From a few years back, but a required read as we/you prepare to vote. Please read!

http://www.calebstegall.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=61


here is an annotated snippet

There's something profoundly unnatural, indeed fundamentally wrong with a consumer-driven system that alienates people from their land, their neighbors and their traditions for the sake of satisfying consumer desire. We've got to break the cycle that turns self-sufficient yeomen into docile consumers who, in the immortal words of Samuel Adams, "crouch down and lick the hands which feed them." This is the only way we will realize Bryan's dream of defending our homes, our families and our posterity. (Yet I own a lot of stock that profits from this... no purity here I am afraid)

What would this kind of regional populism look like in an actual political platform? Broadly speaking, it would seek at every turn to end the dependence of its constituents on elites. It would oppose, for example, the nationalization of any sector of our economy, from health care to agriculture. Instead, it would seek creative ways to open regional markets for regional goods. (Am I l33t?)

It would seek to permit regional cultural and religious particularities to emerge from the fog of federalized regulation and be made manifest in our schools, courthouses, businesses and civic organizations. And it would provide incentives to keep cultural capital local. It would encourage people to work, study and raise families close to where they grew up. It would seek ways to promote local culture and would cultivate loyalty to our neighbors and a fierce love for our own places. (See Walton Rural Life Center where my children went, my grandchildren go and then ask why they are 6 generations here. There are 15 of us in Highland township and Pleasant)

But in the end, what this kind of vibrant regionalism requires is something much more difficult to obtain than a slogan. It is a renewed appreciation for society over and against both the individual and the state. Society defined by what the agrarian essayist Wendell Berry calls "membership" – a network of social interconnectedness and shared obligation. To be a member of this kind of social order is the best hedge against manipulation by the central planning committee for "growth" and "prosperity." It is, to put it plainly, to be free. (individualist nilhism is the only sustained critique of christianity that will be or is successful and our culture of death and Philip Reiff "My Life in the Deathworks" reveal (HA!) some facets of this. Read Sowell.)

It may be too late, things too far gone, for the kind of Anti-Federalist regional populism I am describing to become politically viable in our day. If so, we will likely be tossed between the tyranny of a militantly nationalist populism and the stifling bureaucratic rule of a progressively universalizing liberalism. Neither is a welcome alternative. (As a Calvinist I think that it is always too late for humans, See Charles Bowden "Blood Orchid" but then the end of History happened at the Resurrection.)

John Howard Yoder from Wiki

Why Christian Anarcho-libertarianism?

Yoder is best remembered for his reflections on Christian ethics. Rejecting the assumption that human history is driven by coercive power, Yoder argued that it was rather God -- working in, with, and through the nonviolent, non-resistant community of disciples of Jesus -- who has been the ultimate force in human affairs. If the Christian church in the past made alliances with political rulers, it was because it had lost confidence in this truth. (Which is why I say that the end of history was the resurrection not as Fukuyama claims) The Resurrection is the hinge of history.)

He called the arrangement whereby the state and the church each supported the goals of the other Constantinianism, and he regarded it as a dangerous and constant temptation. Yoder argued that Jesus himself rejected this temptation, even to the point of dying a horrible and cruel death. Resurrecting Jesus from the dead was, in this view, God's way of vindicating Christ's unwavering obedience. (Many of the projects that the state engages are the rightful domain/project of the church. We have much to regret.)

Likewise, Yoder argued, the primary responsibility of Christians is not to take over society and impose their convictions and values on people who don't share their faith, but to "be the church." By refusing to return evil for evil, by living in peace, sharing goods, and doing deeds of charity as opportunities arise, the church witnesses, says Yoder, to the fact that an alternative to a society based on violence or the threat of violence has been made possible by the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus. Yoder claims that the church thus lives in the conviction that God calls Christians to imitate the way of Christ in his absolute obedience, even if it leads to their deaths, for they, too, will finally be vindicated in resurrection. (when I read Archbishop Williams work on Where God Happens, and the Desert Fathers I get the same sense.)

From Leo Tolstoy

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Apophatic Prophesy indeed.

seduction of christian scholarship: a useful tonic to EFM

Modern western ways of knowning: Seduced by the following epistemology. 1) detached objectivity, 2) fact-value dichotomy, 3) separation of reason and emotion with reason preferred and 4) the loss of any authority other than an isolated, sovereign self that is subservient to the needs of the modern nation-state.

Milbank on Scientism, Sex, and Personhood

This is pretty incredible and aligned with my thinking.

The latest issue of The Other Journal has an interview with John Milbank.  Here are two snippets

"Yes, the spectacle now shows the spectacle of 'science' as an absolute destiny. It is(now certain that) the human glory to undo itself through science. British police shows like Waking the Dead now screen very long takes of the dissection of human bodies by glamorous women. The message is that science is beautiful and glossy; that finding scientific truth is the one moral impulse and otherwise human life is a tragic mess." (Read this with an I towards CSI and all of the procedurals)

(this was snipped by Halden at Inhabitation Dei --thanks)

"Science is the freedom to know and is Faustian. Beyond this is the right to choose one's lifestyle. But of course one can't interfere with the freedom or happiness of others nor the power of the State. The really crucial thing here which the left has missed is that sexual freedoms have increased exponentially while all other freedoms have declined.

Today in Great Britain you scarcely have the right to demonstrate and a higher proportion of the population is in prison than are in China. The boy at the shop counter with no customers is not allowed to read a book to improve himself all day, but who cares what he gets up to with sex and drink after the shop closes? Of course there's also a double think about sex—its all OK, male sexuality is nearly always exploitative, etc… But in general it would seem that, as Adorno and Horkheimer predicted, sexualization is intended to keep us all quiet: neurotic, hysterical, frustrated and unhappy but still 'looking'. With sex divided from procreation, science and sexual freedom come together.

So by supporting the total disjuncture of sex and procreation, the left is really supporting a new mode of fascism. 'Women' are lined up with science and choice in order to produce a new kind of ideal human subjectivity—male and autonomous and yet pliant in 'female' manner. The newly envisaged female body is the final site of the coming together of scientific objectivity and absolute freedom of choice. Perhaps one could even speak here of a new racism of the human race as such—it's to be made the object of an endless 'objective' improvement and expression of a will to freedom/will to power. Of course this also means that the specific phenomenology of the female body is destroyed. It's denied that this body is inherently linked both to the male body (as also vice-versa) and to another body that is itself and yet becomes not itself—the baby. Having denied the link of babies to men and also to women save as objects of their ('male') choice, babies thereby become pure consumer objects and all human personhood is abandoned."

Silence of the Songbirds by Bridget Stutchbury

Good news and bad news. Good news for the sheer delight she brings out of narrative of bird watching, banding, studying and teaching. I find that my bloodlust from hunting birds as a child has reforged and I just want to hear, see and photograph the little bitty birds in the canopy and understory. The bad news is always the same. little things pay the prices of admittance for our way of life.

Perhaps the workflows we should embrace are all over 10,000 years old and we should scale the down to locavore/anarchist-local scales. Fermentation, cultivation, narration and embellisments of personal tokens of trust.

check it

http://www.harpercollins.ca/songbirds/extras.html

Kansas and windfarms and Quivira, Cheyenne Bottoms, and the East Kansas part of the central flyway. Go figure?

combine Stephenson's Snow Crash, Benchley's Jaws and romancing the stone what do you get?

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Very much fun to read. You should to. I especially appreciated all of the name checks and the middle distance Carver epigram at the beginning of part two.

www.rawsharktexts.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raw_Shark_Texts

I like the idea of un-space exploration. Kind of like dark internet and what happens between ip addrs. I think there is a dead media name check to Bruce Sterling somewhere in the twistings. Too bad the biro doodles where'nt inserted ala Vonnegut, but maybe we can imagine them like this?

Book: The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to supermarket by Trevor Corson

http://www.thezenoffish.com

From NPL and a nice, breezy read about one of my favorite things. Nigri, sashimi, and tuna. The book has acheived a lovely balance between, molecular biology, physiology of taste and smell, biographic narratives with compelling personalities; especially Kate and Zoran, and very well written prose instructives for the unique flavor of American sushi. Corson sketches an argument that is compelling, but difficult to articulate. That American sushi making/culture may be an "ark" that saves Japanese traditional modes as Japanese sushi move more "low-brow." Usually, j-pop theory claims that Japanese re-fashion American pop-culture cast-offs and somehow monetize this and sell it back or to the hipsters at Shibuya station.

Last week from Newton Public Library

Read last week. Nothing that knocked my brains out and repacked the neuronal firing.

Eggers, Dave, What is the What
Gordimer, Nadine, Beethoven was one-sixteenth black
National Geographic, Birding Essentials
Roach, Mary, Bonk, The Curious Couplings of Science (VERY FUNNY and well written, Mary Anne and I laughed and laughed as we read it aloud to each other)
Notely, Alice, Grave of Light poems (lovely, I just cannot compete)
Rucker, Rudy, Postsingular.

New poem Couplets from journal

“What intangible rewards are given to a man as you?” Words

Are no longer available or useful for frames of redaction.

Elaborate mathematical riddles played out on plaster

and mud forms. Scraped layered things are scalded with intent.

Things are designed to hurt. Relish the thoughtfulness of the very tiny

and massively complex machinery inside the tender parts of your body.

The usefulness of a penis sheath proves that usefulness trumps aesthetics.

We are mentally unstable enough to begin spastic mistake making.

Forgiveness, healing, exorcism by passing an afflicted man-child through

A hole in a tree, in a rock, in a wall and scraping off the ghost’s pollution.

See the tan man making sex wreck the lightpole daddy. Trapped by a desire

Specifically made to preserve a value. Modifications are not performed.

So, feeding the beast is an disassociative behavior similar to any hypnotic,

Altered state. How would you treat this? Within ritual locating the body.

I passed his body through the millstone hole. Messy belief is real to me.

What are you willing to give up I asked? For this lifestyle. Name it.

Many names received not of blood. Fullness received grace easily forged.

Each forged record is found out in a strange wayward universe with full lips.

He is an old man with death surrounding his ears. His belief in progress only

A secular version of xtian faith in salvation for all, or atonement.

My child, do not forget my heart, length of life, welfare. We will do faith-

Fullness. Bind your neck to me. Acknowledge and make straight the way.

The gospel of making do, craftiness tells us that if you find a need to kill

A god, you pre-stage a resurrection. But as for you, continue to be learned.

Confessions of fortune's child. Slam piece in progress

Confession of fortune's child

Teachers try to talk through their mistakes without remorse.
Most of us are made of mistakes from hasty paid-for performances. As if
students need help emptying their body of meaning. They are apophatic
masters. Is emotion a battle of slippery means to a graceless end.
Verbs lock language and god's perspective tells the same recursions.

Sometimes I am sorry to confess these things
things that are picked clean, lint-free and laundered.
Just as I am she hangs and adjusts my shirts on
the clothes line. A dance I like to watch
from our bed pretending pretty much
to be asleep in my chair. Her breast lift with her arms
A daily bread given and rising. The still warm part
of her touched here and here.

An impromptu speech for abba poemon

Lauren
dressing for work. her work washing bodies for funerals. Preparation.
Teaching the preparation of
bodies for funerals. I trust the dead.
our family freshening in
our Walton township plotspace Finally
dowsing a desire for something
akin to all my forgotten fathers. my desert fathers

The lines of my east and west pasture are
being held down by two long-eared owls. If
these long ears had verbs how
would they hide them? Each a doxy woo woo
wooing. The ruts in the front drive pool
water and ice.

New Automatic language poem

Maybe a few good lines in here.



rainforests are
cathedral-like take structures.

Rainforests are in on richness,
depends again on a represented nee representative plot.

measures reasonable simply sprout after likely
lag disperse like assertion about species-rich
support will longer understanding

Ewel was most comely biomass pre-disturbed established
forests forests. pathway parameter height,
means resilient Oaxaca,
like about importantly,

in fact forests often stumps stature
pre-disturbed work establish Measures depend tropical
than Mexico

My upbringing as Pelagian. Quite right. Read all of it.

Too many Evangelical accounts of personal eschatology are simply Pelagian: I make decisions, and God responds to them. This has to be wrong. If salvation always coincides with visible faith, then it is because God decides to save, and as a result grants faith (see Edwards's sermon on justification by faith for some very close analysis of this), not because I decide to have faith and thereby force God to do something different. (Almost no-one ever held that salvation always coincides with visible faith, though; the 10-20% mortality rate amongst infants in pre-penicillin Europe & America saw to that.) What determines the outcome is not what goes on in my heart, but what goes on in God's heart, and what God does to my heart.


http://shoredfragments.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/pastoral-eschatology/