Christmas in the Long Emergency

I find his writing, as well done as it is, annoyingly political, mixing pseudo-science with history, and obviously teaching a child all the political "agonies" of our day.

No, I didn't like it. I think he is misguided, misinformed, and sadly, has, like you are wont to do, Rod, believe everything bad, no matter how not credible, and be suspect of the optimism that springs from our God given ability to do what we didn't know we could do.

He's indoctrinating his child in the political myths of the day, not even giving his child a chance to learn how to think and analyze and understand, but instead, has chosen to indoctrinate in the foregone conclusions of a certain popular bit of political angst.

I don't want my children to ASSUME global warming is real and caused by man, because it's not 'a fact of science'. I want them to be open to knowing the real truth.

I don't want to build fallacious linkages to x and y phenomenon that may not truly exist. While knowledge and history and what we think today is important, it even more important for our children to start WITHOUT presumptions that could turn out to be false. To give our children a background woven with things we don't REALLY know, pretending it is psychic truth or something, we're destroying the things they can count on, when those things are proven false in the future.

Does this mean that there is nothing we can teach? No, there are truths, after all, not half truths like global warming, or whatever environmental fad is the bomb of the moment. Things like God, faith, the immortal truths in our nation's founding, and the things like family, marriage, integrity, and what is really virtue. These are the things that make us capable of working through whatever comes our way.

For my lifetime, the lifetime of my parents, and their parents before them, there has always been a looming apocolypse, and floods and droughts and infestations and hurricanes and volcanoes and earthquakes. Some came and went. And time, and we as people moved on.

He's leaving a perspective, apparently, to his child that I think does damage to her thinking and an attitude of being already defeated.

I will not. I refuse. I will not go quietly, nor surrender to fear or dread. Nor will my children, if I have anything to say about it.

Another Believer: Thanks for reminding us of our servicemen and women overseas. I will remember them at Mass tomorrow morning.

Rod: Thanks for providing yet another year of interesting and provocative postings! While I don't always agree with your points-of-view, your blog is a must-read for me every day. A blessed Christmas to you and your beautiful family.

Wait a minute! Do the Orthodox celebrate Christmas tomorrow????

"I think he is misguided, misinformed, and sadly, has, like you are wont to do, Rod, believe everything bad, no matter how not credible, and be suspect of the optimism that springs from our God given ability to do what we didn't know we could do."

I couldn't agree more.

Amen and God bless you Rod, a Merry Christmas to you and your family!

It would be better if we took better care of the planet, picked up after ourselves, weren't as as wasteful and wanton with our resources. But the earth has been changing and changing over and over for milleniums, and while we must have some impact, it probably is pretty minimal. As to "peak oil", why do I keep going to the gas staion, giving the guy $20 for a fill up and tap out way before that? Now I know we should drill everywhere practical, develop other energies and technologies, make better homes and cars, and so forth. But wearing your hairshirt 24/7 is not going to accomplish much.

Merry Christmas to one and all. Let Christ fill you and inform your actions. And don't worry so much about tommorrow; it will get here soon enough. Worry about what you can do right now, in front of you, with your family, and your community.

It is 1:30 pm on Friday here on the west coast and there hasn't been another comment of this post since yesterday evening. (And only 11 in all.) Rather unusual. I read the linked article by Brian Kaller yesterday evening, and your piece from Touchstone just now. I can't see at all how you think they are at all similar.

His was nearly totally depressing, and hopeless, even though there were a few sweet moments in which he related teaching his young daughter useful skills and appreciation of her surroundings. Generally it just left me feeling annoyed as I often am by the Jeremiahs for whom disaster is a religion. Yours made me feel sadness and disgust with evil things that have happened but still hopeful that together we can work through our problems. It was lovely writing. Don't lose that.

Happy New Year. Is there going to be a book this year? Don't let blogging take your focus more important things.

I've got fireflies and wild honeybees in my East Texas backyard.

Reports of these extinctions are premature

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Interesting that this result comes often these days, and then the comment never gets approved.

Is it just me, or is it everyone?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Hey, where are the new blog posts. Is Rod still alive. He did say he'd check in with us.

And Chris the blog software eats posts. It is no respecter of persons and has even consumed some of Rods.

If you have taken time to craft a good post copy and paste it into a word document and try again later.

Where's Rod?

Sue,

I, too, grew up in the late 60s, 70s and 80s and never once feared that I would die in a nuclear assault from Soviet Union. I pronounced, long before Reagan's election that the Soviet Union would collapse. My reasons weren't exactly spot on--I said it would be because they would see America's freedoms and lifestyle and insist on having the same.

Today, I see the US collapsing, at some point, because of American lifestyle (and also due to what will turn out to be a never-ending war in the Middle East, particularly Afghanistan).

We've bankrupt American for the American way of life. Global warming is a warning but it's the greed and consumption that's the destructive factor. It's just a matter of time before the chickens come home to roost. The current economic crisis is a precursor to the inevitable outcome.