Viewed and Reviewed

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68081886135233295582011-04-21T15:52:09.192-07:00Viewed and ReviewedOriginal poetry, and literary criticism from a Catholic perspectiveJames K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-81371567797670048702009-07-08T20:53:00.001-07:002009-07-08T20:54:44.093-07:002009-07-08T20:54:44.093-07:00Manifesto of the Pirate Party (as spoken by it's first elected official)

Copyright laws threaten our online freedomBy Christian EngströmPublished: July 7 2009 18:10 | Last updated: July 7 2009 18:10If you search for Elvis Presley in Wikipedia, you will find a lot of text and a few pictures that have been cleared for distribution. But you will find no music and no film clips, due to copyright restrictions. What we think of as our common cultural heritage is not “ours”

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-45342900549816837832008-07-28T05:27:00.000-07:002008-07-28T05:29:59.617-07:002008-07-28T05:29:59.617-07:00It's been awhile...

I've been working full time this summer, and I feel somewhat guilty for not posting--but I'm still here and the blog should be back at full capacity--i.e. one post/per month :)--by the end of the summer. I'm heading into my senior year, so I'll keep you all posted on that, but for now I've been to busy to do anything with this.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-32719896671686223572008-04-21T07:20:00.000-07:002008-04-21T07:23:55.210-07:002008-04-21T07:23:55.210-07:00Promotional Video for my Alma Mater:

This is a video that Saint John Vianney recently put out to encourage more young men to give seminary a try. I went to SJV for two years, and it was an amazing experience. I'd highly recommend taking a visit if you're at all interested:And, part II:

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-61216499097162918962008-04-13T19:49:00.000-07:002008-04-14T10:38:09.436-07:002008-04-14T10:38:09.436-07:00King William St:

The full room may as well be emptyfor all the loneliness within:A disco ball spins, unmoved on a dirtythread. The girls shouting and dancingin the broken light, seem unreal. I wonderwho they may be. On the other end of thedarkened room, the men play their eternal game.One bounces the orange ball into a red cup,the other drinks a little more—numbed justa little more—and as I walk in, they seem

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-70330938405188527412008-04-12T18:31:00.001-07:002008-04-12T18:31:46.601-07:002008-04-12T18:31:46.601-07:00The Temptation of Adam (one of my favorite songs)

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-64307968050172795052008-04-08T08:58:00.000-07:002008-04-08T08:59:21.729-07:002008-04-08T08:59:21.729-07:00John Henry Newman on Purpose:

God has created meto do Him some definite serviceHe has committed some work to mewhich He has not committed to anotherI have my missionI may never know it in this lifebut I shall be told it in the nextI am a link in a chaina bond of connection between personsHe has not created me for naughtI shall do good - I shall do His workI shall be an angel of peacea preacher of truth in my own placewhile

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-44815528174954924762008-04-05T20:53:00.000-07:002008-04-05T21:32:46.134-07:002008-04-05T21:32:46.134-07:00Islam and Christianity:

Just two years ago, Pope Benedict XVI asked for a rational discourse with Muslims in his Regensburg Address, and for Islam to reject radical forms of assimilation--i.e. Jihad)The Regensburg Lecture identified the linked problems at the center of a lot of turbulence in world politics today: the detachment of faith from reason (as in jihadism) and the loss of faith in reason (as in much of western

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-44908612303087667162008-03-29T17:59:00.000-07:002008-03-29T18:00:14.766-07:002008-03-29T18:00:14.766-07:00spring

The world outside is so, full of unfulfilled promisespregnant with expected meaningsand lovely for the true light whichmakes one squint upon leavingthe caves, men still live in,or on looking out a window from a darkened room.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-81856468724760902312008-03-27T22:29:00.000-07:002008-03-27T22:32:48.848-07:002008-03-27T22:32:48.848-07:00Homer.

So I'm currently taking Greek 202. We're reading the odyssey in greek. One of the homework assignments was to do an oral performance of 20 lines in meter from the Odyssey. This is one of my classmates doing his presentation. It's pretty cool. You can almost visualize the ancient Greek bards like Homer performing this poem in the same way with their lyres.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-15063139533169795482008-03-26T23:02:00.000-07:002008-03-27T22:09:13.931-07:002008-03-27T22:09:13.931-07:00ctrl-alt-del

Most of what we writeis scratched out, by ourretiring fingers, thethings we feel but don'twant to say.I guess that things havealways been thus, butI wonder if every strokeof the backwards keymight someday leaveonly an empty sheetthe law of entropyupheld(select all, backspace)

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-71591405268932872912008-03-26T07:15:00.000-07:002008-03-26T07:18:22.846-07:002008-03-26T07:18:22.846-07:00Echoes

Ripples in the eastern skyechoes of the sunsetfade from blue and whiteto gold. And then thesun seen in rear-view mirrorsseems to shimmer as thewhole heaven reverberateswith the silent song.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-17348038360926997822008-03-26T07:12:00.000-07:002008-03-26T07:15:40.122-07:002008-03-26T07:15:40.122-07:00Excerpt: Article on Confession by Lorenzo Albacete

Most people, Catholic or not, wonder what confession is like from the perspective of the priest. I recently ran across this article written by Lorenzo Albacete. I found it interesting: The first time I heard confession was a couple of weeks after my ordination in 1973, at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where John F. Kennedy's requiem Mass was celebrated. The penitent was a

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-13876279045146893942008-03-21T21:40:00.000-07:002008-03-21T21:41:04.098-07:002008-03-21T21:41:04.098-07:00Broken Shells

we stand on the same beach of silent sand, lookingfor a shell to listen to for the hand-held swellof hidden seas.But all we find, are the fragments of shellsleft behind by a surge of crashing wave.We know our own tricks too well. How we sell our hallowed shellsat the seashore, unsure whether we will still be able to hold togetherwhen the words we mean have beentranslated into the words we own.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-67696447400771156912008-03-17T10:35:00.001-07:002008-03-17T10:35:37.286-07:002008-03-17T10:35:37.286-07:00Saved by Hope

The First Letter to the Corinthians (1:18-31) tells us that many of the early Christians belonged to the lower social strata, and precisely for this reason were open to the experience of new hope, as we saw in the example of Bakhita. Yet from the beginning there were also conversions in the aristocratic and cultured circles, since they too were living “without hope and without God in the world”.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-84847799122006684702008-03-11T19:37:00.000-07:002008-03-11T19:52:24.771-07:002008-03-11T19:52:24.771-07:00Wind:

I am the winds, bottled in Aeolus' hollow caverns.It is empty here, there is no sound but the broken cries of the winds caged, the cages rattle as the soulthe spirit tries to escape.I am the thundercloud. But the mountains you have builtup keep me from raining on the desert on the other sideI am the bringer of life, in my rage and wrath I gave bothfire and water, the two elements without which

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-11894813954015621692008-03-10T11:52:00.000-07:002008-03-10T11:56:37.213-07:002008-03-10T11:56:37.213-07:00Still Relevent:

I ran across this debate the other day. It's still relevant today for two reasons: one, the level of public debate needs to return to something more like this. If we cannot stop insulting people who have different opinions from ours, then we won't be able to come to some sort of compromise. two, the subject is still one which is up in the air.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-15262877618015009942008-02-28T13:56:00.002-08:002008-02-28T14:01:43.753-08:002008-02-28T14:01:43.753-08:00Mr. Blue: (by Miles Connoly)

“I think,” he whispered half to himself, “my heart would break with all this immensity if I did not know that God Himself once stood beneath it, a young man, as small as I.” Then, he turned to me slowly. “Did it ever occur to you that it was Christ Who humanized infinitude, so to speak? When God became man He made you and me and the rest of us pretty important people. He not only redeemed us. He

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-50356393516054909332008-02-26T05:42:00.000-08:002008-02-26T06:03:09.825-08:002008-02-26T06:03:09.825-08:00Recently Read: The Supper of Lamb

Perhaps one of the most enjoyable cookbooks imaginable. Fr. Robert Capon, an Anglican priest, combines his love for cooking and his love for God and presents an eminently readable book for people interested in either subject. Quotes below:The world may or may not need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers–amateurs–it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-87751820088645345692008-02-24T20:38:00.000-08:002008-02-24T20:46:57.970-08:002008-02-24T20:46:57.970-08:00More on the Current situation:

This all is from an email from a friend of mine, Cameron Thompson. He is a brilliant theologian, and a good man: It's a little random, but there are some real pearls in here. The one line that made me want to post the whole thing is near the end, "The arts and media is the battlefield where we lost the world, and it is the battlefield where we will win it back." SO TRUE! Christ told stories,

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-37934421294597011292008-02-22T07:42:00.000-08:002008-02-22T07:49:06.191-08:002008-02-22T07:49:06.191-08:00Affective immaturity: Why young adults are stuck in adolescence.

Check this article out. It says something that is so true about my generation. Recently I told one of my best friends that I am hoping to get married sometime in the next 2-3 years(I'm almost 20, and have been living on my own for 3 years), and he looked at me like I was totally crazy. He couldn't understand that I've grown up. Quite frankly we are a generation of Peter Pan's looking for

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-9617295087872942912008-02-18T07:36:00.001-08:002008-02-18T07:43:49.303-08:002008-02-18T07:43:49.303-08:00Reviewed: Radiohead

I'll admit it. I'm a cheapskate. When I heard that a band was releasing an album for free online, I did a little bit of Google searching, and downloaded Radiohead's In Rainbows. I had never heard anything by them before, but by the time I had finished the album, I was a confirmed fan. Their music is beautifully layered. It almost reminds one of the intensely layered art of the medieval

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-35879024327668583642008-02-11T21:25:00.000-08:002008-02-11T21:37:06.911-08:002008-02-11T21:37:06.911-08:00So, I've learned something about my poetic gifts:

Apparently the Muse comes to me in an ebb and flow. I started this blog this summer at the end of my first big 'flow' of poetry, and posted most of what I'd written last winter semester up to last summer. And then, for no apparent reason, I found myself unable to write anything I liked, so I stopped. And quite as abruptly, I've been inspired to write this year. The four poems below, are the

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-87368370460642093122008-02-11T21:24:00.002-08:002008-02-11T21:32:09.307-08:002008-02-11T21:32:09.307-08:00untitled 3

floating in empty space. the world itself contained all in a single petal, Thousands of stars glisten like the drops of dew on the queen of flowers. But the things left better unsaid in this brief attempt, are notunderstood.

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-56109144554660542432008-02-11T21:24:00.001-08:002008-02-11T21:32:26.496-08:002008-02-11T21:32:26.496-08:00untitled 2

In winter, light dies at it's zenith,city buses, left out to warm uprattle like dying breaths, snow falls, white ash on theshell of a city, and one feels like life is,'quoth the raven, nevermore.'Yet, when the moon rises,and the stars shine sharpdoubt is strangled by hope

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808188613523329558.post-9307186232128281762008-02-11T21:12:00.001-08:002008-02-11T21:20:08.430-08:002008-02-11T21:20:08.430-08:00Images:

A swirl of images at the back of eyes.The quiet compunction of darkened skies.A moment spent in the shadow of the sunand a buffalo dollar bent on the trackas the night train rushes, graffitoed by.The silence of a phonograph, scratched outwhen song is done, and the surging of amessenger, when the race is run. In these thingsan unnoticed truth, plainly lies.************In another room, the door

James K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11135126779401658529noreply@blogger.com0