Tripartite Formulations: The strength of threes

November 21, 2004, Father Pat’s Pastoral Ponderings, by Fr Patrick Henry Reardon

The ancients understood the strength of things arranged in threes, and the thesis that “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12) expressed a truth that no one in olden times was prone to doubt.

A simple deference to geometry sufficed to settle the question. The triangle, after all, is plain geometry’s only stable figure with straight lines. Geometry–literally, the measuring of the earth–is solidly founded on trigonometric functions, and the surest way to calculate the earth (or the heavens!) is by trigonometrical survey.

When we make such a survey, moreover, we are well advised to steady our instruments on a tripod, for nothing is more stable. Indeed, anyone ever seated on a wobbly chair can testify that chairs themselves seem to prefer three legs to four. Their wobbling is an agitated protest against that extra limb.
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Gettysburg Address

November 19th

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Thus began the Gettysburg Address, delivered this day, November 19, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln on the field where 50,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in a three day battle.

This ten-sentence speech ends with the words: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The American Minute

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“We Kill Babies”

Australia’s bad conscience about abortion has spilled over into contentious public debate. He is one article that brings the discomfort forward.

The abortion debate provokes mixed feelings, but leaving late-term babies to die in dishes or bins is wrong. Silence is no longer an option.

THIS country has a bad conscience about abortion. You can tell this by the frantic attempts to make us shut the hell up about it.

Health Minister Tony Abbott, who mourned the “unambiguous moral tragedy” of up to 100,000 abortions a year, has been warned by rivals in the Liberal Party this “foray into morality politics” has ruined his chance of ever becoming leader.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11333761%255E25717,00.html

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The making of the Christian-jihadist myth

Kathleen Parker, November 17, 2004 TownHall.com

Following days of spin and commentary, we can confidently declare a new urban legend: George W. Bush was elected by right-wing, science-hating, vengeful Christian zealots – “revved up by rectitude,” as one pundit put it – and America is embarked on a hatchet-wielding jihad against heathens, pagans and infidels.

Colorful. But then so is pollution in certain lights. It’s also wrong and awfully ignorant coming from the side of the political spectrum that considers itself the more intelligent segment of the American population. Not only did the right wing not elect Bush – only slightly more evangelical Christians (5 percent) voted for Bush this time around than in 2000 – but Bush himself is far to the left of the so-called “moral right.”
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The Democrats’ Self-Created Hell: The ‘Godless’ cannot win

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-viguerie15nov15.story

By Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke
Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke are the authors of “America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power” (Bonus Books, July 2004).

November 15, 2004
John F. Kerry is hardly the first politician to be rejected by religious Americans for failing to measure up to their standards.
There was Thomas Paine, for instance, the pamphleteering superstar of 1776, whose ‘Common Sense” — published in January of that year — lighted the fuse that became the American Revolution. By December, the brash optimism with which the war had started was facing the chilling reality of Valley Forge. Paine came through again with “The Crisis,” which Gen. George Washington read to his troops before they successfully attacked the Hessians in Trenton with their morale restored by Paine’s passionate call to arms.
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Religious Left Denounces “Moral Values” Voters

Mark Tooley, November 10, 2004
http://www.ird-renew.org/News/News.cfm?ID=991&c=4

At a press conference organized by the pro-abortion Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), representatives of the Religious Left expressed deep angst about the recent U.S. election results. And they warned the Bush Administration not to heed the agenda of socially conservative voters.

The RCRC officials were clearly disturbed by exit polls showing “moral values” being the number one concern of a plurality of voters, ahead of the economy, terrorism and the war in Iraq. These moral values voters, motivated by issues such as abortion and same-sex “marriage,” strongly favored President Bush’s reelection.

“The leaders of the Religious Coalition are outraged at the underlying message of the election story—that religion and morals are the exclusive property of social conservatives,” exclaimed RCRC president Carlton Veazey. RCRC, founded 30 years ago, is a coalition of mostly mainline church agencies that lobby against all potential restrictions on abortion.
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Liberal Christians Challenge ‘Values Vote’

Free registration required.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38001-2004Nov9.html?referrer%3Demailarticle&sub=AR
Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A07

Liberal Christian leaders argued yesterday that the moral values held by most Americans are much broader than the handful of issues emphasized by religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Battling the notion that “values voters” swept President Bush to victory because of opposition to gay marriage and abortion, three liberal groups released a post-election poll in which 33 percent of voters said the nation’s most urgent moral problem was “greed and materialism” and 31 percent said it was “poverty and economic justice.” Sixteen percent cited abortion, and 12 percent named same-sex marriage.
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Rules for writers

I shamelessly lifted this from This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis.

Important Rules for Writing Good

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be avoided.
20. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
21. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
22. Who needs rhetorical questions?

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U.N. Demands Poland Overturn Anti-Abortion Laws

GENEVA, November 9, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) concluded a review on Poland’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), demanding that the mostly-Catholic nation “liberalize” its abortion laws. The UN committee composed of 18 UN human rights “experts” from various countries met with Polish officials on October 27 and 28, making its observations and recommendations on November 4.

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Bishop Tikhon of the OCA quotes Noam Chomsky

A readers sends a quote by Bishop Tikhon of the OCA:

One might very well agree with Noam Chomsky that terrorism is nothing new, and that what made 9/11 particularly painful was the realization that for the first time we were the victims, rather than the perpetrators of it. Having terrorized Kossovo and Serbia, before that Grenada, Panama, El Salvador, the Phillipines, etc., etc., one would think that “with-it” Americans would have admitted, “What goes around comes around,” no?
I wonder what the citizens of Falloujah think when it is explained to them that they are now being subjected to an attack against terrorism?
Love,
+B.T.

Let me direct the good Bishop to some articles examining Chomsky’s ideas in a brighter light: What Noam Chomski Really Wants, or the antichomsky website.

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