Insomnia 3: Beyond Thunderdome!

As the rain tapdances on the roof and I lay wide awake, today's shipwreck is the SS America. Built in 1939 and launched in 1940 by United States Lines, the 723 foot 11 deck luxury liner had a brief stint before being commandeered by the military in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. Renamed the USS Westpoint, the ship served in many roles until discharged in 1946 when it resumed the name SS America under United Stated Lines and its luxury liner status. For a brief period, the SS America was the queen of the American fleet until 1952 when the much larger and faster SS United States was launched. 

The SS America remained in service cruising the transatlantic routes from 1946 until 1964 when it was bought by Chandris Group who renamed it the SS Australis. It then ran the circuit from Southampton, England to Australia from 1964-1977 when it was sold to Venture Cruise Lines in 1978 where it was renamed the SS America but attempts to relaunch the ship were an abysmal failure. Chandris Group reacquired the ship in 1978 renaming it the SS Italis where after a few renovations, it was chartered in 1979 for three 14 day cruises out of Genoa and Barcelona to Egypt, Israel, and the eastern Mediterranean. After those cruises, it was laid up in Piraeus, Greece in September of 1979. 

From there, the ship was bought by Intercommerce Corporation in 1980 and renamed the SS Noga underwent a dizzying array of name changes and plans for use while the ship was laid up in port. (Including converting it to a prison ship to be anchored in Beruit.) It was then bought by Silver Moon Ferries who got nowhere with it except to change one side of the ship to Alferdoss and after a busted bilge pump had to move the ship to avoid it sinking while it could be repaired. Once fixed, it was taken back to its original mooring place in Piraeus. The ship was then sold for scrap in the late 1980s but after they barely got started, the scrappers defaulted on their loans so they pulled out. So the now-named Alferdoss or Noga (no one knows which!) remained until 1993 when it was bought a final time.

Now the plans were ambitious: refit her to become a five-star hotel ship off Phuket, in Thailand. Despite years of drydock neglect, the hull was found to be in remarkably solid condition so her propellers were removed, the remaining funnel painted red, and she was renamed American Star. She left Greece under tow in late December 1993 but bad weather forced a return to dock. After things calmed down, American Star left Greece under tow. It was estimated that the tow would take 100 days but not long after, the tugboat and liner ran into an Atlantic storm and the tow lines broke. Six crew members were sent aboard the American Star to reattach the tow lines while two additional tugs assisted. The crew members were rescued by helicopter on January 17, 1994 while the ship was left adrift.

On January 18, American Star ran aground at Playa de Garcey, off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. While the owners were furiously deciding what to do, the ships bow got wedged in a sandbar. Two days of pounding sea broke the hull in half and the ship was declared a total loss. The stern collapsed to port and sank in 1996 while the now section remained intact and deteriorating. 

The port side collapsed in November of 2005 which caused the remaining hull to break up and nearly collapse the ship to port side. In April 2007, the starboard side collapsed and the remaining wreck broke in half and sank at sea. A very small section of the bow and keel are visible now at low tide but after thirteen years of pounding waves, the remaining wreck of the once great SS America is no more.

Points to Ponder:

A renegade apologist can do grave damage to the Catholic Church and Her reputation. [Dr. Art Sippo (circa 2006)]

Briefly...

I have two principles which have long guided how I view economic matters of commerce and trade. The first is simple: Buy quality wherever that quality comes from. The second is a bit more complex: When you cannot for logistics or other reasons make a product yourself, do business with those countries who are your friends first and give them preference over more neutral nations which should get preference over those nations which have proven to not be trustworthy.

BREAKING: Sources Confirm Shock G Of Digital Underground Dead At 57 

"All right! Stop whatcha doin' 

'Cause I'm about to ruin 

The image and the style that ya used to 

I look funny 

But yo I'm makin' money, see 

So yo world I hope you're ready for me 

Now gather round 

I'm the new fool in town 

And my sound's laid down by the Underground 

I drink up all the Hennessey ya got on ya shelf 

So just let me introduce myself..."  

#RestInPeace "Humpty Hump"!

Points to Ponder: 

(On Banking and Investments) 

Does not the social function of the bank consist in making it possible for the individual to render his money fruitful, even if only in small degree, instead of dissipating it, or leaving it sleep without any profit, either to himself or to others? That is why the services that a bank can render are so numerous: to facilitate and encourage savings; to preserve savings for the future, at the same time rendering them productive in the present; to enable savings to share in useful enterprises that could not be launched without them; to make as simple and easy as possible the regulation of accounts, exchanges, commerce between the State and private organisms and, in a word, the entire economic life of the people. [Pope Pius XII: Address to Italian Bankers (circa April 25, 1950)]

Briefly...

On the Chauvin verdict, I thought second degree manslaughter was most likely, third degree murder feasible, and second degree murder would be unlikely. I was wrong on the latter, Chauvin was found guilty on all counts.

Insomnia 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Here is another of the shipwrecks, the Ozlem. Built in 1969 and originally named the Christina I, it was a tanker which went through a few owners and name changes (including the Charles Cruz) until it was wrecked near the Georgian coastal town of Batumi in 2005 where it has remained and slowly decomposed ever since. 

I had a bit of insomnia this morning so I was awake looking at pictures of shipwrecks. This is the SS Maheno beached at Frasier Island off the coast of Australia in 1935. A former luxury liner, it was converted into a hospital ship and served during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. 

Points to Ponder:

I can relate to so much of this and have for quite some time. But 2020 sharpened my perceptions if you will. Without further ado...

It’s all dead to me. Celebrities. Sports. Concerts. Bars. Travel. None of it matters anymore. During 14 days to stop the spread, which turned into 7 weeks of lockdown, I would have done ANYTHING to go to a concert.

But now? I count it as loss. It means nothing to me anymore. The people I once idolized are puppets. The politicians I once applauded are imbedded in their own interests and have sold us out. The companies I once shopped with are colluding against us.

The celebrities I once looked up to I know [I] can’t look at. It’s all gone. 2020 changed me. And I don’t miss any of it. I only wish I had ditched all of these false idols sooner.

The truth is is that I’d give up any of these things sooner if I had truly understood. But now I do. And it set me free. I’ll walk the narrow road with my eyes fixed on the finish line. None of what is here matters. The earth and everything here is temporary.

There is life after death. So I count this all as loss. 2020 was the year that separated the wheat from the chaff. There are still people straddling the line, soon they will have to choose where they stand too.

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it." 1 Corinthians 9:24

If disagreeing with what is happening causes me to lose my seat at the table and to lose my status in society, I’m willing to sit alone. [Nina Leone]

Four Questions For Distributist/Distributivist Apologists...

This is the text of an unfinished Facebook note primarily composed on April 12, 2012. As it seemed appropriate to revisit the subject, the thread below was finished in roughly the form originally envisioned for publication at this time.

As one who has over the years interacted may times (and often in depth) with distributist/distributivist (D/D) apologists, inevitably you hear these sorts of responses such as I have heard earlier this year from a couple advocates when writing yet another lengthy critique of D/D philosophy:

Shawn, you know nothing of distributism to make such claims.

Shawn, I don't think you know what Distributism is.

Now this is what D/D love to say when their economic weltanschauung is challenged in any detail. So before I get to the four questions I have, here is how some D/D apologists describe their own system on one of their advocacy sites:

While in a socialist society none are owners, and in a capitalist society only a few are owners, in a Distributist society most are owners of productive property. This is the defining characteristic of Distributism: the widescale distribution of productive property throughout society, such that ownership of it is the norm, rather than the exception. Such distribution is the best way of ensuring that the economic rights of man are respected; that men can pursue their livelihoods with the greatest possible independence; and that society can exist as a single harmonious whole, without the vicissitudes of class hatreds and constant economic unrest which plague all of our current systems.{1}

Notice that the describe the way their society looks but not how they actually get there and therein lies the rub!

For this is the same problem the atheist has in accounting for how existing systems came into being in the absence of creation by some higher Intelligence. In like manner, D/D sorts have to explain exactly how their system that they envision becomes a reality instead of merely fantasizing about what they think it would look like. That is the core problem that both of those sorts of advocates have for their respective systems when you take it down to brass tacks.

So I will ask now (albeit in shorter form) essentially what I always have asked D/D but boiled down to four question that they need to answer before I can invest any serious effort or energy into such a hypothesis. Without further ado...

• Tell me how you get Distribution without some kind of "Distributor."

If this cannot be done, then the proposed system could not be implemented at all and that would make all the advocacies for it nothing but pious nonsense.

Of course if we assume that the D/D recognizes that some sort of "Distributor" (however it is constituted) is needed to make their system work in reality instead of just some nostalgia driven fantasy land, that brings us to this question:

• Who is empowered to be the "Distributor" and how (and by what authority) are they so empowered?

Once this question is answered, then there is the issue of how those who took issue with the proposed system would be treated as we can assume such a radical overhaul of the existing order would prompt no small degree of opposition. Ergo:

• What would be recommended to be done with those who have land and other resources that they claim is theirs and who tell the "Distributor" and their advocates{2} to take their ideas for attempting to coerce public behaviour (and/or said property from them) and blow it out their collective pie holes? 

That is a reasonable question to ask because the system they are advocating would in a number of cases do just that and if they are going to complain about being compared to socialists and the latter's redistributist schemes, they will have to explain that in some detail and in a fashion that is logically coherent and not purely arbitrary. And finally, there is the issue that so many of those who advocate for this system happen to be those who would not have to or actually do not live in it themselves:

• When are we going to see those who advocate for this "glorious lifestyle" actually practice what they preach? 

For those who endeavour to try to advocate for this sort of system or otherwise push it onto others can start by divesting themselves of all the trappings of the economic system they despise, get a farm plot in the middle of BFE, and eke out some subsistence living in all the splendour of the Middle Ages they so longingly wish they were a part of.{3} I am not talking about doing this as some part time thing or jovial little experiment{4} but instead to actually live the life they preach that everyone should be living.

That means:

• Do not buy food from the market, grow/raise it all yourself. 

• Do not buy clothes and shoes, make them all yourself. 

• Etc.{5}

This sort of thing in the overwhelming majority of cases can only be lionized by those who have never had to live it but those of who would advocate for such a system or bemoan the current system or misrepresent it egregously{6} to push their pet notions{7}, how about they go about making a living via the one they claim everyone should be living in.{8} For until I start seeing D/D moving en masse to buy farms and making a lot of (if not all of) their own stuff, do not be surprised if such apologists are summarily (and properly) dismissed as unworthy of consideration in the arena of ideas.

Notes:

{1} Donald P. Goodman: Excerpt from An Introduction to Distributism (circa August 9, 2011)

{2} Who basically try to invent fancy ways to steal it from them under the guise of some "higher morality" or whatever.

{3} And any who actually do try to do this at the very least have my respect for endeavouring to practice what they preach. (If nothing else, they deserve credit for walking the talk unlike most of their comrades who talk in a similar fashion and do not back their words up with deeds.)

{4} For example, my time on a cousins farm one vacation.

{5} I suppose in some aspects they could argue that a kind of collective could be established wherein those who are either better equipped resource-wise or in some fashion more proficient in some areas than others could form reciprocal arrangements with like-minded folks with different skills and better function societally that way. However, as that notion is simply much too close to David Ricardo's Enlightenment era theory of comparative advantage and therefore any who would smear or demean economic theories or principles from the Enlightenment era would be best to leave such things out of their calculations lest they "pollute" their "pristine civilizational model." Or to be blunter: make the damn shit yourselves!

{6} To note five postings from 2007 on the subject:

Revisiting "Distributivism" (circa May 25, 2007)

"The Empire Distributivist Strikes Back" Dept. (circa May 27, 2007)

On Fundamental Rights, Private Property, and Authentic Dialogue (circa May 31, 2007)

On the "Phantom Menace" of Distributivism (circa September 8, 2007)

"From the Mailbag" on Distributivism and Economic Systems in General (circa September 10, 2007)

{7} For example, the historically ignorant who preach the idiotic idea that capitalism started either in the Enlightenment period or in the post-reformation when in reality its earliest developments preceded both of those periods.

{8} Whether they want to or not!

My mother in law Raffaelina Barone passed away a year ago this evening. If those who read these words would say a prayer for her and her family, it would be appreciated.

Eternal rest grant unto her soul oh Lord and may thy perpetual light shine upon her...May her soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Points to Ponder: 

(Circa January 9, 2007)

He who tells the people revolutionary legends, he who amuses them with sensational stories, is as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators. [Ralph E. Luker]

They worship cigars at a historic Tampa church building

Points to Ponder:

We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green. [GK Chesterton (circa 1926)]

As today is Easter Sunday{1}, it seems fitting to revisit some material posted to this site last year. It was originally composed for a Facebook post years ago after being used in a comments thread discussion with self-proclaimed "Bible Christians." As will be evident in a moment, these folks were not that familiar either with their Bible or with the traditions and practices of the Apostolic Churches from the very beginning. Without further ado...

Texts on the Sacrament of Penance (circa October 12, 2020)

Note:

{1} In the west anyway.

Points to Ponder:

It has been years since I had a truly bad Lent --last year was not great but all things considered was not bad. I found myself last night when out walking pondering my disgusting Lenten performance this year and it dawned on me that maybe this had to happen.

For often when things go well or pretty well, we can lose perspective to some extent and maybe laying such a stinky egg this Lent was needed to remind me in a fundamental way that there but for His grace go I. 

Or maybe I am just trying to rationalize my own failures.

Or perhaps it is a bit of both?

On NFP...

This is the text of an unpublished Facebook Note From March 31, 2014. My words will be in regular font.

And no I am not adding to Catholic's burdens by raising people from NFP to Providentialism

Actually, if one looks at your rationale, this is precisely what you are doing. Just because you do not subjectively recognize it does not change the objective import of where your purported arguments inexorably go.

The Church never ever taught that NFP is meant to be used as a contraception.

This is true. However, as NFP cannot be used as a contraceptive, your statement is pretty pointless. (This is not to say that NFP cannot be used with a contraceptive mentality mind you but even if that happens, it is not the same as engaging in contraception because the mechanics of the completed act via NFP are not impeded.)

It was only be used in exceptional cases.

This is not the Church's teaching but instead is your own. At no point does the Church say NFP is only for exceptional cases. The verbiage is actually just causes and the latter are hardly exceptional or extraordinary.

And yes, NFP is still contraception. That is precisely what it is doing.

How is abstaining from sex during fertile periods contracepting? Simple, it is not. If you are contracepting by abstaining from sex during fertile times, then you have to accuse Mary and Joseph of contracepting because guess what: they abstained from sex during Mary's fertile times!{1} So Mary and Joseph engaged in contraception and thus sin by your absurd "logic" and as we know via the faith that Mary remained sinless, your argument not only does not hold water but you have engaged in blasphemy and arguably espoused heresy.{2} I suggest with all due respect that you take pause and rethink your position here and cease accusing Bill or anyone else of a clouded irrational post considering the objective import of your own statements!

As for the second part of your position, how is having sex during infertile times contracepting? Simple, it is not. God is the author of the fertility cycle and there is no commandment that couples are required to abstain during it. Furthermore, if following God's own laws, there is no wrong committed whereas contraception obstructs or frustrates God's laws. The end may be the same but the means are both objectively and morally different in the eyes of the Church.

What else is contraception but preventing life.

This is ridiculous. By your foolish "logic" if you are married and abstaining from sex with your wife right now, you are "contracepting" because you are preventing life. Better get yourself to confession on the double because by this "mortal sin" you are consigning yourself to hell if you are not having sex with your wife right now! :::rolls eyes:::

It is not artificial but it is still contraception.

No it is not. You obviously do not understand what contraception is and is not.

The aim of both techniques whether natural or artificial is to prevent life from forming (contra-caption, against life). Whether the reason is grave or not, that is it's immediate intent.

Two points: (i) the reason to use NFP does not have to be grave according to Catholic teaching -just reasons is the criteria the Church sets down, and (ii) there is no impediment to conception with NFP during an infertile part of the cycle. By your "logic" an infertile couple is "contracepting" every time they have sex and thus sinning: again your "logic" betrays you as does your ignorance of Catholic teaching.

That is why it is only be used on grave situations -e.g. because of the health of the mother and only temporarily.

Nice try but you are wrong again. The Church does not teach that NFP can only be used in "grave" situations: that is a mistranslation from the Latin text probably originally committed by an overly scrupulous scribe.{3} The actual meaning of the Latin is just causes and again, these are not exceptional or extraordinary.

The principle to be followed is that the reasons should not be trivial or light for the usage of NFP but regulated by real reasons of a serious nature. And the determinants of this criteria are the couple themselves with the assistance of their confessors/spiritual directors not you, me, or anyone else. The Sacred Penitentiary from the earliest of days when they begin addressing these issues{4} down to the present day has said the same thing: "After mature examination, we have decided that such spouses should not be disturbed [or disquieted], provided they do nothing that impedes generation." I suggest that you do as the Church advises on these matters including making the same distinctions they do. Otherwise, you are not thinking with the mind of the Church on these matters


Notes:

{1} They also abstained in non-fertile periods too but my issue here is your flawed argument.

{2} Either way, if St. Jerome were in the room he would smack your face for such inferences!

{3} I will presume for the sake of charity that their error was not intentional.

{4} Their first intervention on these matters was in 1853.

Points to Ponder:

In John 3, when John the Baptist is asked whether Jesus is the Messiah, John says quite clearly that Jesus is the important one: 'He must increase, I must decrease.'

He must increase, I must decrease. Everybody needs to hear that. It's not about me, it's not about you. It's about something infinitely more important than us. [Fr. Robert Taft SJ]

The following was an interesting comment from Facebook on the subject of the word perfidious in light of some self-styled traditionalists who are eager to celebrate not just the pre-1970 Good Friday liturgy but the pre-1955 one. Basically, they just want to refer to the Jews as perfidious and try and cloak their noxious behaviour with the veneer of appeals to antiquity. The poster here really nails the subject well so I post it here for consideration as Good Friday is approaching. Without further ado...

 

Proposed Good Friday Prayer For The Perfidious Apologists:

Though to be fair, this is only aimed at certain radical apologist reactionary sorts. Nonetheless... 

"Let us pray also for the perfidious apologists that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge the damage their ignorant hamhanded theologically stunted proselytizing does to the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the apologists; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of those people so that they may acknowledge in authentic dialogue the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness."