American History and the Divine Liturgy

Yesterday and today all I did was go page by page through a history book writing down questions for class discussions. I'm using three different texts for my history classes, which star in two weeks. The book I've been in all of Friday and yesterday is Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred McClay. I don't really like history textbooks which are written by committes, and read like they were written by comittees. In general, monograph narratives of specific events such as Patriots: The Men who Started the American Revoluiton by A.J. Lannguth which only deal with the American Revolution and The Second Work War by Winston Churchill are much better, having been written by experts, having one point of view with which the reader can grapple, and having lots of footnotes so the reader can see what the author's sources are. History textbooks for highschool try to cover so much in so few pages that it is difficult to really know anything, there is often no point of view, and they always lack footnotes.

What McClay has done, however, is really good. Land of Hope might be the best history text book I have ever read. It has a point of view, e.g. America is good but flawed and we are still struggling to perfect it, so let's be thankful for the past, hopeful for the future, and get to work living lives worthy of our ancestors' hopes for us. Land of Hope is written in such a way that even though it doesn't go into much detail about anything it leaves you wanting to read more. Sadly, there are no footnotes but for those who want to go deeper into the knowledge of the people and events McClay wrote about there is, in the back of the book, a four page list of the kinds of history books I prefer to read. And finally, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story is one long flowing narrative, which is in itself, a huge improvement over every highschool history textbook I have ever read. I think my students will learn much from it.

Today I went to the Divine Liturgy at Saint Stephen Orthodox Church in Campbell, California. My parish, Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in Saratoga has been hit by Covid-19, and both the priest and choir director are suffering. After liturgy I ate an ommelette and took a nap. Now I have to get back to preparing for the semester.

A Vacation, a Job, and My Youngest Son

Last week Kathleen and I went fishing on the Rogue River in Oregon. I caught no fish but Katheleen caught a beautiful steelhead smolt. I cleaned it and cooked it for her. On the way to Oregon we stopped in the charming little town of Winters. Then we drove on to Red Bluff, at the north end of the Central Valley where we spent the night. While we were there someone stole our anchor off the the trailer. I had read it was a high crime area but I never would have thought someone would steal an anchor. We drove past Mount Shasta (I had never seen it. Wow! It is amazing. Even in July the peak was covered with snow.) It was fun going over the Siskayou Pass. After Passing Mount Shasta we stopped in Yreaka to mail postcards to the kids. I talked to the postmaster and saw something interesting. She sprayed my money with a chemical that neutralizes meth and cocaine. She said that cocaine isn't a problem in the area but meth is everywhere. Cute town, though.

When we got to the Rogue River we had to go get a new anchor. The owner of the Rogue River Boat Shop was friendly and helpful. And then one of the fishing reels broke. I bought some new ones. They are better than the old ones. Talked with the owner of Bradbury's for a long time. He was an MP in the Army a few years before I enlisted. He gave me the fishing line for free and gave me some good information about fishing on the Rogue River, mainly, that I was there at the wrong time of year and that I shouldn't expect to catch anything. We stayed there four nights. The river was beautiful.

On the way home we stopped in Yreka again and had a picnic at the Greenhorn Reservoir Park. Deer walked within 30 feet of us. The dog almost died trying to break his leash to get to them but the deer didn't care.

On Monday I applied for a job teaching history, government, and economics at a private school in San Jose. I interviewed on Tuesday. On Wednesday I found out I got the job. Later this afternoon I'll go in to fill out all the HR paperwork. On Monday of next week I'll start training to get AP certified.

Basil is still very sick from having Covid back in April. He has many of the long covid symptoms but the doctors do not seem to know what to do. It is very alarming. Please, pray for him.

A Trip to Reno.

I went to Reno for one night, just to buy ammo for rabbit and pheasant hunting. The shortage in California is severe and the prices are sky high. The prices are almost as bad in Nevada but, at least, they had some for sale. I like Nevada.

How are my kids?

Anselm reported to his submarine, the U.S.S. Hampton last Friday. (Today is Wednesday). He drove all the way to my house from Connecticut. He had a fun drive out. He drove by Ft. McHenry in Maryland to see where the battle that inspired the Star Spangled Banner was faught. He visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Bass Pro Shops pyramid in Tennessee. He visited the Petrefied Forest in Arizona. He camped in national parks and forests to sleep at night and pocketed the money the Navy gave him for hotels. He stayed with Kathleen and I for about 12 days. We went fishing and clay shooting. He served as the sponsor for Katheen's son when he was baptized. My sister and brother-in-law came over for dinner. He bought a surf board he found on craigslist.org for $50 and tried to learn to surf but the board is too small for him.

Basil is still very sick from covid. He has all the long covid symptoms and is miserable. I go over to his mom's house where we pray the hours and play chess. He beats me all the time now.

Repentance

Without comment I offer you these two stories.

News from the World

News from the Church

Judicial Review

It is June and that means the Supreme Court of the United States is announcing it's decisions. Another one was handed down this morning and that prompted one pundit I heard on the radio to opine that the Constitution does not give the Supreme Court as much power as it currently exercizes, meaning the Court does not have the power to limit or abolish the legislation passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President. In short, according to the man on the radio, judical review is an unconstitutional agrandizement of the Supreme Court that began with Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. Over the course of my life I have heard many people say the same thing, that Chief Justice John Marshal invented the power and foisted it on the American people in the Marbury vs. Madison decision, and that the Congress and the President should resist the Supreme Court's usurpation with patriotic vigor. Strangely, even the U.S. judiciary's official website goes with the Marbury vs. Madison origin story. I think this is wrong.

Just as I look to the authoress of the New Testament to expalin the New Testament, I look to the authors of the Constitution, reveranlty called "The Framers", to the Founding Fathers, and the Patriots to explain the Constitution. And among The Framers, Founders, and Patriots, three stand out as explainiers of the Constitution: John Jay, (Member of the Continental Congress, writer of the Olive Branch Petition, ambasador to Spain during the American Revolution, signer of the Treaty of Paris, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Governor of New York, and founding member and first Vice President of the American Bible Society), James Madison (colonel in the Orange County militia, drafter of the Constitution, 4th President of the United States, and respondent in the case of Marbury vs. Madison), and Alexander Hamilton (founding member of the Hearts of Oak militia, officer in the Continental Army, member of the Congress of the Confederation, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, founder of the Bank of New York which is now known as BNY Mellon Bank, founder of the New York Post, and first United States Secretary of the Treasury, and founder of the U.S. Coast Guard) After the Constitution was written, debated, and passed by the delegates it was sent to the 13 States for ratification. It was a touch and go thing as one State, Rhode Island was totally against the Constitution and several were on the fence. Many of the Founding Fathers and Patriots were opposed to ratification and lead a campaign against the ratification. But these three, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay gave themselves the task of convincing the people of New York to ratify the Constitution. They wrote a series of essays for publication in the various nwespapers in New York, that explained and defended the Constitution to the New Yorkers. The essays are now called Federalist Papers.

In Federalist Paper #78, published in the New York Packet 17-20 June 1788, Alexander Hamilton explained the judicial branch of the new Constitution, and was not ambiguous about the Supreme Court's power to define the limits of Congress's power to make laws, and that the Supreme Court is a buffer between the Congress and the People who have to live under the Congress's laws.

"If it is said that the legislative body is themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.

Furthemore, that the Supreme Court is the final barrier to legilative tyrrany, interpretting the laws pased by the Congress and judging them according to the Constitution, the Constitution being superior to any act of Congress.

If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. . . .where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental. . . [W]henever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.

Thus we see that the authors of the Constitution considered the doctrine of judicial review to be fundamental to the Supeme Court's role in our government, and, therfore judicial review should not be though of as an arrogancy of Chief Justice John Marshall only invented in 1803.

Teaching High School in the Age of Wokeness

The HR director in the the school district I work in the most has asked me to apply for one of their vacant social science positions. It would be a lot more money (and benefits!) than I get as a long-term sub. And I would LOVE to teach American history, U.S. government, and economics. In fact, because of all of the prep-work I've done for Kathleen over the past few years I've already written all the lectures and tests I'll need if I take the job. That part would be easy. So what is the hard part? Why don't I apply for the job?

There are two problems. The first is something called the Cal TPA. It is a tool the State of California uses to winnow out people who don't agree with the pedagogical philosophy and social mission of the system. I wrote a TPA a couple of years ago and it was rejected. I could do another one, I know what they want me to say, but I think it is wrong. I think, that for teaching history, especially, that reading history and writing history (with Chicago style footnotes and bibliography) is the best way. But the state wants teachers to embrace the idea that different people have different styles of learning and to use all those styles at once, to adapt each lesson every day to every student's imagined learning style, even though there is no evidence that that helps students learn more. But the woke mob doesn't want kids to read and write real history, such as those books written by Thucydides, Julius Caesar, James McPherson, SShelby Foote, Paul Johnson, David McCullough, and Winston Churchill. But the woke mob just sees white male opressors in that list of names. The woke mob only wants Howard Zinn the plagiarizer, the communist, the liar, the perverter of the minds of children. (I do think students need to know about Zinn, but not because he is right. They need to know about him because he is influential and wrong. Very extremely wrong.)

I think that for teaching U.S. Government one must start no later than the Mayflower Compact, but preferably with Moses and Plato for one,really, can't understand The Mayflower Compact without reference to the Bible and The Laws. and deal with the English Civil War, Separation of Powers (No, it did not start with Montesquieu, but with Moses and Isaiah. But I would still have my students read Montesquieu.), John Locke's Two Treatises on Government because they are the foundation of The Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of Independence because it it is the foundation of the Constitution, and the Constitution (article by article with accomanying readngs from the Federalist Papers for who better to the explain the Constitution than the men who wrote it?) because the Constitution is the foundation of all our laws. But the woke mob only sees white male oppressors. They (according to a recent poll, more than 90% teachers in my area) think training studendents to "change the world" a la Paulo Freire, Saul Alinsky, and Angela Davis is what they ought to be doing, not teaching them what our civilization has learned over the millenia, which is what I think teachers ought to be doing.

My economics class would start with watching two movies. Yes, this is such an enormous departure from the book-based pedogogy of the history and government classes but these are such a good movies for introducing economics and illustrating why economics is important. The movies are I, Pencil and The Road to Serfdom. From there we would talk about the history of economics beginning with Sargon of Akkad, ancient Chinese economic philosophy (special attention to Confucious since he was and reamins so infuential) and coming up through the French Physiocrats, Adam Smith (with special atention given to the impact of coastal geography on the economies of Japan and Africa),William Bradford's diary of telling of the first communist expiriment in the New World, culminating with reading the The Law by Frederic Bastiat. That would all be in the first three weeks of the semester. Then we would read through Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics, one chapter at a time, culminating with an assignment to read and criticize The Communist Manifesto in 10 to 15 pages. The woke mob would freak out at this because it deals with facts of how the world actually works; how people deal with scarcity, how people make decisions to allocate time and physical resources, and how people reckon costs and benefits of economic opportunities instead of the fantasy of a state-coerced collectivest utopia.

But why do I keep saying the "the woke mob"? Well, this brings me to the second reason why I am not going to apply for the job the HR department wants me to aply for. Like a mob they act as one are irrational and dangerous. While working in the distrct I see lots and lots of indicators that I, really, would not be welcome here as a full-time teacher. First there are all the social-justice activism signs, posters, flags, and murals. The people who put up all these eblems of anti-racism, and [insert oppressed group here] pride are a mob that shouts down disagreement, that looks at the ideas I hold as true and beautiful but sees oppression and hate; their reaction being one of attack and censor. I was only here a couple of days when another history teacher told me the classroom I am subbing in had a teacher but that teacher "was never on-board with the social-justice part of the job." They got rid of him. I know the same thing would happen to me. So there is no future for me as a history, government, and economics teacher in California.

But, maybe, you suggest, a private school would hire me. I've tried that but there are three problems I keep running into:
1. All the schools I have looked at require a state teaching credential and that puts me right back in the TPA problem. (See above.),
2. They are as woke as public schools, or
3. Or they require agreement with a non-Orthodox statement of faith.

But today I came across a school that is looking for a 3 month high school history substitute. I know a couple of the founders of the school, one since I was a little boy in the early 1970s. I know one of the teachers. They are all Fundamentalist Protestants but don't require adhearance to an Orthodox-excluding statement of faith, hmmm, at least, it is vague enough that I think I can sign it. It will pay less than I make working for the government schools but I will apply. Maybe, it will turn into something good.

Gun Laws

I used to sell guns. I know something about gun laws. I have refused to sell guns to people who were intoxicated, who failed back ground checks, or just seemed a little bit weird. I have sold guns to transvetites who feared for their safety, to brand new citizens thankful for freedom, old women who lived alone and were afraid at night, to hunters who traveled the world looking for trophies, and to collectors of specific brand names or designers. I know someting about what the American people think about guns.

Over the last few days I have heard politicians making absolutely crazy statements. I have heard bans proposed for guns that don't exist. I heard the President claim that a 9mm bullet can rip a lung out of a human body. (It is physically impossible) I heard the President say that when the Constitution was written a person couldn't buy a cannon. (In reality, up until the 19th century more cannons were owned by private citizens than by the United States government. Even the Washington Post knows this, and they pointed it out over a year ago but the President keeps lying.) I hard a lawmaker describe a gun that holds a 17 cartridges as having a "high magazine capacity clip" which tells me that the lawmaker has never held a gun or read a gun operator's manual. I've heard politicians call for increased and expanded background checks instead of just enforcing the laws already on the books, such as putting the President's son in prison for lying on his background check form. I heard a congresswoman call for the banning of 9mm pistols, as though they are more deadly than 10mm, .45 calibre, .44 calibre, and .38 calibre pistols. All of this does not mean that I am opposed to changing some laws to reduce the number of murders.

Here are some facts which inform my ideas for changes to the law:

1. According to the U.S. Department of Justice "Seventy percent of violent felons had a prior arrest record, and 57% had at least one prior arrest for a felony. Sixty-seven percent of murderers and 73% of those convicted of robbery or assault had an arrest record."

2. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinguency Prevention, the young are responsible for most violent and physically dangerous crime.
2a. 28% of vandalism is commited by people under the age of 21. 12% by poeople 21-24.
2b. 26% of arson is committed by people under the age of 21. 8% by people 21-24
2c. 26% of car theft is committed by people under the age of 21. 12% by people 21-24
2d. 24% of murder and non-negligent manslaughter is committed by people under the age of 21. 17% by people 21-24.
2e. 39% of robbery is committed by people under the age of 21. 14% by people 21-24.

3. I have observed that somewhere between 10% and 30% of teenage boys hate school. I do not mean they dislike it. I mean they utterly hate it. It does nothing but tell them that they are failures and treats them like they are in prison or a mental

hospital. School turns these boys into defeatist anti-social malignancies, who have no regard for their neighbors or larger society. I hear these boys talking about illegal car racing, sideshows, getting high, and vandalism. Many of them seem to be attracted to the apparant freedom and power of gangs, whether those gangs are the Nortenos, Crips, or the Aryan Nation one thing they all have in common is that they disregard the "system" the boys experience as oppressive, and, vicariously (none of my students are actually in the gangs) make the boys feel successful.

4. Because they are legally adults 18 year olds can buy any gun offered for sale. Though some States have recently passed laws reguiring people to be 21 before they can buy handguns, those laws are sure to be stuck down by the Supreme Court on 2nd and 14th Amendment grounds.

5. Most Americans who die from guns are suicides.

6. Most mass shootings in schools are committed by boys under the age of 21.

7. If you can trust the sample survey methodology (I am always a little skeptical of statistical extrapolations.), an estimated 4.6 million American children live in a home where at least one gun is kept loaded and unlocked.

8. According to the F.B.I.s Crime Data Explorer in 2020 there were 17,813 homicides. Of those, 662 were committed by people using only their hands and feet as weapons, and only 455 were commited by people using rifles of any kind.

So what changes would I make to our laws if I could?

1. I would do away with compulsory academic education. If kids can't stand sitting behind a desk and doing mind-numbing worksheets and struggling to learn how to do quadratic equations don't force them to. Let them train to be heavy equipment operators, electricians, farriers, or anything else that involves physical labor. The teacher unions will hate it, just like they hate vocational education in highschools now. (Just try being a master machinest and getting a job teaching high school students to be machinists. You have to stop earning money, for at least, three years and go to college to get a degree, then work six months as a student teacher for no pay, then put up with all the educational beaurocracy bullshit. This is why the school I work at has two vacant vocational education teacher position open since September.) This will help get a lot of kids out of the place that feels like prison and into a place where they can grow and achieve, and hopefully, forestall the building of resentment and desperation that results in school shootings.

2. I would ammend the Constitution of the United States to make the age of majority 21. This will free the states to outlaw the purchase of some guns or all guns by people under the age of 21. Merely keeping guns out of the hands of the young will lower the death by gun rate.

3. Require that guns be stored in a safe, even if there are no children in the house. This will keep guns out of the hands of people who do not own them.

4. Because the vast majority of murderers have a history of felony violence convictions and people under 25 make up such a lage percentage of murderers, I would sentence violent criminals to 20 years for the first offense, no matter the age. BUT (this is a big but.) change the way the prison works. Instead of just locking people into giant concrete warehouses like we do now, assign the young men 12 to 25 to prisoner brigades that live in the rough out in the deserts of Arizona or Utah. Work them hard everyday. Subject them to something similar to the harsh military life of the late 18th/early 19th century. After a few years, after the inclination to bad behavior is worked out of them, train them in more skilled jobs, such as forestry, soldiering, and construction. After 20 years, or longer if their sentence is for more than 20 years, they will will be set free, and with a good recommendation, maybe, they can stay in the prisoner brigades as cadre instead of as prisoners. And even those who do not stay in the prisoner brigades and return to freedom will be older than the prime age for committing murder.

6. Boys and girls distract each other and change their behavior to show off for each other which lowers academic performance. Also, boys and girls, on average, have different academic strengths that are displayed in divergent patters of academic success , with boys on the losing end. Therefore, to keep boys from feeling humiliated in front of girls, which is a factor in school mass shootings, I would make all K-12 schools single-sex.

7. Because an armed society is a polite society, follow the example of Kennesaw, Georgia and require every head of household to be armed. Actually, I am joking about this, kind of. It makes me wonder, why is Kennesaw so much safer than Detroit when the gun ownership rate in Kennsaw if much much higher in than in Detroit? I don't think it's because of guns. I think its because of the cultural differences between those places.

8. Though the evidence linking mental illness to violent crime is sketchy the link between mental illness and suicide is well established. Expedite hearings for temporary removal of firearms from people for mental health reasons, that they are a danger to themselves or others. But I would want them represented by a court appointed lawyer if they can't afford their own, and be able to require the government to prove within a reasonable amount of time (48 hours to a week) that they are not okay in the head. I would want that decsion made by a jury, not by judges and psychologists. And I'd require the government to prove again the danger from the person possessing guns every thirty days or return them to the owner.

These changes won't stop all homicides but it might stop a lot of them.

A Baptism

Kathleen and her son, Maximo were Baptized and Chrsmated yesterday. The priest's daughter was Kathleen's sponsor. My son Anselm (He drove all the way here from the submarine school in Connecticut. He has to report for duty at the submarine base at Point Loma in a few more days but until then he is having fun. He is seeing friends, going to the beach, we went skeet shooting.) was Maximo's sponsor. Originally, the plan was for Basil, my youngest son to be his sponsor but he is still too sick from Covid-19. (He has "long covid" and hasn't been out of the house since the last week of Lent, except for trips to the emergency room and doctor's office. I am very worried about him.)

Today was Kathleen's and Maximo's first Communion, and Maximo worked as an acolyte. After the Divine Liturgy today, Anselm went to buy a surfboard and have a surfboard rack installed on his FIAT 500, Kathleen and Maximo went home, and I bought doughnuts at Manly's Donuts on Lincoln Avenue and took them to my son, Basil along with the prosphora from church, some water from Mary's Well, and a wooden cross that had been blessed by being laid on the burial slab in Jesus' tomb. Basil and I played few games of chess. He's better than me now.

I have a pork roast in the oven. I'll serve it with zicchini and potatoes in a few hours.

Death, Statistics, and Politics

From April 24, 1980 to December 31, 2000 the United States saw 448,060 of her citizens die from AIDS. This resulted in protests, sit-ins, an AIDS Quilt, and massive politicization. That is an average of 22,403 deaths per year.

The same period saw an average of 41,400 people die from the flu each year. There is no flu politics. There are no flu protests. There is no Flu Quilt. Why not?

A couple of days ago, in Texas, a sick man killed a bunch of kids and teachers in a school. And it isn't the first school shooting. The first school shooting I remember hearing about happened in Columbine, and it inspired a movie. From then until this week there have been been a bunch of school shootings. Here is a list of school (Kindergarten through university) shootings designated as "mass shootings" by the F.B.I. (There might be more but this is all I could find.):

Date (Deaths) Location

4/1999 (13) Columbine High School
3/20000 (9) Red Lake High School
10/2006 (5) West Nickel Mines Amish High School
4/2007 (32) Virginia Tech
2/2008 (5) Northern Illinois University
4/2012 (7) Oikos University
12/2012 (27) Sandy Hook Elementary School
5/2014 (6) University of California Santa Barbara
10/2014 (4) Marysville-Pulchick High School
10/2015 (9) Umpqua Community College
2/2018 (17) Marjory Stoneman Douglas Highschool
5/2018 (10) Santa Fe High School
11/2021 (4) Oxford High School
5/2022 (21) Robb Elementary School
TOTAL: 167
YEARLY AVERAGE DEATHS FROM SCHOOL MASS SHOOTINGS: 7.59


There is a political movement to require licensing of gun owners, banning of certain guns, there are marches that oppose the right to bear arms, there are politicians giving speaches and introducing bills, and there are activist organizations agitating for the abolition of private ownership of guns. They even have quilts.

During the same period of time hundreds of Americans were killed by lightning. In 2021 there were 42,915 people killed in vehicles on America's roads. That is just one year!!! Are there marches protesting this?
In 2019 (the last year for which I could find the number) there were 5,333 Americans killed by injuries at work. Are there grandstanding politicians? No. Are protesters marching in the streets? No. There is just one labor union that is trying to do anything about it.

We don't panic over the numbers of people dying on the roads, at work, from lightening, the flu, or from drowning. And we shouldn't freak out over school shootings. Kids in schools are safe, at least, from mass killings by gunfire. So why are people on the news and in the Democratic Party acting like they aren't? I don't believe it is because they want to save lives. If it were they would be opposed to abortion on demand (629,898 killed in 2019) in America. No, I think this, like the AIDS movement is about something other than saving lives.

Two Days of Greeks and a Chinese Recipe

Kathleen and I went to the Greek Festival in Oakland on Saturday. It was okay. We were there too early in the day (11 a.m.) so there were no singing or dancing acts. But I don't really like street fairs, church festivals, art and wine festivals, and things like that, anyway. The best parts of the trip were talking about the cathedral architecture with with a young priest and praying with some nuns from Calistoga. They were there selling books and honey. The nuns and I prayed for my son, Basil, who is still not recovered from Covid. I spent way too much money on food (Kathleen is always surprised when she likes lamb. She thinks she doesn't like it.), more than I would have paid in a resturaunt but I thought of it as an offering more than paying for lunch: Church festivals are fundraisers. Kathleen bought wedding rings and a prayerbook.

On Sunday morning we went to the Divine Liturgy. We left after the sermon since neither of us could go to Communion; Kathleen because she isn't an Orthodox Christian yet (her Baptism is not for five more days.), I because I wasn't prepared. (Kathleen: "But you went to confession just last week. You haven't done any sins since then." Me: "I can't walk across the living room without sinning.")

The sermon was about St. Photini (AKA the Woman at the Well). In the car afterwards, Kathleen asked me how many sermons I've heard on that text. When I said many she asked if they were all different and if I could remember any of my Dad's sermons on the text. They were all different and I do remember two of my Dad's. In one of them, I remember he was talking about how ignorant the disciples were, how they never understood what God was doing, and that we are all like that because God is infinite and we are not, because his ways are not our ways, and God is always going to know things we do not know and do things we do not understand. The other sermon I remember him preaching on that text was about how we don't get to decide who is in the Church. God chooses whom to include and we have to accept them. The main point of Fr. Basil's sermon yesterday was that Jesus always did the will of his Father, and that it was the Father who wanted him to go through Samaria and meet the woman at the well. If we desire to know the Father we must look at Jesus.

After Church we drove over to Santa Cruz on Hwy 9. We wound trough the hills, hills I've been winding through since the early 1990s, where all my sons and I had many adventures. In Boulder Creek we stopped at my favorite grocery store and got roast beef sandwiches. At the antique store across the street Kathleen found a sealable porcelain jar with a mallard painted on it. We ate the sandwiches at the covered bridge park in Felton. Then we drove on to Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz we saw a play, "An Iliad" at the Jewel Theater. (I've known the story, or parts of it for most of my life. As an adult I've read several different translations, in prose and verse, and have even atempted to read it in Homeric Greek but my knowledge of Koine Greek was not up to the task.) I was sobbing at the end of the performance. It was very moving.

We got home and Kathleen took a nap while I did some work, listening to reruns of A Praire Home Companion at the same time. When she woke about 8:30 p.m. I made supper: My Mother's twice cooked pork. She used to make this for the anual dinner for my Dad's colleagues on the board of the Florida District of the PCG. It was such a good dish but she only ever made it for that one event. She, really, did not like cooking.

Recipe
-cooked pork roast. My mom always used boiled loin. I like a mixture of left over oven roasted shoulder and boiled loin. About 1 pound in total, cut into 1 inch cubes.
-one shallot, peeled and minced
-one head of garlic, peeled and minced
- fresh ginger root, about as big as your hand, peeled and minced
-sesame oil, about 3 table spoons
- a head of green cabbage, chopped into long ribbons
- soy sauce, 2 tablespoons is enough for me, but I don't like too much salt. Most people, I've noticed, like to add more soy sauce at the table.
(sometime my Mom would use a yellow onion istead of shallot. Also, she would sometimes shread green bellpepper and add it to the wok at the same time as the cabbage.)
- 1 tablespood sesame seeds.

heat the oil in a wok until crazy hot, but not smoking. Add the the garlic and ginger stir constantly when the garlic turns brown, add the shallots and pork and keep stiring until the pork browns and gets crispy edges. add the cabbage and soy sauce. Keep stiring until the cabbage is soft. Toss in the sesame seeds. Serve.

Anselm, Basil, and Baptism

Anselm was graduated from his final training (I think they put him through three different courses) as a junior enlisted man at the U.S. Navy's Submarine School. He is a qualified navigator and navigation equiment repairman now. Oh, he is a pistolero for the Navy, too. That last qualification, I am sure, will not be used on a submarine, but the more qualifications a sailor has the faster he gets promoted. Today he began driving from Connecticut to California. He'll stop by San Jose for a couple of days but then he reports for duty at Point Loma.

Basil is still very sick from the Covid, it has been since just before Palm Sunday. He is able to keep up with his classes (regular high school classes + an art history class from Evergreen Valley Community College but easly spends 15 hours a day in bed. He has no active virus but his heart and lungs are taking a long time to recover. The doctors changed his meds a week ago but say not to expect any improvement for at least another week.

Kathleen and her son are scheduled to be baptised on May 28. She ordered baptismal gowns from someplace in Greece. It was 45 years ago when I was baptised but I think I remember wearing brown couduroy pants and a brown and white striped cowboy shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps. It was just what I had on. No one had planned on me being baptised that day. I don't remember a lot about it. I remember visiting a church in Mountain View (The church my Dad pastored was in the neighbring city of Palo Alto.) where a whole lot of peole were being baptised. I remember having to convince my Mom and Dad that I really believed. And I remember standing in the water with my Dad and Uncle Harry (He was a preacher in the same denomination as my Dad.) I remember the question, "Do you believe in and choose to follow Jesus as your only Lord, God, and Savior" When I said "I do" they laid me down in the water saying I was being baptised in the "name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." When I came up they said to me, "You are a new creature in Christ". It was shorter than the Orthodox way of baptizing.

Equity

For the last few years I've been hearing the word equity used in a non-business/non-finance context but in a race politics context. One of the most terrifyig uses of the word was in a Biden/Harris 2020 advertisement. The ad said equality isn't good enough but that America should strive for equity, which to Marxists means equality of outcomes. Or in the words of the advertisement "means we all end up at the same palce."

I see this happening in high schools. Kids who's parents imigrated from China and who should be doing calculus are forced into elementary algebra classes so everyone stays together as they progress through highschool. I've seen imigrant kids from India with excellent fluency in three langueages, outstandng musical ability, and completion of the whole caluculus series turned down by U.C.L.A. because too many Asians get accepted there. I've seen a black student who can't write a sentence with both a noun and a verb accepted to Cal Poly simply because he is black and his high school teachers felt sorry for him and gave him good grades for the sake of equity.

How are we served by forcing kids to take classes they don't need, by keeping them out of the U.C.L.A. because of their race, and by letting unqualified kids into Cal Poly? California is not served. But the Marxist goal of equity is served. For a little while.

There is aphenomenon that has been observed all over the world, in diverse poplations, even in diverse species: About 20% of a population winds up with 80% of the stuff everyone wants, are responsible for 80% of an organization's sales, get As in the hard classes. No matter how hard the Marxists try to stop it, the cream will rise. Unless, they follow Marxism's internal logic and pull a Pol Pot.

No Pigs. Maybe Pheasants.

Last summer Kathleen and I joined Golden Ram. Our our goal for the year was to kill 4 or 5 wild pigs, 5 or 6 turkeys and a bear. I wanted a pig head and a bear skin on the wall and the freezers full of food. We spent 14 days hunting and were not successful. We saw plenty of doves but why shoot doves?. And we saw a bear and a lot of turkeys and a few coyotes as we were driving to the various hunting areas. We saw a pig at the bottom of an inaccessable canyon. In short, the game we saw was all in the wrong places. Essentially, we paid for nice places to go camping and that is all. We are not renewing the membership.

Today we joined Bird's Landing. It's not big game but it should be fun. And maybe we'll each get a pheasant to hang on the wall. Also, the membership includes guest passes so we can take our friends.

Audio Books

Back a few years ago, when I was suffering from depression, going through a divorce, and wasn't able to focus my mind to read through a whole book I began listening to audio books. I am able to read books again but I still enjoy listening to them. Here is what I've listned to since Christmas 2021.

1. The Little Drummer Girl by John Le Carre. (It wasn't his best, nor close to it.)

2. The Greek Revolution by Mark Mazower. (It was good but I needed a map.)

3. The Holy Angels by Mother Alexandra. (WOW! Totally not what I was expecting. I thought it would be a dense scholarly tome, instead it was very personal. I'm going to listen to this one again.)

4. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. (I saw the movie at the Stanford Theater a long time ago and very much enjoyed it. The book was even better.)

5. Arise, O God by Fr. Stephen Andrew Damick. (It was good. Kind like his podcats on Ancient Faith Raido.)

6. The Booksellers Tale by Martin Latham (I just couldn't get into it. I think I listend to the first 30 minutes 4 different times but just wasn't interested.)

7. The Great Anglo-Boer War by Byron Farwell. (I'm happy to have learned about a subject of which I had been ignorant but, gosh, it was a slog getting through this one.)

8. The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell. (His conclusion is, I think, childish and naive, but the rest of the book is first rate. I enjoyed learning more about Gen. Curtis Lemay.)

9. The Sea and Civilization by Lincoln Paine. (Very good. The way it dealth with geography, specifically where there are oceans, as cause of historical action reminded me of Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. It was worth the investment.)

Enemies in the Classroom

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.” - Paolo Ferrar

"Ethnic studies is the critical and interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity with a focus on the lived experiences and perspectives of people of color. It centers the knowledge, narratives, and intellectual scholarship of racial or ethnic groups,1 including how groups define and experience social, cultural, and political forces and their connections to gender, class, sexuality, and other intersections of identity. Ethnic studies provides culturally relevant pedagogy that helps students develop inclusivity by fostering understanding of diversity, connecting students with their community, and giving them the tools to identify and change the institutional structures that perpetuate inequity." - Executive Board of the University of California Senate

For decades the Bolshivek Lev Vygotsky has been an insedious influence in American education. He is required reading in California's teacher credentialing programs, and arguing against his ideas is a sure way to kill your teaching career before it starts. Of course, Orthodox Christians know Vygotsky not so much for his ideas about education but for his work in the Soviet system of mental hospitals where so many of us were confined, tortured, and killed. But Vygotsky's is not the only Marxist influence on the American education system. For months we have been hearing people in the news media saying Critical Race Theory [C.R.T.] is not being taught in American schools. I assure you it is. Not by name, but as Shakespeare's Juliet reminds us, the name we give something doesn't change its odor.

This morning I read a document from the University of California's systemwide Senate. Like Hitler's Mein Kampf and Stalin's Communist Manifesto, this document plainly lays out the goals of the twisted people who wrote it. In short, the radicals who control the University of California are going to refuse admission to any student who has not been indoctrinated with the ideas of the Marxist education philosopher Paolo Ferrar.

Before we go on, I think I should explain the A-G requirements. The University of California requires that for a person to be admitted as a student they must have completed certain courses in high school. Those courses include certain numbers years studying math, English, economics, foreign languuages,American Hstory, etc. This is important to know because more than 84 thousand freshmen were completed the A-G requirements last year and were admitted to study at one of the University's nine campuses in 2021, and these students are, in general, the best students from their high schools. These students are, in general, the best and the brightest who will go on to govern California, run businesses, control the media, and educate future generations.

It looks like a pretty good preparation for university doesn't it? But now it gets dark. Now I will show you some excerpts from the document that outlines how the Marxist teaching of Ferrar comes in, requireing that even math and scince be used to spread the C.R.T. venom. What you see below is how the U.C. Senate is polluting the sensible list of A-G requirements and the minds of adolescents. From the U.C. Senate's instructions to highschools (linkd above.) for emplementing the ethnic studies curricula (I actually liked my ethnic studies course when I was in college. I learned about lowriders, Flaco Jimenez, zoot suits, and Cesar Chavez.) for ALL courses in the A-G requirements. Notice, this is not just social studies (e.g. geography, history, government, and ecnomics) but is for all courses. That in itself is curious because California law says ethnic studies is only required for one semester. So, I wonder, why are they mandating that all subject be aligned with the ethic studies curricula? What is going on? What is the agenda? Does someone want to purge teachers, even math and science teachers, who refuse to poison the minds of young people?

What follows are quotes from the Course Content Guidlines and the Skill Guidlines found in the document. Pictures are all from a California 7th grade classroom.:

"CENTER an understanding of Indigeneity, routes, and roots through acknowledgement that the course takes place on stolen, unceded land of ____ Native Peoples and in spaces forged through labor, paid,unpaid, and underpaid. This is taught through anti-racist and anti-colonial liberation, cultural work,self-worth, self-determination, and the holistic well-being of the widest conceivable collective,especially Native people and people of color."

"CULTIVATE communities that foster, acknowledge, and value the relationships of Indigenous and all communities of color for their survival. Place high value on Indigenous knowledges, worldviews, and epistemologies, and those of other communities of color.

[Notice: there is no search for Truth, merely independant and competing "knowledges, worldviews, and epistomologies". Think about what this means. It is a rejection of Aristotle's laws of identity and non-contradiction. Thus it means there can be no science. Futhermore, it is a return to the non-morality of Euthyphro, for what is piety when the gods disagree with one another? And of course, because there is no Truth there is no Christ for he is the Truth.]

"CRITIQUE histories of imperialism, dehumanization, and genocide to expose how they are connected to present-day ideologies, systems, and dominant cultures that perpetuate racial violence, white supremacy, and other forms of oppressions

"CHALLENGE and examine how multiple oppressions and identities intersect (e.g., race, ethnicity, class,gender, culture, nationality, sexual orientation, belief-system, history, language)."

"CONCEPTUALIZE and create spaces that embrace the idea that racial and ethnic groups are not monolithic and model the joy, knowledge, agency, strength, and endurance of Indigenous and People of color communities."



"Because ethnic studies requires that students develop a repertoire of skills for critical analysis and engagement with and transformation of society and the world, approved courses will support them, as critically conscious intellectuals gaining varying levels of mastery, to do the following:

"1. Identify, analyze, contextualize, and corroborate sources, with attention to epistemologies, histories, explicit and implicit biases, insider and outsider perspectives of all course materials andobjects of study (i.e., books; articles; films; primary documents; artwork; media; websites; archaeological “finds”; scientific and mathematical theories, methods, and “discoveries”; mathematical applications, etc.).

"2. Recognize and interrogate power and oppression at ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels.

"3. Analyze and assess the impact of systems of power and oppression—including empire, white supremacy, white supremacist culture, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, xenophobia, patriarchy, classism, ableism, belief systems, ageism, anthropocentrism—across race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and other intersections of identity.

"4. Critique dominant narratives of power and their claims to neutrality, objectivity, color-blindness,freedom from bias, and meritocracy in order to examine their harm to Indigenous and other communities of color.

"5. Develop leadership, community participation, publicly engaged research, communication, praxis, and other skills to address and dismantle systems of oppression and dehumanization in the many forms in which they appear (i.e., anti-Blackness, xenophobia, ableism, heteropatriarchy).

"6. Participate in Indigenous, Black, and people of color-centered histories, knowledge systems, and pedagogical practices that challenge traditional Western educational approaches and practices.

"7. Cultivate critical hope, community care, relational accountability, and self-determination for past, present, and future generations.

"8. Nurture community engagement in order to foster anti-racist futures and solidarity across communities."

[You might be asking yourself, what's wrong with anti-racism? Isn't racism a bad thing? Yes, it is. And we should not be racists. But that is not what is meant when the radicals use the word anti-racist. They actually mean Marxist.]

An then, because teenagers have not been taught to protect and nurture the deposit entrusted to them, but have been trained by Marxists to arrogantly think they can transform the world, we get to live through a revolution and see the death of the Republic.

Bright Week 2022

Well, Bright Week has been difficult this year. Monday we went to divine liturgy and had breakfas with Fr. Basil. He makes the best buscuits and gravy I've ever had and it is his annual tradition to make them for the parish. It was a lot of fun. And all day Monday was lots of fun. But at 3 on Tuesday morning I woke up in horrible pain. I thought about not going to work but I really need the money so I went in. By the time I got home that evening I had a fever and chills and my head felt like it was beig squeezed in a vice and my abdomen was swollen huge. I really thought I might die. I took a bunch pills and went to bed. I stayed there until Thursday (yesterday) at six p.m. when my fever finally broke. I was feeling well enough to eat something (first food since Monday) and this morning I felt fine. I am back at work and earning money.

One thing I've enjoyed this week, something I always enjoy, is praying the Paschal Hours instead of the usual morning and evening prayers. All the various changes to the services, both in our homes and at church throughout the year are, really, very fun. I doubt the Apostles and Fathers who wrote the services were thinking about fun when they were doing their work. Probably, they were thinking about theosis or something but they are fun. Especially to little kids.

This morning I encountered a 6th grade boy who cannot read. I talked with him for just a minute and discovered that he doesn't know phonics, all the sounds represented by letters and their various cobinations. So I wrote down the names of some phonics workbooks that I used to teach my kids to read, and where to buy them. I also wrote down my phone number so that the kids parents can call me if they have any questions. So, why is a boy in the sixth grade it he can't even read the word 'yellow"? Here is why: No school employees are penalized if he doesn't learn how to read. They are not rewarded if he does learn how to read. They are rewarded by his attendence. (The school gets money from the state based on average daily attendence.) So all they really care about is making sure he stays in school. Oh, Also, as long as he doesn't know how to read the school gets more money to hire more teachers, special English teachers called reading specialists. But they aren't rewarded if he learns how to read. Neither are they penalized if he doesn't learn how to read. But think about what happens if all the non-readers learn how to read: The reading specialists lose their jobs! Also, kids who are behind academically, especially non-readers are much more likely to become disciplinary problems. If those disciplinary problems disappear then school security officers, counselors, and administrators might lose their jobs! So you see, from the point of view of the people who work in California public schools there is no compelling reason to teach this boy to read.

Holy Week and Pascha

Well, I think this is my first Pascha without my sons Basil and Anselm. Basil is sick with Covid and Anselm is in the Navy. It feels kind of weird.

This morning Kathleen and I attended the Pascal Vesperal Liturgy. She was totally blown away by all the Old Testament readings. After the service she read up on the Assyrians and she and I had a two hour conversation about Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, What are demons, what exatly Hades is, etc. She said she never learned any of this stuff when she was a Roman Catholic.

I baked the Kulich today. I'm worried it didn't rise as much as I was expecting. I hope it is okay.

Kathleen put together the Pascha basket. It was her first time to do it.

She just left for church. This is my first time to not go to the Pashal Divine Liturgy, but I don't think I can stand tonight. My leg and foot are aching much from this morning's service. I have it elevated now and, hopefully, I'll be in good shape for Agape Vespers tomorrow. I'd better be because I am supposed to run the grill for the parish cook out.

Vigils, Holy Week, and Cooking

As regular readers of this blog know, I was making a real effort to attend all the vigils of the Great Feasts this year. Sadly, because of the Covid exposure, and not wanting to take a chance on exposing my fellow parishoners, I had to miss the vigil for Palm Sunday. So, I'll try again next year.

I attended Matins of the 12 Gospels last night at my parish in Saratoga. It was beautiful. Fr. John Takahashi was visiting us. (He must be close to 90 years old now. I love him. When my son Basil was in the hospital he visited him and did a complete Divine Liturgy in his hospital room.) I have heard some people criticize him for his halting reading of the Divine texts but, come on, English is his 5th langage and he only learned it when he was in his 40s! Subdeacon Paul and Reader John sang all the hymns and responses as a bass and tenor duet. It was gorgeous. It was a three hour service that seemed like 10 minutes.

As far as cooking goes, I'm trying some new stuff. Of course, I am still making the epicurious Paskha cheese recipe. It's been setting in the fridge since Wednesday. Yesterday, I made three pork turines. They are also in the fridge but I am worried they might be too fatty. I could only find 1/2 of the ham hocks I needed so I substituted pork shoulder.

Right now, I am making a paté de campagne. Finding pink curing salt was a pain. No one has it for sale in San Jose. After a couple of hours looking for it in stores I called a sausage company and asked them if they would sell me some. They said they use pure sodium nitrate, whereas curing salt is less than 7% sodioum nitrate, and they can't sell it to anyone who doesn't have a license to handle it; it is poisonous. But he told me that I don't need curing salt if I keep the paté refrigerated and eat it all within a week. So, I'm on the chilling in the fridge before grinding stage so I thought I would take a break and write a blog post. I' need to start on the kulich soon.

Basil is still sick with covid so he is quaratineing at his mother's house. I am sad that he is missing all the services and the fun of cooking.

Jordan Peterson

For my birthday back in February Kathleen bought us tickets to hear Jordan Peterson lecture at the San Jose Civic Auditorium last night.

It was very interesting. He was promoting his new book (I didn't know he had a new book.) and lectured based on a chapter in the book which, I think, says something like if you want the best possible life you must abandon ideologies but the only way to do that is if you correctly think of and relate to God.

He started out by talking about different kinds of truth; scientific, historical, psycholoical, maybe more. But he concentrated on psychologicial and showed the psycological truth of several stories from the Bible:

Creation - Yes, God is He who is above all and behind all and calls order out of chaos, and if you do not acknowledge that you have no principles by which to understand the world or by wich order your life. And there is a cost to this: you ave to admit you aren't in charge.

The sacrifices of Cain and Able - Yes, the pursuit of God, He being who is above and beyond all things is worth sacrifices. And sacrifice, by definition is costly, but you have to do it or you don't attain what is better.

The Tower of Babel - Don't try to make anything as high as God because if you do horrible things happen. Here he mentioned Communism as the most deadly ideology ever.

The call of Abraham - Yes - leave your father's tent and get out and live your own life, even if you are 80 years old, its not to late to embrace adventure, and if you don't you will never develop into a whole strong person. And there is a cost to this. You might have someone try to take your wife. You might never have a place to live. You might spend your whole life as a wanderer but that is better than living your whole life in your father's tent.

Finally, after a few more stories, Peterson ended with the story of God sending the plague of snakes after the Israeiltes but then telling them to erect the brazen serpent and that lead to the Crucifixion of Jesus.

It really was a very good presentation. Actually, calling it a presentation might be wrong. It was more like he was trying to figure out what all these stories mean and how he should regard them and how he should live but unlike most people he was doing it in public. But Peterson is still not a Christian. He talks about our God. He talks about our book. He says it is true. But he is not baptized. I know he has been talking with a few Orthoox Christians, among them Jonathan Pageau, the iconographer and youtuber. I think Pageu is very patient. I am sure I would have tried to close the deal by now, whereas Pageu is just a caring friend to Peterson. I have a lot of admiration for him.