Quick Roundup 18

Let's just stick to the hymnal, shall we?

Lest anyone think that Moslems hold a monopoly on scorn for art or a desire to censor....

Some parents in this prairie town [Bennett, CO --ed] are angry with an elementary school music teacher for showing pupils a video about the opera "Faust," whose title character sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being young again.

"Any adult with common sense would not think that video was appropriate for a young person to see. I'm not sure it's appropriate for a high school student," Robby Warner said after two of her children saw the video.

Another parent, Casey Goodwin, said, "I think it glorifies Satan in some way."

This adult thinks that a high school student who could become a Satanist for any reason, much less simply because he learned about an opera, has had his mind crippled almost beyond repair. But then, with parents like these, maybe that's the case.

But for elementary school children? Maybe. Maybe not. (My guess is that the video was fine and that these parents should audition for "medieval crowd" in a Monty Python remake.) This is why the government monopoly on education is so evil. Even in the best case, concerned parents wanting their children to learn something about Western culture before being inundated with other ideas, end up petitioning the government for censorship rather than, say, switching to a different school.

HT for link and title: reader Adrian Hester.

So Much for Iran Overthrowing the Mullahs

According to Michelle Malkin, Iran, which is about to have the bomb, is "burning" with cartoon protests.

I have a question or two for Mr. Bush: What are we waiting for? To find out what these savages will do when they finally get their hands on the bomb? I say we honor their infatuation with pyrotechnics by showing them what fire really means.

Before they attempt to show us.

Three Good Posts

Gideon Reich seems to have been bitten by the blogging bug again. He has posted on the cartoon riots and immigration since Blair beat me to the punch in noticing his return. Be sure to stop by, if you haven't already.

Also, Jason Roberts has a good one on "Virtue in Acting".

In the New Testament, the word for sin is ἁμαρτάνω (hamartano). To the Greeks, this word's unpolluted meaning was, "To miss the mark, to make a mistake, to err...". It implied a teleological end that one was missing. To "miss the mark" was to do something that did not lead you to the goal you were trying to achieve. ...

The intrinsic ethics of Christianity leads ultimately to one thing: guilt. If man is by nature evil, and if he himself is unable to overcome this evil, and if the only way to overcome it is to go outside one's self and proclaim belief in a supernatural force, then man has no hope of earning virtue of his own accord, and becomes a spiritual slave to the non-existent being who "saves" him by "grace". Ultimately, life is not worth living, all men are bad, and the universe is malevolent. No wonder the Romans and Greeks were disgusted by the Christians. A culture that believed, "...the whole glory of virtue is in activity..." (Cicero), is a culture that believed that this life is worth living, man by nature has the potential to do wonderful things, and this universe is truly benevolent.

Glad they're back!

Robert Tracy on Hiatus

I look forward to the eventual return of Robert Tracy to blogging, and hope his health improves.

-- CAV