MTV Trash

This is why I don't watch MTV...if Jersey Shore didn't make me boycott that channel to begin with. Remember the days when Music Television actually had music on it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/business/media/24carr.html?src=me&ref=business

US-China Relations

I thought this was an interesting article. I think that the current administration is realizing that the key factor in cooperation and dialogue, or lack thereof, is not always the US. Hopefully we our collective leadership is beginning to understand the value of diplomacy and dialogue (instead of an "us against the world" mindset) while at the same time is not afraid to defend American interests. I couldn't help but see some fairly scary paralells between the new nature of Sino-American relations and pre-World War I relations between Britain and Germany (a subject that I researched and wrote on in depth for my Historical Research Seminar). Like the US, Britain had begun to feel the strain of its vast global commitments and began to fear that the power it had during the 19th century was fading. Like China, Germany was anxious to take its place in the world among the other Great Powers. Particularly, Germany wanted to challenge British naval superiority (think of China and the development of its carrier-killer missile). The desire of the British to retain their 19th century glory and the desire of the Germans to finally claim a similar glory for themselves led to escalating tensions. Obviously the dynamics of the world are vastly different now as compared to then. Economics aside, China's main political/foreign policy ambitions are regional. So while the opportunity for cooperation exists since China is not determine to challenge the US all over the world as former the USSR did, there is plenty of room for conflict over the Pacific Rim. North Korea is the most glaring example, but Taiwan continues to be an object of conflict between the two countries. If the US continues to play an active role in East Asia as allies of South Korea and Japan (as I think they will for economic reasons/N. Korea) military tensions could rise. I think, thought, that the most important thing that both the Chinese and Americans need to avoid is the poison of nationalism.

Here's the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12219993

Polamalu

This is an NY Times article about my favorite Steelers player. Troy Polamalu is such a humble guy despite his fame as a six-time pro-bowler, a welcome contrast to so many other pro athletes (T.O., Chad Ochocinco, Tom Brady, etc.). He really seems to understand and practice the two most important aspecs of the spiritual life; humility and discipline.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/sports/football/13polamalu.html

Quotes from St. Augustine

I recently finished a course on early Christianity at college and the course ended with several lectures on St. Augustine of Hippo. I find Augustine extremely relevant, both personally and for this current age. Like me Augustine was born in a small town, Thagaste (located in the Roman province of Numidia and present day Algeria), which was not well known for intellectual prowess. The African hinterland had prospered during the first century AD but by the fourth its economy had stagnated. The Africans of Augustine's hometown were proudly Roman, but had customs and a Latin dialect that Romans in Italy found quite insophisticated. His parents scraped up money to give him a proper education with the hopes of turning their provincial son into a success. Though Augustine was certainly intelligent, he was a poor student as a child and preferred play to his studies; he would never learn Greek, the language of the eastern half of the empire and the Eastern Church. He was not a promethean thinker, forging uncharted paths into the future. Augustine was not the brilliant philosopher of his age, say a Plato or a Thomas Aquinas. Instead Augustine, trained in literature and rhetoric, was more like an artist who understood the spirit of the times. He was representative of and active in the transformation of the pagan, Roman world into the Christian Middle Ages. Augustine lived at the end of one era, Late Antiquity, and the beginning of another, the medieval period. In the same way, we live at the end of Late Modernity and on the fringes of Post-modernity. At the beginning of Augustine's life Roman power seemed to be eternal. The emperors of the third century, now carrying the banner of the cross, had stabilized the empire after a tumultous third century. However, Roman vitality waned as Augustine's life progressed and he died as the Vandals besieged his cathedral town of Hippo. Likewise the West, two decades ago confident in its superiority, faces financial crises, an aging population, and cultural stagnation. It's future is now uncertain. Perhaps more than anything else it was uncertainty that characterized the era that Augustine lived in, something that is endemic today. In any case, the thought of Augustine has proved to be enormously influential for the past 1600 years and, as the world once again undergoes dramatic changes, I believe he will continue to be so.

Here is a selection of quotations from St. Augustine:

"So blind was I, and so precipitate was my fall, that when I heard my contemporaries boasting of their exploits, I felt ashamed that I had less to be ashamed of. The more immoral their actions, the more they would brag about them. They lusted for such acts, and not for the acts alone; they lusted also for glory…I was afraid that the more innocent I was, the more of a coward I would seem; and the more chaste I was, the more contemptible I would be considered."

-The Confessions, 2.3.7.

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"He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king."

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"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?"

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"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."

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"Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee."

-The Confessions, 1.1.1

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"There is no possible source of evil except good."

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"As to these natures [of man], however: the more they have being, and the more good that they do...the more they have efficient causes. On the other hand, insofar as they lack being, and for this reason do evil - for what, in this case, do they achieve but emptiness? - they have deficient causes. And I know also that, where the will becomes evil, this evil would not arise in it if the will itself were unwilling; and its defects are therefore justly punished because they are not necessary but voluntary. For the defections of the will are not toward evil things, but are themselves evil...it is the defection of the will itself which is evil. because against the order of nature. It is a turning away from that which has supreme being and towards that which has less."

-City of God, XII.8

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"What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

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"Can it be true, Lord God of truth, that whoever posesses this mathematical and astronomical knowledge is already pleasing in your sight? Unhappy indeed is the man who has this knowledge, but does not know you; blessed is the man who knows you, even if he does not have this knowledge. But blessed indeed is he who he knows you and also knows mathematics and astronomy. He is not more blessed on their account; he is blessd on your acount alone."

-The Confessions, 5.4.7