Lewis
3mo ago
In Ecclesiastical Latin, it sounds the same as it does in English (edit:or rather, I suppose I should say that the common pronunciation of that phrase among English speakers is the modern ecclesiastical Latin one). I agree that the original pronunciation is a severe let-down.
Lewis
3mo ago
I don’t think their moderation standards are very different from the ones here, though moderation actions there are treated with a bit less deference than here. Every time one of the regulars gets modded, it sets off a firestorm of protest, including frequently from the moderatee’s ideological opponents.
To lay some cards on the table, what you're arguing seems to be that most conservatives are some flavor of white nationalist. I assume at the mild end of the spectrum you describe, this is less blood and soil rhetoric and more 'it's okay that my tabletop game club is made up entirely of white men’
I am possibly misunderstanding you here, but it sounds like you are saying you would consider “it’s okay that my tabletop game club is made up entirely of white men” to be a mild form of white nationalism. If so, and if that is the standard liberal view, the inferential gap between liberals and conservatives on this subject is frankly too large to overcome. No conservative I know would have the slightest problem with an all-white group of friends hanging out; they wouldn’t consider it racist, wouldn’t consider it an example of white nationalism, and would most likely think of anyone who disagrees as the genuine racist.
Lewis
4mo ago
If we’re getting technical, Lutherans actually reject consubstantiation for much the same reason they reject transubstantiation. In their view, both are attempts to cram the square peg of New Testament theology into the round hole of Aristotelian philosophy. Instead, they profess belief in a “sacramental union,” which basically takes the stereotypical Eastern Orthodox approach and declares the mode of the real presence to be a mystery. Some Anglo-Catholics have an almost identical theology, while others (notably including many of the Tractarians) profess(ed) belief in consubstantiation.
Either way, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Anglicans all share a belief in the real presence, even if they don’t agree on the precise method whereby it happens.
Lewis
4mo ago
Some Protestants (mainly Anglo-Catholics and Lutherans) also hold to the real presence. Luther himself once said he’d rather drink blood with the pope than wine with Zwingli (a rival reformer who rejected the real presence).
To be fair, I think of the worst public school as a fate almost like death.
Lewis
4mo ago
I don’t have a source handy, but I recall reading that crime rose considerably in London and other bombed-out English cities during the Blitz. Criminals would dress like air raid wardens and empty shops of their inventory, steal jewelry and wallets off corpses, and dump dead bodies in an area recently hit by bombs. The war effort meant that there were fewer police around, and the criminal element proved surprisingly adept at securing medical exemptions to the draft, either by bribing doctors or paying cripples to impersonate them at medical exams.
The 1946 Battle of Athens is possibly instructive as well. Once all the normal, upstanding, patriotic young men went to war, the only men left were scoundrels.
(Edited to fix link)
Racists do not describe themselves as racists.
This has not been my experience. I have several family members, friends, and coworkers who will unabashedly admit to being racist, or to hating blacks, Jews, and sometimes Hispanics and Asians. They usually have their reasons (and the reasons are usually not wholly irrational), but they don’t shy away from the racist label. Now, these are all red tribe individuals (using Scott’s definition—they include Democrats, Republicans, and the politically indifferent) and are mostly blue collar. I’m guessing blue and grey tribe racists would be less willing to self-identify as such, which might explain your perception.
Lewis
4mo ago
I suspect the fat acceptance movement won’t have the same success, partly because it isn’t innate and partly because medical advances will make being thin easier for most fat people to attain. Didn’t @self_made_human talk a few months ago about some new diet pill that seems to work wonders? Once almost anyone can become effortlessly thin, fat acceptance advocates will probably be seen the same way we now view anorexia advocates.
Lewis
4mo ago
Oh, I either missed or forgot that you’re Canadian. I already think of Canada as a more liberal, secular, and aggressively multicultural version of America, so your experience just reinforces my preconceived notions.
Lewis
4mo ago
If they skipped Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, you need a better classical music station.
Lewis
4mo ago
It was not a black station, which is why it surprised me so much. There is an actual Gospel station in town, which I assume also had Gospel Christmas music.
Lewis
4mo ago
A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion on the relative popularity of religious vs. secular Christmas songs on the radio. Every time I’ve been in the car since then, I’ve listened exclusively to two local radio stations that played nothing but Christmas music. One station switched back to its regular cycle of music the day after Christmas, and the other switched back today. Here were the results:
Out of 539 songs, just under a quarter were religious in nature, including instrumental-only recordings of religious songs, such as Mannheim Steamroller’s versions. Close to a fifth of the religious songs on one channel were Gospel versions of traditional Christmas carols. This surprised me, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single Gospel Christmas recording on the radio before, let alone so many. I didn’t time the songs and so can’t give an exact number, but I’d estimate that each Gospel song was two or two-and-a-half times as long as anything else.
Stores were a different matter. I didn’t hear any religious songs in any store I went to. I also didn’t hear any traditional recordings of secular songs either, just a bunch of fairly crap modern recordings of both traditional and new music.
What this means for the War on Christmas, I don’t know. I was a bit surprised at the low number of religious songs on the radio, but not completely shocked. I also imagine the numbers are probably different in other parts of the country, with the coasts presumably having the most secular music and the south having the most religious music.
Anyway, those are the numbers for one city in the Midwest, for what it’s worth.
Lewis
4mo ago
Soup is good. Set aside a day and devote it toward food prep (ideally during winter, since the heat from cooking will also help lower your heating bill). For soup, you can either freeze it or can it. If you plan to freeze it, buy a bunch of small freezer boxes so you don’t need to thaw a week’s worth of soup at a time. Then cook the soup as normal, divide it among the boxes, and you’re all set for weeks or months into the future. If you prefer to can the soup, make sure you slightly undercook the soup before putting it in the canning jars, as the canning process will continue cooking the soup. This is especially important for any soup with diced vegetables or beans in it, since the vegetables and beans will all turn to mush otherwise. Again, I’d recommend using smaller rather than larger canning jars, unless you’re trying to cook for a family.
You can do the same with plenty of other foods as well. Can some roast or diced ham, or freeze some shredded pork or chicken, and you’ll always have a quick main dish on hand. Then add some vegetables (either canned or fresh) and a baked potato, and you’ll have a pretty complete meal.
For quick “fresh” meals, I tend to rely on various types of sausages. Fry up a couple of brats on the stove, heat up some sauerkraut and baked beans, and you’ve got yourself a ten-minute meal.
Lewis
4mo ago
A supermajority of my Republican family and friends are Trump fans, and the rest all support Desantis. I’ve heard a few speak approvingly of Vivek as a good second choice behind Trump, but I haven’t heard anyone so much as mention Haley. This is in the Midwest, so not really Haley’s stumping grounds, which might go some way to explaining her lack of popularity.
Lewis
4mo ago
I was referring to the minor brouhaha that developed earlier this summer when a prominent AfD leader was accused of referring to East Germany as “Central Germany,” thus implying that East Prussia was the real East Germany. As far as I can tell, this was a smear job, and she was actually using “Central Germany” in its usual, uncontroversial sense. Still, if they’re regularly accused of being revanchist Nazis anyway, why not lean to it and troll? Tacitly accept the revanchist accusation and use it to deflect the Nazi accusation.
Lewis
4mo ago
If it ever occurred to one of them, I could see an AfD member making a similar proposal. Offer to let them have East Prussia and Danzig (the true East Germany) as the new Jewish homeland. It would be a pretty bit of trolling.
Lewis
4mo ago
I have a few friends, mostly female, who are similarly obsessed with animals, though perhaps not quite to that extent. It works out okay for them since they live on farms, and their spouses make clear that the chickens, rabbits, pigs, horses, cows, cats, ducks, etc., are their responsibility and aren’t allowed in the house. Since you have a condo, I assume you live in town. Is it feasible/desirable for you and your fiancé to move out to the country sometime soon? If so, it’s probably a manageable problem. If not, you might be in trouble. That many animals in a condo isn’t healthy.
Lewis
4mo ago
I generally believe it but also fairly frequently have doubts. I still consider Christianity to be undoubtedly useful even when I’m really not certain if it’s true, so I try to keep practicing regardless.
Lewis
4mo ago
Sunday morning service, Christmas gathering with family, Christmas Eve Mass, and finally Lessons and Carols service with some friends. Having Christmas Eve on a Sunday this year really made it a church-heavy day.
Lewis
4mo ago
You might not tear down other people’s posters, but progressives do. They did it to the pro-life group on campus when I was a college student. They did it to “All Lives Matter” posters when that became an issue (and even got the progressive administrations to do it for them). They’ve done it to any number of student groups who tried to advertise a conservative speaker, after which they’ve often followed up with a heckler’s veto over the speech itself. Progressives, especially progressive college students and, increasingly, faculty, aren’t used to operating on a level playing field with their opponents.
I think @The_Nybbler has the right of this one. Are you familiar with the Rural Purge in 1970s television?
All three of the major television networks, but especially CBS, cancelled popular, highly profitable programs for ideological and aesthetic reasons, and their oligarchical grasp on TV programming at the time meant that no one else was able to pick up the money they were leaving on the table.
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