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Travel through your mind's eye. Nothing stays with us like the visions we collect as we travel. The Jaipur gold cartouche necklace is a tribute to the "Pink City" pretty color palette. The sequence of coral, pastel pink and sparkling gold glitter colors encapsulates feelings of bliss felt while traveling through beautiful Rajasthan. Indulge your wanderlust, wear your happy colors!
Cartouche Material: 14kt micron gold plated brass bar with resin enamel
Chain Material: 14kt gold filled chain


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Chapter 13 Bankruptcy
In contrast to the relatively quick Chapter 7 process, Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a reorganization of a consumer's finances that allows them to pay back something to creditors over a 3-5 year period based on their income for a family of their size. With the help of a bankruptcy attorney, Chapter 13 filers create a payment plan that allocates their disposable income to make a monthly, consolidated payment to creditors. We're sure the reader would like to know: what constitutes disposable income? For purposes of bankruptcy, disposable income means what you have left over after subtracting allowed expenses from your gross earnings. Some expenses will be determined by your actual out-of-pocket costs; others will be set by national local standards as calculated by the IRS. The less disposable income you have, the lower the percentage of unsecured debts you pay back to creditors throughout the life of your Chapter 13 plan. At the end of the process, debts that remain outstanding are discharged.
Last updated:
Posted by: Erik Clark
Household Debt Near Great Recession Level: What Does it Mean?
Although bankruptcy filings have been trending downward for years, household debt is expected to hit a new record in 2017. It may seem like a big number, but fewer than 800,000 people filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. last year. Just six years ago, that amount was double. Will household debt start to catch up…Read more
Last updated:
Posted by: Walter Metzen
4 lessons from 50 Cent's bankruptcy case
A federal judge recently discharged the bankruptcy case of rapper 50 Cent after he paid more than $22 million of his debt. 50 Cent filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in 2015, with debts of $36 million and assets of less than $20 million. The "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" artist, whose real name is Curtis…Read more
Last updated:
Posted by: Walter Metzen
How many people filed for bankruptcy in 2016?
Bankruptcy filings are continuing to decline, with fewer than 800,000 people filing in federal courts last year. All bankruptcy cases are handled in federal courts, per the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Although 800,000 seems like a lot, it pales in comparison to the height of the economic collapse in September 2010, which saw nearly double the amount…Read more
What Does Bankruptcy do to Credit Scores?
When you're in debt and trying to decide what action to take, you may be concerned about how to protect your credit score. That's often one of the last barriers to deciding to file for bankruptcy – what will this do to my credit? The answer may surprise you. Bankruptcy certainly does have an effect…Read more
Can I pay back family before bankruptcy?
In times of difficulty, we naturally turn to family and friends for help. The same holds when those difficulties are financial. Family and friends know you and understand your troubles; they'll be willing to lend you a hand even when banks won't. They trust you regardless of your credit score. If you borrow from people…Read more
Gift or Loan, and Why Does It Matter for Bankruptcy?
Last updated May 31, 2017. When you're struggling with debt, it's natural to turn to friends and family for help. They know you and they trust you, making it simpler and easier to seek financial aid from them than from a bank. If your financial difficulties continue and you decide to file for bankruptcy protection,…Read more

subset: commoncrawl


text: Floating nymphs are noting new Brooks and others have been developing the idea for years but fishing them and getting the right materials is another thing. Here I give you some of the inside gem on how to tie and fish this killer. This floating nymph is a must have go to fly for you just out of the vice. I'm rushing this one to you to get out there and fish, it has taken fish from a cross the UK grayling, rainbows and browns just to start with . It has the ability to just to draw fish up to take. give it a go and tell me how you get on. From www.flyfishingpodcast.com. Come and see me at Instagam Flyfishingpodcast Like me at Facebook Fly FIshing follow me on twitter @ flyfishingpcast and subscribe here or at iTunes.


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Restaurant Zinfandel Food & Wine Bar
Zinfandel Food & Wine opened in May 2013 and has since gained a reputation as one of Split's best wine bars as well as being one of the pioneers in Split's gastronomy scene.
The Restaurant has a relaxed, informal setting and the food has a strong focus on seasonal ingredients and showcasing the best of traditional dalmatian cuisine, with a modern-twist.
Zinfandel has one of the most extensive wine lists, with more than a hundred wines by the bottle and 30 wines by the glass. Again, they have a focus on indigenous grape varieties and Croatian winemakers. Their staff are friendly and efficient and more than willing to help you navigate through both the food and wine menu.


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Live Your Princess Dream With The New Disney Wedding Collection - February 19, 2020
Why Chris Pratt Is 'Just Dad' to His 7-Year-Old Son Jack - February 19, 2020
Jax Taylor Goes Off on Tom Sandoval As 'Pump Rules' Pastor Drama Plays Out - February 19, 2020
Love Is Blind's Giannina Screams at Damian: 'Why Don't You Seduce Me?' - February 19, 2020
#LHHNY: The Fact That Cyn Santana And Tahiry Jose Are Bickering Over Joe Budden When He Cheated On Them Both Is A Problem - February 19, 2020
RHOA: NeNe Displayed Textbook Toxic Traits While Confronting Cynthia For Calling Her A "Toxic Friend" - February 19, 2020
"Boyz N The Hood" Actress Esther Scott Dead At 66 - February 19, 2020
The Season's Must-Have Hydrating Lip Balms - February 18, 2020
Amber Valletta Joins British Vogue - February 18, 2020
Adele Set To Release New Album In September - February 18, 2020
10 Foods For Healthier, Younger Skin
Did you know that the food you eat can have positive or negative effects on your skin? Filling your body with the right nutrients can help keep your skin healthy, hydrated and clear.
Here are ten foods for healthier, younger skin:
1. Apples
An apple a day can do more than just keep the doctor away – it can help keep your skin looking young and healthy! Apples contain collagen which helps promote skin elasticity. The Red Delicious variety contains the most collagen.
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2. Blueberries
These little berries are packed full of nutrients! They're rick in fiber, Vitamin C and Vitamin A. They also contain plenty of antioxidants that boost your immune system and help keep your skin in tip-top shape.
3. Bananas
Bananas contain potassium, a mineral that plays an important role in balancing the moisture in your skin. Dry skin may be a sign of a potassium deficiency. If your skin is feeling dry, boost your potassium intake by eating a banana each day.
4. Watermelon
Watermelon contains over 90% water content. Not only is it the perfect sweet treat, it also helps hydrate your skin from the inside out, to give your skin a youthful glow.
5. Strawberries
For as little as they are, strawberries pack a powerful healthy punch! They're rich in ellagic acid, which helps fight against wrinkles and UV damage from the sun.
6. Pineapple
Pineapples are the only fruit known to contain an enzyme known as bromelain. Bromelain has powerful anti-inflammatory properties. Adding pineapple to your diet can help reduce skin swelling and redness.
7. Kiwi
When you think of Vitamin C content, your first thought might be oranges or grapefruit. Kiwi actually contains the most Vitamin C out of any fruit! Its high Vitamin C content helps keep the skin healthy, hydrated and vibrant.
8. Papaya
Papaya is a tropical fruit loaded with Vitamin A. It also contains an enzyme known as papain. Papain helps break down inactive proteins to get rid of dead skin cells and revitalize your skin.
9. Pomegranate
Pomegranates are often labeled a superfood for all of the amazing nutrients they contain. They're packed with powerful anti-aging compounds that help stimulate the regeneration of skin cells.
10. Cherries
Cherries contain the highest amount of antioxidants when it comes to fruit. The powerful compounds in cherries help fight free radicals in the body to slow down the aging process and help prevent wrinkles!
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Cure Your IRA Tax Infestation with a Roth
Nasty taxes are hiding in 401(k)s, 403(b)s and traditional IRAs. To help eradicate that problem, Roth accounts could give you the flexibility you'll need for retirement.
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Roth IRAs have been around for more than 20 years, yet I regularly meet retirees and pre-retirees who haven't even considered using one as part of their financial plan.
After years of speaking with seniors and other savers at educational workshops, this seems to me a symptom of a bigger problem: A lot of people just aren't receiving proper tax planning from their financial professional. Maybe it's a lack of good training, overall apathy or, worse, negligence on the part of the person who is giving them advice, but these folks often aren't aware that without proactive planning, taxes could take a sizable chunk from their retirement funds.
For years now, people have been conditioned to invest most of their money in tax-deferred retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, etc.) or, as I like to call them, tax-infested accounts. People are never pleased when they're reminded that when they retire, they'll be handing over a portion of their savings to Uncle Sam, who's been waiting eagerly to get his hands on the money they've accumulated over the years. Not only that, but if they go over a designated income threshold, determined by their filing status, it could trigger a tax on a portion of their Social Security benefits. Medicare premiums also increase for those with higher incomes.
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Of course, if your income will be lower when you retire than when you were pumping money into your savings, and if tax rates are the same or lower when you retire, you might not have a problem. But that's a gamble. The national debt is more than $23 trillion, and we know the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will need more money to continue paying benefits at their current levels in the future. The money to set those things right has to come from somewhere, and most experts predict it will come from you — through higher taxes. Meanwhile, you'll likely lose some big tax deductions as your children grow up and you pay off your mortgage.
But let's talk about now. Right now, and through 2025, tax rates have been lowered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As a result, savers who put their faith — and their investment savings — in a tax-deferred account have an opportunity to take back control of their retirement by moving some or all of that money to the nontaxable world.
One great way to do that is with a Roth account. Contributions to a Roth are made on an after-tax basis, so it will cost you more upfront, but your investment savings can continue to grow without the burden of taxation.
Another reason to consider converting: The new SECURE Act has eliminated the popular "stretch" IRA, and non-spousal beneficiaries now have only a decade to empty an inherited IRA. If you plan to leave all or part of your tax-deferred retirement account behind, a Roth conversion now could save a loved one from a scary tax bill later.
Each type of Roth is a little bit different, and you should take the time to find the strategy that best suits your needs. Here are a few basics:
Roth IRA:
- To contribute to a Roth IRA, you must have earned income in the year you make the contribution.
- For most taxpayers, the contribution limit for 2020 is $6,000 with an extra $1,000 catch-up contribution for those 50 or older. However, if your income exceeds the designated limit for your filing status, the amount of your Roth IRA contribution will be reduced. The ability to contribute starts phasing out at incomes of $134,000 for singles and $196,000 for those who are married filing jointly. Once incomes hit $139,000 (for singles) or $206,000 (for married couples filing jointly), you can't contribute anything a Roth. (For more specifics, see How Much Can You Contribute to a Roth IRA?)
- There are no required minimum distributions (RMDs) with a Roth IRA.
Roth 401(k):
- There are no income limits for a Roth 401(k). The only criteria for contributing is that your employer must offer the option.
- In 2020, you can contribute up to $19,500, with a catch-up contribution of $6,500 if you're 50 or older. (For more specifics, see How Much Can You Contribute to a Roth 401(k)?)
- Employer contributions to a Roth 401(k) are made pre-tax (like a regular 401(k)) and will grow tax-deferred alongside your own Roth contributions. When you withdraw money, you'll owe income tax on the employer match.
- There are RMDs with a Roth 401(k), but you do not pay taxes on them.
Roth Solo 401(k)
- A Roth solo 401(k) covers a business owner with no employees or the business owner and spouse.
- The business owner acts as both employee and employer, and contributions can be made in both capacities.
- These plans have the same rules and requirements as other Roth 401(k) plans.
Backdoor Roth
- If your income is over the IRS limits, you can still take advantage of a Roth IRA by converting money from an existing retirement account, such as a traditional IRA. You'll have to pay taxes on the amount you convert (unless the funds you're converting include some after-tax contributions from the traditional account), and there are rules regarding when you can withdraw the money from your Roth. But this method for getting into a Roth account is fully acceptable to the IRS. And you won't have to worry about taxes on this money in the future.
- Beware of the "pro-rata rule": You may be taxed on your Roth conversion if you have money remaining on other "pre-tax" IRA accounts. If you already have pre-tax IRA money, it must be combined with the after-tax IRA contributions before the conversion takes place. Only the percentage amount of after-tax IRA money relative to the total amount of IRAs (pre-tax and after-tax) can be converted tax free. The rest will be considered taxable.
Mega Backdoor Roth
- A mega backdoor Roth offers some investors an opportunity to contribute even more money to a Roth IRA via their employer's 401(k) (if the plan allows for after-tax contributions over and above employee contribution limits) and/or through a Roth 401(k).
- This is a complicated process that likely will require consulting with a tax professional.
Whether you're just starting to save for retirement or nearing the finish line, there are many advantages to including a Roth account in your overall financial plan.
For young people, it's about paying tax on the seed instead of the harvest. For older savers who've been kicking the tax can down the road, it's an opportunity to diffuse a ticking tax time bomb. Either way, a Roth account can provide added flexibility when it comes to managing your tax liability in retirement.
Kim Franke-Folstad contributed to this article.
The appearances in Kiplinger were obtained through a PR program. The columnist received assistance from a public relations firm in preparing this piece for submission to Kiplinger.com. Kiplinger was not compensated in any way.
David Faulkner is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional with Texas-based Spectrum Advisors (www.spectrumadvisors.net (opens in new tab)). His focus is on holistic retirement planning and financial awareness, and he is fully licensed in investments and insurance.
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By Dan Burrows • Published
2 Ways Retirees Can Defuse a Tax Bomb (It's Not Too Late!)
If you're retired and find yourself sitting on a "tax bomb," you may think there's nothing you can do. But two strategies could seriously reduce your taxes in retirement.
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If you're retired and find yourself sitting on a "tax bomb," you may think there's nothing you can do. But two strategies could seriously reduce your taxes in retirement.
By David McClellan • Published
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Rates on Series I savings bonds, T-bills and fixed annuities are all above historical averages and could serve investors well during turbulent times like these.
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Some of these missteps might be a given when you're starting out. A financial adviser offers tips on how to stay on track for years to come.
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Retirement savings are just one component of your financial profile once you hit your golden years.
By Cory Chapman, Investment Adviser Representative • Published


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I was 14 years old and studying for my GCSEs the day that the diseased turd was brought into my class room. I have since been told that it was brought to my school with the sole purpose of raping my face. It was the local social services, they had set me up. I don't for what reason or under what law they were able to do such things. It really doesn't make any sense to me.
I had wanted to join the RAF since the age of 6, I was my long term goal. It's what I had dreamed of doing, its what I studied for. I didn't have a plan 'B'
I didn't however have an interest in David Spring's cartoon's or indeed a interest in 'sucking it's di*k'. I am not a homosexual. I can't imagine anyone wanted to go near David Spring.
I didn't have an 'interest' in Art. I didn't need to pay for Jamie Conway's cigarette habit. I didn't want to go to Jamie Conway's alcohol birthday party. I didn't want to 'do' LSD.
David Spring is beyond ugly and foul and gross and sick and mentally ill and psychically disgusted. I can't quite imagine how a social worker could legally dream up such a thing??
Still my Policeman father 'paid' David Spring to repeatedly orally rape me. Apparently it was done for my sister. What 'mental illness' she suffers from, I can't quite fathom.
Being a 'teenager' is hard enough without being raped by the diseased turd. Jamie Conway cost me my GCSE's. Emma Gibson (or whatever the fuck her name is?) cost me my place in the ATC and my career in the RAF.
Claire Guy cost me my health and my wife and children...


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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Humanity!!!!
As some of you know, the Farmington community is up in arms over this "leftist, liberal political video" being shown to school kids without their parents permission:
I can see why people wouldn't want their kids to hear this "leftist, liberal" video. Because I'd hate for my kids to participate in liberal things like:
1) Ending hunger
2) Loving more
3) Volunteering
4) Being a great parent (I'm pretty sure this was a subliminal leftist message to convince elementary school boys to get their girlfriends pregnant. Damn liberals!)
5) Participating in service projects
6) Recycling (this one is big - I'm slightly worried that I'll get car-bombed each time I take my recycling can out to the curb in my slightly conservative neighborhood)
The humanity!
So tell me. I'm pretty sure that there is at least someone out there who reads this blog who can't possibly believe that anyone would show this to innocent children. What exactly are you afraid of? Are you afraid that your kid will come home and tell you that he wants to support the president? If so, would you have the same fear if a republican were in office? After reading about the public outcry over this, I thought back to when I was in elementary school, and I can vividly remember learning about President Reagan, and how great he was, how we should be patriotic by supporting the president, and watching some of his speahes. I mean, he was the president of our country, so why not? I don't remember any complaints back then. Seems like a double standard to me. If you are really that adamant that your kid hate Obama, I'm sure you have done a fine job instilling this hate by simply talking to your kids about it.
Are you afraid your kids will come home and ask "what is stem cell research?" Were you hoping that they'd never find out about it? I think you should try the same sheltering technique with sex. Let me know how that works out for you.
My 4 year old already calls it "a duece" (actually she calls it "number 3" now, which is another story), so I'm not too worried about that one either.
The only problem I have with this video is that nobody pledged to ride bikes more. It funny how everyone gets all excited about things that are easy to do, but really don't make much of a difference, like not using plastic bottles and bags (especially if you're recycling them after using them), but nobody is willing to do something that takes some effort and could make a big difference, like riding a bike instead of driving.
I'll admit that the whole "being a servant to my president" at the end is a bit weird, and I can even see how some may take it that wrong way, but I what I can't understand is why it's so important to limit my kid's exposure to democrats who support the president. If I did that, my kids wouldn't see their mom or their grandparents very much.
I guess I feel a bit like Dug today. But I have to remind myself that there are a lot of good people in this state (and even in Utah County) too. Really, there are a lot of them. Even some of the paranoid right-wing (and left-wing) nutjobs that I know.
8 comments:
- dug said...
amen brother. be the change.
- September 3, 2009 at 12:05 PM
This has to be less about the content. I hear about most of these things in church on a weekly basis (set aside Deuce and stem cells) and more about who is delivering it.
These likely are the same people who say "Obamination" and compare Obama to Hitler. Direct quotes, btw.
I struggle with all the celebrity because I really don't think great entertainers are of the stature of the presidency. I actually think it dilutes his message. Chili pepper dude kissing his pipes for instance.
My poor 8 year old has already had fun with this. He asked who I voted for and when I said Obama he took it rather personally given the kinds of things that were being said about Obama at Alpine elementary.
BTW, good luck at point 2 point. I really wanted to ride it, but I am still waiting on the thumb.
- September 3, 2009 at 12:34 PM
- Down the Garden Path said...
You makes some good points, I am afraid my (future) kids might follow some of these bad paths and try to end hunger, love more or even scarier volunteering. What happened to being patriotic and supporting our president. I didn't like President Bush and thought he did a bad job but I still tried to respect him.
The hysteria around President Obama is kind of scary right now. I can't believe how much he has been hated from the get go. I think the problem is that he is black and unfortunately in America there is still a lot of racism, I think that "whitey (republicans)" think that you can't trust a black person no matter what.
- September 3, 2009 at 2:34 PM
- bjchild said...
The first half of the video is full of great pledges that we can all agree are wonderful pledges like be a good mom, be responsible, fight hunger, help the elderly, more service, etc. Then after it lulls you into nodding "yes, yes, that's a great idea and that too is a great idea" the video gets weird with things like "I pledge to flush only after a deuce and not a single" and "I pledge to be a SERVANT to Barrack Obama" (what's up with that?). I have a better idea to save water, why doesn't he go in a recyclable 2 liter bottle for a few days and then when it's full and the time is right, simply pour it in with the deuce (and of course recycle the empty 2 liter).
At the end it's a bit creapy like a bunch of zombies in unison saying their pledge to Obama and "all humanity."
I'm all about taking personal responsibility, serving our country more and pledging to God and country to do better, but pledging allegiance/servitude to Barrack is a bit much to stomach.
- September 3, 2009 at 10:16 PM
- Aaron said...
bjchild - thanks for the comment. I have to agree about the chant at the end. But I have noticed that for most, chants are only weird when you are not participating in them, or don't agree with what is being said. Shoot, I listened in on a "chant" that happens every Sunday in my church's youth group ("Young Women", if you're familiar with the term), and thought, "man, this is a bit weird, I bet people of other faiths would be totally creeped out by this." My point is, what is weird to me and you doesn't mean that it's necessarily "wrong" or deserving of censorship.
I don't have any problem if you don't agree with every "pledge" in the video. I just don't understand the fear that people have of being exposed to opinions they disagree with.
I disagree that the creators of this video were trying to "lull" anyone into anything. I doubt they said, "hey, we're going to trick people into supporting Obama and stem cell research without them even knowing it!" when they made this video.
If anything, the video seems like a good opportunity to sit down with your kids and talk, rather than getting paranoid and demanding that the principal who showed the video be fired, as some have done.
- September 4, 2009 at 10:12 AM
- KanyonKris said...
It seems a non-issue to me as well. Just what is so offensive? Events like this provide opportunities for me to talk with my kids, os the uproar seems misplaced to me.
It's a nice message, but I find it hard to take celebrities serious. If I were the principal I wouldn't show it in school, not because it's "liberal" but because it's not that educational.
- September 4, 2009 at 12:23 PM
- zim said...
If I only flush after a deuce, where's my cat going to get a drink?
- September 4, 2009 at 4:48 PM
- bjchild said...
Aaron - I agree that it's silly to get worked up about limiting exposure to this video to kids because it has a liberal slant to it. In fact I think it's really important for people to not shelter their kids from differing viewpoints. I had a history teacher once who had the polar opposite views on almost every issue and she certainly wasn't afraid to share them with the class. It was actually one of the best classes I had because it allowed for healthy debate and discussion.
My earlier comment was more just expressing my personal distaste for some of the video's content. I'd love to see "right wingers" come up with a video of their pledges. I'd probably disagree with half of their pledges too.
As for me, I'm going to pledge to ride my bike to work more than one day a week. It would be cool to get one of those snow bikes with the beefy tires and ride during the winter.
- September 4, 2009 at 9:31 PM


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Texas leads nation in deaths of law enforcement officers
DALLAS (AP) — Texas leads the nation in the number of law enforcement officers killed with 14 this year, including five recent slayings in Dallas.
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported Tuesday that Texas surpassed its U.S.-leading total of 12 deaths last year.
Louisiana ranks second this year with seven officers slain, including three in a July 17 ambush.
Five officers were fatally shot July 7 during a Dallas protest over two black men killed during police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana.
An inmate is accused in the death of a Texas Department of Criminal Justice officer July 16.
Travis County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Craig Hutchinson was fatally shot Monday at his home after reporting prowlers. Nobody was immediately arrested.
The Fund's national report on officer deaths will be released Wednesday.


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A Ukranian man named Mitasov lived here, a man who suffers from a hyper-obsessive personality disorder which causes him to compulsively cover every surface in his house with layers of inscriptions.
He can't help but etch his bizarre graffiti into everything-the fridge, walls, piano, doors, even the ceilings are covered by Mitasov's strange inscriptions.
However, some of his inscriptions are not so strange, like his sadly inspiring street art that can still be seen in Ukraine-"Happiness! I'm waiting for you here!"
--via Animal NY


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Exploring 2 lesser-known Italian wine regions
Years ago, preparing to go abroad, I bought a 300-page book on Italian wine and painstakingly wrote down the name of every wine in it.
When I got there, I found at least 100 more I'd never heard of.
Italians live and breathe wine; there's a little vineyard around the corner of every farm house, a little fermenting barrel in every basement. It must be great to be Italian.
This means that, while most American wine fans know about the chiantis of Tuscany, the barolos of Piedmonte and the proseccos of the Venice region, there are dozens of Italian wine-making regions that are less familiar.
Let's visit a couple of them.
» Umbria: Tourists driving south on the Autostrada del Sole easily can glide through this region hardly noticing it. It's only 100 miles long, and the speed limit is 81 miles per hour.
That's a shame. Just southeast of better-known Tuscany, it's a beautiful region of mountains, meadows and lakes, known by poets as "il cuor verde d'Italia" — "the green heart of Italy." It's home to the major city of Perugia and the smaller city of Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis, from whom today's pope takes his name.
Some of the best Umbrian wines, dark and hearty, are made at two wineries, Arnaldo-Caprai and Azienda Agraria Perticaia, around the town of Montefalco. Grapes include the aromatic sangiovese of chianti fame, the softly fruity merlot, the dark-hued colorino and an ancient, recently revived grape called sagrantino, with its spicy black cherry, licorice flavors and firm tannins. Written of as far back as 1088, sagrantino nearly disappeared by the 1960s, but now is being brought back by growers who believe in its value.
» Salento, Puglia: If Italy is shaped like a boot, its heel is the Salento area of the region called Puglia, on the Adriatic and Ionian seas. Major towns include Foggia, Bari and Brindisi.
Its cuisine is simple, heavy on vegetables and local wines.
Near Salento's southern tip lies Masseria Li Veli, a winery with a cellar built on the ruins of a late medieval structure and a 2,500-year history.
Modernized by the Falvo family in 1999, the winery is working to save native grapes — verdeca, negroamaro, primitivo, susumaniello, aleatico — that had been disappearing from the area.
In a world dominated by cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, these two regions offer some fascinating alternatives.
— By Fred Tasker, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services


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I am thankful to the Lord that I am still free to write about Him and any sort of thought I have concerning Him here on Blogger. It's just nice to know that there is still freedom of expression on the Internet, at least here in the Philippines. To God be all the glory.
God's grace is not only overwhelming in the sense that the blood of Jesus Christ covers all our sin, but I have also learned over the course of this week that the Holy Spirit is still, stern, and gracious in communicating messages, even urgent ones (and all of them are urgent..). You would definitely glorify God when heeding what His Spirit has to tell you – actually, as you glorify God more and more, you will definitely realize how doing so is the best thing to do in any situation.
"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil." – 1 Thessalonians 5:15-22
God bless you.
Shared in http://jibee.blogspot.com/. יהוה bless you!


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If patriotism and love of liberty are beautiful things when well ordered, they are remarkably ugly when disordered. John Brungardt has asked me to respond to a particularly outrageous example of disordered love of liberty from John Zmirak. Zmirak attacks what he calls "illiberal Catholicism" — a name which he applies to (among others) Michael Baxter (for agreeing with Dorothy Day), Cardinal Dolan (for wanting universal health-care), and Thomas Pink (or those who follow him (for reading Dignitatis Humanae with a hermeneutic of continuity)). He then proceeds to call all of these good people "bleeping crazy," (or at least to claim that calling them that would be forgivable), and to compare their political principles to those of Hitler and Stalin. He then musters all the clichés of old-fashioned anti-Catholic polemics, and says that said clichés are all justified to the extent that Catholicism does not embrace the principles of the Enlightenment. Such an embrace he sees as having been developed in the USA, brought to its apex in the Rev. John Courtney Murray, S.J., and accepted by the whole Church at Vatican II. But this acceptance he sees as being under threat from the likes of Patrick Deneen and Thaddeus Kozinski.
Zmirak is evidently what children and journalists nowadays call a "troll," so I hesitated before agreeing to John's request–especially since lots of other blogs have already sprung to the defense of "illiberal Catholicism" (e.g.: Rorate Caeli, Cosmos in the Lost, Opus Publicum). But then on it being pointed out to me that lots of our friends basically agree with Zmirak–even though they would not express themselves in such outrageously offensive fashion– I decided to post something after all. Zmirak refers to a group of Catholic thinkers much more worthy of being taken seriously–"men like John Courtney Murray, Michael Novak, Robert George…"–and so I will take this as an opportunity to once again address what I think is wrong with the project of "neo-conservative Catholicism," or (to use my favorite term) "Catholic Whiggery."
David Schindler's Critique of Liberalism
This time I wan't to look at a critique of Catholic Whiggery developed by a theologian who has devoted a lot of careful thought to the task, and who has entered into direct debate with the Weigel, Novak et al.– namely David Schindler. Schindler's articles in Communio, and especially his strange and beautiful book Heart Of The World, Center Of The Church, have influenced my own thinking on these things a lot, but I have come to think on the one hand that Schindler doesn't quite follow his insights to their logical conclusion, and on the other hand that there are certain philosophical imprecisions in his account. His unwillingness to follow all the way through seems to come from a misguided fear of integralism and an acceptance of the common misreading of Dignitatis Humanae (a misreading recently corrected by Thomas Pink). The imprecisions are a bit more complicated, and have to do with being, relation, and the good, and the order of the natural to the the supernatural. If I find anything to criticize in the nouvelle théologie it is usually due to its exponents putting their speculative seven-league boots on when baby steps would be helpful. I shall try to indicate a little that the truths Schindler is driving at can be teased out more precisely with the help of some patient Thomism-of-the-strict-observance from Ronald McArthur and Charles De Koninck.
It's worth going back to Schindler's essay "Is America Bourgeois?" the opening salvo, as it were, of his attack on the Catholic Whigs. I remember coming across this essay by chance one day in college, and being carried away by the power of the argument, and even by its rhetorical skill. For Schindler, though his prose sometimes reads like a too-literal translation from German, is quite a rhetorician.
Schindler was responding to an article of George Weigel's defending American culture from the charge of being "bourgeois," a charge implicit in a remark of Cardinal Ratzinger's. Weigel had argued that far from being pusillanimous, selfish, and irreligious, American culture was in fact marked by generosity, devotion to the common good, and growing religiosity (this was the 1980s). Schindler responds that Ratzinger's charge had to be understood at a much deeper level. At the level of morality American culture might indeed be marked by generosity and community, but at the level of its deepest order and "onto-logic" it is marked by an anthropological atomism. Religiosity and generosity are (in such culture) understood as matter of persons self-determination, extrinsic to their deepest being. Weigel's very framing of the argument, Schindler argues, instantiates this problem:
[Weigel's implicit] view that relation emerges first at the level of action and thus is most properly a matter of the self's liberty entails a denial that relation emerges first and most properly at the level of being. But this is just to say that the self, at the level of its being, is precisely unrelated, is just so far atomic (simply an individual). In short, Weigel's conception of the problem ipso facto instantiates—already as a matter of principle implies—the claim that the relation of others to the being of one's self is external. (p. 272)
Such an implicit anthropology makes religion, generosity etc. a matter primarily of outward-directed achievement. A truly Catholic view on the other hand sees the persons as related to God and others in their deepest depths, and thus gives more importance to interiority and receptivity:
[The] primary and deepest activity of a human being is to receive, to bring within, which is to say to interiorize, the relation to God and to all men in God which establishes us in being. In short, Mary's Fiat ("let it be done unto me"), understood in all of its ontological force, exemplifies the most proper activity of human being. (p. 270)
This primacy of receptivity is rooted in the fact that we are created through the Word, the Son of God, who is entirely from and toward the Father. The Christian life being like the Son:
Being a Christian means being like the Son, becoming a son; that is, not standing on one's own and in oneself, but living completely open in the "from" and "toward". Insofar as the Christian is a "Christian", this is true of him. And certainly such utterances will make him realize to how small an extent he is a Christian. (Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004, pp. 187. Schindler quotes part of this text at p. 268.)
Schindler then goes on to argue (quite powerfully) that American culture shows an anti-interior ontological individualism in its capitalist economic structures, its Cartesian intellectual life, and in the legalization of abortion in the name of "the right to choose."
The Question of Religious Liberty
Schindler's essay led to an exchange between Schindler, Weigel and others (summarized by Mark Lowery here). Weigel initially accused Schindler of wanting to go back to the "monism" of the pre-Vatican II Papal Magisterium, which Weigel takes to have been definitively rejected by the affirmation of religious liberty in Dignitatis Humanae. In a number of essays Schindler defended himself from this charge while attacking the account of religious liberty popularized by Fr. John Courtney Murray. I want to look at one of these which later formed the first chapter of Heart of the World, Center of the Church. I think Schindler's own reading of Dignitatis Humanae is slightly wrong, but his critique of the Whig Catholic reading is brilliant and illuminating.
Murray's theory of religious liberty, which was indeed highly influential in the drafting of Dignitatis Humanae, is one that he sees as embodied in the First Amendment to the American Constitution. Murray sees the First Amendment's exclusion of the confessional state as fundamentally different from the laicist/anti-clerical secularism of continental Europe. For Murray the First Amendment is an article of peace; it is purely formal having no religious content, merely limiting the power of the state in such a way as to allow for the freedom of all religions. At the Council Murray argued that the Fathers should endorse religious liberty in that sense. Murray reads Dignitatis Humanae as doing just that, as affirming a purely formal, negative, "freedom from." He considers the parts of the document that do not fit this reading to be to have been inserted for pastoral reasons, or by fathers who did not understand the main argument: "One might question […] the prominence given to man's moral obligation to search for the truth, as somehow the ultimate foundation of the right to religious freedom." (cited in Heart of the World, p. 61)
Schindler attacks Murray's position here with a very MacIntyrean argument; he shows that the supposed neutrality of such a formal, negative religious liberty is not really neutral at all. In fact in conceals an ideology: liberal ideology. "The liberal appeal to religious pluralism hides its own "monism"; the liberal appeal to religious freedom hides its own definite truth about the nature of religion." (p. 697) Schindler shows this in a number of way, I want to pick out one of them:
The simple but crucial point here is that a primitively negative relation (indifference) to God is not for all that neutral; on the contrary, it already differs from a primitively positive relation to God. A negative relation, for all of its being negative, nonetheless and for all that remains a relation which bears a definite meaning, one which excludes the priority of a positive relation. Murray's proposal thus serves as a matter of (juridical) principle to disfavor those religions which understand the human act to be first "full" of relation to God—to be positively ordered from the beginning, in its very constitution as a creaturely act, toward God. […] The human act in its basic structure, for purposes of the constitutional ordering of society, is understood to be silent about God (cf. "articles of peace"). But this means that, when theists go on to fill this silence with speech, they must now do so precisely by way of addition and in their capacity as private members of society. Non-theists, in contrast, have merely to leave the state's formally-conceived human act as it is, namely, in the primitive emptiness which has already been accorded official-public status. Worldviews that favor silence about God in the affairs of the earthly or temporal order therefore always retain an official-public theoretical advantage over worldviews that favor speech about God. (p. 721-722)
Schindler sees the root of this problem in the defective, atomistic view of the person implicit in liberal thought, and in an extrinsic/additive account of the order between nature and grace that follows from this. He appeals here to Henri de Lubac's famous thesis about a false view of the nature-grace distinction leading to secularism. What does this mean for the relation of the Church and the state? Schindler quotes de Lubac:
It is from within that grace seizes nature, and, far from diminishing nature, raises it up, in order to make it serve its (grace's) own ends. It is from within that faith transforms reason, that the Church influences the state. As the messenger of Christ, the Church is not the guardian of the state; on the contrary she ennobles the state, inspiring it to be a Christian state and thereby more human. (cited at p. 732)
In other words, Schindler argues that the form of religious liberty promoted by the Catholic Whigs leads in fact to indifferentism and secularism– the very accusations that Lefebvrites bring against Dignitatis Humanae itself–and even calls for a "Christian state." But Schindler though is very careful to distinguish himself from "integralism" in the Lefebvrite sense:
Murrayites and Lefebvrites, however much they do so for opposite reasons, nonetheless converge in their apparent conviction that clear priority of religious truth is incompatible, or at least strongly in tension, with a principled commitment to religious liberty. In what sense is this the case? […] Let me first of all repeat what was stated earlier: Vatican Council II unequivocally affirmed religious freedom and thereby unequivocally rejected "integralism"; and the importance of Murray in these conciliar achievements is indisputable.
Schindler thinks that communio ecclesiology offers a way of escaping both liberalism and integralism, it is worth quoting from his argument at length:
If the state and the Church are to remain ever distinct as juridical entities, they nonetheless maintain this distinctness now only from within nature's internal relation to grace […] [The] whole world [must] be inserted within the mission of Jesus Christ: that the whole world thus become a "civilization of love." This intrinsic subordination of the world to the finality given in grace must always be maintained simultaneous with the juridical distinctness of state and Church. The former subordination without the latter distinctness entails "integralism"; the latter distinctness without the former subordination entails secularism. […] [This] dynamic for the world's—and, in the way qualified, including also the state's—conversion does not deny but on the contrary affirms freedom, and indeed makes it possible. The religious truth that is now given priority is the truth of communio, and thus of love. This truth is not a juridical thing which can be imposed; nor is it first a string of propositions to be believed or a moral code to be enforced. It is first the person of Jesus Christ, as revealer of the Trinitarian God. Conversion therefore must take the path of discipleship: of our own relating to Jesus Christ, and of inviting others to share in this relationship. To be sure, this relationship bears an inner movement from and toward the Church in her reality as juridical organization, as dogma, as morality. But these have their primary meaning themselves only in terms of the love revealed by the Trinitarian God in Jesus Christ. It is the way of this love precisely to be free and to make free an (Jn 8:32), and not to coerce. The way of the Church in her mission to the world can therefore never, insofar as the Church's deepest reality remains that of communio, be to employ the mechanical-coercive methods of the state, even should she succeed in Christianizing the state's constitutional interpreters. (pp. 737-739)
There is much to be affirmed in this of course, but I find the meaning that Schindler gives here to "integralism" questionable. He takes "integralism" to mean that that the state is subordinated to the Church without juridical distinction, but in fact authentic integralism has always been about a form of subordination that presupposes distinction. Thus the Magna Carta of integralism, Pope Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam is as much about the distinction of the two powers as about the subordination of the one to the other. Pope Boniface's argument for juridical subordination is precisely the subordination of nature to the finality of grace that Schindler wants to preserve:
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior.
Of course, Schindler's concern with juridical subordination is really that the splendor of the Gospel will be tarnished by association with worldly power. Schindler is right to emphasize that freedom flows from love, and that the Church's mission in the world cannot be marked by force and coercion. Nevertheless, as Thomas Pink has recently shown (see: here and here) the Church does have the authority, and at times the duty, to coerce her own children. To think that love excludes any and all uses of coercion is (to reverse a charge usually made against integralists) "immanentizing the eschaton." "The use of the rod can actually be a service of love," as Pope Benedict XVI said in a sermon cited by Pink, "The Church too must use the shepherd's rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray."
Dignitatis Humanae was careful not to contradict the integralist teaching of the Papal Magisterium from St Gregory VII and Boniface VIII to Leo XIII and St Pius X. It explicitly states that it is addressing the native power of the civil authority in religious matters not the power that it might have as an agent of the Church: "Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ." (Dignitatis Humanae, 1)
Pink shows that the lack of a native authority in the state to coerce in matters of religion has to do with the fact that in Christ religion orders us to an end which transcends the natural order, and end to which we are ordered by the authority of the Church, not that of the state. (And the Church claims this authority only over the baptized). Pink shows how this teaching is already present in scholastic thinkers, and how it was very highly developed by such Baroque scholastics as Francisco Suarez. And yet, he shows there is a difference between the Suarezian doctrine and the doctrine of Dignitatis Humanae.
Suarez had argued that the civil power did have authority to coerce in matters of natural religion. He thought that since man is ordered to the worship of the one God already by nature, and not only by grace, the civil authority had a native authority to forbid idolatry and such things contrary to natural religion. Dignitatis Humanae rejects this teaching, and the reason has to do with the question of the relation of nature and grace.
The Natura Pura Debate
Central to Schindler's interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae is the account of the relation of nature and grace worked out by Cardinal de Lubac. De Lubac was certainly no integralist in the ordinary sense of the word, but he was concerned with the integration of nature and grace. (For this reason some like to call him an integralist, reserving the term "integrist," without an a, for Marcel Lefebvre style integralism). De Lubac's concern was with an account of the relation of nature and grace that separated them too much. A view of nature that saw it as a closed system to which grace was merely added on in a merely extrinsic way. Some of de Lubac's critics have suggested that he was chasing after shadows, but Schindler provides some startling evidence that the problem with which de Lubac was concerned is quite real. Schindler quotes the Rev. Leon Hooper, S.J., a follower of John Courtney Murray, as follows:
[In] this world there are two sources of moral authority. Early on these were for Murray the state and the church, or, more generally, the natural law and the revealed law. Later they became civil societies and religious communities, or the secular and the sacred. Each of the two orders is differently based (in creation and redemption) and is directed toward different ends (civic friendship and eternal beatitude). Each can legitimately claim its own autonomy. (p. 730)
This is a shocking view of things indeed, according to which the natural order seems to be a system running merrily along on its own steam toward its own (earthly) end established in creation, while the the order of grace is another system, added by the redemption (!), which does not interfere with the natural order, but adds an extra other-worldly goal to human life.
De Lubac definitely saw a real problem, but I don't think that he got every element of his account of that problem and its origins right. According to de Lubac the problem arose with the doctrine of "pure nature," worked out in late scholasticism by the likes of Suarez, Cajetan, and Bellarmine. Pure nature refers to nature in abstraction from grace. According to Suarez et al. one can consider nature apart from grace and understand it in itself, as it would be without grace. In the actual dispensation of Providence man is ordered through grace to a supernatural end, an end which exceeds his natural powers, namely the vision of God in God's own essence. But if one abstracts from grace, the late scholastics hold, one can see the end which is proportionate to man's nature. Of course Suarez and Cajetan are not Hooper, they realize that in a way this end is the same as the supernatural end, namely God, but they hold that the proportionate end is God attained to by natural contemplation rather than by the beatific vision. Moreover the proportionate natural end of man is not (on de Lubac's reading of Suarez et al.) replaced by the supernatural end, but rather the supernatural is added to the natural.
De Lubac argues that the late scholastic account of pure nature has the effect of separating nature and grace too much, of making nature a complete system in itself, thus preparing the way for secularism. But what distresses him most about the idea of pure nature is that it seems (to him) to exclude the beatific vision from being that for which man's human heart is restless, that for which his whole being longs. When man encounters God it stirs in him a deep 'memory,' the anamnesis of his origin, he recognizes in God that good from which every fibre of his being comes, and he longs for him with a longing that goes to the marrow of his bones, to the depths of his soul, to the pinnacle of his mind; but (this seems to be de Lubac's point) if that longing can already be satisfied by the attainment of God proportioned to human nature, then what need does man have of elevation through grace? Or if on the contrary that desire is really a desire that comes from grace, and leaves intact another, natural desire, then it doesn't really comprehend the whole man.
De Lubac's position has come under a lot of criticism recently by Thomists such as Steven Long. I think that Long et al. show convincingly that the concept of natura pura is a necessary one for understanding (among other things) the gratuity of grace. Nature is indeed intelligible even in abstraction from grace. Nevertheless, I do not think that Long has satisfactorily solved the problem as to how the natural and the supernatural end relate in the actual order of providence. De Lubac is surely right that the Suarezian position on this keeps the two ends too distinct. I think this is shown by the disagreement between Suarez and Dignitatis Humanae that I brought up in the last section. Suarez thinks that the state has right derived from natural law to regulate natural religion, that is the relation to God proceeding from natura pura, whereas Dignitatis Humanae rejects any such right, and this implies that Suarez did indeed separate the two ends too much.
Long argues that while the natural end attains to God materially, it does not attain to Him formally. That is the objects of the natural and the supernatural desire are formally distinct objects. He illustrates this with the example of seeing someone in a raincoat and desiring to meet him, not knowing that he is a great scientist:
But to desire to know God in Himself under the ratio of "cause of the world" is somewhat like the desire to know Einstein under the ratio of "man wearing a raincoat." As "man wearing a raincoat" is an accidental denomination vis-á-vis Einstein, so to desire God as cause of the world is strictly speaking not truly to desire God, Who is infinitely more than cause of the world. (Natura Pura, p. 20)
I don't agree with Long here. In the Q & A of a lecture of Long's given at my alma mater someone argues (and I think convincingly) that the relevant distinction between objects of natural and of supernatural desire is not matter and form, but rather confused and distinct. That is, to desire God based on one's natural knowledge of Him through His effects is really to desire God, in Whom those effects really participate. Here the Platonic notion of anamnesis that Ratzinger takes up (in a text very dear to David Schindler) is extremely helpful. When one comes to know God by natural reason, one "recognizes" in Him the infinite ocean of perfection in which one's own and all created being participates. But of course this knowledge is very imperfect, confused knowledge; the light of faith gives a much more distinct knowledge of Whom it is that one desires. But of course it still does not follow (as de Lubac seemingly holds) that the natural desire is a desire for the beatific vision, because one can still distinguish between the end as the object itself desired (God), and the end as my attainment of the end. Long's argument that by nature it is not possible to desire to attain to God by a mode that transcends nature is entirely convincing. Nevertheless, the natural desire to attain to God is really a desire to attain to God, and thus the desire given by grace really perfects, elevates, and completes that desire by revealing both more about Who God is, and by revealing an unspeakably perfect and beatifying mode of attaining to Him; it does not add another, independent desire.
Thus the natural order and the supernatural order can indeed be "integrated." As a great late-scolastic thinker, Cornelius a Lapide, wrote, nature is for the sake of grace:
God's creation has been ordained, as to its end, to the justification and glorification of the Saints… for the order of nature has been created and instituted for the order of grace… that is to say that this universe has been created so that the Saints delight in grace and glory…
Nature, the Angels, and the Common Good
Steven Long argues that de Lubac's blaming of natura pura for playing into the hands of secularism by cutting nature off too much from the supernatural is really a miss-placed accusation. The real problem, and what really plays into secularist hands, Long argues, is the evacuation of nature, the loss in the account of nature of its theonomic-teleological structure. While I have argued that de Lubac is right that the Suarezian account of natura pura is defective, I do think that he exaggerates the importance of that error, and underestimates the importance of the philosophy of nature itself in coming to (or missing) a truly integral, theo-centric view of reality.
The main problem here is the view of nature formulated by Bacon, Descartes and other Enlightenment philosophers, who stripped nature of its internal ordering to God, its teleology, and its participated forms. (Br. Peter Totleben, O.P. has summarized this very well in a single blog comment).
But here too Suarez's late scholasticism is not entirely without blame. Post-Suarezian scholasticism obviously did not accept the the full-blown Cartesian account of nature, but they moved closer to it than they ought to have. The great Thomist Charles De Koninck in his work The Cosmos has some very harsh things to say about Suarez's corrupt late scholasticism, but he blames him not for separating nature too much from grace, but rather from separating the spiritual and the material too much in the natural order itself:
Some are reluctant to see in nature a generalized ascending movement towards forms more and more perfect from the imperfect forms. St. Thomas did not hesitate. (See in De Potentia, q.4, a. 1) The reluctance of modern Schoolmen is easily explained. Since the time of Suarez they have boxed in the universe. They want to explain everything in nature by intra-cosmic causes. Suarez by denying the demonstrative value of the arguments of St. Thomas to prove in a strictly rational way the existence of pure spirits, cut asunder every essential link between the cosmos and the created spiritual world.
The "created spiritual world" to which De Koninck here refers is the hierarchy of the angels. St Thomas does not think that the material cosmos can be understood without the agency of universal causes. This doctrine of universal agent causality is of the greatest importance for understanding the hierarchy of final causality in creation. The picture of the natural universe that one gets in St Thomas, is one suffused with meaning, and order. The whole natural order is an image of the beauty of the Creator, and this order is restored, elevated, and perfected by grace. The common good of temporal society is nothing other than a participation (a partial sharing in) that universal order. Hence the profound truth of de Lubac's statement: "It is from within that grace seizes nature […] it is from within that […] the Church […] ennobles the state, inspiring it to be a Christian state."
The doctrine of universal causality is of great importance for understanding St. Thomas teaching the doctrine of the common good. While the angels are universal causes in the order of agent causality, the common good is a universal cause in the order of final causality. Understanding what that really means is I think the key to deepening and clarifying Schindler's critique of Whig Catholicism.
On the Difference Between Just Being and Being Good: Why Rights Are Not the First Principles of Political Life
Recall Schindler's main critique of Weigel et al. He argued that the Weigel has an implicitly atomistic view of man. Relation and communion are matters of extroversion, of man going outside himself, on his own free initiative, of his achievement. Man's dignity on this account comes from his freedom and initiative, his ability to achieve. Schindler contrasts this extroverted view of man with the Christian view of the human person, which sees the dignity of the person in her receptivity, in her interiority, which flows from her receptive relation to the Creator, which is itself caused by (and in a weak sense) reflects the receptive relation of the eternal Son to the Father.
Unfortunately Schindler sometimes (with his speculative seven-league boots on) speaks as though the root of this difference were that the extroverted view sees man as substance, whereas the interior/receptive view sees him as being "constituted by relation" in such a way as to be almost a subsistent relation. As Michael Waldstein (my father) has pointed out that can't be quite right.
St Thomas's teaching on the order of final causes is very helpful in understanding better the truth that Schindler is trying to get at. I have argued at length before that one of the most mis-understood principles in Thomistic philosophy is this: "The good is that which all things seek, insofar as they seek their own perfection." What is meant by their own perfection for beings who participate being? St Thomas teaches that there is an order of senses in which this can be taken. At the summit of this order is God Himself: that perfection in which my perfection is a participation (partem-capio). Since creatures have being by participation in God their own perfection is found more in Him than in their individual substantial existence. It is thus natural for creatures to love God more than themselves. Thus when St Thomas teaches that God is the final cause of the whole universe this is not to be taken in an extrinsic way, as though things where ordered externally to God's glory; it means that for every creature and for creation as a whole God is really their good, not their good in the sense that they can enjoy Him (only rational creatures can do that), but in the sense that their own perfection is found primarily in Him. Thus the elicited desire for God in rational creatures is founded in the natural, ontological ordering toward God of their very being. The shock of love that follows the "recognition" of God in rational creatures is first of all a love of God for His own sake although of course the desire to attain to God through contemplation follows immediately on this.
At the next level one's own perfection is found in the common good of the whole universe, that good which most fully reflects the divine perfection. At yet another level it refers to the angels who are one's universal causes. At another level it refers to the common good of the human species. At yet another level it refers of the common good of a "perfect" human community–that is the common good of "civil society." As De Koninck shows at great length in his masterpiece On the Primacy of the Common Good my own perfection is found more in the common good of the city than in my individual substance. The common good of the city is more lovable than my particular good because of its place in the order final causality. (From this De Koninck immediately draws an integralist conclusion, which I shall take up below).
So on Thomas's account one can see very clearly that from the very depths of our participated being as created things we are called to be like the Son, "not standing on one's own and in oneself, but living completely open in the 'from' and 'toward'" (to quote a Ratzinger text cited by Schindler).
In his original attack on Weigel, Schindler makes a very insightful comment on rights:
A right in and of itself is a claim I have on an other. As such a right is by definition self-directed or self-centered. Nonetheless it is often asserted that such self-centeredness is overcome when and in so far as this notion of right is universalized: when it is urged that everyone has rights. But a brief look at what is actually occurring here will reveal that such a procedure does not at all entail a transformation or reversal of self-centeredness. On the contrary the procedure merely—exactly—universalizes self-centeredness. (p. 283)
St Thomas's teaching on the different levels of a things's "own perfection" can help to show just how profoundly true this point of Schindler's is. Charles De Koninck in his reply to Eschmann's attack on the primacy of the common good states a fundamental principle philosophical anthropology and politics that follows from a things own perfection being found primarily outside itself:
Ultimately, person and society are not to be judged by what they are absolutely, but by what is their perfection, i.e. by what is their good; that is the only way in which Aristotle and St. Thomas ever discussed this problem. To look upon the absolute comparison of person and society as the most basic consideration is distinctly modern. It is also distinctly modern to accord absolute priority to the subject and to believe, with Spinoza (who, in this respect, follows in the footsteps of David of Dinant) that "to be absolutely" is "to be good absolutely", i.e. that "ens simpliciter" is "bonum simpliciter". […] From such a point of view, the problem of person and society quite naturally becomes the question: is the person better than society? instead of: is the proper good of the person better than his common good? When the problem itself has been so distorted, what can be expected in the solution?
Ronald McArthur, a student of De Koninck and my beau idéal of an integralist, wrote an important essay (see also a recording of an abridged version here) in which he draws out the implications of this statement of De Koninck's with respect to the primacy of rights in modern political discourse. He unfolds the distinction to which De Koninck refers above between "to be absolutely" and "to be good absolutely." St Thomas of course teaches that being is really convertible with goodness; to be is to be good. But in created things there is this difference: a thing is said just to be because of its substantial existence, simply because it is. How much of a thing is, or what color or shape it is, or whose brother it is, or where or when it is, are not simply speaking what make it to be rather than not be. Hence they are called "being in a certain respect," rather than just "being" or "being simply" (ens simpliciter). But with the good exactly the reverse is true. A thing is not called "good" simply speaking just because it exists, this makes it only "good in a certain respect," (good, one might say, "in scare quotes") namely insofar as it is. But it is called "good simply" (bonum simpliciter) because it has attained its perfection. And it attains "its own perfection," both by realizing that perfection as much as is possible in itself (through virtue), and by attaining to that perfection as it (more eminently) exists in its cause, by knowing and loving the cause.
The dignity of the human person does not consist in her substantial existence (just being), but in the perfection to which she is ordered (being good). Thus De Koninck can write:
God's dignity is the only dignity which is identical to his Being, and hence infallible. Because no other agent is its own ultimate end, and because the proper end of all other beings can be ordered to a higher end, the rational creature is fallible and can lose its dignity; its dignity is not assured except insofar as it remains in the order of the whole and acts according to this order. Unlike irrational creatures, the rational creature must keep itself in the order which is established independently of itself; but to remain in this order is to submit oneself to it and allow oneself to be measured by it; dignity is thus connected to order, and to place oneself outside of it is to fail of one's dignity.
That being so, McArthur argues, one can see how perverse the modern conception of politics is. In the modern conception man's dignity is seen as being derived from his simple, substantial existence. "Rights" are thought to inhere in man just because of what he is. And the order of politics, far from being recognized as a participation in a higher perfection to which man is ordered, is seen as an instrumental ordered to the preservation of his rights. Thus we see the profound truth of Schindler's statement that the universalization of rights is the universalization of self-centeredness.
The Integralist Thesis
John Zmirak (remember him?) writes:
[The] Church inherited from pagan thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle a top-down philosophy of government, which centered on the "rights" of lawgivers and rulers to enforce their vision of the Good in citizens' lives instead of the rights of citizens against the powers of the State."
This shows just how trapped in the modern discourse of rights Zmirak is. The philosophies of Plato and Aristotle do not "center" on rights at all; they center on the good. The fact that "liberal" philosophy does not center on the good shows how deeply illiberal "liberalism" really is–closed off to the truth that liberates.
The dignity of the common good of political life is only intelligible through its place in the order of final causes, as soon as it is removed from this order it becomes a monstrosity. To see this is to become an integralist. Charles De Koninck expresses this in a wonderful passage which has long been my favorite statement of the integralist thesis:
When those in whose charge the common good lies do not order it explicitly to God, is society not corrupted at its very root? […] Political prudence rules the common good insofar as the latter is Divine. For that reason Cajetan and John of St. Thomas held that the legal justice of the prince is more perfect than the virtue of religion. […] The ordering to the common good is so natural that a pure intellect cannot deviate from it in the pure state of nature. In fact the fallen angels, elevated to the supernatural order, did turn aside from the common good but from that common good which is the most Divine, namely supernatural beatitude, and it is only by way of consequence that they lost their natural common good. The fallen angels ignored by a practical ignorance (ignorantia electionis) the common good of grace; we, on the other hand, have come to the point of being ignorant of every common good even speculatively. The common good, and not the person and liberty, being the very principle of all law, of all rights, of all justice and of all liberty, a speculative error concerning it leads fatally to the most execrable practical consequences.
Picture Credits: Many thanks to Herr Aegidius, Can.Reg., of Stift Klosterneuburg, for permission to use his photographs to illustrate this post.


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New Life Mandala
This mandala was inspired by early spring buds appearing on a cold winter's day with snow still on the ground.
New Life pushing through the snow, ice and cold.
New Life appearing in what appeared to be barren and lifeless.
New Life appearing after a long, cold, dark winter.
Nature shows us that there is a cycle to everything – just like in life.
The cold, dark winter of our souls need not be forever. Spring is near.
Prints, cards and pillows! of this mandala are available HERE.
Here is the original photo that inspired this mandala:
Doing nature photography and creating mandalas is something that feeds my soul and brings me great joy!
It wasn't until I took action to move from Blah (depression) to Bliss that my talents for photography and mandala creation blossomed. If you'd like to move from Blah to Bliss too, check out the free Blah to Bliss Toolkit here.


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What Are Germany's Natural Resources?
Germany's natural resources include bituminous coal, lignite (brown coal), natural gas, iron ore, copper, nickel, uranium, potash, salt, construction materials and farmland. Since it has relatively few natural resources, Germany imports most of its raw materials.
Germany's bituminous coal deposits formed more than 300 million years ago from swamps extending from southern England over the Ruhr region of Germany to Poland. Brown coal, or lignite, deposits developed later, about 66 million years ago. Because the coal-making process is not complete, lignite contains less energy than bituminous coal. This low-grade, waterlogged fuel is mined with large machines from open pits, and most of the product is fed directly to electricity-generating stations. A small amount is pressed into briquettes for residential heating. According to the World Coal Association, Germany is the top lignite-producing country.
Salt and potash are found in abundance and mined at the edge of the Harz Mountains. Prior to unification, East Germany's Wismut Company mined uranium between 1947 and 1990, which made East Germany the fourth-largest producer of uranium ore worldwide. Germany imports oil and natural gas from Russia, although it has abundant natural gas reserves of its own. Over 80 percent of Germany's total land is used for farming and forestry. The main agricultural products are milk, pork, beef, poultry, cereals, potatoes, wheat, barley, cabbage and sugar beets.


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Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Sarah DuPre is a Research Assistant in Education Policy at American Enterprise Institute
U.S. News and World Report, "Knowledge Bank" , Dec. 14, 2015
Whether you agree or disagree with their characterizations of Washington, D.C. and Hawaii as "success" stories–the sole metric used is the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress–is less important than the lessons they extract from these two "success" stories. These lessons are anchored in the power of context shaping reform, a lesson that historians have found again and again in their inquiries into past school reforms.
The new Every Student Succeeds Act wisely returns to the states much of the authority for directing school improvement that the federal government had assumed in the past 15 years. Some states are ready to roll, but plenty are searching for potential role models. Fortunately, at least two such candidates are easy to find.
Earlier this fall, the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the "Nation's Report Card," provided a snapshot of student achievement across the land. Amidst generally disappointing results, there were a few bright spots. Washington, D.C., and Hawaii, led the nation in aggregate national assessment improvement over the past decade. From dismal depths in 2005, the two have climbed their way to respectability. In a new report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, entitled, "Laggards to Leaders in K-12," we take a deeper look at what has transpired in these locales that can help account for their outsized gains.
The District's bold approach to reform is the more familiar story. In 2007, the city council voted to give control of the schools to the new mayor, Adrian Fenty. Fenty appointed the dynamic Michelle Rhee as chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools. Under Fenty and Rhee, the District negotiated a radical new contract with the Washington Teachers Union that allowed teachers to earn more than $100,000 a year with just nine years of experience – in return for an end to traditional tenure protections. D.C. Public Schools also streamlined the central administration, adopted a pioneering new teacher evaluation system, revamped a broken special education system and shuttered excess schools. This preliminary work set the stage for a phase two, led by Rhee's one-time deputy and eventual successor Kaya Henderson, which focused on engaging families and recruiting, retaining and developing talented teachers and school leaders.
Even as these dramatic changes were occurring within D.C. Public Schools, the D.C. charter sector was flourishing. Today, it enrolls about 45 percent of District students. Charters thrived with an ecosystem of organizations that helped to attract and support effective schools. Those efforts were coupled by a statutory shift that gave the D.C. Public Charter School Board oversight of all local charter schools, and allowed them to help poor-performing charters either improve or close.
Hawaii's story is strikingly different. It is not an account of controversial leaders or bold policies but of culture and collaboration. As a small island state with only 180,000 students and a single school district, Hawaii makes it possible for state leaders to have a direct connection to the schools – and direct control over what happens – in ways that are not feasible in larger states. That personal touch was augmented by leadership stability; Hawaii has had just two state superintendents in the past 14 years.
The District's bold strategies would have limited applicability in Hawaii because the state couldn't overhaul its teaching force even if it wanted to. As one official observed, "We're an island. We get 100 Teach For America teachers a year. Pretty much all our other new teachers come out of the University of Hawaii. If we fire them, it's not like we've got replacements." Hawaii's strategy focused on granting more power to local schools and encouraging instructional alignment across grade levels (extending up to the university system). The small size leadership features a lot of conversation and shared commitment, frequently spearheaded by the Hawaii P-20 Partnerships for Education, which connects leaders in K–12, higher education, business, philanthropy and government. That trust and familiarity played a key role in Hawaii making notions like "data-driven decisions" and "local control" much more than empty slogans.
Although the District and Hawaii approached school improvement in vastly different ways, both states have made great strides. That suggests it may be worth paying particular attention to a few key similarities:
Persistence Counts. Both states pursued the same approach to school reform for more than a decade. In the churning, fad-filled world of K–12, this makes these states unique.
There Are Lots of Ways Policy Can Help. Advocates tend to fall in love with particular policy prescriptions, but the experience of these states should make clear that policy can spur and support improvement in many different ways. The District benefited from charter school legislation and bold changes to teacher evaluation and pay. Hawaii made do with none of that, because its small size and close-knit culture gave outsized power to informal mechanisms.
It's About People, Stupid. Education reform tends to treat educators in fairly impersonal terms. But when one talks to key stakeholders in these states, what's evident is how much time and effort they've spent working to humanize their initiatives – not just for children, but for the educators too. While these states are all committed to data-driven decisions, leaders talk about the importance of recognizing and encouraging professionals.
All School Reform Is Local. Successful school reform is inevitably a product of politics, structure, culture and history. This means that what works in one place may not work in another. The D.C. reforms were possible only due to mayoral control. Hawaii's culture-first approach may work well for an insular, consensus-oriented island state organized as a single district, but not in another context. The lesson is a counsel not of despair but of hope – lots of strategies can work, but they need to be adopted and executed with an eye to local realities.
For those states struggling to set a direction for schools as they regain the reins under the new Every Student Succeeds Act, the District and Hawaii provide a disparate but complementary pair of intriguing, instructive models


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It's long been said that the Chinese work really hard. Apparently, they don't have time for traditional sleep like you or I either. So it would be ideal to be able to catch up on their rest during long train rides. But how do you manage that with those hard seats? Problem solved. The solution is called the Body Supporter sleeping rack.
This odd contraption does exactly what the name says. It supports tired bodies. The Body Supporter is a metal stick with small platforms that support the head and chest. Their sales pitch even claims that "This device is just like sleeping on your front in your actual bed." Yeah, right.
If that isn't enough for the tired train traveler, you can also purchase traveler's underwear with secret pockets for your valuables and portable urine bags that allow passengers to relieve themselves without giving up their seat. Forget getting up from your nap. Looks like these hard-working people have it made.
[via Bit Rebels via Neatorama]


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The franchise, located at 2242 Central Ave across the street from his father's Fuccilllo Hyundai, is Fuccillo Jr.'s second dealership. He jacked up the worth of the automobile he emailed me by $11k and informed me that if I need the automotive he emailed me then I would have to pay $45k for it. I ran away from that dealership faster than a turkey on Thanksgiving day.
Many franchise house owners start by proudly owning smaller car dealerships from totally different producers and work their way as much as a Toyota dealership. After hearing about Drake's Dealership for so long, I finally bought the prospect to attempt it with some mates!
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Working with recycled plastic food bags that would have originally been used to carry industrial quantities of rice, couscous, flour and other commodity foods in Morocco, this bag is hand embroidered weaving various materials through the plastic grid-like squares on the outside. The bag's original design can be found on the interior of the bag.
Handles are in vegetable natural cow skin.


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We're up and out early to cram in lots and lots of walking and history. Before heading out I pause to enjoy this incredible example of extreme flyposting!
We swing by the Berliner Dom again to enjoy it in the light before heading to The sunken library.
This poignant memorial shows what is missing. Underground, almost out of sight, no books, empty white shelves, directly under the Bebelplatz.
Symbolically, the underground bookshelves have space for around 20,000 books, as a reminder of the 20,000 books that went up in flames here on 10 May 1933
A plaque also commerates the site of the Nazi book burnings. "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine.
More recent history can be seen close to the Brandenburg Gate as a line of bricks in the road denotes where the Berlin Wall once stood.
Then we feel the need to indulge in some stereotypical German food – pretzels, Gluhwein and currywurst! Plus an additional bonus East German stereotype – The Trabant.


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What we do
Partner with churches to send
Biblically speaking, a mission agency does not send missionaries, churches do. We are here to assist with the "sending" part of the process. We provide the financial and ministerial accountability, guidance, strategy, security, administration, and the physical, emotional, and spiritual support to help missionaries succeed in their calling.
Missionaries should not be novices, but must be mature in their life and faith, and be prepared for the task before they are sent out to the nations. We believe the call to go always includes the call to prepare, and that the sending church will always affirm the call of every missionary.
We do not work with people who consider themselves as "having already attained." Our candidates and missionaries must desire to continue to grow in their faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. We at Disciple the Nations are all "in progress," still growing and learning and striving to become more Christ-like in our attitudes and actions, and we aspire to shepherd our staff and missionaries by giving them the support, care, accountability, and community required to foster their spiritual growth and help them impact the world.
Disciples of Jesus Christ
We believe disciple-makers come from all walks of life. Missionaries aren't just pastors and seminary professors, but are teachers, farmers, nurses, computer programmers, and everywhere in-between. Following Jesus is not just for the elite, the educated, or the eccentric. All people are called to follow Him, and to make followers of Him. From agriculture, the arts, church planting, business, technology, sports, education, healthcare, theological education, and more, our missionaries creatively use their God-given gifts to accomplish the Great Commission.
To the nations
Because that's where we were commissioned to go (Matthew 28:19-20).
In order to mature and grow
We send people who are intentional about making disciples and investing in the lives of others. That was Christ's commission to us. And just like it was Paul's ministry, it is ours; "Him (Christ) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ." (Colossians 1:28)
More disciples of Jesus Christ
There is a culture of multiplication in Christ's kingdom, and we strive to foster that culture through biblical principles.
Through the Gospel
The true gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for the world. All of our ministries are driven by the desire to share that gospel, and to allow it to affect every area of life. We are convinced that the needs and sufferings of mankind are rooted in man's depravity and rejection of God, and that man's greatest need is to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel. This belief compels us to go and be present amid the brokenness of the world, to proclaim the good news and serve the people of the nations, all for the glory of God and the good of His people.


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How do you decide if a thing is right or good? I was thinking of ways I've heard people reason on this whole topic and what led them to a decision. I've heard folks say many times and may even have said it myself along the way that something must be right since it is such a great success. Other variations of this same idea is that if something is growing it must be right and God must be blessing it. This is especially true if one is talking about a church, or church ministry or even a preacher. I've even heard folks justify that reasoning by saying if a thing is fruitful, it must be something God is happy with and is blessing since God is the one who gives the increase. I've heard many say that the way they know a thing is right or good is by how it makes them feel. It is the old song of this can't be wrong since it feels so right. So, how do you make such a decision?
May I suggest first of all that success doesn't prove a thing is right at all. Some of the most successful endeavors in all societies have been ones that sell or promote pornography, drug abuse or even prostitution. As certain as the Bible is true and can be trusted all these things are immoral, ungodly and just plain wrong. Yet they are successful and prosperous. Think of Jesus' assessment of people finding the right way to live for God in Matthew 7:13-14. He said to strive to enter the narrow gate, for narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life and there are few who find it, but wide is the gate and easy is the way that leads to condemnation and many go in that way. Jesus knew all along that Christianity wasn't going to be the majority way of life. Most have never been willing to put their faith in God and live the life He demands of us. If the majority or the size of the crowd had been the way to judge the effectiveness of Noah's work he would have failed miserably. He, in a 120 year span of time was only able to reach his wife, three sons and their wives. He certainly didn't have a mega-church to preach to each Sunday but he was a preacher of righteousness who saved his house and was described by God as one of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. For the Christian and the church we should be more concerned with God's opinion of our work than in how many people is drawn to it.
What about determining whether a thing is right and good by how it makes us feel? Can a thing feel right and be completely wrong? Jeremiah certainly thought that one can feel good about a thing and it be completely wrong and that one might feel bad about a thing and it be completely right. The people of Judah were happy with themselves and their worship to God because they had the temple of God and didn't believe that God would allow them to go into captivity when they had the temple of the Lord. To them it felt right to be there and to worship in the temple. In their minds they were doing right even though they were worshiping idols and committing all kinds of immorality. They looked at it in the way that they were, even in their most sinful behavior better than any of the nations around them that didn't believe in God at all. By comparison they were good. They were convinced that God was accepting them and they had nothing to be ashamed of. Yet God sent Jeremiah to them to tell them they needed to "Stand in the ways and to see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk in it." But their cry was "We will not walk in it."
Right deeds can become wrong when done from wrong motives and wrong attitudes. But wrong deeds don't become right even when our motives are pure and our attitude is wonderful. So how do we decide if a thing is good or bad, right or wrong, godly or godless? Here are some questions that should help one decide. What does the Bible say on the subject? If it doesn't mention the particular thing at all, then ask, are there Biblical principles that apply to this situation or question? What will doing this particular thing do to my influence or reputation? How will my actions affect the weaker person who might be watching what I do. How will this action affect my family? I've had many people try to justify an affair by how right it seemed to them and how much they felt God was blessing it. But it usually means tremendous harm to the marriage and the children who watch their family and security come unglued. When a person can't see beyond their personal satisfaction to think of their own children and what something will do to them you can bet that selfishness has taken over and their children will suffer.
It is vital that we develop right standards by which to determine what is good and right and pleasing to God and what isn't. If we don't we will constantly jump from one bandwagon to the next and never be sure we are right with the Lord.


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For all those that were in high school when the first movie came out, WATCH THIS. This new movie grew with its original audience. It takes place 13 years AFTER 'American Pie' and all of the characters have grown up, just like we have. The writing team behind this did an AMAZING job with keeping with the characters and building onto the history of the 'American Pie' series. I swear, less than five minutes into the movie you will be laughing.
You get all of the classic styles of each character, except a more "mature" version, along with the craziness that comes with growing up. Do not get me wrong, this movie is a comedy. But it is also a coming-of-age story that all can enjoy. Being part of that generation, I totally related to the story and a lot of it hit home for me. This movie tries to educate as well as "play along" with real life predicaments and does a wonderful job of doing so. I will definitely be taking my wife to see this movie when it comes out for the general public.


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Here's the deal. You want your yard to look its best and you don't want to expose your kids or pets to toxins. Use our tea service. We'll be out twice in the spring and once in the fall. Your purchase of tea will fund not only your yard, but free tea and free classes to a non-profit growing food in the city. Those classes will cover why tea works and how it affects nutritional quality in food.
You get what makes you happy- a beautiful, peaceful yard to relax in AND you help others at the same time. Not a bad day's work and all it took was a phone call and pennies a foot!
PS: If you are interested in classes yourself, take a look under the Resources page for places Hilary is teaching.