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Kindle

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I
find it quite hard to believe the device that Amazon is selling as it’s
new e-book reader the Kindle.  Three years in the making and
much delayed and they came up with a device obviously designed by a
committee where little interest was paid to people who would want an
e-book reader in the first place.  Now if I wanted to design
an e-book reader that was sure to fail and possibly serve as a tax
write off like in The Producers these are some of the features I would
include.

  • Charge $399 for the reader.
  • Make it really ugly with
    lots of angles.
  • Make it incompatible with
    the ebook format you use to sell.
  • Not allow you to add your
    own files such as PDF, docs, and text without going through the
    companies site with a fee attached.
  • Charge you two bucks for
    books available for free at     Project Gutenberg.
  • Allow you to read from a group of blogs selected by the
    company and then charge you $1 to $2 a month for each blog you
    subscribe to.
  • Have EVDO available but not WI-FI.
  • Charge you $14 dollars a month to view newspaper content
    freely available on the web.
  • Add a crappy cover that won’t last long.

Oh wait that is the Kindle.

The e-book revolution has been
forecasted to occur for a number of years and a device like this is
sure to delay that day or set that back.  The first person you
have to please with new technology is early adopters who are willing to
pay a higher price point for cutting edge technology.  Sony’s
second generation ebook reader uses the same screen as the Kindle, is a
hundred dollars less, and allows you to add your own content. But sales
of the Sony Reader have been dismal. Amazon will surely have a much
larger library and the built-in EVDO is a good feature that allow’s
people to use the device without a computer. Early-adopters though
probably have a computer and surely want to be able to place their own
content on their own reader.  I know that is a deal breaker
for someone like myself who otherwise would like a solid portable
reading device and the ability to get books from Amazon.com.

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Pro-life

Look Ma, no embryos

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Yesterday Wesley J. Smith announced
that their would be big stem-cell
news tomorrow and boy was he right.

Two different scientific teams have
“reprogrammed” skin and other adult
cells and reverted them back to a pluripotent stem cell state. (The
altered cells are being called “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells” or
iPS.) One of the researchers was James Thomson–the Wisconsin scientist
who first derived human stem cell lines. As he wrote in SCIENCE (no
link available):

   
The human iPS cells described here meet
the defining criteria we originally proposed for human ES cells, with
the significant exception that the iPS cells are not derived from
embryos.



You would hope that if this truly bears
out that it will finally put the ethical problems of using embryonic
stem-cells behind us.  But then again the whole debate was
always more about ethics than it was about science in the first place.
 Culture of death advocates were more thrilled at the idea
trying to define human life down then they were about cures in the
first place.  During the debate they managed to move the goal
line of pregnancy from conception to implantation for their purposes.
 This was quite hypocritical considering that they really
think that human life begins at birth.  You get the feeling
ESCR advocates might feel about this story the way many Democrats do to
good news in Iraq.



Though this will turn the debate on
it’s head in the first place.  Previously most pro-lifers
would use the fact that  ESCR has resulted in zero cures while
adult stem-cells are being used in multiple treatments.  I
always wished that it had been the immorality of using human life for
experimentation that should have been the primary and foremost
argument.  The other argument is quite secondary and not
really focused on the real problem.  Though it could be a
useful argument for those who don’t clearly see the beginning of human
life.  Now with the development of having pluripotent
stem-cells from an ethical source this argument will certainly fall out
of disuse.  Though of course we still have no real idea of
when if ever these cells will be of practical use. Just how many states
will now rush to fund this new type of research?  Will
government leaders now be telling their citizens that they must fund
this or else they we will fall into scientific backwaters as they did
previously?



It was good to see the inventor of
cloning give up and turn to more promising methods.
 Previously the research was focused into two area.
 Human cloning to develop the embryonic cells that would match
the person to be cured and then going on to use these cells to develop
cures.  What has just happened is that one area was eliminated
where now more  time, and energy could be devoted to the other
problem.  So many lies were told by so many to develop
so-called reproductive human cloning and again they turned mainly
towards rhetoric and not science to make their case.  They
never wanted to mention that without human cloning ESCR up to that
point had been a dead end that was more likely to result in tumors than
cures.  That these cures required human cannibalism of our own
clones to be effective.



The reality is of course that ESCR
promoters will continue to promote it and say that we must continue
this research.  Even if more evidence shows that the new
technique is equal to stem-cells acquired by human embryo’s I doubt if
it will curtail their advocacy.  Once again it will be back to
fighting within the public sphere as to whether we  can
finally shut down this human sacrifice on the altars of science.

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Other

Envoy

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

When it was first announced that Envoy
Magazine would return to print it was nice to hear considering how
difficult the magazine market is for Catholic magazines.  For
example Crisis  magazine recently went to web only because of
publishing costs.  The first new issue of Envoy Magazine was
quite solid, but it did carry content that was written a couple of
years ago when they had shut down.  If the content
 in the latest issue Volume 7.5 is indicative of the future
for Envoy than I think it will have a bright future depending on how
well it gets marketed.  This issue was just so chock full of
good articles it is hard to single out just one.

There is now a real nice balance in the
type of articles.  Apologetics, Bible study, interviews, and
many articles on helping you to live the faith.  I really
liked the article “The Real Pius XII.”  This time though
instead of debunking the ridiculous charges leveled against Pius XII in regards to the Jewish people during WWII it is focused more on the man himself.  I have seen plenty of good articles showing what he
did behind the scenes to help the Jews, it was nice for a change to get a better idea of the man himself, his humility, and his sense
of humor. I just had never thought of him as someone with a good sense
of humor since his photographs usually make him look so severe.

There is another article by Peter
Kreeft on the meaning of the fear of the Lord that was also excellent.
 I just love anything written by Peter Kreeft, though I was
disappointed that this article was only one page (as a Peter Kreeft junkie I want my fix), but he fit a lot in
that one page.  Christopher West also has an excellent
introduction to the Theology of the Body that runs several pages.
 I was also happy to see a column by Steve Ray on St Paul’s
Letter to Philemon that really enlightens the shortest book in the New
Testament.  All this and several other worthwhile sections by
people like Fr. Apostoli, Fr. Wilson,  and of course Patrick
Madrid.

They  currently have
a free issue offer and I
would highly recommend you check it out if you are not aware of Envoy.

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Book Review

Extraordinary ordinary saints

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

St. Benedict & St. Therese 
One
of my favorite parts of G.K. “Chesterton’s Saint Thomas Aquinas:
The Dumb Ox” is when he does comparisons between St. Thomas Aquinas and
and St. Francis.  I thought it was a very good tool in seeing
anew
both saints and to understand them better.  A couple of years
ago
I picked up a book called St. Benedict & St. Therese: The
Little
Rule and the Little Way that did this comparison with these
two great
saints and Doctors of the Church.  I use to use it at times
during
Eucharistic adoration for spiritual reading, but unfortunately manged
to lose the book.  Thankfully the author, Fr. Dwight
Longenecker,
supplied me with a new copy for a review.

At
first glance when you think of either saint you don’t really make any
comparisons between them in your mind.  They seem far apart
both
in time, spirituality, and in the way they lived their lives when you
casually think of
them.  There are always commonalities in the saints since they
are reflecting Jesus in the first place, but their reflection like a
mirror ball often shows us different aspects.  Fr. Dwight
Longenecker is really a wonderful writer and I so enjoyed his
comparisons of these two saints.  Being the thorough-going
Chestertonian that he is he also has the ability to use paradox in a
instructive way and to switch around ideas in a sentence that really
makes you stop and think.  He will write something that is the
equivalent of a speed bump forcing you to slow down and mull over what
was just written.

I have read a lot of books on St. Therese and am quite familiar with
her Story of a Soul, yet this book could make me see her again fresh by
seeing her with St. Benedict.   I had only a casual
familiarity with St. Benedict knowing his basic story, but not being
familiar with his rule that has lasted in practice to the present day.
 The discussion of these two saints who are as he describes
saints of an ordinary way is really quite fascinating.  Large
than life St. Benedict really understood the ordinary way to sainthood
was not great actions, but paying attention to the ordinary details of
everyday life.  Parts of his rule might appear as something
written by a micro-manager instead of something written to firmly
anchor his monks in the life of prayer.  He was able to
incorporate what had already been tested with his own ideas which have
stood the test of time.  This idea of course fits in perfectly
with St. Therese’s Little Way which is paved with ordinary acts.
 We often think of the great saints in terms of perhaps their
martyrdom  or other events in their lives and forget about the
daily life that got them their.  Their daily response to grace
is left out of the picture.

I really wish I had the ability to write the review this book deserves  I do
believe that this
book will take you deeper into the spiritual life of these two saints
regardless of how well you were acquainted with them before.

* Fr. Longenecker will be conducting a pilgrimage/retreat in France
that will explore these two saints.

Fr. Longenecker’s blog is here.

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Pro-life

Certainty

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Last year I subscribed to Bishop Vasa’s e-column that
sends me his weekly column in the Sentinel. Week after week he continues to
write with on important moral teaching with the clarity that you rarely see.
This week once again he has
done the same thing on the issue of the use of Plan B in the case of
rape.

…Nothing is to be done which impedes the natural
progress of a child already conceived. This principle, at least in the ideal,
is understood and practiced in Catholic hospitals. There is a huge difficulty
with Plan B. If a pregnancy is confirmed by way of a standard pregnancy test
then Plan B is neither warranted nor needed since such a readily identified
pregnancy would not be the result of a very recent sexual assault. If the
standard pregnancy test returns a negative for pregnancy then this only
proves that the woman was not pregnant prior to the assault. The critical
question, which must be answered with very great care, is whether the
assaulted woman has already conceived a child as a result of the assault.

The answer to this question may not be able to be given with certainty and I
maintain that it must be given with certainty in order to proceed with Plan
B. The utilization of Plan B without this certainty runs the unjustifiable
risk of destroying new life while ostensibly intending to prevent the assault
from engendering that life. It turns an uncaring eye to the new life which
may have already begun.

This is quite a different take than what the Connecticut Bishop’s
conference has said by maintaining that this type of certainty is not
required.

Some would maintain that since the intention is to prevent
a pregnancy which may result from the unjust aggression of the assault it is
legitimate to use Plan B even if the remote possibility of a pregnancy has
not been absolutely eliminated. They suggest that a lesser degree of
certainty of absence of pregnancy suffices. They suggest that even if a
pregnancy does in fact exist the lack of knowledge about that pregnancy and
the sole intention to prevent a pregnancy and not destroy one eliminates
moral wrongdoing. They fail to recognize that we may not play this kind of
roulette with the existence of a human life. It is illegitimate, even with
good motives, to directly cause the death of a pre-born child. Intervention
with Plan B without ascertaining with certainty the absence of an existing
pregnancy is a direct attack on the life of that child and this is morally
illegitimate.

There is no doubt that the intention of trauma treatment is to protect the
woman who has suffered an assault but this must not extend to the destruction
of an innocent child.

There is certainly a lack of respect in our country for pre-born human life
but we in the Catholic community and our Catholic health care facilities must
not in any way condone or cooperate in that promotion of the culture of
death.

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Punditry

They still don't get it

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Archbishop Flynn wrote
a column two week ago on recent news on how wide spread
sexual abuse is in public schools and the fact that abuse is declining
withing the Church but increasing within schools.

This week the Archbishop responds to an
angry reply to his column in which he prints in full and then answers.
 The letter writer’s main contention is that the Archbishop
was changing from “Mistakes were made.” Now it’s, “Everyone does it.” I
think the letter writer was wrong in this categorization of the
Bishop’s letter since that was not the point of it and that he was
saying their is a broader crisis that is mostly being ignored by the
government and the media.

On the other hand I think the Archbishop also does not answer some of
the valid points made by the writer and keeps everything on a very
focused reply. For example priestly abuse is worse than teacher abuse
on many levels and can’t be simply equated as in the Archbishop’s
replay.  He also ignored answering the question on what should
happen to Bishops  who have been involved in a game of musical
chairs with priests suspected of abuse and only talked about it in the
context of the public education system.

He seems to miss what so outrages many.  It is not just abuse
which is a horrible evil on it own, but the fact that the problems
could have been nipped in the bud and prevented from getting worse.
 People can accept that their are sick individual that do
horrible things – it is when that evil is swept under the rug by those
responsible that it really angers people. Though it isn’t just
Archbishop Flynn who doesn’t seem to understand this.  It is
evident that the majority of the USSCB does not get it.  

The new vice-president of the US bishops’ conference likely next
president is Bishop Gerald Kicanas.  As Diogenes posted:

So where does Bishop Kicanas stand on
the all-consuming issue of sexual abuse? The Chicago Sun-Times caught
up with man who was once seminary rector there, to ask him a few
questions about the case of Father Daniel McCormack. It turns out, you
see, that Kicanas was aware of three different incidents involving
sexual impropriety by McCormack prior to his ordination. Did he
therefore blow the whistle, and hustle the young man out of the
seminary? Guess again.

    “There was a sense that his activity was
part of the developmental process and that he had learned from the
experience,” Kicanas said. “I was more concerned about his drinking. We
sent him to counseling for that.”

Drinking can be a problem, certainly. Especially if it’s not part of a
developmental process.

Just in case you’ve missed the headlines, McCormack is now in prison,
serving a term for 5 counts of sexual molestation of young boys. But
now, looking back from the post-Dallas perspective, surely Bishop
Kicanas has second thoughts, right? Wrong.

    “I don’t think there was anything I
could have done differently,” Kicanas said.

They still don’t get it.

Meanwhile
Gerald reports on the case of a pastor
in Oakland who was arrested in 1999 for a lewd act in a men’s bathroom
– but it’s okay since it wasconsensual and didn’t involve a minor.

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Book Review

The Father Brown Reader

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The
Father Brown Reader is a new book
that contains four adaptations of the Father Brown stories by G.K.
Chesterton.  Nancy Carpentier Brown has done the adaptations
along with illustrations from Ted Schluenderfritz.  The book
is primarily designed for ages 9-12 and I think are quite perfect for
this age group.

As an avid Chesterton fan myself and one who has read the various
Father Brown mysteries a couple of times I believe the four selections
of “The Blue Cross,” “The Strange Feet,” “The Flying Stars,” and “The
Absence of Mr. Glass.” to be a very good representation to introduce
children to the writing of Chesterton.  I surely wish I had
been and sadly never read anything from Chesterton until my forties and
then read everything I could get my hands on.  Please don’t
let this omission happen to your children.

The adaptations themselves work quite well for the target audience and
highlight both the whimsy of Chesterton, but also the deeper truths
contained in the stories.  The illustrations go along
perfectly with the stories and I think Chesterton himself would have
approved of them.   I wouldn’t have thought the stories
collected to be that adaptable for younger readers, but after reading
the adaptations I can now see how much of Chesterton and aspects of his
stories can carry over very well to this audience and really how much
of his fiction has a child-like quality to them.

I had fun re-reading the adaptations even if I was already thoroughly
acquainted with the stories and the illustrations went along perfectly.

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Book Review

How The Catholic Church Built Western

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I
recently read How
href=”http://www.aquinasandmore.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Store.ItemDetails/SKU/20467/affiliate/TheCurtJeste4635/T/3″
target=”_blank”>How The Catholic Church Built Western
Civilization by Thomas E.
Woods, Jr., Ph.D. I have heard and read some of the information Dr.
Woods provides in this book, but he goes into much more detail on a
variety of topics that include, science, economics, international law,
art & architecture and many others.

class=”blog”>


I remember first coming in contact with
some of the information on my way into the Church and much of it was a
total surprise to me.  History as taught in public schools and
other educational institutions has done a great disservice by pulling a
1984 in a extensive revision of history.



After reading this book I feel even
more robbed by my education that consisted of so much misinformation.
For me and I am sure for many others the only time the Catholic Church
seems to have entered history is in the case of  Galileo and
then she promptly bows back out of it again.  The chapter on
science was especially interesting for me as it details the profound
effect that the Church has had on science throughout the centuries and
especially how the Jesuit order in such a really short period of
history has contributed to science in an amazing degree.  Dr.
Woods does give one of the better explanations of the Galileo affair
that neither dismisses mistakes made or takes Galileo off the hook for
his errors in judgment.  He also gives a good short
discussion  on the excellent work of Fr. Stanley Jaki on how
it is Christianity that lead to the scientific method and that all
other cultures failed to break out of their world view to do this.

class=”blog”>


It is also quite amazing how time after
time in subject after subject that a father of a discipline can be
traced to a Catholic and how many time those Catholics also happened to
be a cleric.  This book was really fun reading with
all  the information contained and it is quite well researched
giving a depth of details on a wide range of subjects.  It is
just truly amazing what the Church has contributed right from the
beginning.



It does make me wish that their was a
movie that did a
style=”font-style: italic;”>It’s a Wonderful Life
class=”blog”> treatment of the Church.  In this
movie you would have a Christoper Hitchens’ type complaining about how
the Catholic Church has ruined everything and in a moment of
frustration  shouts out “I wish the Catholic Church had never
been born.”  We would then move to a world where Jesus did not
become man and of course his Church never coming to exist.
This world would make Potterville look like Utopia by
comparison.  You would need some really good writers to pull
this off.  Trying to imagine a world that was never influenced
by the Church would be so alien to what we take for granted on a
day-to-day basis.  It is hard to imagine a world without
hospitals, universities, taking care of the poorest among us, the
intrinsic worth of every human person.  A world where women
where treated like they were in Pagan cultures.  Even Paganism
as it exists today and other religions have been Christianized to some
extent from their contact with Christianity.  It is just about
an impossible task to come up with a parallel history where the Church
did not exist that would seem credible.  Though the more
credible the attempt the less likely we could believe the outcome.

class=”blog”>


I highly recommend
class=”blog”
href=”http://www.aquinasandmore.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Store.ItemDetails/SKU/20467/affiliate/TheCurtJeste4635/T/3″
target=”_blank”>How The Catholic Church Built Western
Civilization as both a great
read and a greatly informative book.

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