StephenBraunlich.com

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

There’s been oh so much to go around these last few days, that, since I missed Mass, I have some time on this lunch break to point out a few issues well worth bringing up…

On the subject of Obama’s new faith based initiatives, I think it’s important to recognize just how sleazy and backwards his plan is. While ostensibly increasing the program’s funding, he also wants to effectively castrate it. The AP’s line that he would “support [religious group’s] ability to hire and fire based on faith” to the contrary, the speech itself states that Obama’s first basic principle is that “if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to … discriminate against [the people you help] – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.”

Now I don’t have a problem with a prohibition on discriminating among those you help — the government isn’t funding the programs to help only Catholics, Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists — but religious groups ought to be able to discriminate in who they hire based upon their religion. Look at the alternative: it would make it illegal for a Jewish group to refuse to hire an anti-Semite, a Catholic group to refuse to hire a Satanist, or an atheist to refuse to hire an Evangelical. Obama could have scored some points here, but since it can’t attract centrist evangelicals it may not go anywhere.

Swinging around the block to my home in Virginia, there’s the continuing story of the Richmond Diocese helping to procure an abortion, against the teachings of the Catholic Church and against Virginia state law. Now apparently the Bishop didn’t know about it until fairly late in the game, but he still knew about it the day before the abortion was to occur. At the very least this means that he should have gone and spoken with the young woman involved, but there is no indication of that. Better would have been to go to the police and report the commission of the crime — even if it meant some of his staff would go to jail for violating parental consent laws, fire the staffer sooner, and rein in the department (Commonwealth Catholic Charities) that procured it. It only gets worse when you find out that two months before the CCC had obtained contraceptives for the young mother involved. (Here’s a .pdf detailing it.)

I think Alberto Hurtado hits the nail on the head when he points out that we would never tolerate this sort of slow response to a crisis in politics, business, or any other field. Although I’ve been told that there’s more to the story, what is out there is fairly damning. So while I’m not at the point of saying that Bishop DiLorenzo should send Benedict a public letter requesting his permission to resign, whatever efforts he was making to clean up the diocese are clearly not working. It seems as though a much more thorough housecleaning is needed.

Finally, I’ll be hanging my head a bit this Fourth of July having read the news that we copied our interrogation techniques (at least in part) from those that Communist China used under Mao. It’s difficult to take pride in your country when it’s government tortures people. And if you don’t think it’s torture, I pass on this article by Christopher Hitchens (no pacifist he) on his experience with waterboarding and specifically this passage identified by Hurtado.

The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

I know that all of my faithful readers (hi Mom!) must be asking by now, “Stephen, why the silence?”  Well, here’s the answer: New York, by way of Denver, Phoenix, Sedona, Atlanta, and DC.

For the last couple weeks I’ve been in the midst of the Blackstone Legal Fellowship Internship.  Quite the mouthful, so it’ll go by Blackstone for the duration of the post.  Blackstone’s seminar portions are held in Phoenix, and so I flew out there by way of Denver.  In the midst of two weeks of long days of lectures they took us to Sedona for horseback riding, Jeep tours, and steak.  Finally, last Friday, it wrapped up and I flew back to DC by way of Atlanta, picked up my car, and drove to NY.  It has all been fairly exhausting.

Now I’m at the start of a 6 week internship with the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute in NYC.  It’s interesting work, but with a 90 minute to 2 hr commute each way.  This is long.  I am tired.  Consequently, you may not see much posting going on here.  Just so you know.

So my apologies for the fact that the blog seems to be dying, but I will continue to post lyrics and pics; at the very least you’ll get that.

Continuing in the new exploration of the new Tobasco Donkeys album, here’s another song off of The Yarn Sessions.  Originally popularized by the Grateful Dead, it’s a song that will fit in perfectly at the new railroading camp that Philmont is constructing along the North Ponil.

Once upon a time there was an engineer.
Drove a locomotive both far and near.
Accompanied by a monkey that would sit on a stool
Watching everything the engineer would do
One day the engineer wanted a bite to eat,
He left the monkey sitting on the driver’s seat,
The monkey pulled the throttle, the locomotive jumped the gun
And did 80 miles an hour down the mainline run.

Big locomotive right on time, big locomotive coming down the line.
Big locomotive No. 99, left the engineer with a worried mind.

The engineer called up the dispatcher on the phone,
To tell him all about his locomotive was gone.
Dispatcher got on the wire, switch operator to the right,
Cause the monkey’s got the main line sewed up tight.
The switch operator got the message on time,
Said there’s a Northbound livin’ on the same main line,
Open up the switch I’m gonna let him through the hole,
Cause the monkey’s got the locomotive under control.

Big locomotive right on time, big locomotive coming down the line.
Big locomotive No. 99, left the engineer with a worried mind.

I’m back in the Southwest for a fellowship, which means slot canyons! Alas, with no car it also means no hiking.

Recently, I caught a Billy Joel concert.  He wanted to resurrect some of his older songs.  This is one I would have liked him to play.

We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They’re tearing it down now
But it’s just as well
I haven’t shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me baby
I’ve got plans for you

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won’t
Although we’ll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You’ve given me the best of you
And now I need the rest of you

Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that I survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won’t
Although we want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
I know we’ve got to move somehow
But I don’t want to lose you know

Sometimes it’s so easy
To let a day
Slip on by
Without even seeing each other at all
But this is the time you’ll turn back and so will I
And those will be the days you can never recall

And so we embrace again
Behind the dunes
This beach is cold
On winter afternoons
But holding you close is like holding the summer sun
I’m warm from the memory of days to come

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
But we won’t
Although we’ll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You’ve given me the best of you
But now I need the rest of you

With the heat index expected to pass 110 in DC, Alaska looks like a good place to be!

I’m exhausted, so here’s the first thing that popped up on iTunes.

My self importance is a god forsaken bore
I aim for heaven but I wake up on the floor
I’d take up with rattlesnakes to get my point across
I’d argue with a parking brake to show em who’s the boss
It’s my intention to inspire,
Instead I’m preachin to the choir

I had some money but I blew it living high
My wine and women were the best that you could buy
I tried to prove myself a man of certain taste
But all I’ve got to show you now is written on my face
I’m not someone you’d admire,
But I’m still preachin’ to the choir

I’m born a lion but I don’t believe it fits
I’m no King of the jungle out there livin by my wits
This morning’s paper called for romance on a whim
I reckon I’d believe em’ if they told me sink or swim
I’m under water not on fire,
But I’m still preachin to the choir

Baytown Texas there’s a fisherman I knew
He read the bible and he spit tobacco too
He said that crap about the rod you spare to spoil the child
Is only propaganda meant to keep you in denial
Go on and follow your desire,
But he was preachin to the choir

Time is of the essence when you’re hanging by a thread
And the answer to your questions won’t unravel in your head
When you’re staring at forever from the edge of life’s abyss
Ain’t no one gonna tell you how it all came down to this
If you say different your a liar,
But I’m just preachin’ to the choir

When I’m standing at St Peters gate a trying to slip on in
I might as well plead guilty to the worst of who I’ve been
I used to like to think I had a special way with words
But right now I’m convinced I’ve more in common with the birds
Until my situation’s dire,
I’ll keep on Preachin to the choir
Hey I’m not ready to retire,
So I’ll keep preachin to the choir