For the first time in my life I slightly regret not being on Facebook. I am sure that the sensation will pass. In the meantime Perry Robinson, who once upon a time ran one of the better blogs in the Orthosphere, has apparently posted something of interest...
And it is on Facebook. :-(
Monday, June 29, 2015
ROCOR Responds to Supreme Court Ruling
Word via Fr. Patrick (Reardon) that priests in the Russian Church Abroad are no longer blessed to sign any civil marriage documents in the United States.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Greek Government Weighs Emergency Actions -May close banks and the stock market
Bank runs and a possible stock market crash... who didn't see this coming? Apparently a lot of people.
I've been saying it for probably at least five years. Greece is broke. They were broke yesterday and they will still be broke tomorrow. The money just aint there. There are a lot of reasons for this clusterbleep - the Euro was a horrible idea, the predatory way the emergency loans were structured etc. But the bottom line is that this is a Greek tragedy mostly of their own making. You can’t run a country that promises everyone a minimum standard of living and government pensions for all while no one pays taxes.
“The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money to spend. “ -Margaret (Baroness) Thatcher
I've been saying it for probably at least five years. Greece is broke. They were broke yesterday and they will still be broke tomorrow. The money just aint there. There are a lot of reasons for this clusterbleep - the Euro was a horrible idea, the predatory way the emergency loans were structured etc. But the bottom line is that this is a Greek tragedy mostly of their own making. You can’t run a country that promises everyone a minimum standard of living and government pensions for all while no one pays taxes.
“The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money to spend. “ -Margaret (Baroness) Thatcher
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Orthodox Christians Must Now Learn To Live as Exiles in Our Own Country
No, the sky is not falling — not yet, anyway — but with the Supreme Court ruling constitutionalizing same-sex marriage, the ground under our feet has shifted tectonically.
It is hard to overstate the significance of the Obergefell decision — and the seriousness of the challenges it presents to orthodox Christians and other social conservatives. Voting Republican and other failed culture war strategies are not going to save us now.
Discerning the meaning of the present moment requires sobriety, precisely because its radicalism requires of conservatives a realistic sense of how weak our position is in post-Christian America.
The alarm that the four dissenting justices sounded in their minority opinions is chilling. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia were particularly scathing in pointing out the philosophical and historical groundlessness of the majority’s opinion. Justice Scalia even called the decision “a threat to democracy,” and denounced it, shockingly, in the language of revolution.
It is now clear that for this Court, extremism in the pursuit of the Sexual Revolution’s goals is no vice. True, the majority opinion nodded and smiled in the direction of the First Amendment, in an attempt to calm the fears of those worried about religious liberty. But when a Supreme Court majority is willing to invent rights out of nothing, it is impossible to have faith that the First Amendment will offer any but the barest protection to religious dissenters from gay rights orthodoxy.
Read the rest here.
It is hard to overstate the significance of the Obergefell decision — and the seriousness of the challenges it presents to orthodox Christians and other social conservatives. Voting Republican and other failed culture war strategies are not going to save us now.
Discerning the meaning of the present moment requires sobriety, precisely because its radicalism requires of conservatives a realistic sense of how weak our position is in post-Christian America.
The alarm that the four dissenting justices sounded in their minority opinions is chilling. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia were particularly scathing in pointing out the philosophical and historical groundlessness of the majority’s opinion. Justice Scalia even called the decision “a threat to democracy,” and denounced it, shockingly, in the language of revolution.
It is now clear that for this Court, extremism in the pursuit of the Sexual Revolution’s goals is no vice. True, the majority opinion nodded and smiled in the direction of the First Amendment, in an attempt to calm the fears of those worried about religious liberty. But when a Supreme Court majority is willing to invent rights out of nothing, it is impossible to have faith that the First Amendment will offer any but the barest protection to religious dissenters from gay rights orthodoxy.
Read the rest here.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Former Greek Archdiocesan Cathedral Musical Director Leaves for Episcopal Church
Church has always been an important part of my life, and it will continue to be the central expression of my faith in God, and the core of my spiritual life. Attending Liturgy was always the pinnacle of my week, and I have virtually every word of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom committed to memory as a result of years as a church musician. My experience of church is beginning to take a different shape, however, after several years of difficult and painful discernment. I am now leaving the Greek Orthodox Church, and continuing to live out my Christianity as an Anglican, in the Episcopal Church in the United States.
Read the rest here.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Obama looking to avoid Waldorf hotel in New York after Chinese purchase
Every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has stayed in the presidential suite on the 35th floor of the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan. The accommodations run $4,000-$6,000 per night, hotel officials say, and feature souvenirs collected from past commanders in chief and security measures like bulletproof glass windows. Current and former White House officials have long considered the hotel and its staff as the best in the world at hosting the most powerful man in the world.
That may all be about to change. President Barack Obama is on track to skip the Waldorf this fall when he heads to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, several officials told Yahoo News.
While the officials would not say so explicitly, they strongly indicated that the decision to reevaluate the historic relationship with the Waldorf was tied to the hotel’s sale to China’s Anbang Insurance Group, approved by U.S. regulators earlier this year. While Hilton will continue to operate the property for 100 years, one U.S. official linked the American decision to relocate the president to worries about Chinese espionage and to the announcement of an upcoming “major renovation” at the hotel that could provide an opportunity to install surveillance gear. The recent theft of millions of federal workers’ personal information, pinned on China, has fed the sense of alarm in Washington. China denies responsibility for the breach.
Read the rest here.
A sad, but probably necessary decision.
That may all be about to change. President Barack Obama is on track to skip the Waldorf this fall when he heads to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, several officials told Yahoo News.
While the officials would not say so explicitly, they strongly indicated that the decision to reevaluate the historic relationship with the Waldorf was tied to the hotel’s sale to China’s Anbang Insurance Group, approved by U.S. regulators earlier this year. While Hilton will continue to operate the property for 100 years, one U.S. official linked the American decision to relocate the president to worries about Chinese espionage and to the announcement of an upcoming “major renovation” at the hotel that could provide an opportunity to install surveillance gear. The recent theft of millions of federal workers’ personal information, pinned on China, has fed the sense of alarm in Washington. China denies responsibility for the breach.
Read the rest here.
A sad, but probably necessary decision.
Russian Lawmaker Calls for the Return of the Romanovs
In letters to Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova in Spain and Prince Dmitry Romanovich Romanov in Denmark, both of whom claim to be the head of the house of Romanov, regional lawmaker Vladimir Petrov argued that the “return of the descendants of the last Russian autocrat to their historical homeland would help smooth out the political contradictions inside the country, which have been left over from the moment of the [Bolshevik] October revolution, and would become a symbol of restoring the spiritual might of Russia's people,” Izvestia reported Tuesday.
“At the present time, a difficult process is under way in restoring Russia's might and of returning its international influence,” Petrov said in the letter, Izvestia reported. “I am certain that during such an important historical moment, members of the Romanov imperial house cannot remain aside from the processes that are going on in Russia.”
РЕКЛАМА
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Revisionist History: Five myths about why the South seceded
One hundred fifty years after the Civil War began, we’re still fighting it — or at least fighting over its history. I’ve polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even about why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States’ rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war’s various battles — from Fort Sumter to Appomattox — let’s first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states’ rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to “fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”
The South’s opposition to states’ rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states’ rights. Doing so preserves their own.
Read the rest here.
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war’s various battles — from Fort Sumter to Appomattox — let’s first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states’ rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to “fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”
The South’s opposition to states’ rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states’ rights. Doing so preserves their own.
Read the rest here.
Monday, June 22, 2015
A Christopher Lee Movie Marathon
For those interested, Turner Classic Movies is running a bunch of the late Sir Christopher Lee's films today. On the list are several of the old Hammer Horror Films and the excellent 1970's version of the Three Musketeers (and its sequel). The latter two where Lee co-stars opposite Michael York and the late Charlton Heston are IMO the best film adaptations of the classic story.
Today's Service from Emanuel AME Church in Charleston SC
For those with limited time the preaching begins at about 57 minutes.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Pope Francis suggests nations that obstruct illegal immigration should seek forgiveness
Details.
My take: Your Holiness, thank you for your obviously sincere concern for the welfare of these unfortunate people. We have over 15 million in the United States, about 3/4 of whom are from Latin America and overwhelmingly your co-religionists. When can we begin sending them to the Vatican?
My take: Your Holiness, thank you for your obviously sincere concern for the welfare of these unfortunate people. We have over 15 million in the United States, about 3/4 of whom are from Latin America and overwhelmingly your co-religionists. When can we begin sending them to the Vatican?
Pope Francis Appoints Heretical Catholic Bishop to Fall Synod
ROME — A Belgian bishop who has called on the Church to welcome same-sex couples will get to bring his case straight to Pope Francis.
The Vatican announced Tuesday that Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp will serve as a delegate to October’s Synod on the Family. His appointment adds intellectual heft and star power to the liberal flank of bishops pushing for the Church to change how it approaches Catholics living in “irregular situations.”
Bonny’s views, however, may be vigorously resisted by other synod members announced by the Vatican Tuesday, including prelates from Africa and Poland.
Source.
The Vatican announced Tuesday that Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp will serve as a delegate to October’s Synod on the Family. His appointment adds intellectual heft and star power to the liberal flank of bishops pushing for the Church to change how it approaches Catholics living in “irregular situations.”
Bonny’s views, however, may be vigorously resisted by other synod members announced by the Vatican Tuesday, including prelates from Africa and Poland.
Source.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Orthodoxy in Ukraine: It's getting messier
The two main schismatic churches seem likely to unite in September. Meanwhile the canonical church under Moscow's omophorion is hemorrhaging both lay membership and clergy who are defecting to the schismatic churches due to the civil war and extreme anti-Russian sentiment.
Read the story here.
Read the story here.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Damian Thompson: 2067 the end of British Christianity
It’s often said that Britain’s church congregations are
shrinking, but that doesn’t come close to expressing the scale of the
disaster now facing Christianity in this country. Every ten years the
census spells out the situation in detail: between 2001 and 2011 the
number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million — about 10,000 a
week. If that rate of decline continues, the mission of St Augustine to
the English, together with that of the Irish saints to the Scots, will
come to an end in 2067.
That is the year in which the Christians who have inherited the faith of their British ancestors will become statistically invisible. Parish churches everywhere will have been adapted for secular use, demolished or abandoned.
Our cathedral buildings will survive, but they won’t be true cathedrals because they will have no bishops. The Church of England is declining faster than other denominations; if it carries on shrinking at the rate suggested by the latest British Social Attitudes survey, Anglicanism will disappear from Britain in 2033. One day the last native-born Christian will die and that will be that.
Read the rest here.
That is the year in which the Christians who have inherited the faith of their British ancestors will become statistically invisible. Parish churches everywhere will have been adapted for secular use, demolished or abandoned.
Our cathedral buildings will survive, but they won’t be true cathedrals because they will have no bishops. The Church of England is declining faster than other denominations; if it carries on shrinking at the rate suggested by the latest British Social Attitudes survey, Anglicanism will disappear from Britain in 2033. One day the last native-born Christian will die and that will be that.
Read the rest here.
RIP: Sir Christopher Lee
Memory eternal.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Global Bond Crash as Deflation Bets Go Very Wrong
The global deflation trade is unwinding with a vengeance. Yields on 10-year Bunds blew through 1pc today, spearheading a violent repricing of credit across the world.
The scale is starting to match the 'taper tantrum' of mid-2013 when the US Federal Reserve issued its first gentle warning that quantitative easing would not last forever, and that the long-feared inflexion point was nearing in the international monetary cycle.
Paper losses over the last three months have reached $1.2 trillion. Yields have jumped by 175 basis points in Indonesia, 160 in South Africa, 150 in Turkey, 130 in Mexico, and 80 in Australia.
The epicentre is in the eurozone as the "QE" bet goes horribly wrong. Bund yields hit 1.05pc this morning before falling back in wild trading, up 100 basis points since March. French, Italian, and Spanish yields have moved in lockstep.
Read the rest here.
The scale is starting to match the 'taper tantrum' of mid-2013 when the US Federal Reserve issued its first gentle warning that quantitative easing would not last forever, and that the long-feared inflexion point was nearing in the international monetary cycle.
Paper losses over the last three months have reached $1.2 trillion. Yields have jumped by 175 basis points in Indonesia, 160 in South Africa, 150 in Turkey, 130 in Mexico, and 80 in Australia.
The epicentre is in the eurozone as the "QE" bet goes horribly wrong. Bund yields hit 1.05pc this morning before falling back in wild trading, up 100 basis points since March. French, Italian, and Spanish yields have moved in lockstep.
Read the rest here.
A huge win in the fight against abortion
NEW ORLEANS, LA, June 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Texas will likely see half its remaining abortion facilities close after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a key provision of a pro-life law passed in 2013.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court turned back the abortion industry's challenges to a provision of H.B. 2 that required abortion facilities to meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers. All three judges were appointed by President George W. Bush.
Read the rest here.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court turned back the abortion industry's challenges to a provision of H.B. 2 that required abortion facilities to meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers. All three judges were appointed by President George W. Bush.
Read the rest here.
Monday, June 08, 2015
Goodbye to the First Amendment
(in)Famous British libertarian and atheist Pat Condell telling it like it is.
Saturday, June 06, 2015
Thursday, June 04, 2015
Russian Church severs all contact with Scottish and French Protestants
Moscow, June 3, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate criticizes the decisions of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to consecrate homosexuals and of the United Protestant Church of France to bless homosexual marriages.
"These decisions of the Church of Scotland and the Church of France have deeply disappointed the Russian Orthodox Church as they seem incompatible with norms of Christian morals," the Department for External Church Relations says in its statement posted Wednesday on its official website.
Guided by definitions of the Bishops' Councils, which say that future relations with many Protestant communities depend on their faithfulness to norms of Gospel morality, DECR "does not see any prospects in further official contacts with the Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church of France."
"In sorrow we state that today we have new divisions in Christian world, not only in theological, but in moral issues," the statement says.
In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church suspended contacts with Episcopal Church in the USA as it consecrated bishop an open homosexual. The similar reasons led to breaking relations with the Church of Sweden in 2005, when it decided to bless homosexual marriages.
Source.
See also the full statement of the Moscow Patriarchate.
"These decisions of the Church of Scotland and the Church of France have deeply disappointed the Russian Orthodox Church as they seem incompatible with norms of Christian morals," the Department for External Church Relations says in its statement posted Wednesday on its official website.
Guided by definitions of the Bishops' Councils, which say that future relations with many Protestant communities depend on their faithfulness to norms of Gospel morality, DECR "does not see any prospects in further official contacts with the Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church of France."
"In sorrow we state that today we have new divisions in Christian world, not only in theological, but in moral issues," the statement says.
In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church suspended contacts with Episcopal Church in the USA as it consecrated bishop an open homosexual. The similar reasons led to breaking relations with the Church of Sweden in 2005, when it decided to bless homosexual marriages.
Source.
See also the full statement of the Moscow Patriarchate.
I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me
I'm a professor at a midsize state school. I have been teaching college classes for nine years now. I have won (minor) teaching awards, studied pedagogy extensively, and almost always score highly on my student evaluations. I am not a world-class teacher by any means, but I am conscientious; I attempt to put teaching ahead of research, and I take a healthy emotional stake in the well-being and growth of my students.
Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones.
Read the rest here.
Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones.
Read the rest here.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Blog Break
The real world keeps intruding... sigh. Hopefully I will have some time later in the week or over the weekend.