bearing blog

bear – ing n 1 the manner in which one comports oneself; 2 the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~]; 4 pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation; 5 the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

Anti-boy bias.

So there's some discussion going around about the AP story on the newest government study to show that young people are having less sex.

The thing I noticed about the article, though, is it's yet another example of the all-too-common media pattern:

1. Social scientists discover a trend.

2. If the trend says anything about females, the reporter must leave readers with the impression that it says something good.

3. If the trend says anything about males, then it must say something bad about them.

This survey found that, compared to 2002, rates of sexual experience among young men and young women have fallen. So that's a good sign, right?

Well, it is if you're a high school girl. Learn from the AP's example:

"It's not even on my radar," said 17-year-old Abbey King of Hinsdale, Ill., a competitive swimmer who starts her day at 5 a.m. and falls into bed at 10:30 p.m. after swimming, school, weight lifting, running, more swimming, homework and a volunteer gig working with service dogs for the disabled….

She is on the junior board for Robert Crown Center for Health Education, a nonprofit organization that teaches sex ed to students in the Chicago area.

She sees sex, alcohol, smoking and drugs as distractions to her goal of getting a college scholarship in swimming, she said.

What a stellar example we have in Miss King, no kidding.

On the other hand, if you're a guy, the reason you aren't getting laid is, likely, because you're too busy playing video games:

[Washington, D. C. based sex educator Yvonne Fulbright] suggested that some young men aren't making time for relationships.

"Some guys, at the end of the day, they'd rather channel their energy into music, playing their guitar or playing computer games," Fulbright said. "That's immediate gratification. People forget it takes work to woo somebody and keep her happy."

Yes, that's it. Teen boys and young men aren't having sex as frequently because they prefer immediate gratification.

I wonder why they didn't give us a concrete example of a young man who exemplifies the trend, preferring to speculate about stereotypes. Pattern recognition, I mean.

Mar 5, 2011

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1 comment on Anti-boy bias.
Low-carb, low-impact.
Mark sent me a .pdf of a very interesting paper the other day: "Nitrogen and Food Production: Proteins for Human Diets," V. Smil, Ambio vol 31 no 2, March 2002. It got me thinking about lower-carb living and sustainability.

One way to think about farming: "[A]griculture's principal objective is the production of digestible [nitrogen]." Nitrogen is a proxy for protein, and its availability in the soil limits how much protein can be produced from the land. That's why the advent of ammonia fertilizer led to such an explosion in land productivity. But nitrogen fertilizers have environmental costs, and so we want to use them efficiently.

—–

Back when I was trying to live low-carb, Atkins-style, one of the things that troubled me about it was that it seemed so… gratuitously meaty. The Atkins folks are now recommending "at least 4 to 6 ounces of protein foods per meal," "8 ounces… if you're a tall guy," but five or six years ago I had gotten the distinct impression that you were supposed to eat "as much as you want" of bacon and beef and the like.

Basically, the impression was: Replace your bread, rice, and pasta with meat, eggs, and cheese. Right? And of course, even now, six ounces of protein-based foods per meal is more than a pound a day. You've got to eat something, right? And you don't want to be hungry? And carbs are out? So high-protein must be in.

But of course this is far more protein than individuals need. Protein can't be stored,* so eating extra is wasted. It's greedy, too, on a societal and environmental level; Americans overeat it, and pour nitrogen fertilizers into the soil in order to overproduce it, while in other parts of the world demand outstrips supply.

So why is the Atkins recommendation so high? I think it's because the Atkins diet sells itself with that "you can eat as much as you want" theory. The extra meat will fill your plate and your stomach, be satisfying to chew, and taste good; it is made of "normal" stuff that you're used to eating; and if the research on insulin resistance is to be believed, it won't contribute to your fatness. You can, indeed, lose weight while eating lots of Atkins hamburger salads.

But it's still wasteful, if you're eating more protein than your body needs. And the more people in affluent nations who try to fix their fatness by following Atkins-style high-meat low-carb, the more overall global demand for meat rises — and for already-overnourished nations like us, that's shameful.

* * *

This is one reason why, even if we concede that high-refined-carb diets cause obesity and low-carb diets can cure it, we still have a gluttony problem. A pound and a half of meat every day is a ridiculous amount of meat to eat, even for a "tall guy."

Let's concede that a small number of obese, insulin-resistant people will not respond to a diet unless it contains virtually no carbohydrates at all. These few folks will need a diet that's almost all protein and fat, of necessity based mostly on animal products. They want to eat reasonably-sized meals with enough calories in them that they don't suffer terribly. Okay, let those few people subsist on mostly meat, and more meat than their protein requirements call for. Chalk it up as an expensive medical treatment. But it's terribly wasteful to start there as a first resort for weight loss, or worse, for a lifelong way of eating.

* * *

Here are some things to keep in mind when designing a lower-carb, but more-sustainable way of eating.

1. Too much protein and too little fat is an important cause of the famous constellation of side effects that accompany "Atkins-style" low-carb eating.

From Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat, pg 214-216:

This shift [from running on carbohydrates to running on fat] can come with side effects. These can include weakness, fatigue, nausea, dehydration, diarrhea, constipation, [postural hypotension], and the exacerbation of pre-existing gout. … This reaction is why some who try carbohydrate restriction give it up quickly.

…The reason for the side effects now appears to be clear, and physicians who prescribe carbohydrate restriction say they can be treated and prevented. These symptoms have nothing to do with the high fat content of the diet. Rather, they appear to be a consequence of either eating too much protein and too little fat, of attempting strenuous exercise without taking the time to adapt to the diet, or… a web of compensatory responses [from the beneficial drop in insulin levels] that can lead to water retention and what are called electrolyte imbalances.

So too much protein is one cause of the unpleasant side effects. Eat more fat and less protein — which means you can eat less animal product and more vegetable oils like coconut, avocado, olive — and the lower-carb adventure might feel a whole lot better. (Meanwhile, make sure you get enough salt and don't overdo the exercise).

2. Don't overestimate your daily protein requirements. Three grams for every ten pounds of body weight is slightly more than you probably need — a number I get from using the recommendation of (0.6 g protein)/(kg body weight)*. Another way to think about it is one gram per ten pounds of body weight at each of your three meals.

I weigh 113, so it's doubtful I really need more than 34 grams of protein per day. Let's be generous and call it 36: 12 grams of protein at each of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So at each meal I can get enough protein from:
- 2 eggs; or
- 0ne-third of a small (5 oz) can of tuna; or
- one smallish chicken thigh; or
- less than 3 ounces of not-particularly-lean ground beef; or
- almost two ounces of cheddar cheese; or
- a cup and a half of whole milk or yogurt.
Now, if I got most of my protein from plant sources like beans and grains, I might need to eat more, because the body uses the protein in these less efficiently. And mind you, I don't weigh very much. If you weigh 250 pounds, you might need twice what I need. Oh, and growing children and pregnant women will need more than this. So will someone who does a lot of heavy lifting. But the point is, if low-carb living means you're going to eat globally-scarce animal protein at most meals, you don't have to consume more than your "fair" share (unless it turns out you have a medical need for it).

3. Fill the rest of the plate with nutritious vegetables. Flavor them with enough butter, sauce, oil, or cream to give you plenty of energy. If you want a low-carb, moderate-protein diet, logically you must eat a good deal of fat. There is nothing wrong with this. And the thing that will give it to you, along with a nice lengthy eating experience and a sensation of fullness, is the dressed vegetable side dish. Eat your veggies, and eat them with plenty of tasty, tasty fat — not an excess, but enough to give you your daily calories. This fat need not come from animal products. The bulk of your calories can thereby come from veggies.

Atkins-style low-carb set an initial upper limit on even salad vegetables, which naturally means the dieters felt they had to eat more meat just to fill up their plates. Some people might need such drastic limits, but I'm betting that most people will do fine eating as much broccoli, okra, cabbage, spinach, collards, cucumbers, cauliflower, asparagus, and the like as they want. Might as well give it a try.

4. Don't waste so damn much food, especially protein. Here is a sad statistic: Somewhere between 25 and 55 percent of the food available to people living in North America, Oceania and Europe is simply wasted.* Thirty-six hundred calories* are available to every American every day; that doesn't count exports. We eat too much to begin with, and what we don't eat we waste.
- A lot of these calories are wasted by retail sellers, who have to throw out expired meat and the like.
- A huge amount is wasted by the restaurant industry; I don't know this, but I suspect that the fancier they are (i.e. the more operating expense they can pass on to the clientele), the more wasteful.
- But we also waste a lot of food at the household level, by buying too much and cooking too much in the first place, by over-trimming, and generally by being too picky.
I've made this point before: The first place you can reduce your carbon footprint is by wasting less so you can buy less. What's more, unlike many other ways to go green, you'll actually spend less money (and maybe even time) on the effort. (A somewhat frightening implication here is that every time we eat in a nice restaurant, we necessarily contribute to the problem. Don't really want to go there….)

5. Choose animal products that make efficient use of protein. One way to compare protein sources is by feed protein to food protein conversion efficiency. We could get protein by eating cereals and legumes; or we could feed some of the cereals and legumes to animals, and then eat the animals. How much of the protein in those cereals and legumes can you get back? We can accept a less-than-100-percent conversion because animal proteins are more bioavailable to us, and also because they come with valuable fats, nutrients, and iron (not to mention that most of us like to eat animals). But how good can it get?

According to Smil, the best you can do is dairy products, which give you back 40 percent of the nitrogen (a proxy for protein) you fed to your cow. Aquacultured fish are next, tied with eggs at 30 percent efficiency. Eating chickens gives you back about 25 percent of what you "spent" in feed protein. Pork: only 13 percent. And when you get to beef cattle, it's pretty abysmal: five percent.

It does depend quite a bit on how your beef is raised:

Beef production is inherently the least efficient way of supplying dietary protein through animal feeding. … This inefficiency is irrelevant in broader [nitrogen] terms as long as the animals are totally grass-fed, or raised primarily on crop and food processing residues (ranging from straw to bran, and from oilseed cakes to grapefruit rinds) that are indigestible or unpalatable by nonruminant species. Such cattle feeding calls for no, or minimal—because some pastures are fertilized—additional inputs of fertilizer-[nitrogen]. Any society that would put a premium on reducing [nitrogen] losses in agroecosystems would thus produce only those 2 kinds of beef. In contrast, beef production has the greatest impact on overall [nitrogen] use when the animals are fed only concentrates, now typically mixtures of cereal grains (mostly corn) and soybeans.

Switching from conventionally raised beef to grass-fed beef is expensive, and not even practically possible depending on the grocery options where you live. But switching some of your conventional pork and beef consumption even to ordinary eggs and dairy is a cheap change, available to anyone anywhere, that can halve your meal's nitrogen footprint while still providing you high-quality protein, enough to support even a quite low-carb diet.

——

*Asterisked information comes from the Smil paper.
Mar 5, 2011

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6 comments on Low-carb, low-impact.
Justice for Henry.

Katie Allison Granju is finally going public. Last year her teenage son Henry was severely and permanently disabled from complications after an assault and a drug overdose. He later died from his injuries. Katie has maintained that, contrary to Tennessee law, the local authorities have refused to thoroughly investigate her son's death as a homicide, and believes that because he suffered from drug addiction, the authorities simply did not care about pursuing the people whose criminal actions or inactions may have helped kill him.

Katie has been writing about her grief and at the same time, carefully, about her interactions with the investigation. She has not shared details until now.

Here is an excerpt from her introductory post:

Over the coming week, I will for the first time be sharing here on my blog every single specific detail of what happened to my teenage son, as well as all the information regarding how authorities have handled the case thus far.

I have waited nine long months for Knox County [TN] authorities to do the right thing. Polite, well-behaved southerner that I am, I have continued to err on the side of discretion and silence over all these months, in hopes that by being “good,” things would be made right. But I am no longer willing to do that.

My son did not die of an “accidental” overdose, and the investigation into his death has been inept and callous. The people who killed Henry are still free, and unless they are arrested and prosecuted, I have no doubt that someone else’s child will die.

Here is the latest update, "Justice for Henry, Part 6" which contains links to the previous five installments. You may judge for yourself, but I find her descriptions of the official communications from the prosecutors breathtakingly appalling.

There's a lot of perspectives from which we can be outraged about Henry Granju's case. I hesitate to write anything political about it, because what it has to mean above all is a terrible grief, for one real family of real people who are really hurting.

So the only observation I wish to make is that it looks to me like a terrible reversal of what ought to be. People suffering from drug addiction and trying to escape it are dismissed as useless trash, their deaths shrugged off as being only what they deserved. Violent assailants who beat a young man up until he bleeds from the ears are ignored.

Meanwhile, the public servants whose job it is to prosecute criminals — dangerous ones in particular — sneer at grieving parents in their official correspondence. I don't think it's too much to ask government workers to pretend in their official capacity as if they have a shred of respect for the members of the public they ostensibly serve.

UPDATE: the latest post is now "Part 8." Please read. I am beginning to understand why Katie has so urgently insisted that she believes other young people will be harmed if the local authorities don't investigate.

Mar 5, 2011

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1 comment on Justice for Henry.
When women have low iron, look more closely please.

An interesting post on an example of stupid medical nonsense about menstruation, this type of nonsense causing underdiagnosed internal bleeding.

When I was thirteen years old, I got my period. Soon after, I remember going with my mother to the nurse practitioner's office — her name was Debbie. Debbie told me that once girls got their periods, they were more likely to be anemic, and I would have to watch out for it. She suggested I start to take an iron supplement.

However, the sex difference in iron status in males and females derives from an increase in male iron stores at puberty, not a decrease in female iron stores…

…[T]he main culprit for iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) in men is upper-gastrointestinal bleeding, so when men present with IDA the first thing they do is an endoscopy. When women present with IDA they give her iron supplements and tell her to go home because it's just her ladybusiness. Kepczyk et al (1999) decided to actually do endoscopies on women for whom a gynecological source was diagnosed by a specialist for their IDA. They found a whopping eighty-six percent of these women had a gastrointestinal disease that was likely causing their IDA. Therefore, menses likely had nothing to do with their IDA, and the assumption that menses made them pathological actually obstructed a correct diagnosis.

I may have to bookmark that blog, it looks like a good one.

Mar 4, 2011

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Ah, that explains it.

Darwin reviews a roundup of the latest ovulation studies to make the news, and concludes that NFP-using women are, evidently, hotter.

Mar 4, 2011

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Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

The clock is ticking down to Ash Wednesday and I'm still wondering what I'm going to "do" for Lent. I am a little bit jealous of my husband, who never worries about it, but cheerfully gives up chocolate every single year and calls it good. As I have written in previous years, I have sworn off all non-obligatory food-related sacrifices because they mess with my head. I think maybe I was on to something when I wrote this post before Lent another year:

Do you think maybe it's backwards to try to think "hmm, what can I give up for Lent? Something that I like, something that's a sacrifice, hmm…"

Do you think maybe it might be better to think first "What particular virtue do I want to develop, or what bad habit or vice do I want to eliminate? How could I fulfill my vocation better?" …

… and then, having answered that question, to consider what sacrifice would actually serve that goal? I mean, maybe chocolate is really hard to give up, but maybe it's not a chocolate-free Lent that would best help you grow in holiness. Unless you have a disordered attachment to sweets in particular, and you think chocolate is actually getting between you and God, and that's what you're hoping to work on.

Or is that just me being overly analytical?

I think I will go back to St. Francis de Sales today and consider his idea of discerning which one virtue (or a very few virtues) to focus on. Maybe that will help me think of something. I already have a couple of good ideas for small things I plan to do, but unfortunately none of them are things I can do daily. On the other hand, if you put it all together, it might work out to almost daily.

I need something to read, for one thing. One of the most rewarding things I ever did during Lent was read the Diary of Sister (now Saint) Faustina — the one who saw the Divine Mercy apparitions. I came out of it with a much better understanding of what the Church means when it calls an apparition "worthy of belief," which isn't the same as coming right out and saying "This really really happened exactly the way the visionary said it did and you have to believe it really happened." Because even if you were to assume that St. Faustina was delusional or mistaken about what happened to her (I guess it doesn't work if you assume she was a liar), you would find that her writings about her experience, the thoughts she took away from them and transcribed, are true to the Gospel and inspire love of Christ. Probably more than anything you're likely to read here.

I was thinking about paying $3 for a pdf of Amy Welborn's newly refurbished, Lenten-devotional form of her late husband Michael Dubrueil's work The Power of the Cross. (She has it in forms that should work on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or iPhone; not having any of these I was going to go for the pdf.) Or I might pull Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ off my bookshelf — it's just about the right length for Lent. Or I might start re-reading Volume 1 of Jesus of Nazareth, since Volume 2 will be released next week, and I could take them as a whole.

Last year I didn't give up computer time, facebook, email, or blogging, on the theory that to do so would be the equivalent of giving up answering the phone or opening the mail. And I probably won't do so this year either. But one thing I did do was set time limits around my internet usage, and that turned out to be pretty valuable. So I may do that again this year. I also thought that I might consider which of the political blogs I follow tend to be the most destructive to my internal peace, and temporarily delete them from my reader.

My schedule is such that I get about two opportunities a week to visit the Adoration chapel all by myself for more than an hour. Only I rarely, or never, actually use the time for this. I always have something else to do (and in fact I do not think of these time blocks as "opportunities to visit the chapel" but rather as "planning time" or "me time.") I think I may try using these time blocks for Adoration instead. It would probably be good for me to give up planning time to God. Theoretically his plans work out better than mine anyway.

Well, that's enough of that: it's almost time to start school. So, comments topic of the day: Not "what are you thinking about doing this year," but let's look for evidence of good ideas from the past. In your most fruitful Lents, what were the sacrifices or devotions that enriched you the most?

Mar 4, 2011

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5 comments on Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
” ‘Another example of the slow decline of our once-educated society.’ “

Farhad Manjoo takes to task the grumps who write letters complaining to NPR.

For all its faults, I admit it: I listen to NPR, a lot, and am a member of Minnesota Public Radio. I use it, the public budgets are going south, I can afford to donate, it's only just that I should voluntarily help pay for it.

But even I am not immune to complaining. The only time I thought about writing a gripey letter was once when ATC did a piece on Kipling and they… well, why not let Ethan Stock of Redwood City, California complain for me?

SIEGEL: Ethan Stock(ph) of Redwood City, California was unhappy with our story about plans for a Rudyard Kipling Museum in Mumbai, India.

BLOCK: I expect more from ATC and NPR, he writes. You contrasted the obvious enthusiasm of Indians for Kipling with an excerpt from the poem "White Man's Burden," strongly implying that the Indians are somehow misguided in their appreciation of a Nobel-winning author.

Contrary to your heavy-handed presentation, Kipling was nuanced and subtle observer and reporter of humanity of all shades, from lightest to darkest. Any but the most jaundice reading of "White Man's Burden" will see the heavy irony that lays over every line, including most particularly, "Savage Wars of Peace."

Yeah, what he said!

(Seriously, "jaundiced" doesn't even do it justice. "The archaic sentiments of his poem "White Man's Burden" can be forgiven…." You should hear the tone of voice in which they had the veddy-British-sounding reader enunciate the excerpt. I was shrieking in my driver's seat, "What?!? What?!? It's BRILLIANTLY IRONIC, you fools!" Although apparently there are a lot of people who disagree with me about Kipling's intent, the least NPR could have done is mention that there's a variety of critical opinions on the work, and only some of them paint Kipling as an imperialist bastard who intended every word in the poem seriously.)

So, yeah, I could have written that letter. Call me a grump if you like. (But I'm not as grumpy as some.)

Mar 2, 2011

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1 comment on ” ‘Another example of the slow decline of our once-educated society.’ “
Shahbaz Bhatti, RIP.

The only Catholic member of the Pakistani Cabinet was assassinated today, probably because he supported freedom of speech in the face of those who wanted the death penalty for blasphemers. The Taliban has claimed responsibility.

Mar 2, 2011

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Because I need to post something.

Three interesting things happened today during school at Hannah's house.

(1) My hardly-able-to-keep-a-straight-face moment: Hannah's 6yo reported to me during ancient history lessons that in ancient Sparta, they sent all the boys to "millinery school."

(2) For U. S. History, I showed the big kids the first half of the 1991 TV miniseries Separate but Equal, starring Sidney Poitier and Burt Lancaster. I'd forgotten how good the film was. Teaching U. S. history mostly without a "main" textbook has been an eye-opening experience. I have so much more confidence that I don't need to rely on a "box" curriculum, even for subjects that aren't my area of expertise.

(3) He's a careful little guy, but it had to happen eventually: The one-year-old fell all the way down the stairs. I was sitting in the living room across from them when it happened. Nothing like watching your baby's body bouncing from step to step down to the hard tile floor. Fortunately he landed with the right end up — I was running to catch him and I could just tell that he wasn't going to be hurt from the experience. He was shaken up, though. I expected crying, but instead he sort of complained loudly at me, then bent over at the waist and put his head on the floor, I guess to demonstrate what had happened to him.

Mar 1, 2011

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1 comment on Because I need to post something.
How to read Introduction to the Devout Life: a wrap-up post.
Over the last eight months, I've been blogging my way through St. Francis de Sales's Introduction to the Devout Life. The book charmed me almost immediately with its familiar, modern voice (at least in Father Michael Day's translation). Too, the advice was so much more practical than what you find in a lot of spiritual works: St. Francis explicitly writes for people, especially women, who live and work and carry out many duties in the world and yet long for greater devotion. Also appealing: the book promises to be a really basic manual of devotion, the kind of thing that gets a beginner started without overwhelming her, or that helps clear away the unhelpful, faith-choking accumulation of "doing too much" and lays it bare to the soil, making room for a fresher, vigorous prayer life to begin to thrive.

As I went along, I discovered that it's not a ready-made modern-style self-help book; that is, you can't expect to pick it up for the first time, open it to page one, and immediately begin following its instructions. Not until I had read most of the way through it, and grasped its overall structure, did I really understand how to use the book.

Once I figured these out, though, I found that I really could "use" it the way some people use a breviary or a copy of Magnificat or a well-worn book of prayers. I found that I was always carrying my (fortunately small-sized) copy around in my bag, not because I thought I should but because I felt I might want it!

So, even though I've already laboriously blogged that first trip through the book, I want to share some suggestions in two or three posts — so that others might be able to pick the book up and immediately begin to use it. Maybe I can save some people some time.

– – –

The first thing to understand about ITTDL is the five-part structure. Besides an Author's Preface, which is worth reading as it explains his purpose, these are the distinct sections:

(1) Part one is a sort of invitation to a conversion experience. It consists of step-by-step instructions, with encouragement from St. Francis, describing how the reader, "Philothea," can advance from a simple desire for devotion to a strong resolution that she will embrace the devout life.

The desire is the pre-requisite, but St. Francis assumes that it must be there or else "Philothea" would not have picked up the book.

In this section, St. Francis walks the reader through the steps of purging mortal sin out of her life and making confession. This, he explains, is a duty, and God gives us no impossible duties, so we can have confidence that it is attainable. Next, in the same section, St. Francis tells the reader how to rid herself of attachment to mortal sin: in order to do this, he explains, the reader must become aware of the attachments to sin and then become contrite.

To this end, St. Francis provides a set of daily meditations, culminating in the sought-for resolution. Over the course of the spiritual exercises, the reader stirs up in herself the fortitude to actively seek what she already weakly desires.

(2) Part two is an instruction manual on how to pray, worship, and receive the sacraments. A key thing to understand: Most people will have to use and refer to some of the advice in part two at the same time as they follow the instructions in part one. "If you are not yet accustomed to meditation read what is said about it in part two," writes Francis, looking ahead, when he outlines the spiritual exercises of part one.

In a subsequent post, I'll recommend bookmarking chapters in both parts and referring back and forth as necessary while working through the conversion to the embrace of the devout life.

Having made the resolution — having finished reading Part 1 — the reader can then study once again the chapters of part two, incorporating some more of its suggestions into daily prayer and worship. Once it has all been internalized, the reader can refer to its sections again and again for
guidance, perhaps opening the book at the start of morning and evening prayers or before going to confession to read St. Francis's words. Bookmarks are useful here! And if the reader finds she has to stop here for a while, working on part two while she builds the habits of devout daily prayer and of devout reception of sacraments, she can. Not until her habits are taking root need she move on to part three.

(3) Part three takes the how-to even farther: it explains how to practice individual virtues. Many virtues are described here, but at the same time Francis urges us to work on only one or a few virtues at a time, whatever needs strengthening in us the most. Probably each "Philothea" should begin by reading over all of the chapters, not yet following any of the instructions contained within, considering each virtue in turn.

Although of course a modern Philothea could read the chapters in the order that St. Francis presented them, I have suggested an alternative sequence in which to read the chapters of Part Three, one that organizes them according to three themes:
- discerning which virtues to work on,
- practicing individual virtues in everyday life, and
- remaining devout in dealings with society.
After she has considered each of the virtues, which at one chapter a day should take more than two weeks, she can choose one or two virtues for her own intensive spiritual work (following principles which are explained in this part of the book) and then go back to the relevant chapters in part three, following the recommendations closely for as long as is necessary.

(4) Part four is the "troubleshooting guide," or "snares of the enemy," which explains what Philothea can do when she encounters certain stumbling blocks. By the time Philothea gets to part four, of course, her practice of prayer and the sacraments will have matured, and she will have chosen a virtue or two to especially develop in herself. Each daily reading from part 4 is a description of some problem she might encounter — such as friends trying to undermine her efforts, or overconfidence that she can resist temptations. After Philothea has read through each of these, she can consider whether she is having difficulty with any of these and, if so, follow the advice. If not, she can at least take note of the possible stumbling blocks she might encounter in the future, and remember to turn to this section in her time of need.

(5) Part five is an "annual review," which St. Francis recommends undergoing every year around the time of the Feast of the Lord's Baptism. In it, St. Francis walks Philothea through a set of spiritual exercises that makes a sort of mini-retreat, culminating in renewal of the resolution arrived at in Part 1. Francis encourages the reader to examine herself closely, to give thanks for all signs of progress however tiny, and frankly acknowledge where she has impeded her progress through willfulness or sloth. Then she is to re-commit herself to the resolution she made at the beginning of her journey with St. Francis's method.

This section should bring the reader back to the middle sections of book at least once a year for a few weeks, and be an occasion to refresh her memory of all the good advice in the book. She can check the "troubleshooting guide" (part 4) to see if it has any special help for her current difficulties; she can consider whether to continue developing the same virtue (as in part 3) or whether to turn her attention to another one that is lacking in her; and she can evaluate her practice of prayer and the sacraments (in the light of part 2).

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So you see, understanding how the WHOLE book is put together suggests a way to use it — a way that is much more than just starting at page one and continuing through to the end; neither following every direction in the book, nor reading it passively without getting past, "Yeah, I should try some of this."

See why I've been carrying it around with me for more than a year?

+ + +

UPDATE: Just a reminder that Jennifer Fulwiler of Conversion Diary has adopted St. Francis de Sales as her patron saint for 2011 and is also doing a series of posts on Introduction to the Devout Life. Here's a recent post.
Feb 26, 2011

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2 comments on How to read Introduction to the Devout Life: a wrap-up post.
Double effect, in the bathtub.
Jennifer Fitz, as part of a longer discourse on lying, offers a novel explanation of the principle of double effect. I think it's very approachable (and as far as I can tell, accurately represents Church teaching) so if this oft-misused principle has ever confused you — please, check it out.

Hint: The principle of double effect is not just a way of saying, "We can do something bad if we can think up a good enough reason." Money quote: "That's the clincher of double effect — there are two effects."

Double effect (also called “parallel effect”) is actually one of the two principles that work together to keep our moral system sane. The other is ‘ends don’t justify the means’, but that isn’t our topic today until way down below where I go out on a limb and guess things. Back to Double Effect:

#1 Reason to love Double Effect: It lets you take a shower.

Because here’s what: Showers and bathtubs are super dangerous. You could slip and crack your head open. And if the bathroom weren’t bad enough, you probably keep a stove and a water heater around the house, and perhaps even some kind of Vehicle of Death in your garage. (Or, if you are a Luddite, a Pack Animal of Death for your transportation needs.)

Double effect says that you are allowed to have all this and more! Because you aren’t actually trying to drown, scald or maim anybody. Those are unintended consequences of your perfectly reasonable efforts to stay clean, fed, mobile, and so forth. You’ll try to avoid those bad effects if you possibly can.

[What you can't do: If your enemy fails to drown in his bath, you can't hold him under. In fact you can't even lay out the bath things and light a scented candle in an effort to lure him to his death. You may only lead him to the tub for a legitimately good reason, such as to reduce the general stinkiness and discourage the spread of impetigo. Or perhaps so that he might unwind after a long day driving. you. crazy. But not to kill him. Barring circumstances we'll get to down the page.]

So that’s the use of double effect. It lets us do something good, even if there is a some risk of something bad happening in the process.

Now unless you suffer from deep scruples, you probable don’t lay awake nights wondering if your really did the right thing, caving in and buying a water heater. So where double effect gets famous is because it permits seriously dangerous action if there’s a genuine need for it.

You may not, for example, throw yourself in front of a bus in order to get that drat fly at last. (Even though the fly is germy and annoying, and you only want to give your beloved a peaceful picnic. Good cause, good action, but the risks are disproportionate. It’s a no-go. Hope the bus gets the fly, and live to swat another day.) But if it is to push your hapless child out of harm’s way, yes you may take the risk of your likely death in order to save the child. You aren’t trying to die. You hope to avoid dying. Everyone will be much happier if a guardian angel steps up and takes care of things.

And that’s the clincher of double effect — there are two effects: There is one thing good you are trying to achieve, and one bad bad you hope to avoid. Even if the bad effect is 100% likely barring supernatural intervention, you can’t be trying to achieve the bad effect.

There's more — go read the whole thing. I think Jennifer's explanation is really helpful. Double effect is a seriously hard-to-understand principle. I think that's because there's a long separation in logic, and usually time and distance, between convincing yourself in the abstract that the principle of double effect is correct and morally right (which isn't so hard), and many of its applications, which can sometimes seem convoluted and (shall I say it?) jesuitical. To navigate some of these situations, it's like you have to wander through a long, twisty tunnel. At the beginning of the tunnel, the principle of double effect is well understood. At the end of the tunnel, you see the conclusions it leads to. The principle goes with you through the long, twisty tunnel, your only source of light, and it remains true all the time, but once you get to the end sometimes the conclusion is surprising and hard to understand.

Take one example: the end-point of Catholic moral theology with respect to ectopic (tubal) pregnancy. We wind up with what must seem a very bizarre conclusion:
- A persistent ectopic pregnancy creates a life-threatening disorder from the point of view of the mother.
- Yes, the out-of-place and growing embryo is a human being who deserves our protection.
- No, that doesn't mean that the mother doesn't get medical treatment, because she is also a human being who deserves our protection.
- So yes, she can seek treatment for it, treatment which will end the pregnancy and inevitably kill the embryo.
- But (assuming the mother wishes to remain true to Catholic moral understanding of life issues, and understands all this) she won't choose to use the drug methotrexate to end the pregnancy by killing the embryo, even though it is first treatment choice of many doctors and is probably physically the least dangerous option that doctors offer her,
- and it may be she won't even choose the least-invasive surgical method, salpingostomy (incision in the fallopian tube) followed by killing the embryo by removing it and its amnion;
- but she can choose salpingectomy, which is the removal of the section of fallopian tube containing the misplaced embryo,
- even though that removal inevitably results in the death of the embryo,
- which we knew all along was going to happen,
- and even though it would be objectively physically safer for the mother to undergo methotrexate or salpingostomy,
- and even though the salpingectomy will likely damage the mother's fertility.
I mean, if you don't have any understanding of the principle of double effect, this sounds nuts. Even if you do have an understanding of the principle of double effect, it might still sound nuts. You have to sit down and take time to connect all the dots to figure out how we got from here to there, or why it matters that we prefer one option to the other when the end result is a no-longer-in-danger mother and a dead embryo for all of them, and especially why "but the salpingectomy is more dangerous!" isn't a good enough reason to use one of the other methods, considering that the embryo is dead either way.

And yet, this is where double effect, properly understood, gets you. If it isn't obvious, why not head over to Jennifer's blog and see if you can make the connections between her bathtub assailant and the unfortunate ectopic pregnancy problem? If nothing else, the exercise illustrates why it's important for ordinary Catholics who desire to follow Church teachings — whether they understand them or not — to be confident that their local Catholic hospital faithfully follows it, and why the bishops have to guard that confidence even if it means getting bad press.

(UPDATE. Edited slightly to avoid implying that salpingostomy is definitively considered illicit. See first comment.)
Feb 25, 2011

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11 comments on Double effect, in the bathtub.
Decluttering.

So we had this pantry shelf that was totally occupied by partly-empty liquor bottles.

A couple of them I remember buying for one recipe or another (blackberry liqueur goes in my waffle topping, for instance). Most of them dated from the Clinton administration. I am pretty sure that some of them had been at the open bar at our wedding. At least one was a bottle of ouzo that Mark's college roommate brought him back from an archaeological dig in Greece.

It's not that we don't like a drink now and then. It's just that we seem to have been running with a bad crowd ever since we moved to Minnesota.

Anyway, Mark decided he was tired of looking at them, so he made a New Year's resolution to drink them all up.

"When we finish one of these full-size bottles," he said, "I will replace it with a half-size bottle. That will take up less space."

Also we can buy better stuff then, I thought, eyeing the big plastic bottle of "Karkov" brand vodka.

"And if we finish the half-bottle fast enough," he continued, "that proves that we actually drink the stuff, and I can then replace it with a full-size bottle."

So we got down to business. The Maker's Mark bourbon, arguably some of the better stuff we had, went first, mostly over ice, in just a couple of weeks. "What's next, the Jim Beam?" I asked.

"Um. I don't think that's all Jim Beam anymore," he admitted. "I have a memory of consolidating a few bottles of whiskey at one point."

Of course, when we got to the vodka we started to run into problems. Who wants to drink plain Karkov vodka? Not me. Since it's the middle of winter, we always have grapefruit around, and so we started making salty dogs. With fresh-squeezed ruby red Texas grapefruit, they're quite nice. However, we should have known that the moment we began twirling the rim of a glass in a dish of coarse salt, we were headed down the road of trouble.

"Hey, what do you need to make kamikazes? Aren't those vodka and lime?"

"Let's ask Steve Jobs." [iPhone interval] "Yeah, but you also need triple sec. Do we have any of that?"

"We have peach schnapps."

"Um, no."

"Blackberry liqueur?"

"Definitely not."

The next day a brown paper bag mysteriously appeared on the counter. It contained (besides a chunk of fancy cheese) a bottle of DeKuyper triple sec. Kamikazes!

"You know what else you can make with triple sec? Margaritas."

A few days later a new brown paper bag appeared, containing a bottle of tequila. Also some limeade concentrate, which is close enough. I had one on the rocks while soaking in a hot bath. Life was good.

* * *

One thing leads to another. In other words: If you give a mom a tequila, she's going to want some orange juice and grenadine to go with it.

And once you've got the grenadine, the floodgates are open.

… she's going to start coming down the stairs first thing in the morning saying, "You know what we need next? Kahlua. With Kahlua we can make white Russians."

Even Mark has been getting more creative at the bar at his business trips. He came home from his last one and confessed, "I tried to get the bartender to make me something interesting, and I wound up with a Blue Hawaiian."

Which made me run to the internets for this clip:

(There's no recipe for a chocolate choo choo online that I could find.)

* * *

Anyway, I can't help but noticing that we set out, ostensibly, to get rid of all the old bottles taking up space in the pantry. To simplify, you might say.

And now we have more bottles of stuff than we had before. Grenadine. Bitters. Triple sec. TEQUILA!!!!

There's a lesson to be had here, but I'm not sure what it is. All I know is that we have this bottle of rum, and maybe after years and years of bragging that I never kept the stuff in the house, I'm now starting to wonder if I could make some room for a case of Coke.

Feb 24, 2011

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8 comments on Decluttering.