Moving on...

Some messages of encouragement and clarity on this day:

First, today's meditation passage on DGO is from St. Therese of Lisieux. Consider carefully what the Little Flower says about the search for the great soul, and the conditions for that search:

Dear Sister, how can you ask me if it is possible for you to love God as I love Him? ... My desires of martyrdom are nothing; they are not what give me the unlimited confidence that I feel in my heart. They are, to tell the truth, the spiritual riches that render one unjust, when one rests in them with complacence and when one believes they are something great... Ah! I really feel that... what pleases Him is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy .... That is my only treasure...

Oh, dear Sister, I beg you... understand that to love Jesus... the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love. The desire alone to be a victim suffices, but we must consent to remain always poor and without strength, and this is the difficulty, for: "The truly poor in spirit, where do we find him? You must look for him from afar," said the psalmist. He does not say that you must look for him among great souls, but "from afar," that is to say in lowliness, in nothingness.

Ah! let us remain then very far from all that sparkles, let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us, and however far we may be, He will transform us in flames of love. Oh! How I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel! It is confidence, and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love. Does not fear lead to Justice? (To the severe justice that people show to sinners but not the justice Jesus will have for those who love him.) Since we see the way, let us run together. Yes, I feel it, Jesus wills to give us the same graces; he wills to give us his Heaven gratuitously.

On a more overt political note, Plato writes in the Republic:

The city where those who are to rule are least anxious to be rulers is of necessity the best managed.

Finally, Victor Davis Hanson, in A War Like No Other, on the character of the most tragic of all conflicts, the Peloponnesian war:

Just think of it: a land versus a maritime power, the starkness of the Dorians contrasted with Ionian liberality. Oligarchy was pitted against democracy, practiced dearth set against ostentatious wealth. A rural hamlet dethroned a majestic imperial city; and a garrison state professed the cause of Greek autonomy abroad even as a humane imperialism killed the innocent.

No one foresaw such carnage in 431. Who believed that in just two years, the majestic Pericles would end up covered with pustules, grasping an amulet as he coughed out his life in the fevers of the plague? [Hanson then discusses the fates of other important figures....] Everything considered wisdom at the beginning of the war would be proven folly at its end.

Circumstances change. Leadership is the critical issue in the search for the better republic, and until great souls emerge the vision of the best polity will continue to take second place to economic revanchism and the moral cynicism that prefers selfish, short-sighted, agenda-driven convenience over the inalienable dignity of life itself.

Work to do.

According to yesterday's Houston Chronicle, "Abortion [is] not main Issue for Catholics." The point of the article is that, according to a recently-commissioned poll, only 44 percent of Catholics consider abortion the main issue when they vote. The piece also notes that

• The Catholic hierarchy is beginning to respond to what has been a pretty laissez-faire sense that there is fundamental moral freedom for Catholics to vote as they please, based on practical political concerns and preferences. A growing number of the bishops, including Houston's Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, have begun to use some definitive language to describe the abortion issue as a genuine and foremost concern, because human life is a foundational right. [The bishops are taking their jobs as shepherds more seriously, responding to the sense of the global Church and a growing segment of the domestic faithful. Other clergy I have seen strong statements from recently are Cardinal Egan of New York City and Archbishop Chaput of Denver.]
• Church-going Catholics are expected to favor Republican candidates, while non-practitioners poll in favor of Democrats. Part of the secret to change, then, appears to be to get the faithful back into the pews on Sunday.
• In the interest of the "choice" position, there are now groups who, with pretense of broad acceptance as well as "legitimacy" within the community of Catholics, promulgate the position that it's OK to place the whole panoply of election issues in an equivalence with abortion. They say that as long as the party or candidate speaks for regulation of abortion access in some fashion (while apparently maintaining a "pro-choice" credibility), it is permissible to vote for that candidate over one who is clearly pro-life. This position purports that the abortion issue is lost anyway, so we should save whatever we can. [Take your pick: is this position venal? disingenuous? manipulated?]
  

Whose funeral are the poll-bearers attending?

Are the outliers the polls showing the 9-point gap in Obama's favor that the cheap--er, free--TV networks are touting or the polls showing the 2- to 3-point difference, with McCain closing intermittently over the last week. On the closer-race end of things, Hewitt's breakdown is here, and Geraghty's is here. If the latter scenario is the one shaping up, then Obama is right where Kerry was in 2004. "Got 'em right where we want 'em," should then be the theme from the McCain campaign.

Opportunity abounds

If I were an investor (or builder) looking to the future, I'd be thinking about these possibilities:

1. Retro-fitting existing homes at modest cost with latest-tech energy-saving features;
2. Doing the same for the condo and townhouse crowds;
3. Building small "luxury" homes with intelligent (IT) systems and conservation technology.

The real election question . . .

... is answered by Saint Fulgentius, a 5th-century bishop:

In order to clarify the role of the servants he set at the head of his people, the Lord spoke this word related by the Gospel: «Who, then is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so»... If we should be wondering in what that food allowance consists, Saint Paul gives us the answer; it is «the measure of faith that God has apportioned» (Rom 12,3). What Christ called an allowance of food, Paul termed a measure of faith to teach us that there is no other spiritual food than the mystery of Christian faith. We give you this allowance of food in the Lord's name every time we speak to you according to the rule of the true faith, illumined by the spiritual gift of grace. As for that allowance, you receive it at the hands of the Lord's stewards each time you hear the word of truth from the mouth of God's servants.

An amazing metaphor . . .

. . . from a talk given last weekend by Archbishop Chaput of Denver. This is political theory at its simplest and clearest:

The ''separation of Church and state'' does not mean - and it can never mean - separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be ''leaven in the world'' and to ''make disciples of all nations.'' That kind of separation steals the moral content of a society. It's the equivalent of telling a married man that he can't act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won't stay married for long.

A Saturday wrap-up on the economic earthquake

The heads of the EU's four biggest economies - Britain, France, Germany and Italy - held a first crisis meeting last week but were split over the need for a common plan.

It doesn't appear that unified solutions are going to happen quickly, in spite of the hopes of our president and our nation. The Europeans, when it comes down to the real issues--like their money and their long-entrenched banking institutions, won't be a union. They agree on ideology, however:

In the financial district of London, the pubs of Dublin, and on the campuses of Holland, people are citing reckless lending in the US mortgage market, unbridled American consumption, and a lack of government oversight for the financial meltdown that has engulfed Europe. Many dismiss the US bailout as an unwise and hypocritical move that rewards the greedy bankers who caused the crisis and breaches the ideals of the country that pioneered market-driven capitalism.

And it isn't like the finance ministers who met today are doing nothing. Fox News reports this morning that there are some agreements in the works. The "fiddling and diddling," to quote the great Johnny Most, may not be bad thing. The US Fed's current solutions may be starting to kick into gear, as Friday's stock market performance appeared to exemplify. It threatened early in the day to blow downward through the 8000 mark, and did, but pulled up well above the 7000. It wobbled, teetered, steadied itself, and the buyers stepped in at the very end of the day. The pattern was a reverse image of the previous days of the week. One day does not a bottom make for the economy, but I think the weekend will allow a breather, allow folks to reassess, allow the credit markets to absorb the impacts of the Federal rescue plan, allow some of that money to start flowing, and allow some of the stalled businesses to resume operations.

Some problems remain:

• Folks have been saying for a long time that the housing, automobile and speculative financial markets and the trading economy have been overvalued. We don't know if all of the bad trading has washed out of the system. Folks won't invest until there is some assurance about that. Buyers won't buy until there is money available and they feel some confidence about the future (see next point).
  
• There are fears of hyperinflation. There need to be some answers about the real and hidden tax impacts of the rescue spending.
• It appears there are some corrupt financial barons (I'm shocked--shocked!) Some prophylactic prosecutions are in order. (Round up the usual suspects!) This would not be an empty gesture. There needs to be a statement by the country that more is expected from those who would be allowed to manage money for all of us.
• I know that many will say that this horse is long gone from the barn, but we still have to know where to stop the market involvement and regulation. There's now a real danger of "creeping socialism." The federal government should be careful. Having acted decisively, there is now a need for circumspection, restraint, and public education. (Let's be careful out there!)
  
• Neither of the presidential candidates knows what he is talking about. They're flailing around to see what voters will respond to. Give me the person who will actually tell the truth in a reasoned way and commit to market recovery. The more of this the markets do on their own steam, the sounder any recovery will be. (I have a feeling this narrows the possibilities....)
  

Gloomy Gus

Just for the record: It looks like Gustav's forecast track is flattening out to a more East/West plotting, with a slightly more leftward arc on the map. Maybe there was some wisdom to the golden triangle counties' evacuation order. Even here around Houston, we probably need to keep our guard up.

Eureka, I guess

It appears that the New York Times, ever at the cutting edge, has discovered the existence of political blogs at the party conventions. If they had noticed this four years ago, or even some months ago when credentials were being considered by the parties, it might be worth something. However, today it's as fresh as that greenish crust of bread at the back of the bin.

Just for grins, see it now: "The Year of the Political Blogger."

Obama, Obama, Obama...

I'd like to think that there might be some level of integrity to Senator Obama's big-issue positions coming out of his trip overseas. But: he's gone from a fairly clear and consistent progressivism to ... what?

• On Iraq, he's developing a middle-of-the-road position not far from John McCain's. Let's start pulling out the troops, but only as "conditions on the ground" permit; a baseline force will remain; the Surge wasn't a success, but conditions are much better.
• On Afghanistan, he's a hawk because that's the real war on terrorism; we need a Surge there; we have to pay attention to that war, not be distracted, and win it.
• On the Middle East, who knows? An undivided Jerusalem must be Israel's capital. A partitioned Jerusalem may be the Palestinian capital. We should negotiate and use a multilateral approach on Iran (which is what is happening already) but under NO circumstances should they be allowed to have nukes.
• On the domestic side, he's showing similar chameleon-like tendencies on energy, the economy, the banking/mortgage bail-outs, health care, and other matters. We're seeing this taking shape now.

I know that Senator McCain is not the paragon of ideological linearity, but there is a general consistency to his overall positions. This seems to me to be respectable. What Obama is doing is pandering, and one is certainly given to doubt the sincerity of anything he says at this point.