A Glorious Day at the Lost & Found

From the 94th meditation of The way of salvation, meditations for every day of the year, tr. by J. Jones By Alfonso Maria de' Liguori (st.) (on the joy of Jesus Christ at finding the Lost Sheep):

Our Blessed Saviour says of Himself in St. Luke, (chap, xv.) that He is the affectionate shepherd, who having lost one of His hundred sheep, leaves the ninety-nine in the desert, and goes in search of the one that is lost; and finding it receives it with joy, takes it on His shoulders, and returning home calls together His neighbours to rejoice with Him, saying; "rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost." O divine shepherd! I have been that lost sheep, but Thou hast sought me until, as I hope, Thou hast found me. Thou hast found me and I have found Thee. How shall I ever again stray away from Thee, my beloved Lord? And yet such a misfortune may happen to me. O permit it not, never suffer me, O Jesus, to leave Thee and to lose Thee again.

But why, O Jesus, dost Thou call together Thy friends to rejoice with Thee for having found the lost sheep? Shouldst Thou not rather bid them rejoice with the lost sheep, for its having again found Thee, its God? But so great is Thy love for my poor soul, that Thou esteemest it Thy happiness to have found it! My dearest Redeemer, since Thou hast found me, bind me to Thee with the blessed bonds of Thy holy love, that I may always love Thee and may never more depart from Thee.

God, says the prophet, no sooner hears the voice of the penitent sinner crying to Him for mercy, than He immediately answers and forgives Him: At the voice of Thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee. Isa. xxx. 19. Behold me then at Thy sacred feet, O God, grieved from the bottom of my heart for having so often offended Thee, and craving Thy compassion and pardon. I can no longer endure to behold myself at a distance from Thee and deprived of Thy love. Thou art infinite goodness, and most worthy of infinite love. If hitherto I have despised Thy grace, I now value it above all the kingdoms of the earth. And because I have offended Thee, I beseech Thee to avenge Thyself upon me, not indeed by casting me away from Thy face, but by giving me such a sorrow for my sins as may cause me to lament my guilt before Thee, all the days of my life. Lord, I love Thee with my whole heart, and as I cannot trust that I shall continue faithful to Thy love, be Thou my help and my succour. And do thou, O holy Virgin help me with your holy intercession.

books.google.com/books?id=VHsBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA151#v=onepage&q&f=false ... rather apropos given the title of this ghost-town of a blog. ;-) St. Alphonsus, Ora pro nobis! www.oremus.org/hymnal/l/l546.html

Democrats of Antiquity

In a last-ditch effort to save face, the beleaguered and discredited "Democrats for Life" are sticking by their guns that the national health care overhaul doesn't fund elective abortion, and hence adopted a new nickname according to Lifenews:

The Washington Post indicates the new group bears the moniker "Whole-Life Heroes," a reference to the Democrats for Life position that the bill is somehow pro-life because it supposedly will reduce abortions by providing a limited amount of support for pregnant women even though other pro-life groups unanimously say it contains taxpayer funding of abortions.

The Post indicates the DFLA PAC will try to convince voters the executive order Obama signed that supposedly stops the abortion funding -- pro-life groups strenuously disagree -- will actually do that even though the Obama administration shows no signs of implementing it.

The political action committee will also reportedly try to persuade voters that the scant amount of funding for pregnancy support efforts -- announced at the end of the day on Friday on a holiday weekend with little media attention or fanfare -- is enough to mitigate any abortion concerns.

I want to stress that it was a sad day for me the day Rep. Stupak (Michigan) caved, but it's also ludicrous that these sell-outs are still trying to maintain their "stall-wort" pro-life images with window-dressing hardly any of us will ultimately believe. The more they try the more ridiculous it looks, but it does pass off as a form of cheap entertainment and leave the door open for mockery. Even Press Secretary Gibbs said that the executive order only reaffirmed what the Obama administration claimed all along (that no funds would be used for abortion), therefore indicating that nothing really changed between then and now.

Staying on course, "Whole-Life Hero" Rep. Steve Driehaus (Ohio) is out there seeing that the public doesn't get hood-winked:

"It's a complicated subject, and there's been a lot of misinformation from the other side," Driehaus said. "They're playing to fear, and that's a powerful emotion. But the facts are that not a single abortion will be paid for using federal funds under this law, and I plan to be out there making sure people have the facts."

We'll I sure feel able to sleep well at night knowing Driehaus is fighting distortion and helping all of us peons separate fact from fiction. In fact (pun intended), I think it's a job he should embark on full-time. I'm hoping come next year, he'll have more free time to devote towards his fact-spreading endeavor (or replace Joy Behar on her talk show; either one).

Teddy & Friends

Ted Williams is obviously not alone in his quest for immortality, as a Russian company offers "on ice" services for the brains or bodies of prospective clients (perhaps they could preserve simply the head as well, somewhere between just the brain or the entire body; I'm not sure):



From the article:

Osadchy and other clients of Russian cryonics company KrioRus believe the brain operates like a computer hard-drive and its contents can be frozen and stored for the future.

"We know that the personality is stored in the brain. So when a person's body is old, there's no reason to keep it," said Danila Medvedev, who runs KrioRus, the first cryonics outfit outside the United States.

"We tell our clients it's cheaper, safer and probably better preservation just to freeze the brain," said Medvedev, a smart executive sporting a suit and an iPad.

Freezing just the brain does raise other questions in my mind, as the brain needs to be compatible with a central nervous system in a hypothetical transplantation, and I'm not sure we're that close to a successful procedure (I'd venture to say we're not, unless we combine this with cloning services, which raises another moral dilemma).

Not surprisingly, the theory is not without skeptics:

"They are cheating people, taking a lot of money: It's fraud," said Valentin Grishenko, director of the Ukraine-based institute.

"If you freeze a body today -- even one alive and healthy -- after it is defrosted, it won't be alive and whole. We can't even freeze and preserve organs today -- only cells."

Another quandry seems to be "force-freezing" against the will of the deceased, although one might think that laws can easily be implemented to ensure this doesn't occur:

Cryonics backers may also freeze their relatives against their will.

While Osadchy's mother is a church-going Russian Orthodox, opposed to cryonics, he said he would not hesistate to remove her brain for keeping: "After death that person can't refuse."

Having similar beliefs, I'd be hard-pressed to complain centuries later in the event that the technology eventually came through and I were brought back to life, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm also reminded of a moral quandary in the comments section of a Mormon blog post, where the Mormons tactfully argued that souls could refuse benefits from "baptizing of the dead" in the afterlife if it was against their express wishes (hard to trump). In short, the Mormons argued that the act was superfluous at worst, and provided eternal benefits at best, which out-weighed cultural sensitivities in our temporal world.

Never the less, the Catholic Church exercises Her right to deny baptismal records for the purpose of proxy baptisms for the dead performed in LDS temples, thereby protecting the dignity of the sacrament. Perhaps She'd be justified as well in forbiding members from "deep freezing", as well as resurrectees being allowed an opt out clause if they'd didn't wish to initially be frozen, or would it be considered suicide at that point? Many conflicting principles here!

Another question that seems worth visiting is economic aspects, factoring inflation, possible bankruptcy, etc. According to the BioEdge article,"there's an annual $500 storage fee for keeping the body parts in liquid nitrogen." So what if descendants are unable or unwilling to keep payments going due to a recession or layoff? What if too many default and the company goes under? Do they file for Chapter 11? If so, what happens to the braincicles? So many questions pop up it's hard to know where to begin!

Imam Muda

A rather sheik presentation of competition between aspiring young imams:



Compared with typical western values, I'd call this a step up because I don't think something involving aspiring young priests or ministers would garner nearly the same amount of interest from US TV gazers (say what you will about Islam).

Included in the contest is one of what Christians might refer to as corporeal works of mercy. From the WSJ article:

Each week, "Young Imam" goes out of its way to confront the contestants with situations they might have to face one day as real imams. In the first episode, the young contenders were sent out to prepare unclaimed corpses for burial—an essential rite in Islam.

To my knowledge, Muslims don't embalm corpses for burial, but even so, most western clerics have funeral personnel at their disposal for any necessary "preparation" (lucky them).

More:

In the following show, the contestants ditched their suits and black Muslim caps to don sports shirts to head out with the police on a midnight raid on a gang of teenage motorcycle street racers in the southern town of Johor Baru. The young imams—none of them much older than the street racers—herded the bikers into a room and tried to wean them off their racing fix by lecturing them about Islam.

This struck me as a bit odd. Having been arrested for misdemeanors (long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away ;-), I doubt that I would've been properly disposed to receive lectures from anyone (cleric or other authority figure) soon after being apprehended, but perhaps they allow them to sweat a little so they'll soften up. This also signifies differing views between the US and Malaysia on Church & State issues, as I don't think you'd encounter young clerics upon being raided over here, even though there are jail chaplains on hand sometimes per request. Then again I could be mistaken and it could be just for show.

One last exert:

For the past month they have been cloistered in a hostel on the grounds of a federal mosque here in Kuala Lumpur and, to better help them focus on their religious studies, are banned from watching TV, reading newspapers or going online. They're not even allowed to follow the World Cup soccer tournament that's captivating the rest of Malaysia. The last few survivors will stay there for another two months, when the show's finale will be broadcast live from a theater.

I kind of disagree with this stipulation, as relating to current events with parishioners (if that's a proper term for mosque attendees) can be a positive gateway for interaction and sort of a "window into the soul". Besides, an imam will have to learn how to limit distraction in the real world anyway, so why not allow him to learn moderation in prep for his future duty?

Grace under Fire

...and yet another reminder of my lost childhood, but alas, I had the grace of a penguin with a hyper-extended knee.



My hats off to them. Hopefully the boys are too young or have limited exposure to the negative stigma of being "effeminate", playful ribbing not withstanding.

Missionaries of Hate

Forewarning: Graphic material covered

Do have a couple of observations:

1) Though the reporter was sympathetic with the "persecuted minority", I found it a very fair and balanced report, elaborating both positions clearly
2) While I don't believe in state-sanctioned gay marriage, I believe some of the preachers profiled have mistaken views of the "alternative" lifestyle:

• that fecalfilia is exclusive to homosexuals (I've viewed hetero-porn where that fetish was videoed as well as hearing straight people boast about it). "Fisting" to my knowledge, is, for the most part, a homoerotic activity. Farmhands take out baby calves for a hopefully altogether different reason :-)

• that homosexuality is "promoted" may be somewhat unfair unless I'm missing something. Not exactly sure how someone would go about "recruiting" a prospective homosexual, but perhaps I'm not exactly privy to the 'wiles' of the gay subculture

Given our own Western culture, I wouldn't think that anti-sodomy laws would be a prudent course of action at this time. All the same a healthy skepticism about the secular humanist position that same-sex relations are just as healthy as hetero relations can (and IMHO should) be maintained. It gave me chills when the one legislature claimed he would turn his own daughter in to be executed upon finding out she was a practicing lesbian (perhaps lacking in love), but maybe harder to follow through when the rubber meats the road.

One aspect that may have been overlooked was how Africans deeply value fertility, and are weary of any plausible threat towards it. Misgivings not withstanding, Africans may be right about pro-ported imperialism to a certain extent. UN officials want to spread the artificial contraception agenda throughout the Dark continent even though Africans are some of the most scant CO2 polluters.