized E.'s imagination that we've dug up a secluded corner of the yard and created our own "secret garden". Being only about 3 sq. ft., it doesn't compete with the great walled gardens of England, but she's proud of it.