tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35204159315647942722011-04-21T12:54:25.681-10:00Tener vn hixo — Plantar vn árbol — Eſcribir vn libroJohn Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1681100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-81873902358700490652007-09-01T11:59:00.000-10:002007-09-01T12:00:33.351-10:00

I am now posting as the Impractical Christian. Basically it's a reboot of sorts.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-53734371689459937732007-08-09T22:45:00.001-10:002007-08-09T22:47:03.220-10:00

I've decided to do a little restart of this blog next month. Until then this blog will be...on hold.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-34298277595984652272007-08-09T21:46:00.001-10:002007-08-09T21:47:50.774-10:00

This blog is under lockdown!!!

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-75580847550212518292007-08-07T22:04:00.001-10:002007-08-07T22:05:56.216-10:00

Not sure how amusing you'd find the voiceover work, but here's bonafide proof of the vibrant nature of Roman Catholicism not so long ago, though long before I was born.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-68376811574317344182007-08-03T06:17:00.000-10:002007-08-03T06:18:19.971-10:00

EVEN among liars there are two classes, one immeasurably better than another. The honest liar is the man who tells the truth about his old lies; who says on Wednesday, 'I told a magnificent lie on Monday.' He keeps the truth in circulation; no one version of things stagnates in him and becomes an evil secret. He does not have to live with old lies; a horrible domesticity.Introduction to 'The Old

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-81237973378433146412007-08-02T22:20:00.000-10:002007-08-02T22:20:31.865-10:00

"We, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn to the Life-giving Trinity, let us set aside the cares of life that we may receive the King of all, Who comes invisibly escorted by the Heavenly Hosts."

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-58723745918461615392007-08-02T22:10:00.000-10:002007-08-02T22:15:24.304-10:00

I certainly know of some loyal readers of this blog, such as the ever-gracious Western Confucian, M.Z. Forrest, and the others who've linked to me, but a recent purview of my blog stats leave me wondering: who in the world is visiting from Pukalani, Maui? Whoever it is leads this bunch with 48 visits. Unless it's a glitch of some sort (since I know no-one from upcountry Maui) I salute you,

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-7481156864576622642007-08-02T21:45:00.000-10:002007-08-02T22:03:58.315-10:00

Apparently, a new Oxford study shows that abstinence programs in the US and UK do nothing to prevent unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies, the spread of venereal diseases, and other bugbears of the Leftist Society for the Promotion of Sex without Consequences. Curiously enough, abstinence programs in Uganda have been very effective in preventing the spread of HIV. So, why does one method work

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-56411441807784370002007-08-02T09:53:00.001-10:002007-08-02T22:19:46.619-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-17812136203967560072007-08-02T09:46:00.000-10:002007-08-02T09:48:02.889-10:00

JUST as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-62695107954126248462007-08-01T12:33:00.001-10:002007-08-01T12:33:20.226-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-76028393222700319852007-08-01T12:30:00.000-10:002007-08-01T12:31:07.391-10:00

A MAN must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.'George Bernard Shaw.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-41699121984178039282007-07-31T13:37:00.000-10:002007-07-31T13:39:12.245-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-64939806696156286692007-07-31T13:34:00.001-10:002007-07-31T13:35:57.327-10:00

THE party system in England is an enormous and most efficient machine for preventing political conflicts.'George Bernard Shaw.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-53699188979322982622007-07-30T23:07:00.002-10:002007-07-30T23:08:57.769-10:00

THE authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define, the authority even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-24786347512923622522007-07-29T11:48:00.000-10:002007-07-29T11:49:22.452-10:00

ONE of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-30552651074807492462007-07-28T11:47:00.000-10:002007-07-31T01:08:22.533-10:00

THE greatest disaster of the nineteenth century was this: that men began to use the word 'spiritual' as the same as the word 'good.' They thought that to grow in refinement and uncorporeality was to grow in virtue. When scientific evolution was announced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality. It did worse: it encouraged mere spirituality. It taught men to think that so long as

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-88225592196291001842007-07-27T15:48:00.000-10:002007-07-27T15:59:20.543-10:00

Several links today from the blogsphere:Fr. Stephen, an Orthodox priest, has an excellent series of posts on atheism and Christianity. The latest two in the series are excellent reads. A taste:"I believe in God because He is real, true, beautiful, good, compassionate, kind and then more than I can say. Atheism can offer me nothing (precisely). I do not believe in nothing."Meanwhile,

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-16832804179163423332007-07-27T15:39:00.000-10:002007-07-27T15:43:53.711-10:00

[Note: One of the few places where I am on opposite ends of the spectrum from GKC concerns the French Revolution. Chesterton for some reason thought it a good thing; I am of the opposite opinion. Nevertheless, if Chesterton is right--that Napoleon was a man "very like other people," then that would affirm what Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn calls the amateurist tendency of democracy; since Napoleon

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-44426773971496315062007-07-26T15:37:00.000-10:002007-07-27T15:39:33.221-10:00

CHRISTIANITY is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems too artistic. When you quarrel with us now you class us with kingship and despotism; but when you quarrelled with us first it was because we would not accept the divine despotism of Henry

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-36755041292399703112007-07-25T10:42:00.001-10:002007-07-31T13:51:31.456-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-38155951348341647872007-07-25T09:10:00.000-10:002007-07-25T09:12:00.715-10:00

IT is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem.'What's Wrong with the World.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-39402986186577554792007-07-24T08:47:00.001-10:002007-07-24T08:47:40.635-10:00

NOVELS and newspapers still talk of the English aristocracy that came over with William the Conqueror. Little of our effective oligarchy is as old as the Reformation and none of it came over with William the Conqueror. Some of the older English landlords came over with William of Orange; the rest have come over by ordinary alien immigration.'George Bernard Shaw.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-16261851286988961722007-07-23T19:34:00.000-10:002007-07-23T19:35:13.244-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-6598819190488708812007-07-23T05:06:00.000-10:002007-07-23T05:07:32.704-10:00

NO two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint always has a very sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-55895813108868262932007-07-23T04:59:00.000-10:002007-07-23T05:10:23.379-10:00

According to the BBC, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will expel any foreigner who dares to criticize his government. Says el presidente: "How long are we going to allow a person - from any country in the world - to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?" I doubt that throwing out foreigners who disagree with

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-84734525064208391692007-07-22T12:24:00.000-10:002007-07-22T12:25:43.467-10:00

IT is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor. If we were democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us. With us the governing class is always saying to itself, 'What laws shall we make?' In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, 'What laws can we obey?''Heretics.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-13654049686342634922007-07-21T12:38:00.000-10:002007-07-21T12:39:06.909-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-67493983720893096402007-07-21T12:29:00.000-10:002007-07-21T12:38:37.715-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-11948654461473456882007-07-21T12:24:00.000-10:002007-07-21T12:25:02.414-10:00

MANY clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours ?'The Napoleon of Notting Hill.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-28085894912511012252007-07-20T10:48:00.000-10:002007-07-20T10:50:26.759-10:00

DEMOCRACY in its human sense is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody: I mean that it rests on that club-habit of taking a total stranger for granted, of assuming certain things to be inevitably common to yourself and him. Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have the full authority of

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-35929496149449043892007-07-19T07:55:00.001-10:002007-07-19T07:55:39.872-10:00

THE Marchioness really has all the characteristics, the entirely heroic characteristics, which make a woman respected by a man. She is female -- that is, she is at once incurably candid and incurably loyal, she is full of terrible common sense, she expects little pleasure for herself and yet she can enjoy bursts of it; above all, she is physically timid and yet she can face anything.Introduction

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-13686987485296473402007-07-18T20:50:00.000-10:002007-07-18T20:51:34.369-10:00

IN all things his great spirit had the grandeur and the weakness which belonged to the England of his time -- an England splendidly secure and free, and yet (perhaps for that reason) provincial and innocent. He had nothing of the doctrinal quality of the French and Germans. He was not one who made up his mind, but one who let his mind make him up. He lay naturally open to all noble influences

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-9150163919654436462007-07-17T13:09:00.000-10:002007-07-17T13:10:34.046-10:00

YOU may come to think a blow bad because it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong because it is violent, and not because it is unjust.'The Ball and the Cross.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-7829783627934808732007-07-16T07:42:00.000-10:002007-07-16T07:45:09.614-10:00

IT is true that all sensible women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the matter of that, all women of any kind think all men of any kind mad. But they do not put it in telegrams any more than they wire to you that grass is green or God all-merciful. These things are truisms and often private ones at that.'The Club of Queer Trades.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-62385665081094903872007-07-15T14:06:00.001-10:002007-07-15T14:06:49.162-10:00

'St Swithin’s Day, if it does rainFull forty days, it will remainSt Swithin’s Day, if it be fairFor forty days, t'will rain no more.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-8438845214745584512007-07-15T14:05:00.000-10:002007-07-15T14:06:24.131-10:00

ONLY in our romantic country do you have the romantic thing called weather -- beautiful and changeable as a woman. The great English landscape painters (neglected now, like everything that is English) have this salient distinction, that the weather is not the atmosphere of their pictures it is the subject of their pictures. They paint portraits of the weather. The weather sat to Constable; the

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-49623638229845507252007-07-14T09:18:00.000-10:002007-07-14T09:28:08.118-10:00

Chesterton was correct in writing that the fall of the Bastille "changed the world" but, disagreeing with Chesterton, I think this change was not very good. From the French Revolution was born mass democracy, nationalism, totalitarianism, anti-clericalism, and many other kinds of isms. It smashed the old order only to replace it with something far worse. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn describes it

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-33995994884448904452007-07-14T09:15:00.000-10:002007-07-14T09:18:24.519-10:00

THE destruction of the Bastille was not a reform it was something more important than a reform. It was an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they struck at it as at a carved face. For of all the shapes in which that immense illusion called Materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the most

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-20225088535831669502007-07-13T12:13:00.000-10:002007-07-13T12:14:09.107-10:00

THE slum novelist gains his effects by describing the same grey mist as draping the dingy factory and the dingy tavern. But to the man he is supposed to be studying there must be exactly the same difference between the factory and the tavern that there is to a middle-class man between a late night at the office and a supper at Pagani's.'Heretics.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-54730883408804106072007-07-12T05:43:00.000-10:002007-07-12T05:51:10.473-10:00

A quick morning pass through Google Reader revealed several interesting articles, both of which happened to be linked through the Western Confucian, one of my favorite blogs:Apparently, even the Africans are starting to get sick of Bono and all the charitable aid flowing into Africa. While Bono and his ilk prance on stage and pose for the camera for the less fortunate, the Chinese have beat us

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-19486940139956876602007-07-12T05:40:00.001-10:002007-07-12T05:40:57.385-10:00

OF all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows anybody knows how it would work; anyone who knows anyone from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-56093711200990053502007-07-12T05:34:00.001-10:002007-07-12T05:34:46.270-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-41840520921093711852007-07-12T05:29:00.000-10:002007-07-12T05:32:45.928-10:00

Starvin' for some true liberty? Try this sushi recipe created by presidential candidate Ron Paul's supporters here in Hawaii. Rep. Paul is the most independent and honest candidate in this race. Although he is a Republican, he is against the current establishment and especially their unjust war. Moreover, he is for increased personal liberty and a return to responsible, constitutional

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-5887714184410437822007-07-11T11:21:00.001-10:002007-07-11T11:21:46.996-10:00

'THE Church is not a thing like the Athenaeum Club,' he cried.' If the Athenaeum Club lost all its members, the Athenaeum Club would dissolve and cease to exist. But when we belong to the Church we belong to something which is outside all of us which is outside everything you talk about, outside the Cardinals and the Pope. They belong to it, but it does not belong to them. If we all fell dead

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-6377060797521272782007-07-10T06:42:00.000-10:002007-07-10T16:33:23.650-10:00

Courtesy of the Western Confucian:

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-34521548804986792172007-07-10T06:04:00.000-10:002007-07-10T06:06:03.903-10:00

NOW, I have no particular objection to people who take the gilt off the gingerbread if only for this excellent reason―that I am much fonder of gingerbread than I am of gilt. But there are some objections to this task when it becomes a crusade or an obsession. One of them is this that people who have really scraped the gilt off the gingerbread generally waste the rest of their lives in attempting

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-48238615706896216942007-07-09T18:24:00.000-10:002007-07-09T19:23:14.669-10:00

Finally, a post (sort of) for the handful of people who still read this blog:John Médaille writes an interesting piece ("Sicko-phancy!") in the Distributist Review on the economics of health care. Courtesy of the Western Confucian.Daniel Mitsui has an excellent series of essays on pervert-artist Eric Gill, here, here, and here. What was insidious about Gill was not merely his deviant sexuality

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-5328955858019732332007-07-09T13:26:00.000-10:002007-07-09T13:27:35.556-10:00

THERE are only two kinds of social structure conceivable—personal government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules, they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broad-mindedly both to kings and creeds is

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-82428435274366616792007-07-08T00:22:00.000-10:002007-07-08T00:23:31.445-10:00

THE temporary decline of theology had involved the neglect of philosophy and all fine thinking, and Bernard Shaw had to find shaky justifications in Schopenhauer for the sons of God shouting for joy. He called it the Will to Live -- a phrase invented by Prussian professors who would like to exist but can't.'George Bernard Shaw.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-11894205145870201832007-07-05T08:47:00.000-10:002007-07-05T08:48:39.236-10:00

IT is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that the moving tower of terror and

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-59019097525326870822007-07-03T00:33:00.000-10:002007-07-03T00:34:12.252-10:00

THE love of those whom we do not know is I quite as eternal a sentiment as the love of those whom we do know. In our friends the richness of life is proved to us by what we have gained; in the faces in the street the richness of life is proved to us by a hint of what we have lost.'Robert Browning.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-45092546163747627042007-07-02T11:23:00.000-10:002007-07-02T11:25:21.262-10:00

1. I'm a productive (???) member of society...sort of.2. This blog will continue!3. Although maybe not for long...new blog coming soon!

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-19455687351817576732007-06-06T07:27:00.000-10:002007-06-06T07:29:46.628-10:00

I HAVE never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-35535931424963666812007-06-05T08:52:00.001-10:002007-06-05T08:52:51.968-10:00

THE right and proper thing, of course, is that every good patriot should stop at home and curse his own country. So long as that is being done everywhere, we may be sure that things are fairly happy, and being kept up to a reasonably high standard. So long as we are discontented separately we may be well content as a whole.'Illustrated London News.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-47722894868204459632007-06-04T11:43:00.000-10:002007-06-04T11:47:56.275-10:00

EVERY man of us to-day is three men. There is in every modern European three powers so distinct as to be almost personal -- the trinity of our earthly destiny. The three may be rudely summarized thus: First and nearest to us is the Christian, the man of the historic Church, of the creed that must have coloured our minds incurably whether we regard it as the crown and combination of the other two

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-46449420520800982802007-05-28T13:08:00.000-10:002007-05-28T13:09:09.371-10:00

BOYS like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales--because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him.'Orthodoxy.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-10163728403760807562007-05-24T08:04:00.001-10:002007-05-24T08:06:08.692-10:00

Everyone's favorite anachronistic contrarian, Mr Mitsui, has some interesting suggestions on how to improve the game of baseball.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-55214129036636671802007-05-24T08:02:00.000-10:002007-05-24T08:03:51.618-10:00

EMPIRE DAYI FOR one should be sincerely glad if we could have a national celebration, remembering our real achievements and reminding ourselves of our real work in the world. Only for any such national celebration I should suggest two conditions first, that our national celebration should be invented by our nation and not by another nation. And secondly, that it should be forced by the people on

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-20391222532728656652007-05-23T10:29:00.000-10:002007-05-23T10:46:53.170-10:00

Back in Medieval times, many accused criminals were judged through a trial by ordeal. The accused was put through a certain test, such as touching a burning rod of iron or being dunked into the river, to see if God will have favor on him and show his innocence. If he does not get burnt or drowned, then it shows that a miracle was performed for the guiltless. In the early middle ages, clergy

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-46799058574135611972007-05-23T10:12:00.000-10:002007-05-23T10:13:12.865-10:00

TO-MORROW is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect creed of predestination, were turned to stone; the modern sociological scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-57857785474727863172007-05-14T02:20:00.000-10:002007-05-14T02:27:27.838-10:00

There's another college graduate on the loose!It took longer than expected, but I finally made it to Commencement, although we don't get our diplomas for another two months. I didn't want to go to the ceremony, since I thought it was a lot of pomp and circumstance, but since it's one of those rare events that don't come around so often, as well as the fact that it was Mother's Day, I decided

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-11265406501018297522007-05-02T11:44:00.000-10:002007-05-02T11:47:47.889-10:00

Professor Bradshaw has a website which includes a few philosophical and theological articles of definite interest (to me, at least).Fr Jonathan is a great poet: Where the exorcists are

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-75891243373563402712007-05-02T06:55:00.000-10:002007-05-02T07:09:36.998-10:00

Mr Culbreath on restoring Christianity in the countryside: The Rural SolutionThe Western Confucian on Democracy in KoreaMr Forrest discusses moral hazards: Efficiency's CousinMr Larison on bombing civilians: Embracing The Evils of 'The Good War' and Forever On The High Ground On A Mountain Of SkullsLifehacker advises you to do the toughest task first in order to beat procrastination.Finally, more

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-48196747427252034342007-05-02T06:47:00.000-10:002007-05-02T06:48:36.041-10:00

IF drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless, and of small import to the soul, then, as I say, I give it up: I do not know what the word means. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area -

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-71829890398404243542007-05-01T11:27:00.000-10:002007-05-01T15:10:53.072-10:00

My undergraduate career is winding down, and I only have time to post links. However, I saved only the good ones for you to read. Courtesy of Google Reader, which increased my [feed-reading] productivity at least twice.Mr Mitsui critiques linear perspective: Horror VacuiMr Luse on the multiculti farce: A Tolerant TyrannyMr Larison on Liberals, Conservatives, and the War: Not One Step Back!Mr

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-82210819665356937302007-05-01T11:26:00.000-10:002007-05-01T11:27:17.722-10:00

IT may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the firstOur wrath come after Russia's, and our wrath be the worst.It may be we are set to mark by our riot and our restGod's scorn of all man's governance: it may be beer is best.But we are the people of England, and we never have spoken yet.Mock at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.'The Silent People.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-41129252672445938112007-04-30T10:03:00.000-10:002007-04-30T10:13:01.063-10:00

Paleo-Future, an interesting site on past predictions of the future, showcases 1900 postcards of life in the year 2000.Gabriel of Going Along writes about (im)proper Biblical criticism in Orthodoxy.In between working the land and feeding his livestock, Jeff Culbreath writes in his Stony Creek Digest about steps towards restoring Christian culture.Finally, I really like enka.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-34887564150292812802007-04-29T20:38:00.000-10:002007-04-29T20:41:17.373-10:00

Dedicated to the graduating Class of 2007.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-16432333945377103512007-04-27T03:50:00.000-10:002007-04-27T03:52:22.494-10:00

I'm done with the final (?) rough draft of my senior honors thesis, "Edomae: Food and the City in Tokugawa Japan". When I make the necessary revisions, the thesis will be posted by chapters in mid-May. Not that you should be expecting much. Overall, the research process was full of disappointments for me, but I think it was worth it.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-82578979172472220552007-04-22T20:56:00.000-10:002007-04-22T20:58:01.323-10:00

Serbians? Singing Irish folk? Awesome!

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-80783381634618114192007-04-20T18:42:00.000-10:002007-04-20T18:43:42.553-10:00

'I KNOW of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear, stronger than those who use it -- often frightful, often wicked to use. But whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common whatever is touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. It has made mean landscapes magnificent and hovels outlast cathedrals

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-44478598140803602492007-04-19T16:47:00.000-10:002007-04-19T16:48:26.203-10:00

IF the great Jew who led the English Tories understood patriotism (as I do not doubt that he did) it must have been a decidedly special and peculiar kind of patriotism, and it necessarily laid him open to the mistake about the relative positions of the terms Emperor and King. To him no doubt Emperor seemed obviously a higher title; just as Brother of the Sun and Moon would have seemed to him a

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-29040571261678459322007-04-17T19:57:00.000-10:002007-04-17T19:58:52.631-10:00

WHATEVER the merits or demerits of the Pantheistic sentiment of melting into nature of 'Oneness' (I think they call it) with seas and skies, it is not and it never has been a popular sentiment. It has been the feeling of a few learned aesthetes or secluded naturalists. Popular poetry is all against Pantheism and quite removed from Immanence. It is all about the beautiful earth as an edge or

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-85321144048000608892007-04-15T18:38:00.000-10:002007-04-19T16:48:42.708-10:00

I SAID to my companion the Dickensian, 'Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the Angel at the Sepulchre.'He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows.'I daresay,' he said. 'What is there odd about that?'After a pause I answered, 'Do you remember what the Angel at the Sepulchre said?'Not particularly,' he replied; 'but where are you off to in

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-27908683158613849492007-04-14T23:24:00.000-10:002007-04-14T23:26:29.135-10:00

This is especially for the good patron of this blog, the Western Confucian.Christ is Risen!

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-38159569884121664392007-04-14T23:20:00.000-10:002007-04-14T23:24:22.384-10:00

AS it is in politics with the specially potent man, so it is in history with the specially learned. We do not need the learned man to teach us the important things. We all know the important things, though we all violate and neglect them. Gigantic industry, abysmal knowledge are needed for the discovery of the tiny things -- the things that seem hardly worth the trouble. Generally speaking, the

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-71874688870034029332007-04-14T00:05:00.000-10:002007-04-14T00:08:33.768-10:00

The Spring 2002 issue of Road to Emmaus, an Orthodox publication, featured an article on the dissemination of G.K. Chesterton's writings in Soviet Russia. Although GKC was a favorite of the Soviet intelligentsia in the 1920s, they became "disgusted" by his Christianity. Many of his religious-themed articles were distributed as samizdat, but his other writings, in particular the Father Brown

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-35146212911698856082007-04-13T23:54:00.000-10:002007-04-14T00:09:10.750-10:00

I HAVE often been haunted with a fancy that the creeds of men might be paralleled and represented in their beverages. Wine might stand for genuine Catholicism, and ale for genuine Protestantism; for these at least are real religions with comfort and strength in them. Clean cold Agnosticism would be clean cold water -- an excellent thing if you can get it. Most modern ethical and idealistic

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-51734008258904350892007-04-13T23:51:00.000-10:002007-04-13T23:56:18.803-10:00

When I lived in Japan, I used to watch a news program in the morning that had a pretty good song as its opening theme. Now, several years later, I found it! Quite a toe-tapper, if you ask me.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-21891536549887983362007-04-10T09:26:00.001-10:002007-04-10T09:26:43.599-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-20296817156566158612007-04-08T19:24:00.000-10:002007-04-08T19:28:30.158-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-2031202557417232032007-04-05T22:56:00.000-10:002007-04-05T22:58:16.592-10:00

Today is hung upon the Tree,He Who did hang the land in the midst of the waters.A Crown of thorns crowns HimWho is King of Angels.He is wrapped about with the purple of mockeryWho wrapped the Heavens with clouds.He received buffetingsWho freed Adam in Jordan.He was transfixed with nailsWho is the Bridegroom of the Church.He was pierced with a spearWho is the Son of the

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-24771374833286189102007-03-12T18:09:00.000-10:002007-03-12T18:11:52.765-10:00

We're already a couple weeks into Lent, but I don't want to let this Quadragesimal season go to waste. So, like Dan Mitsui and others, I am putting this weblog on hiatus until Easter Sunday. I hope you will have a blessed Pascha.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-65568354013856262172007-03-10T10:16:00.000-10:002007-03-10T10:18:07.721-10:00

WE should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations. A child has no difficulty in achieving the miracle of speech, consequently we find his blunders almost as marvellous as his accuracy. If we only adopted the same

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-28537846163571406392007-03-09T08:42:00.000-10:002007-03-09T08:44:00.450-10:00

A MAN can be a Christian to the end of the world, for the simple reason that a man could have been an Atheist from the beginning of it. The materialism of things is on the face of things: it does not require any science to find it out. A man who has lived and loved falls down dead and the worms eat him. That is Materialism, if you like. That is Atheism, if you like. If mankind has believed in

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-27091025430568507082007-03-08T09:14:00.000-10:002007-03-08T09:16:23.060-10:00

IN one of his least convincing phrases, Nietzsche had said that just as the ape ultimately produced the man, so should we ultimately produce something higher than the man. The immediate answer, of course, is sufficiently obvious: the ape did not worry about the man, so why should we worry about the superman? If the superman will come by natural selection, may we not leave it to natural selection?

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-69225769372256299352007-03-07T19:39:00.001-10:002007-03-07T19:39:32.548-10:00

THUS because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulchre of Christ. But being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for fact's sake, we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole. I am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility,

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-53028467069753423502007-03-07T19:29:00.000-10:002007-03-07T19:30:34.348-10:00

by Portia NelsonII walk down the street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalkI fall in.I am lost ... I am helpless.It isn't my fault.It takes me forever to find a way out.III walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I pretend I don't see it.I fall in again.I can't believe I am in the same placebut, it isn't my fault.It still takes a long time to get out.IIII walk down the

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-43536280569051154842007-03-01T17:55:00.000-10:002007-03-01T17:56:25.125-10:00

ST. DAVID'S DAYMY eyes are void with vision; I sing but I cannot speak;I hide in the vaporous caverns like a creature wild and weakBut for ever my harps are tuned and for ever my songs are sung,And I answer my tyrants ever in an unknown tongue.When the blue men broke in the battle with the Roman or the Dane,The cracks of my ghastly uplands they gathered like ghosts again.Some say I am still a

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-33232816645433223962007-02-27T16:23:00.000-10:002007-02-27T16:24:48.013-10:00

A MAN must be partly a one-idead man because he is a one-weaponed man -- and he is flung naked into the fight. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) give 'his best'; and what a small part of a man 'his best ' is! His second and third best are often much better. If he is the first violin he must fiddle for life; he must not remember that he is a fine fourth bagpipe, a fair fifteenth

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-77438443172899648922007-02-26T23:04:00.000-10:002007-02-26T23:06:31.071-10:00

"If I were to believe every book written about Jesus, I'd believe that he was a zoroastrian hindu jew who was devoured by dogs after the crucifixion and who managed to found the true faith of gnosticism and shroomism before marrying Mary Magdalene and moving to Europe to start a new monarchy and whose legacy was really a manipulative scheme by Paul and the Roman government which succeeded because

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-33744961058066244692007-02-26T22:12:00.000-10:002007-02-26T23:03:48.473-10:00

[I apologize for the irregularity of my posts as 1. It is Lent, and thus appropriate to not post so frequently, and 2. The real reason being that I have a new "part-time" job that really takes up much of my time. Expect regular posting of at least Chesterton in a couple days.]IT is neither blood nor rain that has made England, but hope -- the thing all those dead men have desired. France was not

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-67002313701162756242007-02-23T00:00:00.000-10:002007-02-23T00:26:53.985-10:00

Since it's Lent, I think it's appropriate to write a little bit on Sin. I, being a sinner, am an expert, although I speak only for my own sins. Despite the fact that I'm hesitant to mention my personal sins to anyone but a priest, I'll try my best to share my views on the concept of Sin itself. My advice, like any advice I give, is probably should taken by myself as well.What is sin? I

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-70800787285548688912007-02-22T10:24:00.000-10:002007-02-22T10:25:24.784-10:00

OF a sane man there is only one safe definition: he is a man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.'Tremendous Trifles.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-36849575492380837482007-02-21T08:38:00.000-10:002007-02-21T08:42:06.699-10:00

T.S. ELIOTIBecause I do not hope to turn againBecause I do not hopeBecause I do not hope to turnDesiring this man's gift and that man's scopeI no longer strive to strive towards such things(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)Why should I mournThe vanished power of the usual reign?Because I do not hope to knowThe infirm glory of the positive hourBecause I do not thinkBecause I know I

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-84460405377605297122007-02-21T08:36:00.000-10:002007-02-21T08:38:24.580-10:00

IF Americans can be divorced for 'incompatibility of temper,' I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.'What's Wrong with the World.'

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-44672297996163967732007-02-20T23:23:00.000-10:002007-02-20T23:25:24.682-10:00

NOW the reason why our fathers did not make marriage, in the middle-aged and static sense, the subject of their plays was a very simple one; it was that a play is a very bad place for discussing that topic. You cannot easily make a good drama out of the success or failure of a marriage, just as you could not make a good drama out of the growth of an oak-tree or the decay of an empire. As Polonius

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-64353442636633311702007-02-20T00:09:00.000-10:002007-02-20T00:10:21.103-10:00

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3520415931564794272.post-81345741109340984892007-02-19T23:12:00.000-10:002007-02-19T23:14:06.022-10:00

THERE are two rooted spiritual realities out of which grow all kinds of democratic conception or sentiment of human equality. There are two things in which all men are manifestly and unmistakably equal. They are not equally clever or equally muscular or equally fat, as the sages of the modern reaction (with piercing insight) perceive. But this is a spiritual certainty, that all men are tragic.

John Adrian Martinnoreply@blogger.com0