Jefferson's words

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."

-Thomas Jefferson

Jackson County Revisited

Last week saw my return to CAP for a week of WorkFest 2009. For all of you who yearn for the simpler days of hotterthannewlove, this is your encore.

I stayed with my good friends Ross and Sarah in lovely Berea, KY, in the guest quarters of their chateau, a lovely spring rendezvous. Kentucky was a gorgeous 65 degrees and the red buds and white flowering trees were blooming where the bluegrass meets the mountains. Eastern Kentucky really is the most beautiful part of the country, due to its rolling hills, sharp rock faces, flowering trees and rolling brooks and branches. Everywhere there are little water falls and country roads that lead to outlooks rarely beheld by anyone who doesn't live there.

I just can't write another blog about going home. But it really WAS like going home. Going to mellow mushroom with Taye, Ross, and Sarah, driving in a CAP truck around the curves and dangerous cliffs, the Mennonite doughnuts, putting up siding and soffit in the rain, going to mass at St. Claire's, and truly loving what you do. It was ideal, it was poetic.

And yet, it was most akin to living as a ghost in an old life, wandering like a grey pilgrim in forgotten dreams of the past. Seeing figures and people you've loved and fought side by side with. At the same time though, it is encouraging to know that the good work of CAP continues despite your absence. You can see bits of yourself that continue on, old jobs, friends still doing good work, your nicknames for brigand crew leaders (Black Blackness). But like a grand play, a new act has begun and your character has been written out of the script.

It was neat though to be just another calm worker at workfest. I didn't have to run any crews, didn't have to entertain any volunteers. I could just calmly put up siding with Sarah, or take a couple volunteers aside to teach them how to make a deck or hang soffit. We were working on a new house which Ross designed in Owsley county. I never got to work on a new house build, so it was great to work on a project that was actually square and level.

At various times during the week, people would come up to me and ask, "I was here last year and weren't you part of the Perfect Storm?" I'd just reply, "Naw, that guy is way cooler than me ... better looking too." But, at one point during the week, Ross and I worked together on siding one side of a house. Like the blending of a warm front and a cold front, we worked together seamlessly, almost throwing the siding up, much to the awe of the onlooking college students. So, while the P.S. has passed into the legend of the hills, it also lives on.

Also funny to me was the current occupation of volunteers from last year's volunteers and they include the following; CAP crew leader, GAP clerk, painter, unemployed, teacher's aide, substitute teacher, co-op worker, grad student, Newman Center employee, retreat leader, social worker/unemployed beach lounger, massage therapist student, physical education student, and pecan farmer. It's great proof of how CAP prepares one for a wide range of future skills and vocations.

But, like all homecomings, this one was sorrowful in some ways. I kept expecting to see Tonks awkwardly talking to some college guy, Jesse getting the vote, or UBS man climbing some dangerous mountain peak. But, they weren't there. These were just memories and had somehow passed me by. It seems, once again that memories, memories are all I've got.

Cheers.

Quote of the day:

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away


p.s. I'd probably have funnier blogs if funny things happened in the town where I work that smells like a fart. But, what with the wedding and our uncertain future, you should get a good mix of adventure and political thought in the coming months. It's all part of the trip.

AmeriCorps federalizing volunteerism.

I just saw today that the Senate voted to triple the size of AmeriCorps, in a further attempt to federalize every single part of the American life. The public sector is now seeping into volunteer life. The main problem with this expansion is twofold I think.

One: This is the government stepping into an area long driven by Christian charity and trying to influence the direction of volunteers in our country. The American spirit is one of giving, as Americans give and volunteer more than any other country in the world. This is undoubtedly due to the Judeo-Christian spirit of generosity and charity. But, it is worth noting that volunteering is not popular in Europe, or elsewhere in the West for that matter, mainly because when government influences giving of time or money, it is detrimental and devastating to generosity. Because, if the government can provide for the needs of the downtrodden, as all socialized governments have efficiently done over the many examples of socialism and communism, what is the need for Christan charity? (that last part was sarcasm)

Two, this will draw volunteers away from smaller (and Christian) volunteer organizations because Americorps pays their volunteers substantially more money per month. This new expansion will draw volunteers from actual charitable organizations and make them subjects to governmental whims of what is just and charitable. The government will dominate the volunteer community and create the standard.

Mark Steyn even had a comment on this topic earlier this week:

"I’m a bit sick of the government annexation of public spirit. Tocqueville, two hundred years ago, identified America’s great resource in the civic spirit of its citizenry, that they form what they call the little platoons of society, organizational groups. The minute the federal government federalizes volunteerism, it’s just a big bureaucratic boondoggle."

Also interesting to many of you in the volunteer community would be the new administration's intentions of canceling itemized deductions on families making more than 250,000 dollars a year, no doubt to help pay for the recent increases in federal spending of B.O and cronies. This will cost charitable organizations by conservative estimates (that is by estimating on the low side) at least 4 billion dollars a year in total. And, as we can see from the example in Europe, when government discourages charitable giving instead of encouraging it, charitable organizations die. How will this downturn in charity affect organizations already suffering from lack of funding due to the recession?

This is my point: when government grows and increases public spending on domains that should be left to Christians and raises taxes which in turn gives individuals less money to spend generously on acts of Mercy, the government hinders Christians in building the Kingdom. Here are two suitable examples I think.

If you think I'm being too much of a conservative such and such, etc. etc. I'd love to hear some counter arguments.

Cheers.

Steyn online

Hilarious article from one of the funniest men anywhere.

Liberals are often thrown by the accent and the witty banter, but when their arguments are reduced to rubble with style and charisma, they wonder how they bought everything their professors said even when they didn't have accents.

G. K. Chesterton on Nature

“The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.”

Question.

Why is it that loud farts in quiet places like libraries are that much more funny than a fart of the same magnitude in another place?

Why is it that on Yahoo! hot jobs search site, a "Chief Aviation Planner" at St. Louis airport and a manager at a Sonic drive in are on the same list right next to each other ... do they essentially involve the same skills?

Should I apply for a job that requires I have "some intergrity"?

How do they make corned beef anyway?

I wonder if I'll get into any grad schools...?

Maybe experience does count for something after all...

This is a hilarious excerpt from the always entertaining Mark Steyn. You can find the whole article here.

"British prime minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. Barack Obama is the first African-American president, so the prime minister gave him an ornamental desk-pen holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President.

The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office.

And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Gordon Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

In return, America’s head of state gave the prime minister 25 DVDs of “classic American movies.”

Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT” T-shirts. Still, the “classic American movies” set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart: Lot of classics in there, I’m sure — Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Sound of Music — though this sort of collection always slips in a couple of Dude, Where’s My Car? 3 and Police Academy 12 just to make up the numbers. I’ll be interested to know if Mr. Brown has anything to play the films on back home, since U.S.- format DVDs don’t work in United Kingdom DVD players."

St. Patrick's Run

Admittedly, the daily routine can become monotonous, a grind perhaps in its worst forms in the depths of the winter darkness. Today though, Amanda and I made a desperate step in the direction of spring by running the St. Louis St. Patrick's 5 mile run.

Over the past two and a half years I have done 3 'races' - the Chicago marathon in the fall of 2006, the St Louis half marathon in the spring of 2006, and the Louisville half marathon in the fall of 2007. Since then I have not done a 'race' until today.

Runners like so many other sub-cultures in America, have their own unique means of communication, terminology, acknowledgement of achievement and general behaviors. We arrived at the race about an hour before it began. It was quite cool so we had to engage in the endless debate of 'do I wear shorts and be freezing now or wear pants and sweat even more profusely later on.' I chose the latter. The crowd effectively embraced the 'spirit' of the occasion. Most people were dressed in green, some in kilts, and one man even had an Irish flag as a cape, face paint, and some kind of orange leprechaun shoes on. He also seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with other people. At one point, some drunk girls ran up behind the guys wearing kilts and heckled them by saying, "real Irishmen don't wear under ware, wooooo! (then some indiscernible phrases)." I wore my 'Schrute Farms Beets' shirt which was a huge hit among the fans lining the sides of the race. I got 3 "Go Schrute farms beets!" yells, and several other looks of approval. My beard also helped me fit in to the spirit as an indie leprechaun of sorts.

Race day has an energy and excitement that is hard to describe. I think its mostly due to the fact that all of the people there are highly motivated and in a happy state of mood. Everyone gets all fired up because this is the culmination of weeks, even months of training. Interestingly enough, its really easy to make friends with people along the way too. In Louisville, I ran with a couple people for a few miles, talked about ourselves and how our training went for this race and then split up only to chat with some other people.

Another hilarious aspect of the running world is how runners have absolutely no shame at all. After the race starts the world is your public restroom, as long as you can out run the cops that is. Also, you'll never hear so much complaining about chafing as you will from a group of runners mid-race. Dave Doyle esq. told me of how in one race someone had a bunch of vaseline on a cardboard box and people were just grabbing some as they ran by and 'applying' it to the 'problem areas.' Gross I know, but it illustrates the point perfectly.

After the race is over there is a general air of congratulations. Even if you don't do as well as you would have liked, hey, you just ran [X] miles, lets go get a beer. Unfortunately I gave up alcohol for Lent. I also gave up complaining so even if I was upset about my lack of a post race beer, you'd never hear it from me.

Cheers.

quote of the day:

His harp was carved and cunning,
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes.

His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

-G.K. Chesterton from "The Ballad of the White Horse"

On trust.

This passage is from tomorrow' s first reading - Jer 17:5-10


Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
But stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.


Especially relevant given our current economic turmoil. It is also pertinent in advising who to put our trust in - be it Caesar(whichever Caesar happens to sign the bills), ourselves, or the Lord. For even in the deepest, longest deserts of our lives the Lord nourishes and comforts us.

Consequence

Prez. B.O. has lifted restrictions on the use of embryonic stem cells. This horrible decision further extends the moral culpability of misguided and foolish Catholics who voted for B.O. And, more important and more devastating is that undoubtedly this decision will lead to the deaths of countless defenseless unborn citizens and the further degeneration of Western society. I wonder if keeping our country's economy in peril, killing the unborn and eroding the constitutional and ethical foundations of our country is the great hope the 54 percent of Catholic B.O. voters had in mind. Some might see this as hope. Most do not.

This decision is unnecessary, as this article shows, and further advances the theory that B.O. has no idea what he's doing. Why should we expect him to, he has no real governing experience at all to draw from.

I found this quote on Yahoo out of all places from a professor from Princeton out of all places. Odd to find it but very pertinent.

"Princeton University politics professor Robert George, a Catholic and another member of the Bush-era Council on Bioethics, said the moral argument over embryonic stem cell research is not rooted in religion but in ethics and equality. He said research shows that an embryo is a human being in its earliest form of development, so we have to ask ourselves whether all human life should be treated equally, with dignity and respect.

"I don't think the question has anything to do with religion or pulling out our microscope and trying to find souls," George said. "We live in a pluralistic society where some people believe there are no such things as souls. Does that mean we should not have moral objections to killing 17-year-old adolescents?"

I'm just happy there is one Catholic at Princeton. I'm also impressed that his point cuts right to the heart of the matter; is the unborn baby a person? Classical philosophy says yes, scientific research that is not politicized says yes, Christ's Church says yes, and common sense says yes.

Prayer and fasting are needed for our country and for the souls senselessly killed under our country's perverted laws regarding human life.

Lessons Learned

I learned some very valuable lessons yesterday, and all after putting my macaroni and cheese noodles into the boiling water:

1. I do not, as I had previously thought, own a colander.
2. I do, in fact, own a heating pan from the 70's (donated by previous owners)
3. Soy milk, when spoiled, smells very bad.
4. Water is a poor substitute for milk in macaroni and cheese
5. More butter does not solve the problem mentioned in number 4.
6. More Ketchup does not solve the problem mentioned in number 5.
7. I have to get a better paying job to get some decent food.


Cheers.

Winston Churchill

At the beginning of his many volumes on World War 2, Winston Churchill writes this preface:

"How the English-speaking Peoples through their Unwisdom, Carelessness and Good Nature allowed the Wicked to Rearm."

Another personal favorite of mine is from May 13th 1940:

"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."