Finally! 62 and sunny, a slight breeze. The first thoroughly-nice day of the year. It's almost perfect for me. My perfect day is 70 and partly sunny.
I have to meet with clients at 11:30, but other than that, I'll be outside enjoying it. My plan: Read on front porch, take a break with a little yard work, read, play catch with the boys, read, do a little yard work . . . You get the picture. According to the hour-by-hour forecast, I can commence at 10:00.
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Some good stuff by Dalrymple about Hillary Clinton. I really liked the last paragraph:
I suspect (though I cannot prove) that Clinton shares with the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, that modern psychopathological symptom: the delusion of honesty. A delusional belief is impervious to reason or evidence. In societies like Britain and the United States, once steeped in Judeo-Christian culture, such convictions become common when a belief in Original Sin finds itself replaced by a belief in Original Virtue–particularly one's own.
The delusion of honesty article he links is also pretty good (a little too much Blair history, but pretty good). Excerpt:
It is no coincidence, however, that Blair reached maturity at the time of the publication of the famous book Psychobabble, which dissects the modern tendency to indulge in self-obsession without self-examination. Here was a mea culpa without the culpa.
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Kyro Lantsberger at Chesterton and Friends was a "soft" military interrogator and is a devout Catholic and well-read in the works of Chesterton. Yesterday, he posted about waterboarding and other military issues. Good stuff (though for some reason, the apostrophes didn't didn't transfer to the site). Excerpts:
There is a tough, brutal reality to the situation that just does not come across through the media, and certainly not through the politicians. Some of these bad guys are very, very tough, well conditioned, and trained to resist questioning and frustrate the process. I see many defending the practice of waterboarding in a similar fashion to how the NRA used to deal with gun rights....no room to maneuver, and concession can only lead down a road to defeat. I can picture certain politicians who would not allow a prisoner to be questioned without due process, attorneys present, and the accompanying administrative mess. . . .
It is ironic that the Middle Ages are seen as so bloodthirsty when they could only fight about 40 days a year due to the requirements of manpower needed to maintain agriculture. CS Lewis made the chilling observation that if war is sometimes just, then peace is sometimes sinful. Most of us know theology of the body enough to recognize the true beauty and goodness of sexuality, and how pornography and promiscuity are shadows and abberations of that good. Likewise, greed and monopolization are distortions of the just use of the goods of this world. I dont think we have even developed the vocabulary to truly make distinctions between the just and holy application of force, and the violent gruesome phantasms of that good.
