tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35129512009-07-11T13:35:01.431-06:00<P><P>An Amateur Classicist's Review of Political Philosophy, Theology, and Literature, with Occasional Reflections on the Age That Is PassingKevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.comBlogger1210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-27686890705620370902009-07-11T13:29:00.002-06:002009-07-11T13:35:01.442-06:00

An amusing display of national pride and mockery of neighbors. I know of nothing similar in the U.S. music industry, which is mired in embarrassed irony.

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-75234825199886823722009-07-07T00:22:00.005-06:002009-07-07T00:50:06.443-06:00

The first person who said "there is no such thing as bad publicity" likely was an incompetent PR man trying to spin his way out of some mess he made.One such ridiculous mess comes from Electronic Arts, which funded fake Christian protests of its Dante's Inferno game. The protesters "passed out amateurish material and held signs bearing slogans such as 'Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation,

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-39219475731753991222009-06-29T09:54:00.002-06:002009-06-29T10:00:26.832-06:00

Christopher Tollefsen in his spring lecture at CU-Boulder noted this bit of scholastic humor from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae I.i.1 Art. 8:If [sacred doctrine] is argued from authority, it seems unbefitting its dignity, for the proof from authority is the weakest form of proof... according to Boethius.Curiously, New Advent's edition of the Summa omits this geeky self-parodying joke. The

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-89499571214362514872009-06-22T15:44:00.001-06:002009-06-22T15:45:58.424-06:00

Last month Patrick Deneen discussed the contradictions of the rootless academic who is caught in the trap of inauthenticity: he propounds a life of “localism and community” on the internet and in the academy, two institutions which tend to dissolve what he professes to love.Criticisms of would-be localists are easy to write: some haven’t been home in years. They murmur about loving “the idea of

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-15224115874650698742009-06-08T20:15:00.002-06:002009-06-08T20:20:01.630-06:00

The D.C. Interns blog sums up its target:Over the next three months you have paper runs, coffee runs, and envelope licking to fill your days. As a consolation prize, you will be provided an intern badge, conveniently red, fashioned as your scarlet letter. This will identify your status to all of DC. A status that you interpret as “important” and we interpret as “tired” and “obnoxious.”Aiming to

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-86294400182592834342009-06-08T07:24:00.004-06:002009-06-08T07:35:36.096-06:00

Bishop Roger L. Kaffer, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, died at the end of May.Now is as good a time as any to note that I helped edit Bishop Kaffer's forthcoming book from Basilica Press, "Common Sense Catholicism." Though I only spoke with the bishop two or three times, I sensed that he and his book reflected a deep and simple piety.In our time when churches and the popular culture

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-40879116706149921632009-05-28T09:38:00.004-06:002009-05-28T09:44:39.876-06:00

According to the 5280 blog, Andrew Bacevich will speak at the Tattered Cover in LoDo tonight at 7:30.See also the Downtown Denver Examiner.

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-52552025151168187612009-04-22T19:30:00.002-06:002009-04-22T19:35:32.744-06:00

On the Internet, transhumanism may be belittled as much as it is praised. Its science fiction dreams predict artificial intelligence, immortality through computing, and the wholesale re-engineering of mankind. Rev. David B. Hart described it as “a sensibility formed more by comic books than by serious thought.”But its proponents are generally technology lovers who believe that foul devil Progress

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-66008426657583999902009-04-22T01:37:00.004-06:002009-04-22T01:44:59.372-06:00

Recently New Advent has been linking to the blog of Dr. Patrick McNamara, Church historian and assistant archivist at the Diocese of Brooklyn.His posts feature brief profiles of important figures, historical summaries and also original sources.To start with, here is Dr. McNamara's description of colonial America's Maryland Tradition in American Catholicism, "a tradition that stressed interfaith

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-28374686126921590632009-04-15T22:27:00.004-06:002009-04-15T22:48:28.380-06:00

Recently I mentioned the need for Catholic communities to produce more committed student and academic leaders to reform both Catholic and secular institutions of higher education.Happily, some student leaders are already emerging in reaction to the University of Notre Dame's controversial commencement invitation to President Barack Obama.The Notre Dame Response Student Coalition (ND Response),

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-40567204734522045002009-04-15T19:50:00.003-06:002009-04-15T20:01:30.345-06:00

Damon Linker recently argued that orthodox Christianity is “unsuitable” for American pluralism. He argued that the “anodyne, inoffensive, tolerant” approach ofmoralistic-therapeutic deism should replace what remains of public Christianity. Its vague exhortations to Niceness and Self-esteem are supposedly more fitting for a society in which some people “feel like second-class citizens for failing

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-57295039694374020542009-04-14T16:12:00.004-06:002009-04-14T16:25:45.344-06:00

Now making the rounds is a Department of Homeland Security document called Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. Michelle Malkin, who claims to have verified the origin of the report, makes a point about the document's treatment of amorphous and unnamed “extremist groups”:I have covered DHS for many years and am quite

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-28626078336934883002009-04-13T15:04:00.005-06:002009-04-13T15:12:57.519-06:00

The announcement of President Barack Obama’s invitation to give the commencement speech at Notre Dame is the occasion of the latest furore among internet Catholics.The site Notre Dame Scandal has gathered more than 260,000 signatures protesting the invitation, including my own.Considering the president’s immovable and extreme position on abortion, the protesters have just cause for their ire.Yet

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-69772605658802391932009-04-01T20:43:00.008-06:002009-04-02T01:04:42.071-06:00

Not only is USCIRF's Iraq recommendation being overlooked. So is its web security.See the hack in action:(Click for larger screenshot)The ringtone and medication spam are viewable in Google's search results and in Google's cache, but not on the site proper.This U.S. government site is a victim of the spam link injection hack. One victim provides further information on the attack, writing:The

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-63106352490429249572009-03-31T05:42:00.001-06:002009-03-31T13:58:08.996-06:00

In December 2008 the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its Report of the United States Commission on Religious Freedom on Iraq (PDF). The report recommended that Iraq be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) because of its “ongoing severe abuses of religious freedom and based on the Iraqi government’s toleration of these abuses as described in this

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-16322828381013513772009-03-26T20:49:00.003-06:002009-03-26T23:11:34.858-06:00

Philosopher Ed Feser over at What's Wrong with the World is tearing into the intellectual shortcomings of certain atheist books.Asked about the distinction between Paley's design argument and St. Thomas Aquinas' Fifth Way, he obligingly answered:Teleology can be either inherent in the nature of a thing (as an acorn has an inherent tendency to become an oak) or imposed from outside (as the

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-30613110140668304452009-03-23T15:46:00.007-06:002009-03-24T21:30:43.874-06:00

America's Future Foundation's Denver affiliate is sponsoring a panel discussion on the topic Is Capitalism Dead?. Panelists include Conor Friedersdorf, of the late Culture11, Gene Healy of the Cato Institute and Ross Kaminsky.The discussion will begin at 7 pm at the Denver Art Museum on March 26, after an hour of drinks. I have yet to attend an AFF event.-------Also on March 26, novelist and

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-55483134498673830232009-03-21T13:17:00.004-06:002009-03-21T13:39:39.956-06:00

Today in Detroit Archbishop Chaput attacked Catholics' indifferent complacency and warned Catholics not to delude ourselves about "what we have allowed ourselves to become.""November showed us that 40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected," he began, continuing:...too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-84420129103740740782009-03-17T05:28:00.006-06:002009-03-17T16:55:31.330-06:00

Many traditional conservative critiques of capitalist and business ideology emphasize that these encourage an amputated view of man, reducing him only to his desires and choices. This reductionist ethos tends to cut off the individual from his family, his history, his country and even his God. The same ethos has direct bearing on cultural conflicts surrounding sex and bioethics, where lifestyle

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-21801187811170125562009-03-17T05:13:00.003-06:002009-03-17T06:04:01.331-06:00

The U.S. Catholic bishops' publication of the 2008 Annual Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People presents the opportunity to compare the U.S. bishops’ press releases on the two most recent reports and to consider how they summarize the original reports.Examination reveals an increase in the number of allegations concerning abuse of those under

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-9586661927276721312009-03-12T01:00:00.004-06:002009-03-12T01:22:03.219-06:00

The foibles and flaws of Evangelical Christian subculture are hard to miss in the art it produces. Its movies are often forgettable dramas marred by trite plots, two-dimensional characters and unearned moralism. Its contemporary music is often derivative in all the wrong ways, following rather than forging musical styles while writing lyrics which depict the Savior as an object of a high school

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-22940615932654372152009-03-04T17:09:00.007-07:002009-03-04T21:25:20.445-07:00

The aftermath of the Bush Administration has exposed for embarrassment and grief the various problems of movement conservatism. Its substitution of fear and ideology for prudence, its facile sloganeering, and its herd-like antipathy towards self-criticism have left thousands of Americans and foreigners dead or in penurious exile.In a different and so far lesser disaster, these failings helped

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-2952103718537647562009-03-01T15:21:00.004-07:002009-03-01T15:28:22.874-07:00

"There are no facts, only interpretations."   -Frederich Nietzsche, Notebooks"There is no reality, only perception."Strategy: Identify the filters through which you view the world. Acknowledge your history without being controlled by it."   -Dr. Phil McGraw, Life Law #6

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-68494046241265086262009-02-27T18:06:00.006-07:002009-02-27T19:22:29.970-07:00

With an easy victory last November, the Second Congressional District's Jared Polis became the first openly homosexual man to be elected to Congress after spending more than $5 million of his own money on his campaign.In CD-2, which includes Boulder and surroundings, the election came down to the Democratic primary.One Polis primary ad featured strange displays of pixelized public nudity.Polis'

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3512951.post-36794059706664427032009-02-04T17:02:00.001-07:002009-02-04T17:56:37.755-07:00

Any news watcher has noticed the tempest that has accompanied Pope Benedict XVI’s lifting of the excommunications upon the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and the revelation that SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson made some foolish and inexcusable remarks that minimized the extent of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.The media firestorm consistently misrepresented the Vatican’s remission

Kevin Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06907423156155669252noreply@blogger.com6