Miscellaneous Musing #45

It seems odd that the numbers of nuns and of monks are so low nowadays.  Renunciation of the world ought to be easier than ever before for a Christian, given the un-Christian, and overall distasteful, character of that world.

Miscellaneous Musing #44

If we can demote Pluto from the status of a planet, why not Europe from that of a continent?  My proposed boundary between the peninsula (or subcontinent) of Europe and the remainder of Asia runs from the Baltic Sea to the Courland Lagoon to the Neman River to the Shchara River to Vygonovskoe Lake to the Oginsky Canal to the Yaselda River to the Pripet River to the Dnieper River to the Dnieper Estuary to the Black Sea (whence it would follow the current boundary between Europe and Asia Minor, the latter of which really ought to be known as Anatolia—but that's the subject of another geographical musing).

Uncommon Commentary #252: (Wise) Up, the Irish! Or, Posting #300!

St. Patrick's Day, which has been deformed from the feast day of a patron saint into an often intensely nationalistic celebration of all things pertaining to the Emerald Isle, may be the most fitting time for me to teach the following lesson from history.
In 1914, the British Parliament passed a bill to establish Home Rule for Ireland, which meant that the entire island [v.i.] would become a fully independent dominion of the Commonwealth, just as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand did in 1931.  The outbreak of the Great War delayed the implementation of this legislation.  Hibernian hotheads, in league with Germany and in either ignorance or defiance of St. Paul's divinely inspired instruction to "obey the powers that be", rose against the British on Easter 1916; this instance of treachery failed to achieve its goal of bringing immediate independence, but violence again erupted at the end of the war.  The Protestant, British majority in the six northernmost counties consequently refused to be placed under the governance of the Roman Catholic Gaels who made up most of the population elsewhere, and so Parliament modified the Home Rule act to provide for what we now know as Northern Ireland.  Therefore, not only did the terrorism and other mayhem not avail the cause of the irate Irish anything, but they actually got less than they would have if it had not taken place; perhaps no episode better illustrates the futility of political revolution.

Uncommon Commentary #251: Don't Trust Mind-Numbers to Mind Numbers

Since the economic statistics that govern a president's chances of re-election are provided by his own administration, I suggest that we have an independent source begin to provide those numbers. (It would save the taxpayers money, as well, to privatize the conducting of the surveys that determine the rates of economic growth and of unemployment.) The willingness of the current administration to distort or to fabricate figures—the latest example, to my knowledge, being the outlandish assertion as to what percentage of women have used contraception; see Uncommon Commentary #249—may impart urgency to my proposition.

Miscellaneous Musing #43: Forbearing or Daring (That Is the Question)

I have found the answer to the question posed by Shakespeare's Hamlet in Act III, Scene I, Verses 56-59:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them.

That is, whether to be a martyr or a hero.  Actually, I haven't discovered which is nobler in the human mind as opposed to that of God, but the Christian answer to Hamlet's query is: One ought to be daring when it comes to saving others from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but forbearing when suffering them oneself.

Uncommon Commentary #250: We May Be Heading for Financial Bankruptcy, but We've Been Ethically Bankrupt for Decades

Unemployment, Iran, the "national" debt, unconstitutional "recess appointments", Afghanistan, health-care deform—I mean, reform—and (most of) the other issues that occupy newspaper headlines are important, but there's one that's more important than any of them, yet is never mentioned as a crisis or even as a minor concern: the collapse of ethical standards.  See Uncommon Commentary #171.

Uncommon Commentary #249: Leftists Can't Stop Citing an Imaginary "99%"

There's no mystery to me as to why Emperor Nerobama is trying to compel Roman Catholics to pay for insurance coverage of birth control—it's because he's a left-wing tyrant who values social engineering over religious freedom—but it's not clear why he's doing it during an election year.  The likely reason is that he has deluded himself into believing that the majority of women want access to birth control, and that since the USA's population is under one-fourth Roman Catholic but over half female, picking this fight with the Church right now will help his chances of staying in office.  The Obombast administration absurdly asserts that contraception has been used by 99 percent of women overall and by 98 percent among Roman Catholics; I don't know the actual figures, but I hope that this probable campaign ploy won't give birth to a second term for our president, which might be more than I can bear.

Uncommon Commentary #248: For Obama to Do This Is like Billing a Man on Death Row for the Cost of His Execution

A U.S. president desiring a second term should not be permitted to use taxpayer money to fund his campaign-related travel; probably every incumbent who sought re-election has done this, but it's an abuse nevertheless.